A/N- Warning: Like horrible violence related stuff and all... Keep children safe, guys!  

{sasuke}

Sasuke had always been a nice kid, did his homework. Only stole a cookie if he was absolutely peckish and never before a meal, only after. He never picked on anyone. Always did his homework. He was on top of his bed-making game. And, above all else loved, very deeply, his once perfectly functional family.

However, shortly after he'd been taken, he'd tasted a life of freedom, a life with no rule. A life where he did whatever the hell he wanted,whenever he wanted, with whomever he wanted. The little taste and his general hormonal teenage angsting had turned him into a power-crazy maniac.

Being smarter and stronger and mean was a rush. Having people look at him with a mix of want and fear was a rush. Being Orochimaru's prodigy and receiving his approval had been the biggest rush of all.

Until he saw the child Orochimaru wanted him to assist with cutting to pieces.

Suddenly, the floor was out from under him. The doors he'd willingly walked through had been bolted from the outside. He found himself in a deep, deep snake pit he never knew he'd non-verbally asked to be thrown in simply because he'd proven he could survive in it. Thrive, even.

So there he was, in the face of the pale-skinned and red-haired child-sized ghost. He saw that while his choice had saved him from being the child in the bed, it had also put another child in his vacated spot.

It also placed him in the spot of the man with the scalpel and the blood-thirsty smile so unnatural it couldn't possibly be his own lips on his face. Looking at the shoes he'd stepped into had made him actually throw up in his mouth a little.

The very real fact that Orochimaru had at some point sold him on this horrific idea of being his apprentice... The very thought that Orochimaru had thought Sasuke was so far out into that darkness that he'd be ready to take a scalpel to a child's sternum simply for explorative pleasure was disgusting to him.

He couldn't help the twist of his face, the clenching of the scalpel and the violent stab to the throat he aimed at Orochimaru.

He'd completely disengaged his mind as it had been overcome by blind magmatic rage, each stab was a satisfaction he'd never experienced. Every twist of the tiny blade that disfigured the man's face was a heady victory to the countless little ones who couldn't or wouldn't or were never given the millisecond of a chance to get the jump on this sorry excuse of a man,

All it had taken to receive this prized opportunity was to have completely fooled his proud predecessor so much so that the monster had basically handed him the scalpel and bared his own chest, asking to be carved open. And what a performance he'd put on, shame Orochimaru wasn't able to see the final product. What a fitting end it was, despicably disfigured. Finally the outside matched the inside.

When a weak, pale hand stopped him, he looked up into deep sunken eyes and lips so pale they looked bleached of life and blood and hope. The face made for a terrifying present and an even more haunting memory as it twisted and folded upon itself in his mind with time, adding layer upon layer to what he'd almost become.

No, not what he'd almost become, what Orochimaru, thankfully, had severely failed in turning him into - he was neither the victim nor the perpetrator. Even so, he'd become something else in the end. He was still a murderer.

His hands were bloodied with the death of something so distasteful, instead of finding a way to bury the body he simply vacaated the suburban home-turned-laboratory and torched it. Watching the very fabric the stained memories were on go up in flames.

The dream that morning started the same way it usually did.

Unsure of how he got there, Sasuke hoisted himself off the gurney he was laying on. Looking around he felt ball and chain weigh at his heart; How was he back here again? Back in the land where nightmare was reality. Back to where he'd given up on faith and love and justice and happiness.

Back when his only driving force had been a wish to maybe see a head of gold, glimpse it before he was done for. Back when the only light in the never ending tunnel - of sickly and defective children pawned off to a man with way too much time, money and vile hobbies - was a single distant candle he'd once seen in a dream of a dream.

He was stuck here though, and the dreamscape had play out in its entirety so he complied. He got his feet under him and walked down the curtained rows of beds, some absolutely silent, some producing the dysphoric content of chattering children minding their own business as their timers ticked down to the moment of their slaughter.

Sasuke walked without looking, looked without seeing, saw without absorbing and absorbed without knowing. Trying to keep at bay the onslaught of remembered distress, he kept his face neutral to the infliction of calmly and clinically realised savagery just like he used to. His smile used to be a sickly insane smirk of a zombie because he could never muster real joy in this building.

He walked to the room like it was his own bedroom. In a different world, where he'd made a different choice, it would have been. It would have been the room he went to for his final nap.

There he expected the pale haunting redhead was awaiting him. The one who never said a word, simply held onto Sasuke's left wrist while his hysteria played out from fury to fright and then forlorn. The kid didn't hug or comfort him in anyway, instead he tightly held Sasuke's wrist until the scalpel slipped out, then the tears.

But instead, laid out on the gurney and hooked up to a hundred and one machines was a grinning child of five, with tanned skin and hair looking honeyed in the dull lighting.

Until the eyes opened, not the beautiful blue with human-typical hope and wonder but an awful red of a demonic desire for death and destruction. Soft tanned skin around the eyes cracked like sand from the Sahara, as three incisions on each cheek formed slow, right in front if his eyes and bled. The newly formed lines of whiskers matched so perfectly maddened fox-like grin on the mischievous child's face.

A tanned hand reached out to grip his left wrist. But instead of making him drop the bloody scalpel the boy pulled the hand close and made it carve a deep line down the sternum with an agonisingly slowly move.

Every inch of the skin severing felt like it managed to last a millennia.

A century trapped in a single cut.

Sasuke awoke screaming and sweating. His throat dry, his voice moist and thick with unshed anguish.

Itachi was in his room in an instant, like a ninja. He was dabbing his face with a cool towel he'd pulled out of thin air, like a magician. And he was consoling him and shushing him, like a brother.

"What happened?" he asked as he handed Sasuke a glass of water. from the jug placed on the bedside table.

"Naruto told me had an encounter with Orochimaru." Sasuke said after he'd downed half the glass. He'd made a pact with Itachi to be completely honest with him about the past. So he kept it. Even as his voice gave up.

"And he skimped on the details, so your imagination went wild." Itachi provided, performing some weird form of genius emotional mental-math.

"My imagination, I think, needs to be exorcised."

Itachi sighed and patted Sasuke's head, a small quirk on his lips. Sasuke grabbed onto him, pressing his ear to Itachi's chest. Ignoring Itachi's chuckle he counted every beat from Itachi's heart until his own had calmed down.

They were jostled out of the moment by a ringing.

"What's that noise?" Sasuke asked with a deep furrow between his brows. Every word of his wrapped in incredulity.

Itachi looked at him so bemused. "I believe that's your phone, Sasuke."

"I gathered that, but, who'd be calling me? Probably some promotional call."

"Perhaps if you look at the caller ID...?" Itachi suggested in a dry manner.

"Yeah, sure, Itachi, the thought never occurred to me."

Just then the phone stopped ringing and Itachi spoke up, "Well, you've missed your chance now."

"Hm, if I'm not mistaken there is this strange invention made not so long ago, they call it a call back option." Sasuke prattled slowly, in a tone as if to imply Itachi had recently hit his head on a wall.

"Stupid brat." Itachi - as he so often used to when they were little and having an argument - resorted to attempting to squash Sasuke's head against his chest. As if smothering him with a brotherly embrace would be an appropriate way to end him.

"Get off me, I can't breath!" Sasuke pushed in quiet desperation at the arm and the chest hoping to free his nose of the soft, big, grey t-shirt Itachi had been sleeping in.

With his other hand Itachi snatched Sasuke's phone up just as it began buzzing again with a soft melody.

You look so beautiful today

When you're sitting there it's hard for me to look away

So I try to find the words that i could say

I know distance doesn't matter but you feel so far away

And I can't lie

Every time I leave my heart turns gray

And I wanna come back home to see your face tonight

Cause I just can't take it

Another day without you with me

Is like a blade that cuts right through me

But I can wait

I can wait forever

"Oh I see, you pretended to not recognise the caller tune because you'd hate for me to hear this conversation." Itachi smiled with glee at Sasuke's renewed struggling.

Itachi grappled with him expertly, taking one of Sasuke's hands and maneuvering it in such a way it wrapped around Sasuke's neck in a restrictive chokehold. "Now, I'm going to pick up the call and you will speak like all is fine unless you want to accidently pass out during the call."

"You're fucking heartless, Aniki!" Sasuke kicked his legs that were to his surprise uselessly trapped under them with the blankets. When did he do that?

Itachi snickered. "If I'm heartless, yours was cast in freezing fire, outoto. Now allow me to melt that with warm rain." With that Itachi accepted the call.

"Hello?" Naruto's soft and rough voice called out over the speaker.

When Sasuke didn't reply, Itachi squeezed at his neck a little, only enough to apply some incentive. "Naruto!" Sasuke gasped out.

"Heh, good morning, bastard." Naruto's greeting was a sly purr that enflamed Sasuke's ears, much to Itachi's great delight. "Did I wake you?"

When Itachi nudged him softly he dropped a quick, "Yeah."

"Aw, sorry, you. But I disturb with good reason, I believe I owe you a dinner. How does six pm at my place sound?" Naruto asked and a soft greeting bark sounded in the background, along with the obvious sound of a bowl of cereal being assembled.

"Sounds good." Sasuke chirped without any prompting from Itachi. Itachi tried not to laugh but was finding it very difficult.

"Use the front door this time, yeah? Window crawlers put Kurama at unease and that freaks Sakura out and that makes Gaara worry. And that makes Great Grandmama Mayor perform interrogations." Naruto paused and there was the scraping of a stool, Sasuke could imagine Naruto sitting at the Island table with Kurama's head in his lap. "Sasuke, if I get hell for you I'll just send a bouquet to Itachi saying, Hello brother-in-law."

Itachi froze. Sasuke froze too.

"I won't even write Love, Naruto. Itachi is incredibly clever he'll know who it is immediately." Naruto went on, unaware. Joyfully imagining the havoc he could cause. "Hell, I'll send one to your parents. Greetings, in-laws. After Shisui's reaction, I bet Uchiha-clan-square will light up like New Year's. Let's see how you like that!"

Sasuke cut off any possible reply Itachi could have made before it could even be formed. "Front door, got it, I'll see you at six."

"See ya later, you selfish bastard." Naruto cheered and then the line clicked off.

"Your gooey nickname is bastard? I can't blackmail you with that!" Itachi lamented as he tossed the phone away, making it clack against something.

"That's your primary concern?" Sasuke growled softly as he kicked about trying to get Itachi off him. "If you've broken my phone, Ita."

"Well, if you're happily engaged, I'm pretty upset you didn't tell me first..."

"We're not engaged. He likes teasing me."

"Oh, a man after my own heart. Or, more like after your heart."

"More like, after my life."

"Oh good riddance. I was wondering when you'd leave."

Sasuke rolled his eyes then chose to drop like a dead weight so Itachi couldn't use his own weight and energy against him.

Itachi let him drop, propped his legs up on top of Sasuke's crumpled form and started snooping through the younger man's phone. "He sure uses a lot of kiss face emoticons."

"Itachi! Stop! That's fucking personal!" Sasuke seethed, shimmying to get Itachi's long limbs off of him.

"Finders keepers..." Itachi stated, not even slightly bothered by his Sasuke's failed attempts and snooped shamelessly. "By all that is holy, you're smiling like a child in this photo. What an extremely adorable selfie. The two of you would make a great couple."

"We are a couple." Sasuke spat out, all tetchy. "We literally just scheduled a date."

"Mmm, not according to the text style." Itachi snickered at another picture. "Oh, you two kiss a lot. A lot. Why do you need photographic evidence."

"We don't need. We just like having. There are at least twenty memes, a viral video and a remix about it. Thanks to Shisui, we're plastered across tabloids as a couple, Itach'. And Naruto agrees that we are seeing each other." Sasuke stated, his words were muffled as his left cheek was pressed to his left bicep. The right arm trapped under his torso, trying to wriggle away.

"Mmmm, but these messages aren't very couple-like. They're more pre-couple status. Flirty but cautious. Suggestive but unsure. I think one of you is not on the same page as the other, probably Naruto. It's possible the brother-in-law bit was a nervous jest."

Sasuke stilled a bit, his focus diverted to his curiosity. "What are you saying?"

Itachi silently perused the interactions between the two younger men. "He wants to trust you, but he's holding back."

Sasuke was still deep in thought when Itachi got bored and left to make breakfast.

A few minutes later Sasuke smiled in excitement. This evening is just about him and Naruto. No meddling brothers or PR slash roommates.

No more crazy revelation, hopefully.

Then again... Sasuke realised that they would probably spend the rest of their lives finding out new things about each other. The probability of which excited him greatly.