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Sasuke’s chakra signature approaches the door, alerting Itachi to his arrival.
He's not always there when Sasuke gets home, ANBU keeping him more than busy, but it’s nice when he can welcome Sasuke home, let him know there are leftovers in the fridge for him, maybe check over his homework.
Sasuke’s chakra signature is…faint, Itachi realizes, his eyebrows furrowing. That’s strange. The Uchiha are emotionally intense, to say the least, and their chakra burns like a well stoked fire, Sasuke’s included.
Itachi opens the door, looking for him.
“Sasuke?” he calls, just as Sasuke appears coming over the hill, looking haggard. His bag is fairly light, and on a typical day doesn’t seem to impact him whatsoever, but it looks heavy today, weighing him down. He’s panting lightly, Itachi notices, bringing chakra to his ears to enhance his hearing.
Itachi flickers to him, taking his bag and carrying it for him. Sasuke wobbles on his feet, and when he looks at Itachi, his reflexes worryingly slow, his eyes are glassy and unaware.
“Nii-san?” he says, dazed as Itachi feels his forehead. Itachi frowns at the definite heat emanating from his skin.
“Sasuke, let’s get you to bed,” Itachi says, slinging Sasuke over his shoulder and bringing them both to the kitchen the old fashioned way, careful not to move suddenly or jostle Sasuke lest he get nauseous on top of everything else.
He sits Sasuke down on the edge of his bed, nudging him to get his attention.
“You should change into clean clothes,” he says, but Sasuke just stares into space. He sighs, getting up to grab a clean shirt and shorts from Sasuke’s dresser.
He undresses and redresses him with a clinical hand and settles him in bed, worry gnawing at him. Sasuke’s out instantly, and Itachi chooses then to activate his Sharingan so he can check him over for any abnormalities.
“Yo,” Shisui greets, and his sudden appearance has Itachi jumping out of his skin.
“Woah, nobody ever catches you off guard,” Shisui says, eyes wide. His gaze flicks to Sasuke, sleeping at 4 pm.
“Sasuke’s sick?” Shisui says, frowning. “No wonder you were distracted…What’s wrong?”
“That’s what I can’t figure out,” Itachi says, squinting at Sasuke’s body.
“It’s not just some run of the mill cold?”
“No,” Itachi says slowly, considering. “It came on too suddenly. He was really fatigued…couldn’t even carry his own backpack. And he was so delirious, didn’t even react when I flickered over to him…”
“It’s worrisome that he has such a slow reaction time,” Shisui agrees, glancing between them equally.
“Is auntie home yet?” he asks. Itachi shakes his head.
“They’re doing some sort of financial appraisal for the year,” he says. What he doesn’t say is that he can take care of Sasuke better than anyone else, so it doesn’t matter.
Shisui seems to catch on anyway.
“Hm…” he hums, like he’s considering something. Itachi turns off his Sharingan, having found nothing of note with it on.
“What is it?” he asks. Shisui walks closer to Sasuke, standing over him.
“It’s just a hunch, but…” Shisui says, and then pulls Sasuke’s eyelids apart with his fingers.
“Shisui!” Itachi scolds, that righteous, protective feeling surging through him.
“Relax,” Shisui says, dismissive. “I’m wondering if he’s awakened his Sharingan,” Shisui says. Itachi stares at Sasuke, like the answer to that is going to jump out at him.
“Why do you say that?” Itachi says. “His eyes don’t look any different,”
“It’s too soon to tell. Don’t you remember how tired you were when yours awakened? Even the next couple of weeks you were falling asleep on my back after using it for extended periods,” he teases.
“That was one time,” Itachi mumbles. Shisui had been way too pleased that Itachi had let his guard down enough to be carried, so naturally Itachi had never let him do it again.
They were closed off, he and Sasuke. Guarded. Itachi, by nature and because of life experience. Being a shinobi at a young age guaranteed that. Sasuke had been different, an open child. Exuberant and bright and naive. He’d changed with age, began to understand the merits of being closed off, on guard.
At night, if Itachi were lucky enough to be home and not on a mission, Itachi would think of that giggling little boy and cry.
Shisui was a warm presence in their life, someone who was able to balance his lightheartedness with his dutiful side more easily. He was an only child, and felt more like a brother than a cousin.
“But if his Sharingan is active, that would mean…”
“Yes. Something bad must have happened at school today, but it looks like it’ll be a while before we find out. He’s sleeping pretty deeply,”
“I bet he doesn’t even realize we’re in here with him. That’s not safe,” Itachi says, tsking. Shisui slings a loose arm around him, smiling gently.
“Hey, he’s got two ANBU members with him. He can afford to go into REM just this once, right?”
Itachi sighs, his arms uncrossing and falling to his sides.
“I know you’re worried, and I know you hate not knowing what happened. I know you hate that you weren’t there to stop it…But he’s growing up, and you can’t be with him 24/7. We can’t protect him from everything,” Shisui says.
“I know that,” Itachi says, looking away. He’s cross, but not with Shisui. “I just wasn’t ready for this to happen yet,” he admits. He didn’t want Sasuke to ever know this pain, knew he couldn’t stop it but wanted to anyway.
At that, Shisui gives a wry chuckle.
“Nobody is ever ready to get their Sharingan,” he says.
They keep vigil at his bedside for two hours. It’s a bit dramatic, but the idea of leaving Sasuke alone aches, even if all he’s doing is sleeping. There’s a need to comfort, to soothe, and Sasuke being asleep gives them no outlet for it.
Besides, it’s not just the exhaustion that follows Sharingan activation. What comes
next is always searing, throbbing pain, and it’s coming any minute now.
“Augh!” Sasuke shouts, sitting up and covering his eyes with his hands.
“There it is,” Shisui says. Itachi winces.
When his hands move to claw at his eyes, to dig, that’s when they jump into action, holding his arms in place.
“What’s…happening?” Sasuke asks through gritted teeth, shaking and fighting their grip.
“You got your Sharingan,” Itachi says, grimacing.
“Congratulations!” Shisui says, grinning as he dodges an elbow.
“Sasuke, stop fighting us. You’re going to hurt yourself,” Itachi scolds.
“Hurts so bad, squeezing pain,” he grinds out. His eyes start to bleed, the drops of blood sliding down his face like tears. Itachi swears he’s getting sympathy pains watching.
When Sasuke tries to open his eyes, he only gets them open 2 centimeters before he has to shut them hard, yelling in pain.
But Itachi sees them, the red eyes and their single tomoe. An incomplete Sharingan, but a Sharingan nonetheless.
“Shisui,” Itachi says, holding Sasuke still as he yells and writhes. “Get the painkillers from my bag. It’s in my room next to my bed,”
“Itachi, you’ve gone soft on me,” Shisui jokes. Painkillers are a last resort for a shinobi. Pain is a way of life, so they’re almost never used.
“Sasuke is a child,” Itachi says back. “There’s no need for him to suffer,”
“Oh, I completely agree,” Shisui says. “Bet your father wouldn’t, though,” he adds, and then he’s out of the room.
“Nii-san,” Sasuke pants. “I- I don’t think I can handle this. I don’t know what to do,” he says, panicked.
Itachi’s face softens, Shisui’s inflammatory comments forgotten.
“You can. You’re strong, Sasuke. An Uchiha. Shisui is bringing medicine,” he reassures. His voice is calm despite how shaken he feels seeing Sasuke’s face contort in pain. He allows himself to tuck a stray piece of Sasuke’s hair behind his ear, to revel in the gentleness.
Shisui’s right, Fugaku isn’t here, and because of that, they can have this tenderness, this unmanly, un-shinobi-like exchange.
“I didn’t know how many he’d need, so I just brought the whole thing and some water to wash them down,” Shisui says, the pills jingling in the bottle.
“Sasuke,” Itachi says, “You need to take two of these pills. They won’t work immediately, but they’ll help with the pain in your eyes,”
Sasuke nods, trusts Itachi without question, and though his eyes throb with pain he focuses on the swallowing, fighting his body to let them past his gag reflex. He takes another sip of water, bigger this time, enough to sweep the pills away.
He’s exhausted then, panting softly. His bangs are sticking to his head, sweaty and askew. Itachi fixes it, tucks them away, his touch smoothing out the lines between Sasuke’s brows where they’ve been furrowed in pain.
“You should sleep while you can,” Itachi says. “When they wear off, the pain will come back and wake you up. We’ll cook you something easy to digest, but for now, just get some rest,” Itachi says.
Sasuke’s facial muscles relax into sleep, and Itachi pushes him down slowly so he lays flat. He sighs.
“We need to clean his face, bandage his eyes…Tie his hands to the bedposts,” he winces. Shisui whistles.
“You’d think he wouldn’t be such a handful at this age,” Shisui jokes, off to get a rag. Itachi always keeps a little ninja wire on him, but it’s too thin and sharp. He needs something softer to use on Sasuke, so he goes to his mother and father’s shared bathroom and takes two seldomly used hair ribbons out of the drawer his mother keeps all her hair stuff in.
He ties knots that will hold but won’t cut off Sasuke’s circulation, just enough to keep him from clawing his eyes out. He’s heard horror stories from older clansmen, of Uchihas that scratched their own eyes right out of their skulls, bloody hollows left behind. Of infection setting in.
Those days are behind them, but the fear lingers.
Shisui dabs gently at the dried blood, grimacing when he has to scrub a little at the stubborn parts.
“I don’t remember my eyes bleeding this much,” he says. Itachi doesn’t remember his doing that either,
but his attention was focused on his dead friends, so everything else fell by the wayside.
Which brings Itachi back to his earlier concern: Just what did Sasuke see today?
Between the sleeping and the screaming in pain, there hadn’t been an opening to ask him, but Itachi burns with curiosity, with a need to fix whatever happened.
When Sasuke wakes up again, his eyes are still excruciating, but in a different way now. They feel tender all over like two big bruises, and every movement of his eyes makes them ache. They’re too sensitive, and he’s thankful for the bandage over his eyes.
His wrists are bound, not too tightly, and Sasuke is caught off guard initially, but he remembers how he’d wanted to claw at himself earlier and sighs in acknowledgement.
“We have to leave that on until they heal. They’re too sensitive to take in any light or anything, so we have to cover them up. They’re still bleeding too, so we’ll keep swapping it out whenever it’s soaked through,” Shisui says.
Itachi isn’t in there, Sasuke doesn’t think. He smells something being cooked, eggs maybe. His stomach growls, and then the sharp pain that shoots through his eyes afflicts him with overwhelming nausea.
He hunches over and the blood rushing to his head makes the pain so bad he almost faints, too much pressure on his eyes.
He throws up bile and his school lunch, gagging and coughing.
Shisui is at his side, rubbing little circles into his back.
“I’m sorry,” Sasuke pants. “I’m sorry, Shisui,”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m sure throwing up wasn’t on your to do list when you woke up this morning,” Shisui jokes.
He leaves and Sasuke shivers, cold and alone. He’d like to think he’d be okay alone but even this one second where Shisui is gone makes his anxiety spike.
Then Shisui is back with Itachi and they’re cleaning the floor, Sasuke’s face heating with blush.
“I’m sorry,” he says again. “I don’t mean to be such a burden,”
“You’re not a burden, Sasuke. Don’t say that,” Itachi says, a little more bite than usual, so he’s pissed about something.
“You know, Sasuke,” Shisui says, trying to change the subject. “You’re having a pretty rough Sharingan activation. We get that part. What we don’t get is what happened to trigger it. Something happen at school today?” Shisui asks, and though his tone is an attempt at nonchalance, Sasuke can feel how their gazes bore into him, awaiting his answer.
“Nothing happened,” Sasuke says, trying to take himself back through his day.
“Nothing?” Itachi says, clearly not believing him. He sighs, and Sasuke feels his bed dip under Itachi’s weight.
“Sasuke, you know you can trust us with anything, right?” he says.
“The Sharingan doesn’t activate just randomly. Something has to trigger it, no exceptions,” Shisui says, pushy in that kind but firm way he has.
“But I…really can’t think of anything like that,” Sasuke says. “I’m not lying, it was just a normal day, and then Iruka dismissed us and I remember I felt exhausted all of a sudden,”
“You should really call him Iruka-sensei, you know,” Shisui laughs.
“That’s a lost cause,” Itachi shakes his head. “He’s just naturally rude,”
“Hey!” Sasuke shouts, indignantly.
“See? Saying that to an elder is just…”
“You’re not an elder, you’re just nii-san,”
“We’re getting off topic,” Itachi says. “I don’t want to accuse you of lying, but that doesn’t make any sense,” Itachi says.
“I get that, but it really was just a normal day. Nothing-“ Sasuke cuts himself off, and Itachi and Shisui exchange looks. They can’t see his expression with his eyes covered by the bandage, but he must have remembered something.
“What is it?” Shisui asks.
“Nothing!” Sasuke says. “Nothing…traumatic,”
“That’s so comforting,” Shisui says. Itachi glares at him.
“What was it?” Itachi says encouragingly.
“Well,” Sasuke says, shifting uncomfortably. “You know Naruto…” Sasuke trails off. Okay, that is not a good start. Itachi prepares himself for whatever is to come.
“I’m familiar,”
“He was crouching on my desk, glaring at me for some reason,”
“May I ask why?”
“I don’t know. He just does that. So I was glaring back, because he was annoying me,”
“Okay…”
“And well. Um,”
“Come on, Sasuke. You’re freaking Itachi out over here,”
“I am not freaking out,”
“I don’t know what happened but he basically fell forward and maybe-“ Indecipherable mumbling.
“Maybe what?” Itachi squints.
“Maybe-“ Indecipherable mumbling.
“Sasuke,”
“Maybe he fell forward and our mouths sort of smashed together,” he says. Itachi blinks. Shisui blinks. Sasuke’s eyes are covered but he looks away anyway, avoiding their direction.
“You kissed?” Shisui says simply, and that makes the two of them sputter and flail. Their immediate family is a lot more conservative, prudish, and private. They certainly don’t talk about kissing.
“It wasn’t- It wasn’t a kiss, really,” Sasuke defends.
“It sounds like he lost his balance,” Itachi suggests.
“Right, it was like an attack of sorts. It was violent!” Sasuke says desperately.
“Violent…Not romantic?” Shisui teases.
“Hold on. Sasuke, face me,” Itachi says, holding Sasuke’s jaw so he can examine his face.
“Oh,” Itachi says.
“Oh my god,” Shisui says, following Itachi’s gazes. “Your lips are bruised,” he says, and starts laughing so loudly and obnoxiously that it actually makes Sasuke’s sore eyes hurt somehow.
“Nii-san,” Sasuke whines. “Make Shisui stop,”
“Shisui,” Itachi scolds, forever whipped for his baby brother.
“That should be Shisui-san,” Shisui says. “Disrespectful brats, the both of you,” Shisui says, but his voice is mirthful.
“You promise that’s all that happened?” Itachi says, squishing Sasuke’s cheek against his palm. He can whine about how grown up he is all he wants, his baby fat is soft and smooth against Itachi’s hand.
“I promise, nii-san,” Sasuke says solemnly. His body language seems relaxed, so Itachi has no reason to doubt him. However…
“You look pretty lost in thought,” Shisui says, standing outside the house with Itachi as they wait to greet his parents. They'll need to tell them about Sasuke’s Sharingan, but they can’t tell them the true story of what activated it.
“If the Sharingan needs strong emotion to activate, and their…collision was what prompted it to appear, then what exactly was the emotion Sasuke felt in that moment?”
“Ah, I figured it was something like that,” Shisui says wistfully.
“The reality is, only Sasuke knows the answer to that. You think he was scared?” he asks. Itachi shakes his head.
“I’m more concerned that it was…a positive emotion,” Itachi says, trying to phrase it carefully. Shisui hums.
“I see. You’re worried that an Uchiha has a crush on the jinchūriki, and they’re both boys,”
“That will be a huge problem,” Itachi says. “One I’m not sure I’m equipped to handle. I can protect Sasuke from a lot, and I’m willing to do whatever that requires. But…”
“You can’t save him from himself. And he’s prideful, the way we all raised him to be, and defensive. If he feels persecuted for liking Naruto, he’ll lash out and double down, and he won’t even realize the ripple effect that will have on the village,” Shisui says. Itachi sighs.
“Children his age don’t even know about the jinchūriki. Sasuke just thinks he’s another annoying boy in his class,”
“He sure knows how to pick them, huh?” Shisui teases. Itachi frowns.
“Hopefully this is just a fleeting thing. I don’t even think Sasuke realizes his feelings yet,”
“Let’s hope not,” Shisui agrees. “So what do we tell your parents?”
“Sasuke was coming home and got ambushed by a rogue ninja. I sensed something was off and killed him, but I used a shadow clone jutsu that the ninja attacked and Sasuke thought it was really me,”
“And that was traumatic for him,” Shisui nods. “Good one. You’re a little too good at lying, don’t you think?”
Itachi doesn’t answer, his parents becoming visible.
He already briefed Sasuke on the lie, changing his bandages with careful hands, checking for infection.
His eyes were still steadily bleeding, leaving Sasuke lightheaded, and for the thirty seconds that Itachi could coax Sasuke to open his eyes, a rag between his teeth as he bit down against the pain, his tomoe were attempting to rotate slowly, tentatively.
“We’ll have to start training it once the bleeding stops,” Itachi says.
“You have to control it, not let it control you. That’s why it hurts so much. The Sharingan has no guidance, so it’s behaving erratically,”
Sasuke hums softly to show Itachi he’s listening, sounding drowsy and far away.
Itachi tilts his chin up again, and by now Sasuke is so used to being rotated every which way and prodded that he just goes where Itachi needs him.
“Your lips are looking…worse,” Itachi observes, and though his reaction is delayed, Sasuke flushes quickly.
“It…will help make the story more believable. The rogue ninja hit me in the face before you showed up,” he says. Itachi smiles gently, amused.
He pushes Sasuke’s hair behind his ear, stroking his head there. Sasuke would deny it if questioned, but he does lean into the touch, exhaling in relief.
Of course Itachi wouldn’t need his parents home to take care of Sasuke. He’s his baby after all, swaddled close to him and fed by him, taught by him how to walk. They have the same gait, only recently modified by Sasuke’s budding arrogance, the lazy tilt he has as he struts.
Fugaku would punish the deviation. Itachi watches it fondly.
“Father, Mother,” Itachi bows, Shisui following suit.
“Hello, Itachi,” Fugaku says stiffly. He looks tired and suspicious.
“Father,” Itachi says, keeping his gaze on the ground. “Sasuke has awakened his Sharingan today,” he says evenly. Mikoto gasps, and Fugaku’s eyes widen.
“How is he?” Mikoto asks, eyes pitying.
“He’s okay,” Itachi confirms. He tells them of the Rogue ninja, the attack. Fugaku is incensed, demanding to know the village origin. Sensing that that will only cause trouble, Itachi tells him that he wasn’t wearing anything identifiable, wasn’t obviously affiliated with anyone.
“He tried to grab Sasuke’s backpack. I’m inclined to believe he was trying to rob him,” Itachi offers.
“Let’s hope so,” Fugaku says. “The last thing we need is more people targeting our clan, and you two have a target on your back, literally, being my sons and wearing our crest everywhere,”
“Do you suggest we hide it?”
“No!” Fugaku shouts. Itachi winces minutely, thinks of Sasuke in the other room, trying to rest.
“We aren’t cowards. It is an honor to be born an Uchiha, but we have to keep our guard up. Since we’re strong, a lot of people want to take us out- Ah. Hello, Sasuke,“ he says, prompting three heads to whip in Sasuke’s direction.
Sasuke had his hands on the walls, feeling his way to them, his bandage beginning to soak through.
Itachi does not gasp, but the impulse is there as he walks quickly over to him.
“Sasuke,” he scolds. “You shouldn’t be up. What if you had gotten hurt?”
“I heard…Mother and Father come home,” he pants.
“He’ll get hurt a lot if he is to be a shinobi,” Fugaku counters, approaching the two of them.
“Why is he bleeding so much?” he asks the room, as though they’re the cause.
“We were wondering the same thing,” Shisui offers. “We don’t remember bleeding this much, and he does only have the one tomoe in each eye, so it just seems like his body is having a hard time adjusting. Itachi has changed the bandage several times now. Blood loss is starting to become a major concern,”
“Sasuke,” Mikoto says, “Let’s get you back in bed. You’re losing too much blood,”
“I’m okay,” he says, overwhelmed by all the attention. It’s always Itachi who’s the recipient of it, after all.
“I have an idea,” Shisui says, and since he figured out the real cause of Sasuke’s fatigue first, Itachi gestures for him to go ahead.
They sit Sasuke down gently on the bed, and Shisui washes his hands before he removes Sasuke’s bandages.
His eyes are crusty beneath from dried blood, from tears, but there’s less fresh blood than before, and Sasuke is able to open them again, though he’s squinting from the light, the over sensitivity.
It hurts to see so well, in such excruciating detail, after seeing the world normally for so long. The sensory input overwhelms the brain.
The tomoe swirls, analyzing, recording.
“Sasuke,” Shisui says gently, the way he used to speak to him when he was very little, patient and kind.
“I need you to stare into my eyes until yours stop moving. Focus on them, on the tomoe staying still, the pattern. When yours stop moving, the Sharingan should finally deactivate and stop moving,”
Sasuke dutifully stares, grunting from the effort. His tomoe is stubborn, circling defiantly. Itachi puts a hand on his shoulder, grounding him, and the tomoe slows, slowly, painfully slow, the difference in speed not visible to the naked eye.
“There you go,” Shisui encourages. “It’s almost done. Just focus a little more, control it,” he says.
Sasuke squints, focusing, and the tomoe finally, mercifully stops.
Sasuke is out of breath, panting. His muscles shake with fatigue, and his eyes go back to black again just as they roll back and he passes out, exhausted.
They don’t rewrap his eyes. They need air now, and Mikoto takes a rag and cleans his face gently, the blood crusted in his eyelashes and eyebrows, holds his eyes open to put in soothing eyedrops.
She pets his hair, looking at him lovingly.
“My little boy’s all grown up,” she says softly. She’s looking at Itachi, not Fugaku, Shisui notices.
More grown up than you think, Shisui muses. Had his first kiss today and everything.
He keeps Mikoto company while Fugaku and Itachi slip out of the room, and Shisui tries not to scowl.
“He’ll have to take a few days off of school until he recovers. In the meantime, I’ll train his Sharingan with him,” Itachi says, kneeling in front of his father in the main room.
“What if you get called away on a mission?”
“I will let them know I am currently unable to take on missions. After he recovers, I will return to regular work immediately,”
“Hm,” Fugaku hums, considering. “Fine. He’ll probably be jumping up and down at the chance to train with you,” he smirks. Itachi doesn’t smile back.
He doesn’t like when Fugaku does this, teases Sasuke for wanting attention. Fugaku is the strange one, withholding it like there’s merit in neglect. He’s the one who should be mocked.
“I will make sure he is able to learn the basics of Katon jutsu,” Itachi says. Fugaku nods, a dismissal, and Itachi rises slowly, bowing and then leaving.