Watch
By: firefly
Note: Inspired by the latest chapter, 393. So watch out for spoilers. Reviews are greatly appreciated.
Watch
The fascination was born the day he held Shisui's head beneath the clear, cold current, staring into the pristine depths and at the bubbles streaming from his cousin's wordlessly gaping mouth. He watched the surreal motion of black hair billowing underwater, the accumulating tinge of blue in his skin, the water that felt like fluid, rippling glass, and the eyes.
They flickered between red and black, wide and endlessly staring, watching, pleading, continuing to gaze beseechingly, despairingly, long after the bubbles had dissipated and the water no longer frothed with his thrashing.
Itachi remained by the riverside, fingers loosely clutching the front of Shisui's shirt to keep him steady, returning the corpse's unblinking gaze.
The terror was eminent and vivid in the black depths of his eyes, and something almost akin to marvel crossed Itachi's features as he used mangekyou sharingan for the first time and the facets, features, and colours of his surroundings burst into vivid clarity.
With his free hand, he ran his fingertips over his closed eyelids, marveling at the fragility of the constructs beneath, appreciative of their use, awed by their complexity and structure, the fascination blooming into a calculating interest as he opened his eyes and stared down at Shisui's corpse.
They are a marvel, he decided, lifting the body out of the water, reaching down with curious fingers. A feat of design. Complex. Strange.
The texture of Shisui's dead eyes was oddly cold and slick beneath his prodding fingers, firm and monochrome in colour, fragile little mechanisms, plain little globes, constructs that hardly gave justice to their awe-inspiring capabilities. They were paradoxical, simple and weak in appearance and feel beneath his searching fingertips, yet capable of being the most dangerous weapons.
Discolourations bloomed in the cold whites of Shisui's eyes, grayish bruises mottling the tender tissue beneath the touches, and eventually Itachi lowered him back into the water.
For the first time in his life, he truly felt like he could see.
Night became inconsequential in the light of his new gift.
He'd lay awake, red irises and a distorted, jagged pupil rapidly searching the dark ceiling and every facet of the room, darting towards the window, towards the door, counting the grains in the wood paneling, the individual specks of dust illuminated on the blinds by faint moonlight, the distinct ridges in his fingerprints as he touched his eyelids repeatedly, examining and admiring, fervent with purpose.
My eyes, he thought. They do more. They see more.
His gaze darted rapidly to the slightly ajar door, catching the barest glimpse of a darkened night robe and recognizing his father as he lingered silently in the hall outside his room.
They are more.
He continued his role in the home, obediently helping his mother prepare dinner, cutting vegetables at the counter as she prepared the seasonings. Broth bubbled in a copper pot, the aroma of fresh fish and the clang of dishware saturating the kitchen atmosphere.
Fugaku called for his wife from somewhere in the hallway, and as Mikoto left the kitchen, Itachi's gaze fell on the fish lying on the cutting board.
As if compelled to compare, contrast, and criticize, he unconsciously stepped closer to it, peering down at the dull, yellow eye that lay on the silver head like a flat, useless embellishment, a disc of God's design with no other purpose save aesthetic appeal and mediocre perception. He stared at it in contempt.
Mine have purpose. Potential.
Mikoto returned and paused in the doorway when she found her son prodding idly at the eye, expression grim.
"Itachi?" she ventured uncertainly.
He didn't spare her a glance, wordlessly returning to his station and pretending he hadn't heard her.
When the mangekyou sharingan was first put to use in an S-rank mission, beneath the clandestine shade of corpses, the sight of the enemies and their useless, blank, inferior eyes elicited a realization.
As they succumbed and sank to the forest floor, still alive and struggling for breath as blood flooded their tracheas, the vivid images of Shisui's corpse and the dead fish rose in his mind's eye.
"You're the same," he commented offhandedly, staring down at the rapidly dilating pupils of the dying man who clutched at his ankles, fingers seizing in death throes. "Alive or dead, you're all the same."
He knelt, watching the man die and feeling his fascination gradually fade with it, dissipating into disdain.
He kept his fingers curled in his lap, staring at the blank, dead eyes until flies began accumulating at the corners.
"Constructs," he murmured, not touching them this time. "Nothing more."
The fascination had been fleeting. He knew by now his were special and incomparable even to those in his own clan. He knew they all felt and looked the same, what their limited capabilities were, how they degenerated and discoloured and how disgustingly fragile and prone to destruction they were.
They are made and designed for sensory perception. Living eyes. Dead eyes. Fish eyes. They're all the same. Mine are more.
He stared out the window, watching Sasuke come running up the path with his report card in hand.
Yours could be more.
He'd paid for his complacency. The day came when someone saw something he couldn't see, something he never wanted to see.
"Nii-san…"
Itachi glanced up from his reading at the slightly hoarse, watery voice, blinking at the sight of Sasuke standing in his doorway, one hand clasped tightly over his eye. The visible eye was swimming with held-in tears.
"What happened?" he inquired as Sasuke stepped closer, expression both plaintive and shamefaced.
"I got something stuck in my eye," he said with obvious effort, fist clenching by his side as his voice quavered. "It won't come out."
"Ask Kaasan to look at it."
Sasuke shook his head vehemently, taking another step forward, expression imploring.
"Can you?" he said weakly. "Please?"
It genuinely baffled him as to why Sasuke chose him over their mother, but he didn't question him, beckoning for him to come closer as he shifted to sit at the end of his bed.
And as if ashamed of the single, heavy tear that rolled out from beneath the hand clasped over his eye, as if compelled to give a reason for showing this pathetic display to his older brother, Sasuke mumbled.
"Kaasan has long nails…"
Itachi offered him a faint, humourless smile.
"Let me see it."
Gingerly, Sasuke let his hand drift to his side, eye squeezed shut and tear-soaked, matted lashes tracing the reddened skin like a black seal.
Wordlessly, Itachi leaned forward, brushing the wetness away with his sleeve. Then he waited.
Sasuke gave him a vaguely fearful look before slowly opening the eye, expression pained as another tear rolled uncontrollably down his cheek. Itachi tactfully ignored it, leaning closer to look at his eye.
"Where does it hurt?"
"Here," Sasuke said, gesturing to his lower lid, voice increasing in pitch. "It won't come out."
Itachi gave him a long, measured look.
"Do you want me to take it out?"
Sasuke stared at him, hesitating, then nodded once, fists clenching by his sides.
"Then come closer."
The younger Uchiha did as he was told, taking a small, shuffling step forward, the slight hitch of his breathing audible in the silence as Itachi reached up, left hand coming to rest against the back of Sasuke's head, fingers tangling loosely into his hair.
He wiped the remaining wetness from beneath Sasuke's eye with his sleeve again before settling his fingertips gingerly against the reddened, tender skin.
"Try not to blink."
Sasuke nodded, then stiffened as Itachi pressed down lightly on the skin for a better view.
A thick, black lash rested between the rapidly reddening sclera and the inside of the bottom lid, magnified by the pooling tears.
"It's an eyelash," Itachi informed him without moving his gaze. "Should I take it out?"
His younger brother made a small, brave noise of admission, and as soon as Itachi's fingertips ventured close enough to brush the fringe of matted lashes, Sasuke's hands impulsively flew up, fingers clamping down and seizing around Itachi's wrists, grip vice-like and expression freezing in tense, fearful expectation.
Tears coated Itachi's fingertips as a gentle sweep dislodged the lash, the fluid strangely tepid in comparison to the vivid red spider lines blooming around them.
Sasuke tensed at the touch and Itachi spoke, perfunctorily.
"Does it hurt?"
When he made no reply, Itachi met his gaze, met the sight of those fragile constructs, those objects of faded fascination, aware of how they felt to the touch, knowing what capabilities and potential lay hidden, knowing how easily he could ruin them, knowing they could beso much more.
And yet the only feeling that registered in his mind in that moment, as the tears flushed away the lash and coated the undersides of his fingers, was a sense of marvel.
He knew their anatomy, he knew their purpose, but the gratitude he saw in them, the penetrating fascination, admiration, and affection, the blinding degree of implicit trust that shone through, was unique to Sasuke's eyes and Sasuke's eyes alone.
Unguarded. Open. Embracing what they saw without a hint of suspicion or question. Harmless. Guileless.
Dead eyes. Fish eyes. Shisui's eyes. Mother's eyes. Father's eyes.
None of them looked at him the way Sasuke did.
Itachi stared at him, fingers slack in Sasuke's hair, momentarily frozen with the fleeting, numbing thought that his younger brother could see right through him.
The good older brother. The obedient son. The law-abiding citizen. Sasuke could see through the layers.
For a long, numb moment, Itachi felt like his brother could even see through the cold apathy beneath the façade that continuously managed to fool everyone else, through to whatever lingering shreds of compassion remained and stirred faint affection whenever he looked at Sasuke, compassion that somehow still compelled him to be gentle, to administer gestures of sentimental frivolity—enduring flaws he'd closed his own eyes to.
You see through it, he realized blankly, watching the tears ebb away. Without the sharingan…without the mangekyou sharingan…
You see me.
The tears had dried. After a few moments, Sasuke hesitantly spoke, fingers lax around Itachi's wrists.
"…is it out?"
Itachi let his fingers slip out of Sasuke's hair, thoughtfully lowering his gaze and letting his hands drift back into his lap.
"It's out."
A genius should have been able to achieve true apathy.
I have, Itachi told himself repeatedly after decimating the clan, after encountering Sasuke three years later, after hearing that Sasuke had run off to join Orochimaru. I have. I have—
"I have," he whispered soundlessly, words garbled by hot blood and the impending onslaught of unconsciousness, bleary gaze focusing on the figure of his helpless brother and those wide, frightened eyes.
"My eyes…"
In me, they could be more.
He shuffled closer, each sluggish heartbeat and dragging footstep echoing deafeningly in his ears. Sasuke was utterly vulnerable, his resolution and calmness abandoning him to blatant fear as he leaned back against the wall, legs shaking beneath him.
I have, Itachi assured himself repeatedly, no longer aware of what he was trying to convince himself of. I have…
The trust was gone. Sasuke's eyes no longer held their unguarded, childlike quality. The hatred had abandoned him in his vulnerability and the only thing that shone through was unadulterated fear.
Itachi met his gaze, faltering in his step before slowing to a stop.
Blood ran from his eyes and mouth, pain dulling his senses and vision abandoning him to a slow onset of white haze. His new light stared back at him through frightened eyes and Itachi vaguely recalled times when they swam with tears and glowed with unreleased potential, times they beseeched and pleaded and expressed gratitude.
They looked at him like no one else would, and even in that moment, lingering facets of unnamable, plaintive emotion were eminent, penetrating through the layers Itachi himself no longer acknowledged, perceptive to the detritus of compassion and frivolity that should have died alongside his parents.
They saw him, and for something beyond his understanding, they silently pleaded.
The Uchiha clan had faded to nothing more than a name and a symbol. Compassion and affection had gone to rot. Emotion became an abstract concept. But Sasuke, Sasuke's expression and Sasuke's eyes, Sasuke's silent appeal saw him capable of it. They were enough to incite the barest vestiges of something resembling compassion, enough to invoke that impulsive, dead gesture, one last time.
Itachi took a slow, hitched breath, submitting to resignation, head bowing with heavy, numbing understanding.
"You still see me," he whispered inaudibly.
Sasuke merely stared at him, uncomprehending.
Itachi smiled faintly.
His imminent failure at retrieving the eyes, now coupling with the culmination of his lifelong failure at apathy, drained whatever remaining strength there was in his legs. Reaching forward, his smile faded into an expression of closure, resolute with the knowledge that he'd always been right.
Yours see more.
The white haze enveloped him as he lowered his gaze, tremulous fingertips connecting gently with Sasuke's forehead.
You've always seen more.