Fixation

ItaSasu drabble: Itachi finds in Sasuke tiny hints of future ability. It starts when Sasuke is a newborn, and the signs become more profound from there on.

The things that Itachi remembers most about his otouto's birth are the details that should matter least, like his mother's pained sighs and her sharp intakes of breath just before Sasuke's shrill cry pierced the stillness.

He can vaguely recall the instruments of steel that leered at him from the doctor's able hand, and if he tries very hard, he can almost picture the intimidating monitors that had sat uselessly in the delivery room with their various knobs and buttons, glaring at him with their complexity.

He also remembers Sasuke's healthy red face, his pudgy cheeks and thick wrists.

The atmosphere in the clean white room was a joyful one, but there are certain things about that day that Itachi just can't commit to memory. What little he can recollect of that day comes to him in pieces, and some of them slip through the cracks in his mind.

He wonders when these cracks were formed and supposes that they've been there since the night that he held Shisui's head underneath the clear surface of the Nakano River and stared past the rising bubbles until his cousin's complexion turned faintly blue.

He watched Shisui's long raven-colored hair as it twisted and danced underwater, and he marveled at how the river had never felt cooler. Tentatively, he reached a hand through the surface to perch on one of his cousin's shoulders, considering lifting him to land, but the surface seemed to shatter in glasslike fragments that rendered his curiosity—and remorse—remarkably void.

The one thing that Itachi cannot forget about either Sasuke's birth or Shisui's murder is the fact that each of them stared right through him as they advanced into the next stage of life.

Before Shisui succumbed to darkness, his eyes flickered between red and black, half-pleading and half-accepting. Before Sasuke cried into the stale air of the hospital room, his eyes flashed decidedly crimson.

The Sharingan is a curse that Itachi will never escape and a fascination that he will never let go of.

-

It's snowing when Itachi wakes to find his father's attention fixed on him for the last time.

His hair is ashen-gray and his features are sharply chiseled, like that of a statue. They bore into him grimly while his eyes (laughably black) stare with solemnity that has become a constant in both their lives.

The crisp scent of apple-skins rolls down the hallway, and he knows that his mother is baking them, trying to salvage scraps of springtime in a world that has newly turned cold. He can hear her humming a soft tune to herself, and he thinks she's foolish for her silly ideas of peace and tranquility in a world of so much bloodshed.

He thinks she is a weak woman with an imitation Sharingan. Her eyes will never see what his have already seen.

…But the truth is, Sasuke's eyes have always seen more.

Sasuke has the gift of seeing the world through the eyes of a child. His view is unclouded.

Almost chuckling to himself at the absurdity of his own reflections, he meets his father's gaze and is surprised to find a slight frown hiding in his tired expression. He is also surprised to find Sasuke peeking shyly from behind the taller man, a bundle of clothing piled up high in his arms.

Fugaku sighs audibly, nods to Itachi, and strides out into the hall and out of sight.

Itachi supposes that this is his cue to look after Sasuke.

He watches as his otouto tugs on a winter jacket and a pair of mittens that are at least three sizes too large. He shakes his head absently but follows him outside anyway, and it's all he can do to resist the urge to scoff and retreat to the warmth of the house again when the younger boy begins sculpting snowballs from the foreign blanket of sticky white that covers the ground.

Absently, he muses that Sasuke would make a fine snow angel. …So innocent. Untainted. Untouched by the greed of clan elders and village leaders.

For once in his life, Itachi is envious.

When Sasuke grows tired with his stock of snowballs, he does end up dropping to the ground to form a snow angel. Itachi's lips twitch strangely—it feels like a smile, but he's not sure he's capable of those anymore—and he shakes his head twice.

His father's eyes go after the wrong ambitions. His mother's eyes seek no ambitions at all. Sasuke's eyes have remained perpetually midnight black, save for what Itachi witnessed of him when he was first born.

…Really, he thinks, perhaps it's not the Sharingan that keeps damning the family.

Perhaps it's the family that's damning the family.

Just as the statement "there is nothing to fear but fear itself", Itachi wonders if maybe there is nothing truly wrong but wrongness.

His eyes are burning, and it would be so easy to pin the blame on them again, but instead he pushes it on his parents' lack of actual parenting.

Instantly, a weight is lifted off his chest.

(Predictably, his eyes stop stinging too.)

Fin.

Author's Notes: To explain one sentence from this, in particular, I mentioned that it was snowing when Itachi woke to find his father's gaze fixed on him 'for the last time'. This was supposed to insinuate that "Fixation" took place shortly before the Uchiha massacre. …Nevermind the fact that there was no snow when all of it happened. Just pretend it melted, 'kay? ;)

And about pretty much everything from the last six or seven lines…well, I'll be frank and say it plainly. I used to think the massacre was Fugaku's fault.

Anyway. Thanks for reading!