Thou Blind Man's Mark

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, I make no profit from writing about it.

This story has Sasuke going out of his mind (as if he hadn't already, love him though I do) and mentions of bondage and possible rape. If this bothers you, please be warned and have a happy day.

Author's Note: The sonnet from which this story's name is taken is by Sir Philip Sidney, who lived between 1554 and 1586. I opened the Norton Anthology of English Literature when I was nearly done with this piece because I thought perhaps it needed a poem at the end and this was the first thing I turned to. It was perfect so there's fate for you. I have a snobby streak that likes to title fanfiction after old poetry, don't hold it against me. I typed up the poem and put it at the end of the fic for all to behold my dorkiness, and because it's quite beautiful.

*

Curled back to front on my side is like being unconscious. The rise and fall of his flat stomach presses to the base of my spine; the shallow breathing of sleep. After sex, I can't escape the damp heat of the windowless room, or the smell of sweat. Come dries sticky between my legs and I'm too tired to part them now. He doesn't shift in his sleep, not much anyway. His hair is damp and spread across my shoulder. As the room cools, so do I. In the middle of winter, it can be almost unbearably cold underground. He doesn't seem to mind it.

How many months have passed already? In the absolute dark of my room, I count on my fingers beneath the sheets. Up past twelve, that's one year, and on to twenty-four, another year. After that, I can't remember. I can't remember if it was spring or fall when I first came here. No matter if it's spring or fall, the mist is heavy between the trees here, thick and silent. Dew clings to everything; heat builds and vanishes beneath the ground.

How many months since he started coming into my room? All those memories, like the memories of training, are scattered and incongruous. First, his pale hands pinning me to the bed, his gagging me with the push of his long, red tongue. Was that rape? I never decided what I thought. He doesn't seem like the kind of person who would want sex that badly. I'm surprised he even wants it at all, with so much or so little else on his mind, broken up as it is. My feelings on all of it are a mirror I cannot quite piece back together; a mirror I cannot really see my face in.

When he first began to come, it was in the dark like this. I'd wake when I'd hear the turn of the lock and the bolt shuddering from its frame. He'd be in only his robe, undone, and naked underneath. I felt the shock of his skin to mine seconds after he was in the room. Legs parted, mouth open, silent; I guess I wanted him in the way that I didn't really know what I wanted.

For a while at least he lit candles. His face is long and full of gaping holes in this dark. I reach up for him, lips parted. He likes the light flickering off my first layer of sweat and for some reason I found it harder to cry out when I came with the lights on. Afraid he'd see what I looked like so caught off-guard. Now, he leaves the lights off. He doesn't say why.

It amazes me how quickly someone my age can warm to the hunger for sex. There must have been a time when I was terrified of it, I don't remember. My body is always lying open for him, already wet with my own saliva between my legs, but he likes his tongue there, to wrap around and touch at every part of me and with his hands tangled in my hair. In the half-light of the candles, he is beautiful. I don't remember when I started thinking that. Outside, in the weak light between the trees, he seems so much more frail, an illusion born of the thinness of his face. This flesh isn't even his, I don't know what I expect from him. I put my mouth over his new, young skin. The sweat I'm tasting isn't even really his.

"You learn . . . so quickly."

I always have, though never as quickly as my brother.

What is it that I'm losing track of in this dirty, little room? Is it my way? Some mornings, I wake up having forgotten why I've come here. I'd never weighed before the impossibility of my forgetting what I'd come here for. Somewhere in me, sleeping, is that ambition I sold my soul for. These days, though, I'm too tired to seek out the reasons why, or the answers to how.

I think I am losing my mind.

Is it him who brings me a glass of water when I'm half awake? I've dreamt more than once that there were windows in my room. In the light they let in, he was always visible, slouching towards me like a shadow vanishing into the dawn. My hunger for him is always so dreamy and half-aware. He bends me over the edge of the bed to fuck me. His tongue wraps around my cock when he enters me from behind. Twice, I've passed out during sex. He says it's because I don't eat enough. Maybe not. He puts food to my lips and I don't know where he gets it. I can't remember when I became this invalid. I feel drunk when I'm outside practicing between the trees.

I don't ask anymore when he thinks I'll be ready. Kakashi once said to me that a ninja was only a tool. Only now can I understand why and how. I stretch out on my back, I let him bind my hands to the iron-ribbed head of the bed. Is there really any difference in being a ninja and being a whore?

Outside, snow is falling. I can't see it this far down, but I can feel it from the sharp drop in the temperature. He's gotten up to open the door a fraction to let the warm, sweaty air out. After a while, you can't stand the smell. On the steps leading up from the Village of Sound, the wet stones will grow white with snow. The air in the forest grows quiet. Winter has nothing to do with war or sex. Or revenge. It rains whether or not I want to be outside. There are so very few things I control now. Maybe that's why I don't mind how he's so utterly taken me over.

We don't talk much and I'm still not sure why. The difference in age could account for some of it, but he's distant in a way that proves the reality of his creeping insanity. And of course, I'm not much better. Here I see dark shapes in the corners of my room. I can't remember exactly what Itachi looks like. I'm going crazy.

But his touch brings me back to earth.

Between gasps of air and his labored moans trying to delay his climax, I mumble against his hot shoulder. "I love you."

It doesn't even sound like the same language anymore. I can't hear myself think.

"You're almost ready, Sasuke-kun. You are nearly strong enough."

Why did I come here?

"You haven't forgotten your promise, have you?"

Yes, that's right. I remember now.

Some night, when he reaches across the narrow bed for me, he will find me in his own hands and hair, his breath. I wonder if he'll touch himself and get turned on. I wonder if he's ever fucked his other students the way he fucks me, night after night, and more softly each time. I could go the rest of my life being only half-awake, only vaguely aware that I've forgotten why I sacrificed everything.

His arms around me at night keep me from flying apart. His lips on my forehead are what keep me breathing. I'm convinced he's the only reason I'm alive. I don't know when weakness turned into madness. I don't know anything at all.

Silently, he pulls me up in bed and puts my robe around my shoulders. We walk together down the hallway and towards the front steps where, indeed, snow is gathering. It's a luminous blue in the early morning light. My teeth are chattering and this cold is somehow so much more calming than the heat of my room. I watch him go slowly up the steps, the powdered snow clinging to the hem of his cloak as if he's picking up dust. I follow him to the landing and then to the mouth of the stairwell. He takes my hand in a gesture that is neither loving nor patronizing. His hands are always cold.

"Sometimes I wonder if you're even any use to me any longer," he says softly, brushing his hair out of his eyes. In my silence, he doesn't know that I'm wondering the same thing.

"Well," he smiles but does not look at me, "Maybe you're good for something."

It is for this alone that I know I can stay alive.

~ end ~

Thou blind man's mark, thou fool's self-chosen snare
Fond fancy's scum, and dregs of scattered thought;
Band of all evils, cradle of causeless care;
Thou web of will, whose end is never wrought;
Desire, desire! I have too dearly bought,
With price of mangled mind, thy worthless ware;
Who should my mind to higher things prepare,
But yet in vain thou hast my ruin sought;
In vain thou kindlest all they smoky fire;
For virtue hath this better lesson taught--
Within myself to seek my only hire,
Desiring naught but how to kill desire.
- Sir Philip Sidney