December

December

Summary- It's sad quiet in our apartment, because Itachi doesn't talk much. He laughs even less. I don't laugh much either, because there's nothing to laugh about anymore. Especially in December.

Warnings- Anal,AU,H/C,Shouta,SoloM,Yaoi

Long Author Note- For all intensive purposes, my fic is based on the suspicion that Itachi killed the clan for a good reason, though I'm not saying anymore on that as I'm going to cover it all in the story. It's set in the present day United States, somewhere between 2000 and 2006, I haven't decided yet. It's not that relevant to the plot. Itachi is fifteen, Sasuke is nine. Kisame is twenty six. This is not Uchiha-cest, although I probably will write one of those in the future. This is a KisaxIta fic that will have a lemon or two down the line. It will be narrated in Itachi, Sasuke, and Kisame's points of view. Since this is an AU, Kisame does not look like a shark. That just creeps me out when I think of him having sex.

I prefer writing Itachi in AU because of the creative control it gives me over the inner workings of his mind. He's a static character in the anime, making him all in all boring. Insanity and the selfish drive for power only go so far. I do have a canon fic featuring Itachi in the works where I attempt to delve into his psyche as well, but it's drastically different then this will turn out to be. In the end, my objective is to make him seem more of a human and less of an android. I wish more people would take the time to explore a character with such fascinating potential.

On a very important note, if Sasuke seems a little OOC, or if any of them do, it's intentional. I'm using my creative licence to build a different kind of relationship between Sasuke and Itachi, one not driven by intense hatred or incestuous passion. Sasuke is not the brooding, antisocial little kid in the corner who vowed revenge on his insane psychopathic murderer of a brother. For that matter, Itachi is not an insane killer. Keep that in mind while reading this. Also keep in mind that Sasuke is only a nine year old, albeit an intelligent nine year old. He does not put two and two together accurately right from the start. Be patient with little kiddie Sasuke.

I've rambled enough. Enjoy and review me. I like feedback. A lot. Seriously, I'm pretty sure I glow when I read them.

------------------------

August
I. Somewhere over the rainbow there's a wizard who knows nothing


They told me that my brother killed my parents. I believed them. I saw him myself anyway, standing over their dead bodies with a gun in his hands. It was smoking, and while I was screaming and begging him not to kill me, he was silent as stone.

He's been quiet ever since.

He sits out on the fire escape a lot, even on cold nights in December. He doesn't talk to me anymore, at least, not the way he used to before that night. December is a sad month for us. I cry a lot in December, especially on December seventeenth. That was the night they died in Christmas colors, red blood, white snow. Itachi doesn't cry. He just sits on the fire escape until his lips turn blue, staring into the night. I don't know what he's looking for that he can't find inside the house where the heater works. Sometimes. Sometimes it is almost as cold in the house as it is outside. When that happens I grab all of the spare blankets in the house, pile them onto the couch and crawl into my makeshift nest of warmth until the super decides to do something about the heater, watching Itachi through the window while he doesn't cry.

I always fall asleep before he comes back inside. He wakes me up with cold hands and arms, carrying me into bed in my cocoon of quilts. Even when I hated him, he still carried me to bed. And I did hate him, because even though the courts declared him innocent, I knew deep down inside that they were wrong. They said he killed in self defense, that he had to or we wouldn't be alive right now. They said he saved us. I didn't believe them. I saw the gun. He didn't even look sad.

I believed what they told me first, that my brother killed my mom and dad because he was an angry teenager. A rebel complex. That's what I believed. How was I supposed to believe anything else when he was so careless about it, like it didn't even matter that they were dead? He wasn't sorry.

We live alone now. Itachi petitioned the court for custody. They didn't give it to him, but they did give it to the super of the building, a woman who is the sole relative we have left. She is a distant aunt of some sort, or maybe a great aunt. Her hair is white and her skin is wrinkled up like leather. She lives downstairs. Itachi and me live on the third, right beneath the roof. The roof leaks when it rains. When the snow melts in March, we take out all of our pots and bowls and put them under the leaky spots. During thunderstorms, it sounds like a millions of tapping fingernails in our tiny apartment. Sometimes the bowls overflow in the night while we sleep. The carpet is soggy for days afterwards. I like to walk on the wet carpet, feel the texture with my toes. Itachi lets me do it. I think he's too tired to do anything about me most of the time.

He quit school last year to work two jobs, when he was fourteen. He said it didn't matter anyway, that his IQ is high enough and that he isn't going to get much smarter. He teaches himself when he has the time between jobs with the books his boss let him have. I visit him at the bookstore sometimes because it's always warm there, and quiet in the good kind of way. Not like our apartment. It's sad quiet in our apartment, because Itachi doesn't talk much. He laughs even less. I don't laugh much either, because there's nothing to laugh about anymore. Especially in December.

Last year in December, the second anniversary of mom and dad's deaths, he didn't come in from the fire escape to take me to bed. I knew something was wrong when cold hands didn't rouse me from sleep. Absence woke me up, the feeling that something was missing. I wrapped myself in a blanket and climbed through the window. He was still staring at something beyond me, over the railing, over the roofs of the apartments on Muller Street. On the other side of the world.

I touched my fingers to his face, feeling the frigid line of his jaw bone. He didn't look at me, didn't say a word, didn't cry. But he let me hook my arm through his and tug him to his feet. I couldn't leave him out there all night, alone in the middle of December. He let me lead him inside, tuck him into bed and wish him goodnight. He didn't stop me when I crawled into bed next to him, scared that he'd die if he didn't get warm. I wrapped my arms around him while he shivered, stroked his hair until he fell asleep. He didn't cry and he didn't say anything, but I knew what sadness felt like.

They told me my brother didn't kill my parents out of cold blood. That night, I believed him, shivering in my arms, crying on the inside.

*^*^*

The bells above the door jangle every time a customer comes in or out of the bookstore. They make a jarring, cheerful sound. The Den smells like paper, dampness, and ink, smells that clog my nose at little. Its not so bad though, considering our apartment isn't any better. Itachi is saving up to fix the leaky ceiling, but it'll be a while, he says. In the meantime, we just buy more bowls. The electric blue one is my favorite. I bought it at a yard sale with a dollar I found in school. We eat popcorn out of it when is isn't being used as a water collector.

There are so many books in this place that I can get lost in the bindings. Bookshelves line all four walls, even the one behind the counter where I sit on the stool besides Itachi after school and hand people their change. Kakashi (that's Itachi’s boss) jokes and says that he should be paying the both of us for our services. He slips me a ten every now and then, warning not to tell my brother. Bookshelves are crowded across the center of the tiny shop from wall to wall, so close together that you almost have to hold your breath to make it through. I tried that once, taking in a deep breath to see how many aisles I could squeeze through without breathing. I only made it to two because you have to go slow and be careful about knocking books off of the shelves when you go by.

Itachi is behind the counter, which you can't see when you walk in because of all the shelves. I see him as I weave through the maze, fighting the impulse to hold my breath. His black hair is pulled back into a tidy ponytail, his bangs long and loose in his face. My hair is nothing like his. It's always sticking up in the back like the feathers of a cockatoo. Kakashi calls me pretty bird (1), which I hate but allow because it makes my brother do that almost smile thing that he does.

Busy counting out change and handing it to the customer, he barely looks up at me when I duck under the counter and climb up onto my stool. When he finishes counting out the change, he hands it over to me automatically and disappears into the storage room. The bells on the door jangles, signaling a new customer. I make a show of recounting the dollar bills and finally hand the girl her change and her bag of books. She smiles at me, craning her neck to see where Itachi has gone.

"Is that your brother?" she whispers.

"Yes," I answer in a regular voice. Why girls always want to know so much about my brother, I don't really get. He's not that interesting. He works, eats, studies, and sleeps. The end.

"Does he have a girlfriend?" she asks, sounding hopeful. I could be honest and tell her the truth. Itachi doesn't even have friends, much less a girlfriend. But if I tell her the truth then she might ask him to be her boyfriend and Itachi wouldn't like that. So I tell her the same lie I told all the other girls who asked about him.

"Her name is Bianca. She lives in Cambridge." I lean forward at this point, whispering loudly to make it seem like I was trying not to let Itachi overhear. "She's really pretty, too, but we only see her on weekends."

"Oh," the girl breathes as her face falls. "Too bad. Well, I mean, good for him. Thanks for the book kid." She gets out of there in a hurry, shuffling down the row of books until the only sign of her departure is the clanging of the bell.

Proud of my performance, I swing my feet merrily just as Itachi emerges from the storage room which is really just a closet with a lot of boxes. He pats my leg in a show of thanks.

"Nice performance, there, pretty bird," a lazy voice says from a row over. "You'll be a child star yet."

Itachi hits a few buttons on the cash register, opening it with a metallic clang. "You took a lunch break over two hours ago," he says dully. "What kept you?"

"Good food, slow service," Kakashi replies merrily, materializing just in front of me. His hair is a weird color, almost silver. I asked him once if he was born with that color, and he winked at me and said he'd show me when I was older. Itachi smacked him on the shoulder when he heard about it. Itachi is always smacking Kakashi for reasons I don't understand, and they all have to do with those little orange books he carries around all the time. They're written in Japanese so I can't understand what they say, but Itachi glares at them so they're obviously bad.

I remember going into the corner of the room curtained off to stop kids from going in there when Itachi wasn't looking. There were a lot of magazines in there with naked women on the front cover and paperback novel of men holding women with their eyes closed, looking dead. Dead and naked people didn't seem that dangerous to me, although the page in one of the magazines had a woman with a leash, collar, and nothing else on that intrigued me for a while. Itachi keeps telling me that I'll understand things better when I grow up, but I can't help thinking that if grown-ups still run around naked pretending to be dogs then they probably don't know any more then I do. Kakashi was the one who caught me back there, grinning like a kid who stole candy from an unsuspecting toddler. He ruffled my hair lazily and told me to go back to the counter before Itachi caught me and blew a fit. It wasn't much of a reprimand since Itachi doesn't really throw fits. I just think Kakashi wanted to avoid getting smacked again. Itachi hits hard when he's ticked.

"Two hours," Itachi repeats as a kind of reprimand. He smacks him in the arm. "I think I'm here more than you are."

One of these days I'm going to take one of those magazines from their hiding place and open it up right in front of Itachi. I want him to smack me like he does Kakashi, to feel like he sees me for once. If I showed him the picture of the woman on a leash, would he smack me too?

"You might be right about that," Kakashi says thoughtfully. "Maybe I should make you the boss."

"Or give me a raise?"

"Now, how would I afford to take two hour lunches if I gave you a raise? I'd be a bad business man, my standard of living would plummet, you'd initiate a corporate takeover and you would fire me because you're a bitch like that." He taps my nose playfully, earning an irritated wriggle from me and a glare from Itachi. That's how Itachi talks most of the time, in glares. This glare speaks in volumes I don't understand, like a language from that place on the other side of the world he stared at when he was on the fire escape. Kakashi uses the word bitch in a way that made me wonder what it really means, somewhere between insulting and teasing. I wasn't sure who was supposed to understand which part. Was I supposed to see that he was teasing Itachi or hurting him? "Oh, by the way, your therapist called earlier today while you were stocking shelves. He needs to reschedule your appointment for seven instead of six."

Itachi closes the cash register with that deadly silence of his, and that deadly glare. "Why didn't you say something sooner?" Mad or not, Itachi has a voice that was smooth and slick like ice. He sounds, smells, breathes like winter.

"I left you a post-it on the bulletin board," Kakashi replies as he flips open the little orange book he carries around. Kakashi's voice is smooth too, but there is another tone in there that makes him sound more human than my brother. It's what I imagine honey sliding over gravel sounds like, rough and soft at the same time. His eyes widen briefly as a florescent orange slip of paper flutters to the counter top. "Whoops," he says sheepishly. "Guess I didn't make it to the board." Itachi glares as Kakashi hands him the belated message. I almost laugh.

Itachi slips wordlessly into the storage room to make a private phone call. Two customers come in while he is taking care of his appointment conflict. Kakashi supervises me while I ring up their books and give them their change, helping me along when I got stuck. I want to do this when I got older, just like Itachi. Everyone always smiles at when I scan their books and they smile when I hand them their bags. I hope Kakashi will still work here when I am older. I want him as my boss.

When the customers had gone, Itachi comes back to the counter. "I have to go in a seven. The secretary screwed up the scheduling." He eyes Kakashi carefully. "I hate to impose, but do you mind keeping him at your house for an extra hour?"

Kakashi shruggs. "I don't mind. Sasuke's quiet. No trouble."

Itachi looks as impassive as ever but had probably been hoping that he'd say no. He hates his therapists.

*^*^*

In the past two years my brother has seen ten different therapists. None of them have been able to cure whatever makes him sit in the cold and stare. None of them have been able to put emotion in his voice or light in his eyes unless its something cold. None of them have been able to make him say much at all. He goes because the courts ordered him to, because his mind is unstable. Something in his head isn't right after the shooting.

"My brain is broken," he told me once. "Don't let your brain get broken, Sasuke. You'll have to see women with soft voices too."

For the past few months he's had an appointment every Tuesday at four, but just last week he switched psychiatrists again. He's on number eleven now and appointments for his new brain doctor are on Thursdays instead. Since Kakashi keeps me at the shop when Itachi heads to his second job, he said he would take me home with him instead of just dropping me off at home when he leaves for the night at six.

Kakashi's house is bigger than ours, but only because it has an upstairs and a downstairs. The furniture is nicer and the ceiling doesn’t leak when it rains. It smells clean like lemons. For someone so lazy all the time, Kakashi sure likes to clean a lot. There isn't much on the walls, a few sketches and some posters here and there, a picture of a friend on the end table. He seems lonely, kind of like me and Itachi. Or maybe it was just because the apartment was so spacious that I felt lonely in it unless I was near Kakashi. How many people did he bring to his home? I wondered. He didn't have a lot of pictures up. Just like me and Itachi.

He drops his keys on a table besides the door and stretches, cracking a few bones. "Old bones," he jokes, cracking his neck. Despite the silver color of his hair, Kakashi isn't old. He'd just graduated from college in the spring and is looking for a better job. One day, I'm going to get him to tell me if that is his real hair color or not. For now it remained a mystery, game he constantly played. The day I beat him at chess, he promised, was the day he told me the truth. So while he makes us dinner, I set the table with plates, forks, knives, a pitcher of cold tea, and a chess board.

Strategy, he stresses all the time, was important in everything. Thinking ahead keeps you from sinking in too deep. If people stopped to think ahead before they acted, then the world wouldn't be such a chaotic place to live. That's why Kakashi always seems to know what people are going to say before they say it and what they are going to do before they do it. He thinks before, after, and while he talks. He thinks in his sleep. He thinks about thinking.

I set the pieces on the board and pour us both tea while Kakashi cooks dinner in a big frying pan, delicious smells sizzling and popping in the air. Chicken, red pepper, rice, onion, olive oil, garlic, salt, they all float through the air and settle in my skin, in my hair, in the spaces between plates. I like the way the smell feel like something alive and real in the August heat, taking up all the space in the room around us. Company, that's what I want more than anything. Kakashi doesn't talk that much, but when he does I hear living things in his voice: amusement, happiness, annoyance, teasing and serious tones. Listening to him doesn't sound like the slap of water against metal, it sounds like rain falling in a forest, hitting the floor here, the leaves here, the branches there. A little different every time. Itachi talks like winter, like a dead thing. I shiver in the heat when I think of my brother dying. I don't want anymore death. It's bad enough that Itachi took the picture of our dead father and pitched it off the fire escape. The glass shattered instantly when it hit pavement. I never thought the sound of glass breaking could be so loud, so terrifying as to make me cry when Itachi barely blinked.

"Have you found a job you like, yet?" I ask over the crack and sizzle of the olive oil.

Kakashi hums in his throat and shakes his head. "It's hard to find a job you like, pretty bird. The corporate world is a jungle that eats tourists."

I scowl because Itachi isn't hear to do his almost smile. "Don't call me pretty bird," I command with an authority I don't have. Kakashi chuckles and turns off the stove.

"Such a touchy little thing." He shovels a pile of his nameless concoction onto my plate. The fan overhead circles lazily, pushing the steam around my face before carrying it up and away. "Its just a nickname, Sasuke. Be glad you have one."

"Don't you have a nickname, Kakashi?"

"Of course I do." He blows on a piece of chicken, puts it in his mouth and chews thoughtfully. "But it's not the kind of nickname you're allowed to call me yet."

I eat some chicken too, flicking a piece of onion away from me. I hate onions. "Why not?"

"You'll understand when you're older."

That infuriating phrase again. I think of the woman on the leash and decide right then and there that adults were crazy. "Is the world that much different when you get older or do you just like teasing me?"

"Both, pretty bird. Both."

I lose at chess again. Between bites of chicken and sweet red pepper comes the light thumping sound of wood on wood. Two squares, one square, straight, diagonal, our personal armies march across the wooden battle field. Kakashi never goes easy on me, never lets me get away with anything on the chess board. "That's cheating," he tells me time after time. "You'd be cheating yourself, Sasuke." He calls me my name out of respect when we play chess. He tells me when I've made a bad move, but he won't let me take it back. Out of respect. I must be getting better, because the comments are less and less. He still wins though, and I have to spend another day wondering if silver is his real hair color. I also have to admit that maybe adults really do know something I don't.

"Two out of three," he offers innocently, knowing good and well that he'll win again. I'm not as good of as strategist as Kakashi. Yet. So I accept his challenge because one of these day I am going to beat him. I'll wipe that contented, smug smile right off his face when I beat him in his own game. I'll get what I want. But not tonight. Tonight I find my king checkmated by a knight, two pawns, and a bishop. No way of escape. I sigh. Most of my pawns and bishops are next the Kakashi's glass of tea.

"Three out of five?"

I nod. One of these days I'll beat Kakashi at chess. I'll know what color his hair really is. I'll know what it is about those books that's so bad. I'll know what it is Itachi stares at over the rooftops. One of these days.

---------


August
II. Time ticks in broken clocks.


He's sitting in the blue armchair of my office, arms crossed idly. He's declined the drink I offered him. I knew his type. He isn't coming to me seeking help. He's here because he has to be. I flip open the manila envelope of his file. Itachi Uchiha, age fifteen. Black hair, black eyes. Arrested and tried for murder at the age of thirteen but acquitted on grounds of temporary insanity and self-defense. I'm his eleventh psychiatrist.

"Sorry about the appointment," I say with a sheepish grin. "My secretary is new."

He eyes me dully, not caring about my perfectly legitimate excuse. Normally patients loathe to talk cross their arms in defense, but that wasn't what Itachi’s posture said to me. His posture spoke of flatness, of a void.

"In any case, my name is Dr. Kisame Hoshigaki. You can just call me Kisame if that will make you more comfortable." Sometimes calling a psychiatrist "doctor" scares patients to the point where they clam up and refuse to speak. I want to make my patients as comfortable as possible so that I can help. Pain is something that can tear you apart if you let it.

"It won't," he replies bluntly, confirming my suspicions. He isn't a clam because he's scared of me. He just doesn't want to talk.

My job is to change that. "The offer stands."

Itachi stares at me and suddenly I feel cold, like it's the middle of December instead of the sweltering dog days of August. "Dr. Hoshigaki, let me make something clear. You are nothing more than a pit stop on the way to psychiatrist number twelve. I have no desire to unburden my nonexistent sorrows on you."

"The courts ordered you to receive therapy for a reason." According to his file, Itachi killed his father after being sexually assaulted at gunpoint. I refused to believe that the encounter didn't leave him traumatized in some way.

“"You can't help me, doctor."

Doctor has an acrid sound when it rolls off his tongue. Fine, I'm willing to play his game. "Why not?"

That freezing cold glare settles on my face again. "Because you can't change time."

The line strike a familiar chord. "David Bowie," I say.

Confusion crosses his face briefly, a flicker of heat in the chill. I can see that he's used to knowing exactly what's coming. Keeping him on his toes, that will be the key to helping him, I can tell already. That's how he's driven the other psychiatrists away. He knows what they're going to try before they try it. "Those are lyrics to a David Bowie song. Time may change me, but I can't change time."

Itachi shifts in his chair. Somehow, it seems like a tiny victory. "David Bowie was a wiser man than you, then." His tone is solemn, but if I imagine hard enough, there is a joking edge to it.

"David Bowie was eccentric. Wore eyeliner and glitter. We forgive him because he wrote great music. Do you listen to any Bowie?"

He answered, probably because it wasn't a question I could use to analyze his mind. "No."

"What do you listen to, then?"

Another flicker of confusion. Passing, but there, another tiny victory. "Nothing."

He's switched to monosyllables. My turn. "Why?"

A shrug. I'm onto something. "Music is good for the soul," I inform him helpfully. "Some people say it's a release." My dad used to play music. Sometimes in the middle of the night I'd wake up to the thrummed chords of an acoustic guitar or the vibrating wail of a saxophone. Sad, mournful, a dirge of pain resurrected by moonlight. Summertime he played most often, something in the heat that made him remember mom and play a song for heaven or hell.

"Who?"

My father. Me. "David Bowie. Jim Morrison. Robert Plant (2)."

"I'm starting to think you have a love affair with men who sing, doctor."

"Call it a love affair with music." Music was the only way I ever felt close to my dad. It acted as a medium in those years were he was so closed off and sad. He talked to mom everyday, called the air sweetheart and played love songs to no one. He's better these days. He's married again, to a woman named Claudia. She plays the piano. "Hell, maybe I should just call it love."

"Sounds personal."

"I don't mind." I don't mind telling people about my father. As strange as our relationship is, I don't consider it broken. Cracked, certainly, but not broken.

"I mind." There's a harsh sadness hidden somewhere in his voice, buried in the contrast of soft features and hard lines. He seems younger than he did but one second ago, the dark shadows under his eyes more prominent. Time, I think, time is a funny thing. It is steady when we tremble and distends with hell's guilt complex when were finally feel like it ticks in time with what we want. Jumping ahead one minute, behind three months, five years into the future is mistress time playing games.

"Why's that, Itachi?"

"You're trying to make me like you."

"Is that so bad?" Was he so desperate to keep to himself that he couldn't even listen to stories about people he barely knew? Knowing bits and pieces of someone was not dangerous. Knowing nothing, that was dangerous.

"It's not going to work."

Cotton ball quiet, I hear a voice over my shoulder. He won't let me.

*^*^*

The eaves of the Kakashi's house droop and pant like the lolling pink tongue of a Labrador fighting for air as the oppressive heat of late summer breathes hot and heavy on the back of your neck. Wooden floors swell and expand, doorways shrink, houses stop taking deep breathes, and nights are spent naked under the lightest of sheets. These truly are the dog days of summer.

Summer is an ugly time of the year: sweat gathers on your forehead, mosquitoes bite, the sun burns bare arms. My skin crawls in the summer. I'm glad its almost over. Autumn is fast approaching, and then the harsh chill of whipping winter wind and the indelicate sprawl of ice on the roads and sidewalks will come so that I can breathe again. I can't stand feeling hot. I can't stand psychiatrists who want me to pour my soul into their laps. I don't need their help and I don't need their pity over something nothing can change. My dad raped me. That's it, that's what happened, and I don't need to talk to anyone about it. Dr. Hoshigaki will realize it the hard way, I'm sure, because psychiatrists think they can make the world, my world, a better place.

Like our apartment, Kakashi's tiny house on Bartley Street has no air conditioning. He's almost as poor as we are, struggling to pay off his tuition bills and find a job that will allow him to do so. I would like him more if he stopped saying dirty things in front on my brother, but I take him for what he is: a lenient boss, a pervert, and a convenient babysitter. Personally, I'm relieved that I found someone who lets me take my little brother to work *and* agrees to watch him while I work my second job. He's a godsend for us. I don't know what I would do without his help with Sasuke.

The door to his house is flung open. From the sidewalk I hear the obnoxious whirl of high powered fans attempting to cool the old house to an acceptable temperature. The copycat wind is soothing when I step inside without knocking. Mixed smells fill my nose, dust kicked up from the fans, chicken and red pepper from dinner, deodorant and sweat from too much heat, and coffee from Kakashi's addiction to the aromatic black liquid. As usual, they are sitting at Kakashi's kitchen table. Or rather, Kakashi is sitting. Sasuke is sprawled out across the table like it's a lawn, blowing into a mug while he waits for Kakashi to make his move.

"He's not supposed to have coffee," I tell Kakashi for the umpteenth time. As if it will do me any good. Kakashi has the oh-so-endearing habit of dismissing my brotherly reprimands as if they are of no more consequence than what his already forgotten breakfast of that morning. Certain things stick in Kakashi's head and certain things flutter away before they get the chance. Or maybe it all sticks and he throws the knowledge away on purpose, I don't know. I do know, however, that no matter how many times I tell him not to do something around Sasuke he will do as he pleases in the end.

"It's mostly milk and sugar," Kakashi assures me. "It won't kill him."

And I'm sure that Kakashi's coffee has a extra dash of spice in it. Indulgence is okay with him, the liquored coffee drinking bastard. I smack him on the shoulder. "Stop that," he murmurs after taking a sip of his own coffee. "I'm trying to drag your precious baby brother into the mires of defeat, here."

"What's a mire?" Sasuke asks. Curious little brother, always curious. Too curious sometimes.

"A swamp," we reply at the same time.

Sasuke scowls cutely. "Is that a fancy way of telling me I'm gonna lose again?"

Kakashi chuckles. "Probably." He picks up a bishop and moves it to an empty square. "Let me amend that. Definitely."

Sasuke scowls harder, grumbling something about Kakashi's hair that I don't understand. The inner working of a child's mind are beyond me now. I know too much, I think, to understand his naivety. I long for it sometimes, but I don't understand it anymore. I find it harder and harder to relate to my brother with every passing day. And the truth is, I'd rather he stay young and naive concerning the dirty things in life. I don't want him to turn into me, fifteen and jaded by a weight I can't unload. The less he know about what happened to me, the less relates to me, the less he becomes like me.

He ruffles Sasuke's hair affectionately. "You'll get there," he promises. Promising the future is unfair, but I don't say anything. I know enough about naivety to not disturb it. "You almost had me scared for a minute on that last game."

My brother smiles begrudgingly and take a sip of his sugar-coffee. Like all children, Sasuke revels in compliments and flattery. Validation, I suppose. I was finished validating myself through other people. After what happened with dad, I don't trust anyone. I can't. The way Kakashi touches Sasuke's hair makes me a little leery even though I know it's innocent. I can't help myself. I've turned into a cynic and I can't help it. A ruffle looks too much like a caress to me.

"Coffee?" It's almost polite, as close to host as Kakashi will play. Kakashi keeps to himself, though I know he has a few friends. There's also a guy he sees sometimes, a caramel skinned, chocolate-eyed man named Iruka. He teaches in Sasuke's school. I met him in the spring during a parent-teacher conference. Sweet guy. What he's doing with Kakashi is beyond me.

"No thanks," I decline. I'm not fond of hot beverages. "Sasuke, we're leaving."

Sasuke looks up at me with big, inky black eyes and a quivering lower lip. "I'm not done my coffee," he protests.

"Come on hard ass, let the kid finish his coffee."

"Stop playing devil's advocate, Kakashi." I've been perpetually tired for two years from sleepless nights and running around from job to job without a car. I'm hoping that if I fall into bed immediately, I might fall asleep tonight.

Ignoring me, as was status quo, Kakashi went to the cabinet and plucked out a glass, pouring out some iced tea I suspected was for me. He plunked it down on the table next to Sasuke's elbows. "Sit down. It's sugarless."

Damn his authoritative tone. Damn the thirst scratching at my throat. Damn Sasuke and his big black eyes. I sit reluctantly and take a tiny sip of liquid. It rushes over my scorched throat like flood waters in the desert. I taste sugar. Kakashi lied. The revelation is almost comforting.

Sasuke sips his sugary milk-coffee. Kakashi sips his coffee. I sip my tea.

*^*^*

My little brother is sleeping within twenty minutes. I envy his ability to sleep so easily. Down to my boxers and still sweating, the night is oppressively heavy in the small room we share. The fan is revolving as fast as electricity will allow, but it isn't enough to keep me cool.

I listen to the hum of the fan, the light breathing of my brother, the occasional tread of tires on pavement, the chirrup of cicadas and will them to lull me into sleep. Seconds ticked by, followed by minutes, all measured in the slow blink over my tired eyes.

I remember a time when life wasn't so hard. I remember parents who loved me. I remember summer nights in the park when Sasuke and I chased fireflies, rode bikes down the street, watched ants perform their tasks for the colony, tried to drown them when we felt sadistic. We lived in a house then, a big house with bay windows, a front yard, shutters on the windows. Even though the shutters direly needed a coat of paint, the heater worked in the winter, mom did the cooking, and I didn't feel too old for my body.

Then I remember how much of it was a lie and I hate it all, and I hate that I miss it when I don't want to, and I hate that I can't forget even though I try so hard. I hate that the sheets stick to my body with sleepless unrest. I hate that Sasuke is sleeping while I stare at the ceiling counting the cracks. I hate the string of psychiatrists I'm forced to endure. I hate working two jobs. I hate having to send Sasuke to day camp in the summer when I know he'd rather be home. I hate that winter is so far away.

Most of all, I hate what I can never be.

Sighing, seconds, minutes, hours after climbing in, I swing my legs over the side of the bed. The floor is warm, the glass pane of the window sweats. Sasuke sleeps in quiet oblivion. I stand over him for a minute, watching him breath gently. In, out, in, out, a rhythm of the way time is supposed to flow when men don’t fuck with it.

Fuck Father Time. Fuck this itchy heat, sticky sweat, this too hot feeling, shortness of breath. I pad into the bathroom and turn on the shower. Glacier cold water, the scent of fresh air. I climb in. I let the water pound over me until I'm numb at every nerve point, my fingers white, lips blue. I drown myself in the feeling of nothing. It's an addiction and I can't help myself.

TBC

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(1) I've always thought the back of Sasuke's hair looked like something on a bird. My sister and I have plenty of nicknames for Sasuke when we roleplay, one of them being Sassy. I'll have to try out pretty bird now, too.

(2) I'm a fan of classic rock. If anyone know of any good modern bands and good song lyrics out there, let me know and I'll try to include them.

I have a multi-chaptered fic called Rumor Has It and a KakaGenma series (Tripwire) in the works. Finals are quickly approaching. Updates may be on the slow side. Of course, the more reviews I get the more motivated I'll feel to write in my spare time. Hint, hint.