Cold Hands

I usually proofread obsessively (that where the rest of my other two stories are.  I’m working on them I promise.)  so yes, there are many vague statements and possibly errors.  A few things are technically errors, but they are intentional so they’re not really mistakes. 

This is different from what I normally do.  I hate deathfics, and I’m not a fan of first person.  There’s way too many “I”s and it generally comes across as selfish.  Anyway.  The spacing is intentional, so don’t think you’re computer’s weird or the site reformatted it.

 

The idea is that back when Itachi went all clan-killy, Sasuke asked to go with him instead of being left all alone.  Personally, I think that’s what I would have done—I love my little brother too much to kill him, and I want him to grow up strong and safe—I think Itachi should have taken his little bro along.  Anyway, going from that, I stuck to some canon stuff and then…  I don’t know.  Just use your imaginations for the parts that are blank.  Most of the big spaces are for chunks of time, so… yeah.  Feel free to tell me what you think—I’m not opposed to any type of criticism, but I love specific comments.  (and I really am working on my other two stories, I just can’t quite get them right and I’m not going to post something that has as many issues as those chapters do right now)

 

 

 

 

***

 

 

 

Cold hands, warm heart.  That’s how the saying goes, anyway.  And he was always cold—even when we were kids—it was why we started sleeping together.  I blamed it on how hard he was working, cause I was a kid and knew he was supposed to be a kid, too.  He gave his childhood up, so maybe he was cold for that reason.

 

My kid logic sucked. 

 

A couple years later, and we’re living in the caves of the Akatsuki hideout.  There isn’t a central heating system, and his bed isn’t close enough to the fire.  I convince him to sleep on that side of the bed.  I figure between me and the fire, he won’t be cold.

 

I woke up in the night when he started coughing.  Has he always coughed like that?  He gets up to the bathroom, telling me to stay put.  Down the hallway I hear a strange sound—is he throwing up?  But he’s back seconds later, and his breath as he hugs me still smells like toothpaste.  Like it did before.  He blames it on the new guy, Tobi; he got beat up pretty badly by his new partner today so it makes sense.  He would be throwing up with strikes to the gut that strong.

 

This time, I blame the chill of his skin on the bare hallway floors.  I don’t care what I have to do—I resolved then and there to move him to a warmer place.

 

The leader laughed at me; I’m still a kid, and I didn’t think I’d be taken seriously.  But I waited until it was just me and him.  With all the rest of his team out on assassinations, I figure he can tell everyone it was his idea to move.  He laughs again as I tell him, but he agrees with me; Itachi’s eyes are precious and there’s no reason to live in this place when we can secure an actual building. 

 

Of course, he says he’ll kill me if I ever say anything about why we’re moving.  Leader doesn’t approve of big egos in anybody but himself, and he thinks it’d go straight to my brother’s head.  Yeah, I’ll keep my mouth shut, but only because brother would be mad if he knew that I promised to step in the next time an Akatsuki member died. 

 

The new building is nice, but only in comparison to the caves.  All I care about was a central heating system, and securing my brother a room in the middle of the house where the cold can’t touch him.

 

But he’s still cold.  Summer here isn’t nearly as hot as I remember our old country being, but that’s all right because I pile on extra blankets and practically hug him while he sleeps.  When my hand comes into contact with his cheek, I blame the chill on breeze coming in through the window.  I return to bed after shutting it, and he whispers to me that we’ll train in the morning.

 

My smile falters in the dark as he coughs into his sleeve.  I pretend to buy the lie that he was clearing his throat, and he pretends that he doesn’t know what I’m thinking.  The arm he wraps around me is still cold, but I blame myself for leaving him, even for moment.

 

The peak of summer makes even Kisame sweat and that man hardly ever does—much less by merely sitting in the shade as he is now.  He calls out attacks for me to try, and Itachi blocks every one of them.  We pretend I’m getting faster than I actually am when one of my strikes gets him in the leg.  For the briefest moment his eyes look glazed, but they clear so quickly I’m sure it was my imagination.

 

Moments later I go for an elbow jab to his gut, and I’m certain then that I see it.  We—Kisame and I—are distracted by the coughing fit that takes hold of my brother.  He clutches his chest and tries to cover his mouth, falling to his knees.  They share a look, and then make a joke that I’ve grown too strong and surpassed my brother.  We pretend to laugh and when Itachi pulls a couple pills from his pocket, I pretend to buy the lie that they’re vitamins. 

 

And I pretend to ignore the blood at the corners of his mouth, but it sends a chill through me that is as cold as he always is.  Now I train with his partner as he sits in the shade, pretending he’s hungry for the lunch we brought.

 

Blood.  He’s stopped pretending it doesn’t come with every cough, and I’ve stopped pretending I’m not worried.  When he comes back with Kisame, once or twice I’ve seen that he needs help walking in.  The second he passes through the doorway, he puts on that mask so no one knows he hurts.  Even to me—perhaps especially in front of me?—he pretends to blame his cough, the blood, his deteriorating coordination, his diminishing eyesight, all on a lack of sleep or supposed injuries from a mission. 

 

And I pretend to buy it, because there’s nothing else I can do.  As I wrap up his scrapes, I blame the coolness of his skin on the thin fabric of his cloak.  I resolve to get a thicker one and insulate with extra material. If he doesn’t like it, he can pretend the padding is just part of his defense.  All the Akatsuki pairs have been given authorization to pursue what leader calls “tailed beasts” so the excuse is reasonable.

 

This is the third night in a row with the bucket next to the bed.  He hasn’t kept anything he’s eaten down, and we’re no longer pretending to ignore the constant blood nor the pills he takes, handfuls at a time.  I pretend to blame the food; if he had better quality, he wouldn’t have gotten sick.  I pretend to blame Kisame for taking him places where he’d be exposed to illness.

 

My brother’s partner doesn’t get angry; he calmly accepts it when I yell at him.  he knows that very soon I won’t be able to ignore it anymore, that very soon my subconscious will break through and my waking mind won’t be able to ignore that my brother—

 

Leader is ruthless, merciless, and cruel; yet the vestiges of sympathy are there.  He’s told me I’m allowed to stay with my brother a little longer, but that in a few days I will be taking his place.

It’s unavoidable now.

For the first few hours that I couldn’t deny It any longer, I was paralyzed.  My brother slept fitfully, as if his dreams were plagued by the shock I felt.  No, It shouldn’t be shocking.  But while the vague idea of his dea— his leaving me sent ice into my very core, my all-too-active imagination provided the horrible life to come.

 

And I’m just meant to continue?  There’s so much left for him to do!

What sort of life was that?  Without my other half?

Am I’m just supposed to… keep going?

 

He wants me to.  That should be enough.  It’s practically all he says; “Sasuke, you must continue what I started.”

I want to be childish and say ‘duh, of course I will.’

Or perhaps be a brat, and tell him ‘don’t leave me alone, not after you took everything else away from me.’

Or be honest, and ask ‘Why?’

 

I don’t get a chance to decide.  Dawn is breaking, and so is he.  I try to tell him to deactivate his eyes, because they’re draining him even more—

--That’s the only way he can see me at all, and the last sight he sees should be of me, he says.

 

He pokes my forehead and smiles.  I hope he can’t see me, because I think I’m supposed to be crying now.  I’m not, and that makes me feel worse.  He tells me that he loves me, and he’s proud of me, because he knows I’ll finish what he couldn’t.

 

He’s still so cold—he’s so cold and still. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don’t know how much later it is, but eventually my brother’s partner…

No, *my new* partner picks me up and puts me down someplace else.  I think it’s his room, but I don’t know. 

I don’t know anything.

There’s just this awful buzzing in my head, and I blame it on my lack of sleep.

 

He wanted to be cremated with the fire techniques he taught me (for this purpose all along, I wonder).  All that’s left is a cloak, a ring and a necklace.  The only links left between us.  I wear them, because somehow it’s as if I can still be close to him.  My skin tingles as the cold metal rests against me skin but it will soon heat up.

 

 I’m always too warm, and restlessly search for a way to cool down.  My bare feet in the fresh snow are frozen to the touch but inside I feel hot, like I’m running a fever.  At first Kisame is worried, but regardless of the lengths I go to rid myself of this heat it won’t go away; his constant checks on my health consistently turn out to be unnecessary but I allow them to continue because—well, some part of him is unsettled by his first partner’s departure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I perform my duties exactly as Itachi instructed.  When Kisame and I run into a young blond boy, I get Kisame fighting everyone else so I can relay to this jinchuuriki what leader is planning.  I pretend to fight, though he’s good enough that I have to fight seriously.  I haven’t fought seriously since my br—well, it doesn’t matter when.  I need to focus on the now. 

The blonde doesn’t want to believe me.

He’s about my age, but we’re complete opposites.  The brilliance in his expression is maddening, and I’m his enemy.  What is he like to his friends? 

In the corner of my mind, I resent him.  If he knew *anything* about real pain he wouldn’t smile so happily.  I’m tempted to hurt him all the more because he should feel a margin of what I feel—it’s not fair to do this all myself.  Haven’t I suffered enough?!  But—

what a selfish thought.  Itachi braved pain hundred times worse than this, and even met death with a smile.  As best I can, I push to the back of my mind the conflict between the part of me that hates everything and the part of me that hates myself.

 

I tell him who my brother was, and something seems to click. 

 

He calls to the man in the mask, and he comes over to us.  Kisame is fighting with some woman who can use illusions, but I know that we have only a few minutes.  That man trained with my brother, so very few illusions can trap him longer than that.

 

As quick as I can, I repeat to the masked man what I told the blonde.  He believes me; just by looking at me he guesses whom I’m related to and—he knows my name.  Legends in this country are held sacred, to the point that the events of the night my brother and I left are famous, and our names are known to most people. 

Apparently, he and my brother knew each other a long time ago.  Not very well, but he’d always suspected something was off about my brother that night we ran away. 

He believes me.  That’s all that matters.  We see Kisame fighting off the illusion, and I make an impulsive decision that we must meet again.  They agree, and we finalize the time and place just in time.  I rush at them, and thankfully they understand my intent.  The blonde stabs my stomach, whispering a ‘sorry’ to me as I black out.

 

When we get back to the hideout—back in the caves, because Leader had no intention of letting our captives know where we really lived.  Kisame berates me for my carelessness but patches me up all the same.  I’m not sure if he believes my lie, but I tell my partner that they’d said something about my brother and I couldn’t contain myself.

 

He pats my head heavily; that’s his way of saying pretty much everything.  This one probably meant ‘I understand, but don’t do it again.’

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the dark of the night, weeks later, the masked man is at the meeting place.  I didn’t think the blonde would be here again; for all his power, he’s clearly not a high-ranking ninja.  His control is lousy, but I guess if they still suspect I’m the enemy they don’t need someone with control.

 

I answer their questions quickly, and in the silence that follows I try to figure out how to approach the topic.  Unexpectedly, the masked one brings it up. 

 

He says my brother would be proud of me.  All attempts to smile fail.  The blonde looks like he wants to say something, but bites his lip.  I don’t want his sympathy anyway.  And I’m sure that I’m not crying—there’s been no tears since long ago, though one day I’ll figure out how to cry for my brother. 

 

“One day,” says the masked man, because apparently I said the last part aloud, “one day you will, but don’t blame yourself.  It’s not a matter of who’s to blame.  One day you’ll believe me, too, but…well, not yet.”

 

While I wasn’t paying attention, my hand came to rest against my chest, a vague gesture to keep the tendrils of pain from expanding, reaching any further.

 

“You mean it’ll stop hurting?”  Hope snuck into that question in vain.

 

He laughed; not humorously, but bitterly.  There was that same catch on his voice I heard when I myself spoke unguardedly.  Sometimes Kisame would say something that sounded just like what my brother would say, and I’d find myself responding like I would have—and that little half-halting catch constantly kept all my words from sounding like they should.

 

“Never.  Water freezes and melts, the tide grows and wanes; the ache will rise and fall, but never expect it to disappear.”

 

We were silent again; not even the crickets dared to disturb the moment.  Only the blond boy dared.  He offered to help me, if there was anything he could do.

 

I told him to win.  As long as he never gave up, he would someday defeat the Leader. 

Then Itachi could truly rest eternally.  Until then, though, each breath hurt.  Something like concern appeared on the blonde’s face, so I gave an excuse and left. 

 

I saw them a couple times after that, but not alone.  The masked man, whom I afterwards learned was a famous ninja with one of the eyes of my family, dropped hints that my brother really would be proud.  The blonde boy tried to convince me that I could return to the village, use a different name and fight alongside them but…  I felt like I should do things the way brother had.  There must have been a reason he told me to stick to his path. 

 

There was never a moment of peace.  Meditations in the morning were too lonely, though the company of anyone else felt stifling.  For a while I needed people, but they were never the ones I wanted to be with.  I isolated myself.  Akatsuki may have the most skilled fighters and some of the most devious minds in all of the ninja underworld, but we are still human.  Physically, not all; but the vague sense of pity a few felt for me vanished after a couple days.

 

We’re ninja, after all.  We can’t grieve every loss, and never any for long, because then we’d never get anything done.  Leader, although he had sympathy during Itachi’s dying days, lived up to his ruthless reputation.  It was no secret that I had skill and Leader made sure he used me for the toughest assignments.  I welcomed them. 

 

Anything to turn off my brain.  Some people think that if you need to turn off your brain, it’s because you’re stupid.  I can objectively say that I’m quite smart.  Itachi bested me at nearly everything, but when I was younger and Leader sent him out I had plenty of time sitting around, and I used it.  So when I say I want to turn off my brain, it’s because my brother pervades my every thought; nothing in this world is disconnected from him.  The simplest thing can shake my fragile calm; the vapor of a smell reminds me of him, and the clinking clash of kunai brings a torrent of flashes of all the hours we spent training together. 

 

It’s impossible not to think of him, and every one of those thoughts of him hurts.

So until I’m able to approach them without forgetting how to breathe, I’m going to think as little as possible. 

 

And I don’t need to.  My body knows what it needs to do, so it happens.  When the missions aren’t hard enough to keep my brain shut off, I skip sleep.  Or meals.  Why should I bother eating?  How many nights did Itachi go to bed hungry because he knew his stomach would reject it?

I hate my every weakness.  His only failure was me, and I must get better.  Stronger.  He was so powerful—even at the end, even with his illness, even with all the pain he was going through, even with me holding him back! 

So I cannot fail.  Never!  If I do I let down the person I loved the most. 

 

Looking in the mirror is out of the question.  Why must we look alike?  I let my hair grow, and I look too much like him.  The brief second that made me think he was there in the room again brought a crushing disappointment.  Struck me down to my knees, I couldn’t breathe, and I felt like my body was trying to shut down—everything was blurred—pain everywhere, indescribable pain—burning, itching, stinging, and so, so, so cold—because I thought he was here, I want him here, he’s supposed to be here.  It shouldn’t be like this!

My hair is cut short, and I don’t look enough like him.  Oh, my head burns and aches.  The burning radiates down, crawling lethargically along my spine until the too hot feeling overcomes me and I find an excuse to go outside and sit in the snow.  Shortly, the numbness takes hold.  A little longer, and the new feeling—no, lack of feeling—goes deeper and freezes those things on the inside that showed me what I was.  Pathetic.  What did Itachi call them?  Emotions?  Nobody here uses them anyway.

I’ve been throwing away all the pills our medic has given me.  I can hide the headaches from him, but for all the injuries I allow myself to get—why should I allow myself painkillers, when my brother didn’t even have a hope for one?—so I grow my hair long again.

 

 

 

I hate it.  It reminds me of him.

I love it.  It reminds me of him.

 

 

 

 

I destroy all the mirrors.  Nobody here uses them anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hear the final battle coming.  The sound of drums.  Bum-bum-buh-bum.  Over and over. The 1-2-3-4 rhythm never stops now. 

Leader speaks to his army, and the masses look excited.  Motivated.  Bloodthirsty. 

 

They’re all going to die.

 

I dropped the last of the information a few days ago.  The blonde looked excited, but his companions—the masked man and a girl—they understood what they’d have to do.  I could have told them these people deserved to die, but then we probably did too. 

 

Leader has no idea of the army that marches toward them, that will meet them and obliterate them.  I’m sticking close to the leader, because once the army is wiped out and all the rest of Akatsuki is gone (there’s only four of us left, and Kisame plans to lead in the front lines.  I would probably miss the bloodthirsty monster, but I can hardly feel the attachment for him that I used to.  This numbness would surely be comforting.  If I could feel comfort anymore, that is.)  I’m going to kill the Leader.

 

I’m going to kill the Leader, at the end, once he knows he’s been defeated.

Then I’m going to find that blonde boy, and get him to kill me.  Suicide won’t work.  That would be letting down my brother.  But if someone else kills me, then it’s fine. 

 

Perhaps I’ll tell the boy it’s a mercy killing.  Or maybe I’ll threaten his friends.  I bet he’s the type to get angry.  I don’t want to kill any of them, but it might be the only way he’ll take me seriously. 

 

 

 

 

 

I just wish…

The dark hallway stretches before me.  A half-forgotten tale comes to mind, and I remember that there should be some sort of light at the end.  Squinting, I can see it.  I step a little faster.  Then again—

I’m tired.

I stop walking.  I sit down and lean against the wall.  It’s bumpy and uncomfortable, but I’m not going to move.  I’m so tired, and all I want is nowhere to be found. 

 

 

 

 

There’s only one who can make me move.

 

 

 

 

 

If time exists here, then it should probably start passing. 

 

 

I curl up and rest my head on my knees.  The warmth is too strong.  Maybe stronger here, because this place is so cold.  Does crying count for anything in this place?  The heat tries to escape through my every pore—sweat, tears, and blood do nothing to dull the scorching burn. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A shadow falls across me. 

My eyes have fooled me before.  I pretend not to see. 

 

A voice calls to me. 

My ears have fooled me before.  I pretend not to hear.

 

A cold hand touches my shoulder.  Colder than the floor and walls.

 

Colder?  What’s colder than this place?

 

 

 

Yes, colder.

I want to ignore it, but a chill spreads from the hand and slowly the agonizing heat fades, bit by bit.  The ice of the hallway had no effect, but this hand that counteracts the heat.  It settles into something bearable.  This gentle chill shatters the frozen state of all my insides.  Within my brain, things begin to shift, creak, to move…

 

I smile. 

 

He says, “I’ve been waiting for you.”

 

 

***