SN

That night, lying in bed, Sasuke replays his words in his head. I’m an idiot, he thinks, and rolls over, smothering his face in the pillow. What would Itachi say?

This is an old game. Sasuke burrows under the covers with his pillow, curling up into a ball next to it. “Itachi,” he whispers, “what should I have said?” He squeezes his eyes shut.

“Easy,” says Itachi -- in the darkness and heat beneath his blankets, Sasuke can almost hear him, hear the smile in his voice -- “you should have told him you like his eyes.”

Even though Sasuke knows Itachi isn’t really there, isn’t really saying these things, he still feels the heat rise to his cheeks. “What?”

“And his hair,” Itachi continues, “and that it looks better not in a stupid bun or a braid. And that’s how you make someone shut their mouth.”

Sasuke punches his pillow. “You shut your mouth.”

Itachi is laughing. “Don’t be stupid. There are better ways to get a guy to blush than calling him a girl.”

Sasuke’s face is on fire. “Like what?”

“Ah, little brother,” Itachi sighs. “One day you’ll understand.”

“I hate you.” Sasuke rips the blanket off his head, hurls the pillow across the room and swings his feet out of bed. Stomping into the bathroom, he splashes water on his face to cool his burning cheeks. He takes a moment to stare at himself in the mirror. Bed-head black hair long enough to fall in his eyes, sticking out in every direction. Thin, angry mouth. Dark circles beneath his eyes. Sasuke splashes more water on his face to remove the last traces of pinkness and grabs a towel to dry himself off. Fuck it. He’s going for a walk.

. . .

It’s chilly outside in the dark, but Sasuke doesn’t turn back -- he just pulls his collar higher up by his ears and keeps moving. The wind feels cleansing, as does the silence. The only sound is the rustling of the trees.

Sasuke doesn’t pay attention to where he’s going -- he just lets his feet lead him, as his mind wanders. Fragments of conversations, images and songs drift through his mind. A crow caws from somewhere in the inky night, and a memory comes, unbidden and whole, into his mind.

Sasuke is seven. He and Itachi are sitting on the front step, early summer. Dusk is slowly overtaking the city. The telephone wires are silhouetted against the sky, and as Sasuke watches them, a black bird flutters over and lands on them.

“Itachi.” Sasuke tugs at his brother’s sleeve, wants him to see, too. “Itachi, look.”

His big brother does. Sasuke can remember him perfectly; his long, dark hair is drawn back in a ponytail, and his eyes are bright and black. There are deep lines etched beneath his gaze, and even though he can’t be more than twelve, Sasuke sees him as fully grown, a man like their father.

“Oh.” Itachi inhales softly. “A crow, Sasuke.”

“I know.” Sasuke kicks his legs, proud he spotted the bird first. “You like crows, right?”

There is a moment of silence, and then Itachi speaks, in a voice so quiet Sasuke almost doesn’t hear. “Soft! We are the harbingers of night./ Our quills drink in the light like ink./ Our jagged darkness portends daylight’s flight./ And into cold caress the light must sink.”

His words are so beautiful, Sasuke does not want to breathe for fear of shattering them. The two of them sit in silence for a few moment, watching the color drain out of the sky, before they are interrupted by a call from their mother to come inside to dinner (Sasuke cannot remember her words, only the sound they made in the dusk).

Itachi stands, slowly, not taking his eyes off the crow. “Come, Sasuke,” he says quietly. “We should go inside.”

Reluctantly, Sasuke gets to his feet. “Nii-san,” he says softly, “whose words were those? They were perfect.”

Itachi tears his eyes away from the telephone wire and looks at Sasuke for a moment. Then he smiles. “They were mine,” he says, and steps through the door.

The memory ends there. Sasuke is dimly aware that he is shivering, and he’s not sure if it’s because of the cold. He glances up to see if he recognizes the street, and his eyes fall on a dark figure on the rooftop of a nearby building.

Sasuke has a strange moment of déjà vu. But he is not seven, and Itachi is not here, and this figure is far too large to be a crow. So he squints up, trying to figure out who would be awake at this time aside from him. The only thing he can make out is a rusty fire escape. Sasuke contemplates it for a moment, and then crosses the street, grasps the bottom rung and begins to climb. That thing better not be a gargoyle, he thinks as the ladder creaks ominously beneath his weight.

As he sets his foot on the last step, a sudden wave of fear hits Sasuke. What if the figure is a creepy murderer, waiting for a victim to walk by? Or worse, what if there’s no one up here? But as he steps forward, his eyes still adjusting to the dark, the figure rises to its feet.

Sasuke holds up his hands. “Hey, I’m not here to attack you or anything. Just wondering what someone else is doing awake at this time of night.”

There is a long pause, and Sasuke briefly revisits the “psycho murderer” possibility in his mind. But then the figure speaks --

“Sasuke?”

Sasuke freezes. “W-what?”

The figure steps closer. “It’s me.” And then Sasuke’s eyes adjust --

Oh God --

No freaking way --

It’s Neji.