Ties that Bind

It’s funny how time passes, when you suddenly have so much of it.

Orochimaru throws himself into his research, trying to unravel the secrets of the Universe with his own two hands. It’s a rush, a thrill, gathering knowledge like a magpie collects shiny trinkets.  It hardly even matters to him that Danzo is still breathing down his neck, still making his ceaseless demands.

His new method of immortality is too crude, Danzo had said. Too basic and unrefined. Too uncivilized. Too reliant on other people. Orochimaru had some choice words he would have liked to tell the old man, but he’s been in a good mood lately, so he had merely smiled at Danzo and told him to be patient. The anger on Danzo’s face when he doesn't get the reaction he wants is far more amusing than arguing, at any rate.

(Though, of course, he has absolutely no intention of sharing his newfound treasures with Danzo. And, of course, he still wonders why, if Danzo is so keen to cheat death, he’s being so damn picky about the method he uses to cheat it.)

He researches and tests and works to his heart’s content- and before he knows it, a year and a half has gone by.

Jiraiya tries to find him, but he’s successful in staying one step ahead of him. Tsunade has left the village, and Orochimaru isn’t quite sure where she’s gone to. Hiruzen has put a huge bounty on his head, but that just makes him laugh- he isn’t afraid of a few scumbag bounty hunters, nor is he frightened by whatever wannabe-hero Chuunin who would dare to challenge him. He just keeps moving, keeps studying.

And, of course, he keeps in contact with that special little boy he’d left behind.

It’s quite late at night- probably too late for a child so young to be awake. But Itachi has such a hard time sleeping, they often wind up talking at ungodly hours, discussing new jutsu, some bird or another the boy’s been observing, or whatever adorable antics Itachi’s baby brother happened to get into that day.

“Orochimaru-sama, check it out!” Itachi chirps. “Shisui-niisan taught me how to do the shadow clone jutsu today!”

He looks around his bedroom first, making sure his curtains are drawn tight, and the clothes he’s tucked along his door to keep the light from spilling out are still in place. He goes through the hand signs as fast as his little fingers can form them. There’s a puff of smoke, and another Itachi appears beside him.

“Oh my- that’s impressive, Itachi-kun!” he praises, his full attention finally pulled away from his writing.

“...We’ve been using it to skip class,” Itachi admits, sheepishly, his cheeks dusted pink.

“Well, that’s no good, is it?”

“It’s not my fault class is boring!” Itachi whines in protest.  He crosses his arms with an indignant huff.

“Everything is so dull- we can learn more stuff if we do it on our own, and it’s not like we get caught!”

“Is that so?”

Itachi lets the shadow clone dissipate in another cloud of smoke, pouting.

“I don’t feel like I’m getting anywhere at school. And nobody seems like they really like me, anyway. So why shouldn’t Shisui-niisan and I do stuff on our own?”

Part of Orochimaru knows he should scold the boy, but the other part feels a great deal of sympathy for the boredom. And another-

“What do you mean they don’t like you, Itachi-kun?”

Itachi turns his head away.

“Someone tried to get their big brother to hurt me the other day. He said he thinks I’m full of myself.”

“Oh?”

Itachi hugs his knees to his chest; the serpent winds its way around his ankle, raising its head in curiosity.

“What did you do?” Orochimaru prods.

“I stopped him from hurting me,” Itachi answers. “That’s all.”

Itachi fiddles with a loose shuriken, still frowning.

“Orochimaru-sama, is there something wrong with me?”

“Eh?”

Carelessly tossing the shuriken aside, Itachi picks the serpent up, looking into its gold eyes as though they were Orochimaru’s.

“I don’t have any friends at the Academy- the girls all talk behind my back, and the guys all look at me like I’m weird. I don’t have any friends besides Izumi and Shisui-niisan- am I doing something wrong?”

He whines, hanging his head like a sad puppy.

“I want people to like me-”

“Itachi-kun.”

Orochimaru’s tone is scolding, but not harsh. It gets the boy to raise his head again.

(He remembers what it’s like to be so lonely. To want the approval of your peers is natural, after all.)

“So you don’t have a lot of friends- it’s not the end of the world. You haven’t done anything wrong, so if they can’t accept you, that’s  their loss. You don’t need their approval to be happy as you are.”

Itachi lets out a small sound, picking at a loose thread on his blanket.

“I know it sounds impossible now. But it’ll get easier as you get older.”

(Maybe it’s a lie. Even Orochimaru isn’t sure.)

Faintly, Orochimaru can hear the sound of a baby fussing. Itachi snaps to attention in a heartbeat.

“-I’ll be right back!”

Itachi leaps from his bed and out his door, vanishing from view for maybe thirty seconds. When he returns, he’s carrying a fussing bundle of blankets.

“It’s okay, Sasuke. It’s okay, I’m here-”

Mindful of the infant in his arms, Itachi clambors back onto his bed.

“Sasuke look, Orochimaru-sama is here,” he says, trying to redirect the cranky baby’s attention. The white serpent flicks out its tongue; Sasuke makes a shrill, frightened sound.

“Hey, hey, don’t be scared, it isn’t gonna hurt you-”

Orochimaru can’t help the smile that crosses his lips.

Even at this early age, he could tell that Sasuke was quite a different creature than Itachi. He was a chubby, vivacious little child, with round, rosy cheeks and stubby little limbs and a gregarious disposition. Strong lungs, too- Orochimaru had heard more than once how loud that boy could scream when he wanted to.

“Shh, it’s alright- Sasuke c’mon, we don’t wanna wake mom up, okay? Here-”

He sets Sasuke down on his pile of pillows, and smiles apologetically at Orochimaru.

“I need to get him back to sleep. I’ll have to talk to you later, okay?”

Orochimaru chuckles- that child has Itachi wrapped around his finger already.

“Alright. Try to get some sleep too, okay?”

“Yeah!”

Sasuke’s fussing abruptly dies away, and the snake on his desk evaporates into nothing.

The clock on the wall reads ten minutes to one in the morning.

His eyelids are starting to feel heavy, but he doesn't feel like turning in just yet.

He scribbles out a few more notes, before he’s finally satisfied that he’ll have everything he needs to start his latest batch of experiments. It’ll take him longer than he’d hoped, but he’s confident he’ll be successful. He folds his notes up neatly, using them to mark his place in his book. Then, he stands, stretches, and yawns to chase away the tiredness and he stiffness in his limbs.

Before he starts on that, though, he has something else he wants to do.

He’s been chasing rumors lately- rumors about an uprising in Amegakure, risen from the ashes of the purportedly disbanded group of renegade teenagers known as Akatsuki.

And, there’s his suspicions about the sudden radio silence he’s received from Hanzo of the Salamander.

He hasn’t told Danzo yet- and depending on what he learns, he probably never will. But he’s got a sneaking suspicion as to why Hanzo hasn’t made contact in over a month, when he man normally had an opinion on everything.

So, Orochimaru has decided he’s going to see for himself.

If Hanzo is alive, he can inquire as to why he’s gone silent. And if he isn’t- well, Orochimaru won’t complain that he doesn't have to play messenger boy between him and Danzo anymore.

“Well then,” he mumbles to himself, feeling the sudden weight of his solitude all around him. “Now the real fun begins.”

“Shisui-nii?”

“Yeah?”

Shisui flops downward, hanging by his legs from a tree branch, his messy mop of curls bouncing wildly.

Itachi wrings his hands, feeling his face grow warm.

“-Do you think I’m weird?”

“Huh? Sure I do!”

Shisui giggles at the offended expression on Itachi’s face.

“Hey, it’s not a bad thing! All the best people are weird, y’know!”

With a flip and a flourish, Shisui dismounts the tree, landing deftly on the forest floor.

“I’m pretty weird too, y’know,” he says, with a sly grin.

Itachi blinks.

“C’mon, don’t be stupid, ‘Tachi! You should be proud of being weird! Who wants to be normal, anyway?”

Itachi mumbles something.

“C’mon, ‘Tachi. I’ve got some new stuff I wanna try today!”

Shisui takes his hand and leads him deeper into the forest, chattering on about how excited he is, about the jutsu he’s gotten for them to learn, how much cooler it is in he forest, shielded from the summer sun, how beautiful the sun looks as it bounces off the leaves-everything and absolutely nothing, all at once.

Itachi loves it when Shisui speaks.

He never really says much back, but Shisui never really seems to mind. He chatters away to fill the silence, pointing out pretty flowers and interesting bugs and oddly-shaped rocks, still beaming in that way that only Shisui can.

Shisui doesn't treat Itachi like the others- he isn’t mean to him, like the boys a school, and he doesn't treat him like he’s made of glass, like his clansmen do. To Shisui, Itachi isn’t the frail prodigy, or the strange, withdrawn child in the back of the class. To Shisui, Itachi is just a friend.

It makes Itachi happy. Makes his cheeks grow warm and makes his stomach flutter.

He bounces on his heels while Shisui pulls out the scrolls and other etcetera he decided they’d need for the day.

“Hey, I brought some snacks too- catch!”

Itachi catches the small bag of candy Shisui tosses at him.

“You’re really skinny, so I figured you could use it, y’know?”

Itachi scowls, but he isn’t really angry, and he pops a piece of candy in his mouth anyway. Shisui unrolls a scroll on the ground, dark eyes scanning over the kanji at a lightning pace.

“Alright, I wanna try this one first- it’ll take a few hours, cause it looks kinda complicated. Then maybe we can try this one, and maybe this one here if we’ve got time left after we do our shuriken training-”

“Yeah,” Itachi mumbles. “That sounds good.”

“Alright here goes-”

Itachi finds himself distracted by the ease of Shisui’s movements. Shisui makes everything he does seem easy- sometimes it makes him jealous, makes him wish he had that sort of confidence.

Maybe someday, Shisui will share some of that effortless confidence with him. And maybe, someday, Itachi can stop feeling so afraid.