Some other time
“Damn, check these out, Itachi!”
Shisui’s eyes are wide, his body shaking from excitement. They sit on the floor of the main shinobi office to go through the new equipment they’ve received- Shisui is far too impatient to wait until they get home.
“These can stop a kunai dead and not even bruise ya,” Shisui says, showing off his brand new flak jacket. “And this-”
Itachi can’t suppress a smile at Shisui’s enthusiasm.
The new equipment is nice, after all. And listening to Shisui ramble on about things that excite him is always nice to do. He could spend forever like this, honestly.
A couple guys in Anbu masks walk past, not paying any mind to the children sat on the floor.
Itachi hears a small thud when one of them drops something into his box. Reaching in, Itachi pulls out a small pendant. A bracelet charm or something, made of silver and shaped like a serpent.
He opens his mouth to say something, but the one who’d dropped the charm (the one with long brown hair) shakes his head, and disappears right after. Itachi catches the glint of an identical one hanging off both of their wristwatches as they vanish from view.
“-Something wrong?” Shisui asks, far too absorbed in his own world to have noticed.
“Nothing!” Itachi squeaks, shoving the silver serpent into his pocket. “I just-”
He thinks of a lie quickly.
“-I’m hungry, Shisui. Can we go now?”
“Huh? Fine, fine.”
They pick up their things and head out to find some place to get lunch.
“Itachi-kun?”
Orochimaru sounds surprised. He looks surprised. But that surprise fades when Itachi holds up the delicate silver charm that’d been slipped into his equipment box. And suddenly he remembers why Itachi would contact him again, after over three months of silence.
“This is from you, isn’t it?”
“It’s a good-luck charm,” Orochimaru answers. “You’re a chuunin now, so you’ll be needing all the luck you can get.”
“How did you know that?”
Orochimaru laughs, pouring himself a cup of tea. The warmth of the cup seeps into his hands, and it lifts his mood even more.
“You caused a little bit of an uproar,” he answers, still smiling. “Everyone’s been talking about the fledgling Uchiha who dominated the Chuunin Exams.”
The child’s face goes bright red.
“H-huh? People are talking about me?”
“Of course. You did very well- half the world probably knows your name by now.”
“Oh no-” Itachi hides his face in his bedsheets, letting out a mortified groan.
“-Don’t be ashamed of it. Talent deserves to be recognized, after all.”
“I spent half the time hiding in the forest! How’s that worth talking about?!”
“Give yourself a little credit, Itachi-kun. It takes more than hiding to get people talking about you. You impressed a lot of people there.”
Itachi frowns into the pillow, suddenly recalling the Kiri genin who’d mocked him and Shisui.
“..I didn’t impress everyone.”
“Hm? What do you mean?”
Itachi pulls an unflattering face. He hesitates before asking the question that’s been playing on his mind.
“Orochimaru-sama, what’s a fag?” he asks.
Orochimaru nearly breaks the teacup in his hand.
“-Where did you hear a word like that?” he demands, his voice low and almost threatening.
“Please answer my question.”
Orochimaru heaves a sigh. He sets his cup down and leans forward.
“It’s nothing but a word used to hurt people who are different,” he answers.
“But what does it mean?”
Another sigh. A short pause.
“It’s a word used about men who love other men,” he finally admits. “To make them seem less than men who don’t.”
Itachi frowns, confusion creasing his brow.
“...am I-?”
“That’s something you’ll find out yourself, in your own time. Regardless, it doesn't give anyone the right to call you such despicable names.”
The boy grimaces. Scratches at the back of his neck.
“How will I know?”
“You just will. For now, it’s nothing you need to concern yourself with.”
Itachi seems to accept this answer.
“I’ll keep this with me,” he says, looping the serpent charm around a thin cord, slipping it over his head and tucking it under his shirt. “For luck, right?”
“That’s right, Itachi-kun. I’m sure you’ll keep on surprising the world, right up ‘til you become Hokage.”
“Huh?”
“That was your dream, wasn’t it?”
Itachi opens his mouth, then closes it again. Then, he nods.
“I- yes. It is.”
“Then keep at it, Itachi-kun. Becoming Hokage takes a lot of hard work.”
Itachi nods.
“I’ll do my best,” he says.
Of course, Orochimaru knows this is true. Just as surely as he knows that Itachi has no idea what he's gotten himself into.
But Orochimaru will have to worry about that some other time.
Itachi finds that he quite likes the new work assigned to him as a chuunin. There’s a lot of intel gathering, lots of quiet work where he spends most of the time alone. It’s quite nice, really. He also gets folders of reports from the experiments Danzo has been running based off his theory, and he’s more than happy to look them over.
It makes him glad to have someone as important as Shimura Danzo be so interested in what he has to say. To know that what he’s got to offer is something that the village needs.
(Although- it’s strange, just a little, to be getting so much attention. Makes him just a little uneasy.)
His father is happy with him, as well. He’s received so many pats on the back and “That’s my boy!”s from the man in the last few months that they’re starting to blur together in his head- though he still treasures every one of them.
If he were to voice a complaint, it would be that this new rank has him out of the house far more often than he’d really like. Based on how often Sasuke whines that he’s never home anymore, he’s certain he isn’t the only one with that objection.
(“I’m sorry, Sasuke. Some other time, okay?” He’s said that so many times these days it’s practically become a nervous tic.)
Even still- there will be other times for he and Sasuke to be together. He can make up for it then.
“-So from what it looks like, I was right. All a genjutsu really does is alter the chemicals being released in your brain; really, it’s not a lot different than a hallucination you’d get taking a drug.”
Danzo seems intrigued by this concept. Itachi turns red when Danzo pats his head, the affectionate gesture just a bit too much to process. He keeps his eyes fixed on the papers in front of him.
“Um- what I don’t understand is what it is about the genjutsu that triggers that sort of response in someone’s brain. I mean- I’m not sure how something like my Sharingan would be able to…”
He trails off, getting lost in his own thoughts.
That seems to amuse Danzo greatly; the boy’s always drifting off mid-sentence, like the world in his head is so much more interesting than the one outside it. Wearing a smile that’s not really a smile, he puts a hand on Itachi’s shoulder.
“I’ll let you know if we figure that out. For now, why don’t we call it a day? You seem distracted.”
Itachi snaps back to attention.
“I-I do?”
His cheeks turn bright pink in embarrassment.
“I’m sorry-”
Danzo chuckles at him.
“It’s quite alright. You’re free to go for now.”
Itachi nods, standing up and bowing low before leaving the man’s office. He ducks and weaves his way through the sea of people taller than him, thrilled at the prospect of enjoying some unexpected time to himself. Shisui won’t be back from his mission until tomorrow, but-
“I’m home!” he calls, kicking his sandals off at the door.
“Already?” Mikoto asks, looking up from the pile of laundry she’s folding.
“Yeah, my assignment wasn’t hard so I got done early.”
“Niisan!”
Sasuke comes barrelling down the hallway, tackling Itachi to the ground in a crushing hug.
“Be careful!” Their mother scolds, though her tone is light.
Itachi hugs his little brother back, feeling on the absolute top of the world.
“C’mon Niisan, I wanna go play!” Sasuke chirrups, scrambling back onto his feet.
“Of course,” Itachi concedes, dusting his pants off as he stands up.
“Be back in time for dinner,” Mikoto reminds them as they head out the door.
“We will!” Sasuke yells back, hanging off Itachi’s arm.
“Niisan! There’s a nest up here!”
Sasuke hangs precariously off a high tree branch, straining to lift himself up to get a better view. Itachi rushes up the tree to steady him.
“Be careful,” he warns, helping lift Sasuke up on the branch with the little nest in it.
“Yeah, yeah- look! There’s babies!”
Itachi lifts himself up to peer into the nest, and sure enough, four downy little hatchling birds peer back at him. They stretch their necks out toward him, peeping indignantly.
“They’re so small!” Sasuke squeals, eyes alight, grinning so wide he might burst. “Niisan, what kind are they?”
“They look like robins to me,” Itachi answers. “But they’re very young, so don’t touch them.”
Sasuke nods, continuing to croon at the hatchlings in the nest.
A short while later, the mother robin returns. She makes a sharp, warning sound at the two boys, fluffed up indignantly.
“We should go,” Itachi says. “Their mother doesn't want us around.”
“We’re not doing anything to ‘em!” Sasuke whines.
“She doesn't understand that,” Itachi explains. “So let’s give her some space, okay?”
Sasuke pouts, but obeys, following Itachi out of the tree.
“Come on, Sasuke,” Itachi urges. “Let’s go down to the river.”
Sasuke obeys again, but doesn't lose that letdown expression.
"Don't be like that," Itachi chides. "We'll see them again some other time."
“You’ve got something on your mind.”
Sasori is right, of course. He usually is. But Orochimaru doesn't quite feel like divulging his thoughts at the moment.
“I like to keep a few secrets to myself,” he replies, still scratching away in a notebook.
Sasori pouts. A childlike pout on his childlike face.
(He doesn't like when Orochimaru hides things from him. Not that it stops Orochimaru at all.)
They’re holed up somewhere in Tea Country, waiting for Kakuzu to catch up with them. It’s dull, all this waiting, and boredom and impatience tend to make Sasori rather cranky. Orochimaru passes the time taking notes from a scroll he’d misappropriated from one of their last targets, but Sasori isn’t keen on such mundane tasks.
He disappears somewhere out of Orochimaru’s view; soft shuffling and quiet footsteps follow as Sasori decides to sit behind him. He works cold fingers into long, black hair, idly playing with it like a child might play with some pretty bauble. nb
“So your pet Uchiha took that gift of yours without questioning it, huh?” he asks, gathering up some of Orochimaru’s hair and starting up some sort of braid.
“He’s too trusting for his own good,” Orochimaru replies.
“He’s gonna end up dying young,” Sasori says, in a knowing sort of tone. “Or even worse.”
Orochimaru finally ceases his writing. He bites back a growl in response.
“Aw, do you want to protect him? That’s noble and all, but I wouldn’t count on keeping him safe from everything. You can’t wrap him up in cotton wool and hide him away after all, can you? Or is that what you want?”
“That’s my business and not yours.”
“Alright, alright. Someone’s crabby today.”
He can feel Sasori’s pout boring into the back of his skull, but he can’t find it in himself to care. Sasori ties off the braid he’s been working on, and gets up to pace restlessly around the room.
Waiting must be driving him absolutely mad.