Ties that Bind

Bone-crushing exhaustion, overwhelming anxiety and a splitting headache swirl together to make Itachi unsure whether he wants to cry or to vomit. His wrists ache horribly from being tied to this uncomfortable wooden chair for however long it’s been.

Hours, surely. But Itachi can’t tell- there isn’t a clock in this room, neither is there a window to track the sunlight through. It’s just him and a naked lightbulb in a naked concrete room. He can hear muffled voices through the metal door, but nobody has come in to speak to him since he got here.

He’s not entirely sure why he’s tied up. He was far too groggy to really register what was being said to him at the time. But he’s pretty sure more than one person yelled at him. Not that any of that is really surprising to him.

They’ll be livid with him, surely. After all, he’d failed miserably. 

His heart plunges into his stomach when the heavy lock on the door finally turns, letting in the harsh fluorescent lighting from the hallway beyond. He knows from the thumping of his cane on the floor exactly who’s just walked in, even as the sudden brightness blinds him. It stabs into his brain like a hundred tiny senbon, and he has to bite back a cry of agony.

He hangs his head, not able to bear even looking at Danzo knowing how badly he’d bungled his job.

“You’ve had a bad night,” Danzo remarks. His tone is totally flat, so Itachi can’t gauge how upset he is.

“I’m sorry,” is all Itachi can say.

“That’s not necessary. This went exactly as I worried that it might.” 

Itachi glances up, brow furrowed.

Danzo casts a pitying look at him.

“I had a feeling this might happen. Orochimaru is well known to interfere where he doesn't belong.”

All the air leaves Itachi’s lungs.

“How-”

Itachi’s question warps into a yelp when Danzo reaches an ice-cold hand down his shirt, pulling out the small, silver serpent charm dangling from the cord around Itachi’s neck.

“I knew he’d had his eye on you. As a matter of fact, I figured he would interfere when I sent you on this mission.”

He sighs when Itachi still looks puzzled.

“I knew Orochimaru would kill Kasou and the others. Don’t fret- as a matter of fact, that cousin of yours brought me some things regarding him he’d probably have been killed for sooner or later, anyway. I don’t blame you for being fooled.”

“But why would Orochimaru-sama-”

“-Has he ever told you why exactly he left the village, boy?”

Itachi bows his head again, in shame. Danzo pulls the cord up over Itachi’s head, taking the charm and turning it over in his hand.

(How did Danzo know…?)

“I- no?”

Danzo makes a show of shaking his head and sighing, pulling up the second chair and slowly sitting down.

“Poor boy. He’s got you totally fooled.”

Itachi stays silent, swallowing down a lump in his throat while he waits to hear what Danzo has to tell him.

“Orochimaru left because he’s done something absolutely unforgivable. The body he wears isn’t the one he was born with; he stole it from another shinobi.”

Itachi’s eyes nearly fall out of their sockets. Slowly, he shakes his head in sheer disbelief.

“No- how could he have-”

“-He wanted to save his own skin. He didn’t want to accept that he was running out of time, so he stole another person’s life. Many people’s lives. Good people’s lives, from our village, were lost because of him. And I’ve got no doubt he wants to do the same with you.”

Shock gives way to confusion. Itachi falls forward as much as his bindings will allow.

“...Why would he want me?” 

“As I recall, he’s always had an interest in your clan’s kekkai genkai. If he took over your body then he would get exactly what he wanted.”

“Nobody in their right mind would want my body,” Itachi grumbles, doing his best to turn away in spite of his binding.

“You’d be surprised at what desperation can make people do. And if Orochimaru is anything, it’s desperate. Ever since he was a child, he’s been looking for any way he could to cheat death. And he’s never much cared who he hurts trying to get what he wants.”

Itachi doesn't want to believe it. But if Danzo seems so sure of it- and what reason does he have to lie…?

“There’s no need to make that face. In spite of this little setback, I don’t think this mission was a total waste of time.”

Danzo tucks the little serpent charm into the pocket of Itachi’s pants, then gives the boy a pat on the head.

“Your cousin brought me some information that would have led to those men being killed sooner or later-not that it’s anything you need to worry your pretty head over. And I think I might have some use for Orochimaru’s fixation on you.”

“Huh?”

“I’m going to be putting you in charge of keeping an eye on that man. After all- you’ve probably told him about your brother, haven’t you? If you don’t watch your step, who’s to say he won’t change who he’s got his eye on?”

Itachi hardly registers that Danzo has stood up again, walking behind him to finally untie his arms.

“I know you don’t want anything to happen to him. So I trust you’ll help me with this matter.”

Itachi gingerly rubs where his wrists have been worn raw. He swallows down the urge to burst into tears, not wanting to look any more pathetic than he already is.

His head is throbbing, and his chest feels tight. Like there’s a monster inside him that’s about to burst out. Danzo puts a hand on his head again, then it wanders down over the side of his neck, before finally coming to rest on his shoulder. It makes the boy shiver, and he has to bite his tongue to keep from letting out a whimper.

“...I understand,” he says, finally.

“I know you do.”

The man give Itachi a few rough taps on the back- a wordless command to stand up that Itachi obeys despite the vertigo that crashes over him, swallowing back the bile that surges into his throat.

“Go home, boy. If Orochimaru gets in touch with you, you’re to report it to me right away. And remember- none of what we discussed is to be told to anybody else.”

“I understand, Danzo-sama.”

“I know you do.”

The boy stays perfectly still, waiting for Danzo to walk over and open up the door again. He keeps his head down so he doesn't have to look at Shisui or his father’s faces when he follows the man out.

“Tachi, are you-”

The younger boy shakes his head, glancing for only a second at his father; just long enough to see his deeply furrowed brow.

“We’re done here,” Danzo informs Fugaku, in a flat, dismissive tone.

The other man doesn't seem comforted by the announcement.

“Don’t look so grim, Captain. He’s no worse for wear, and he’s not in any trouble. Get him to bed and he’ll be right as rain in the morning.”

Danzo urges Itachi forward. Fugaku practically snatches him away, pulling him as far away from the old man as possible.

Shisui looks like he’s ready to make some sort of smartmouthed remark, but manages to bite his tongue until they’re all out of the building and safely on their way  back to the compound. Itachi sways dangerously as he walks, but refuses his father’s effort to keep him steady.

“-He had to have known,” Shisui finally blurts out. “He had to know he’d try to- I can’t fucking believe he’d let Itachi-”

“-Watch your language,” Fugaku scolds, though his scolding is halfhearted.

“Why?!” Shisui shoots back. “Something really weird’s going on and I don’t believe for one second Danzo-sama didn’t-”

“Enough.”

The other two freeze in their tracks, startled by Itachi finally breaking his silence.

“It’s fine,” Itachi insists, willing himself to believe his own lie. “I’m fine. Can we stop talking about it now?”

He doesn't get a response, but to his relief they do fall silent after that. But Shisui looks like he’s just barely holding back. Yet Itachi’s mind is far too troubled to pay that any mind.

When they finally get home, he runs into his room, brushing past both his mother and Sasuke without even saying hello. He locks the door tight, shoving the chair from his desk. under the doorknob to further jam it shut.

I think I’m gonna throw up.

Itachi falls down onto his bed, burying his face in his pillow and screaming into it until he wonders whether his throat will tear.

He lays with his face buried in the pillow, wishing he could just fade from existence entirely.  The warmth of the sun gradually fades from his window, leaving him laying in the cold dark.

Eventually, the thing Itachi dreads happens. He hears a small sound, and the gentle hissing that’s all too familiar.

The little white serpent slithers up the pillow, flicking its tongue against his face and peering at him with concern. Well, as much concern as a snake can manage anyway.

Itachi debates whether he should acknowledge it. But after a moment, its piercing stare becomes too much, so he turns his body away from it.

“...What do you want?”

I’m just making sure you’re alright.”

Sure. That’s the reason.

“You gave me quite a scare. I’m glad Kabuto was able to take care of things, or it could have gone badly.”

Itachi forces himself to stand up, letting out a gust of air through his nose and feeling a surge of annoyance inside him.

“I didn’t need you to save me.”

“Itachi-kun?”

“I’m not totally helpless- I didn’t need you sending anyone in to save me! I would have been fine! It was my mission and I didn’t need you to interfere!”

When Orochimaru answers him, he sounds annoyed as well.

“You don’t understand what you’ve gotten yourself into. There are people in this world who will take advantage of anyone they can get the upper hand on, and too often you won’t know who they are until it’s too late.”

“And you would know that, right?” 

Itachi stubbornly keeps himself turned away, so Orochimaru can’t see him chewing a hole in his lower lip. He digs his fingernails into his palms in a vain attempt to keep his anger in check.

“...I was only trying to keep you safe.”

“I’m a shinobi. I don’t need ‘keeping safe.’”

He wishes desperately that he was as confident as his voice is letting on. But the burning in his eyes and the lump in his throat rob him of any delusions that he’s not hurt.

“I’m not broken- I didn’t need you to send anyone. Whatever you think would’ve happened to me I could’ve handled it by myself.”

“...of course you would think so. Everyone does at first.”

Itachi didn’t think it was possible to feel more annoyed.

Even though he shouldn’t ask- even though Danzo said nothing he’d been told was to leave that room- Itachi blurts out his question before he can stop himself.

I have to know-

“Tell me- whose body did you steal so you didn’t have to die?” 

Total silence. For a moment, Itachi wonders if Orochimaru will deny it. Hell, Itachi wants him to deny it. To tell him it’s not true, even if saying that would be a lie-

But-

“...Who it was is of no consequence to you, Itachi-kun.”

“So you really did it. You killed people so you wouldn’t have to-”

“-I think you’d be hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t killed someone else to save their own skin in our line of work.”

“Not like this though!”

Itachi desperately wishes, just for a moment, that Orochimaru could be in the room with him. Just so he can slap him for being so condescending.

“I don’t know what all you’ve been told, and I don’t suppose this is a good time to sort things out. I understand that you’re angry with me, so I’ll let you be for now.”

“...Please.”

Go before I start to cry, Itachi begs inside his head.

“I suppose I do owe you an explanation. If you ever want to hear it, you know how to find me.”

Another small sound, and Itachi knows he’s alone again.

Howling in frustration, he grabs his pillow and throws it, hitting his bookshelf and knocking a handful of the books onto the floor.

“Niisan?”

Sasuke knocks at his door, his voice small and worried.

“Niisan, are you okay?”

“Just leave me alone, Sasuke,” Itachi demands, far more harshly than he meant to.

He can tell Sasuke is hurt, and he feels terribly for it, but he can’t get out any more words. And besides, at that moment their mother walks by, giving him a gentle scolding to “Leave your brother alone for a while, he’s tired” that gets Sasuke to relent.

“...Okay, Niisan. I wanna tell you about school stuff later. I mean, when you feel better. If you wanna.”

Sasuke wanders off somewhere, but Itachi can still feel their mother standing outside his door.

“I’ll bring you dinner later, hon. Try to get some sleep.”

Itachi doesn't answer, and eventually, she leaves as well.

All of the energy leaves Itachi’s body at once; he collapses back onto his bed, wishing he could just melt into the covers and stop thinking entirely.

(his head hurts so badly…)

He drifts in and out of sleep for what must be a few hours. Each bout of sleep comes in fitful spurts, fraught by dreams of ghostly figures with empty eye sockets, with Orochimaru puppeteering them with the same white serpents they’ve used to speak to each other so many times before.

“What are you so afraid of, Itachi-kun?” the corpse says, with Orochimaru’s voice.

Why did you lie to me-

“Are you so sure I’m the one who’s lying?”

He’s not sure whether he’s awake or asleep, but the voice still rings in his head as clearly as though Orochimaru were in the room with him.

There’s a tight feeling around his neck. Some sort of fabric-

-Or a collar?

“Are you so sure you’d be able to spot a liar when you meet one?”

Despite the cold sweat soaking through his clothes, Itachi still feels far too warm. It feels like he’s burning alive- like he’s literally going to actually melt into his bed like he’d wanted to.

His body feels weird, floaty, as he fumbles with the makeshift barricade and the lock on his door. Groping his way through the dark, tripping over the long-forgotten dinner his mother left for him, he manages to fight the vertigo to find the bathroom before the nausea building up inside him explodes.

He nearly bashes his head against the rim of the toilet when he drops to his knees, all the muscles in his abdomen contracting violently to expel whatever’s left in his stomach.

Even after it’s emptied itself, it continues to heave, until there’s not even any bile left to expel and he can taste blood in his mouth.

And still his heart races out of control. His throat and his lungs both burn; it’s impossible to get enough air like this. His head feels like it’s going to burst open, he feels like he’s going to die-

He briefly feels his soul leave his body when someone touches his back.

Mikoto puts a gentle hand to his forehead and nearly recoils from the heat.

“Itachi, honey, you’re burning up-”

Itachi tries to speak, but it comes out as a mangled string of incoherent mumbling. He can feel his father’s agitated presence mere feet away.

“I’d bet my life they drugged him with something,” he says, in a barely-restrained growl to avoid waking Sasuke. “I told them a hundred times, but I couldn’t get anyone to do their goddamned job and run a toxicology lab for him-”

“Fugaku please,” Mikoto implores, “It’s really not the time.”

Itachi can only half-hear his parents over his heart pounding in his ears. He knows it’s not real, but he can’t shake the horrid feeling of weird, slimy creatures he swears he can feel crawling underneath his skin.

He mumbles about them, and he knows he’s mumbling about them, but he can’t control the stream of nonsense falling out of his mouth.

Mikoto holds him all the while, refraining from rocking him as she’d usually do, for fear of making him vomit again. She doesn't even seem to care that he’s marinating in his own sweat and day-old clothes; after a bit though, Itachi does start to mind, the close contact from another warm body far too much to bear.

He finally manages to put a coherent thought together.

“Lemme go…”

He worms his way out of her grip, bracing himself against the bathroom countertop to make his way back to unsteady feet.

“I’m oka-”

He doesn't get to finish his lie. The moment he straightens himself out, his vision goes black, and he can’t keep his footing.

Everything is hazy after that; he’s pretty sure his father carries him back to his bed, and probably changes him into clean pajamas (something he’s probably be thoroughly embarrassed by when he’s fully lucid again). 

(He wishes he could sleep for a thousand years.)

It’s quite late the next morning when he does come back to himself. There’s a lukewarm cloth on his forehead he guesses was cool when it was put there; he tosses it aside carelessly,.

A soft knock at his door gets his attention.

“Niisan?”

All the bones in Itachi’s body creak, his joints cracking loudly as he makes his way into a sitting position.

“...Come in.”

He cringes as how hoarse he sounds when he speaks.

Sasuke pokes his head in the door, holding a mug in his hands and looking worried.

“Mom said you might want some of this.”

Sasuke clambers on the bed; Itachi catches the telltale smell of mint when his little brother forces the mug on him.

The peppermint tea soothes his sour stomach, so Itachi can't even complain about Sasuke shoving it at him.

“-She said it’s good when you don’t feel well, so you should make sure to drink all of it,” he says insistently. His stern tone and grim expression make Itachi snort, then laugh, in spite of the pain it causes him.

“What’s so funny?” Sasuke demands, turning red in the face.

Itachi shakes his head, smiling into his teacup.

“Thank you, Sasuke,” he says, reaching out to pet his messy hair. “How about you tell me how school is going?”

Sasuke lights up. His eyes go wide, his grin nearly splitting his face in two.

He starts rambling on about all the minutiae, chatting on about his classes and schoolwork and the people that he likes, bouncing up and down in excitement all the while.

“I bet I’m gonna be as good a ninja as you when I’m done!” he chirrups, still beaming.

“I don’t think that’ll be very hard,” Itachi mumbles into his teacup, finding himself suddenly embarrassed.

Sasuke looks confused again. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, just forget about it. I’m just being silly.”

Sasuke frowns, but decides to honor Itachi’s request.

“...Hey Niisan, can you help me with my homework?” he asks, sheepishly, already bracing himself for a no.

“Sure.”

“Eh?”

Itachi sets his mug of tea on his nightstand.

“Go grab your homework. I’ve got nothing else to do today.”

Sasuke barely suppresses a squeal of excitement, leaping off the bed and darting out the door to grab his schoolbag. 

Gingerly, Itachi makes his way out of bed, grabbing his laundry hamper and digging through it to find the clothes his father changed him out of.

He finds them, grabs them and digs through each of his pants pockets until he finds Orochimaru’s charm.

Turning it over in his hand, he debates throwing it out the window. Or maybe flushing it down the toilet. But either thought brings a deep dread upon him. So, eventually, he settles for tucking it deep within a dresser drawer, slamming it shut just in time to hear Sasuke coming back down the hall. At least this way he won’t have to look at it until he’s made a decision.

He’ll worry about how to get rid of it later. He’s got more important things to do right now.