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Itachi is dead. That was part of the plan. Sasuke holding his head in his hands, however, was not. He's out on a cliff in Lightning and Itachi is dead, and not by Sasuke's hand. It's upside down. When they were kids, Itachi would have their mother braid his hair. And then Sasuke would sit behind Mikoto and she'd laugh and let Sasuke pull down her hair and do it up again. Usually clumsily. She'd finish with Itachi's hair and do hers back up properly again. Then, she would stick one of her hairpins in Sasuke's hair and laugh and tell him he looked cute—especially when Sasuke puffed out his cheeks because he wasn't. Sometimes, his father would walk in with a newspaper and smile and help fix his wife's hair. Sasuke still doesn't know where his father learned how to pin up hair. Never asked, because there were supposed to be moments in the future where he could—
And now he's here again, Itachi's head in his hands in Lightning. Sasuke never really did Itachi's hair. The texture's like his—their—mother's hair. Mikoto's hairpins smelled of her fruity perfume. Sasuke wonders if it still does, a patch of earth in Konoha that smells of his mother's perfume. Wonders if Itachi ever thinks about it—thought about it.
There's an ocean of possibilities in front of him. It gleams and shifts under the moonlight. There's never been an after Itachi. An ocean of possibilities that were all to end with Itachi—end with Itachi.
In the end, Sasuke buries Itachi's head face-down. The last memory he's ever going to have of his brother is of his fingers in Itachi's hair. He will face Fuyuki.
Sasuke's thoughts loop around themselves like the Naka. Circular. Changing course slowly, curving deeper into his heart. An inch into something new. Circles around his family, his brother, home in infinite patterns.
He turns the radio off and leans forwards, arms balanced on the window sill. Fuyuki's Oto is louder at night, but it's still fundamentally the same. A mixture of metal, orphans, and shitty heating. A city spinning around one person. Orochimaru and now Fuyuki. The intentions are nobler but the outcome is the same.
It loops. This time, it's fire moss and spare Sharingan. There's a tangibility to it—a jar in his hands, hair slipping between his fingers. He's considering dead tissue, artificially preserved and slowly decaying. Maybe that's it. The Uchiha and their history slowly bleeding out with him; less of a valiant fight, more of a slow march into obscurity. Sasuke an endnote to a long history of men and women who loved too much and not enough. Itachi didn't love him enough to offer an explanation other than a head, a dead family, and a pile of hair.
Sasuke stretches, easing out the tension in his neck.
There are most likely more Sharingan out there. Maybe Fuyuki knows. Maybe Itachi's Sharingan is somehow out there. Maybe Itachi's somehow out there, waiting. Sasuke holds onto his apathy and anger because beneath that there's a boy, eight, terrified Itachi will come back for him too.
There's a knock on his door. Sasuke sighs and swivels around.
Itachi's gone. Again. It's funny, almost. The world spins, a man wants to put all of them under an illusion, and Itachi's leaving and Sasuke trying—and failing—to follow. Looping patterns.
Sora grumbles under him and flops over, belly-side up on his bed. Sasuke obliges, brushing him. Between his cats and his hair, he brushes way too much of the shit.
In the end, Sasuke never really did Itachi's hair. Didn't when Itachi was here. Sasuke buried Itachi. Buried his head and hair in the dirt by the salty ocean. And then again, with his tea and a soft wind. The world spins, Itachi's gone, and the Uchiha aren't ending with Sasuke and his poetry.
He hears the front door unlock. Sakura's left for Uzushio, Kakashi doesn't have the decency to use the door, which unfortunately leaves one option.
Naruto pops into the doorframe with a bag of takeout.
"I am not—"
"It's not just ramen."
"—eating ramen," Sasuke says. Naruto puts down the bag on the table and falls onto the bed, displacing Sasuke and Sora. Sasuke scowls. Sora clambers into Naruto's lap like the traitor he is.
Naruto laughs and leans over to pull on Sasuke's hair. It's spikier than it usually is because he's been lazy and hasn't been oiling it down.
"Man, Sasuke your hair looks like shit," Naruto picks up the hairbrush Sasuke was brushing Sora with.
"I was brushing Sora with that," Sasuke says. Naruto hums and starts brushing his hair anyways. He rushes into it with the sort of enthusiasm Naruto rushes into everything with. Which is to say, he snags on every tangle in his hair.
"Off," Sasuke pushes Naruto. He laughs as he settles behind Sasuke, careful not to bump over any of the cacti he's been slipping around Sasuke's house.
"Come on," Naruto says, "Your hair's a mess. You should cut it off."
"No," Itachi lucked out with their mother's straight hair and Sasuke's stuck with this mess, but it's his mess.
Sasuke hears Naruto huff, and then feels him try pulling his hair into a braid. It's going to be terrible and Sasuke will have to redo it within the hour. He lets Naruto do it anyway.
There's a wind blowing in from the window behind them. It doesn't smell of salt like it does when it's coming from the ocean; it doesn't smell like the wind on the cliff in Lightning.
"We should go swimming," Sasuke says. Naruto hums. He reaches back on the window sill which's where Sasuke keeps his hair ties.
"Huh," Naruto says, "There are strawberries, I think? Below your window."
His mother's, Uchiha Madara's, strawberries outside his family house are long-dead now. He knows these are not the same, but then they also are.
"We could make something with them," Sasuke says, flicking his braid over his shoulder.
Naruto leans over. "Yeah, sure."
He doesn't have his mother's perfume or recipes. There is no Shisui to drag Itachi into the house. No smoke drifting in from his father's cigarette on the porch. But there is Sasuke, completely unremarkable and with cats, a group of loud children, and a gaze thrown towards the future. In the end, he will be a footnote in Konoha's, his children's, histories, but not a full stop. A comma. That makes all the difference.