Work Text:
Naruto needs to be touched.
Naruto needs to be touched because physical contact fosters good health. More specifically though, Naruto needs to be touched because Naruto is afraid.
Naruto tenses when people – Itachi – move around him unexpectedly, he flinches when people – Itachi – stand up suddenly, he stills when people – Itachi – look at him; he watches and watches and watches and doesn’t trust people Itachi.
He doesn’t have the same problem with Sasuke. Itachi would ascribe that on his Lord being so good with their little charge, but he knows it most likely lies with Sasuke being a child, the same age as Naruto, and Itachi an adult. Sasuke’s demographic isn’t the one that abused Naruto in Konoha. Children don’t care as much. Sasuke didn’t even know who Naruto was before Itachi nabbed them.
(Naruto knew Sasuke. Naruto knew their family name, their crest, their faces. Itachi doesn’t like what it means about them.)
Anyway! Wariness is good. Wariness keeps you alive. Too much of it, however, poisons the mind. It seeps into your thoughts and turns them against you. Naruto is a good boy – Itachi knows Naruto is a good boy, a kind boy, despite what’s in h but Itachi also knows that he has incredible potential for destruction. At what point does Naruto’s wariness turn into the kyūbi?
Also, Itachi despises the thought of his children being afraid of him. It just is not happening.
Itachi wants Naruto to know that not all human contact hurts. He wants to show him that here, at least, with Itachi and Sasuke, it does not harm. Itachi has no hope of making Naruto believe that the entire world is kind, only partially because Itachi knows it to be patently false, but he doesn’t need the world. He just needs the three of them. For Naruto to know, in his tiny indestructible bones, that Itachi and Sasuke are safe. Maybe, then, he will come to them instead of growing fangs.
Itachi, the claws and the fangs, the safe place, and Sasuke, the walls and the hearth.
So Naruto needs to be touched. Gently, carefully. Harmlessly. Perhaps, even, lovingly.
Here arises another issue: Itachi himself does not like to be touched. Itachi was a quiet, serious child who grew up into a quiet, serious adult. Hugs were not part of his every day givens, which suited him just fine. The people Itachi touches the most are Shisui and Sasuke. The person Itachi touched and touches the most is Sasuke, by virtue of not being given a choice by Sasuke himself.
Physical contact between them is now a source of great comfort and, in many ways, as natural as breathing. Itachi doesn’t resent his little brother’s determination to live his first years in his arms – never did – but it hadn’t been Itachi’s choice.
(He is well aware of the irony of the situation, yes, thank you.)
Itachi, formerly a child who did not like physical contact, needs to get a child used to physical contact.
It is not a hopeless endeavour. For one, they already touch quite a lot, if only to stay warm during the nights. Itachi is working towards Naruto associating fingertips at his elbow to equal comfort and relief. Naruto let him brush his hair, and holds his hand during their visits in towns. He doesn’t flinch when Itachi corrects his position during training, never did. He saw Itachi viciously murder a woman and fell asleep in his arms. There is something there, something already built. Itachi just needs to keep on building.
For two, Naruto chose them. Naruto asked to go with them. He faced a stranger who had an unconscious child in his arms, warned said stranger that ANBU were coming for him, and when assured that the stranger could handle ANBU, begged to be taken away. And it is loathsome, absolutely abject, but it is… a good sign, here. Naruto chose them. Itachi… Itachi is ashamed to admit that, as he was then, he would not… have permitted Naruto to… not come, but he didn’t have to do that, because Naruto wanted to come. And it may not have been out of trust, in Itachi himself or his adult condition, but it was a choice.
Still a long shot, but Itachi has always had spectacular aim.