3Can you tell me, softly,
How you'll always haunt me?
Can you help me?
Hold me.
Come to me now, slowly…
You caress me, smoothly,
Calm my fears and soothe me.
Move your hands across me,
Take my worries from me.
I will sacrifice
I will sacrifice
All I have in life
Sacrifice, Sacrifice.
May We Meet Again
"Uchiha Shisui."It was said like an accusation. Like judgment had already passed.
Green leaves fell spiraling around him, whipping strands of raven hair around in the wind. Much too soon to be fallen.
"Itachi…." The man's piercing, narrowed eye meets Itachi's. He's expecting them to be blood red.
Cold.
A killer's eyes.
Eyes appropriate for his murderer.
But they are not what he wants them to be. Nothing ever is.
Soft brown.
Defenseless, almost innocent.
And now they are wide in surprise, because Shisui's not even going to put up a fight. Right?
Right.
They both know it.
His pained expression and sardonic, bitter grin spear right through the younger's heart.
It's been a long time since Itachi felt like crying, but right now the back of his eyeballs burn.
"There was no other way, 'tachi?" Shisui feels resignation tinge his voice.
I tried to save you, is never said.
"I'm sorry," the younger's voice cracks.
The older raven is looking away now, because it's too sincere. Sounds too final. Like the deed had been done ages ago. Like he was already dead. But that was the truth of the matter, wasn't it?
He had been a dead man walking for months now. Ever since Danzo had taken his right eye in exchange for his refusal to do this very mission. Shisui gazes back at the young-old face of his beloved itoko and suddenly hates Konoha. Hates everything.
And he supposes that this is why there was no other way.
Uchiha Shisui turns to face the wind that sweeps across their bodies. It feels like the last thing in the world left connecting them.
"Shisui…" Itachi's voice is small, hallow-sounding. It echoes with unspoken need. The nin looks for a brief moment, like the child he was never allowed to be.
Shisui's shoulders are stiff.
The boy takes one step forward and a dull thack resounds in the ensuing silence. Itachi freezes, blinking in surprise.
The kunai Shisui just threw is embedded in the ground mere inches from the boy's feet.
Shisui's eyes dart instinctively to the smaller figure, hostilely assessing his enemy for injury.
Itachi stills and Shisui is confused and regretful. The boy's face is written absurdly with hurt and rejection.
Inside Shisui dies over and over again. What was his cousin thinking? That he would just lay down his life without a fight? There would be no struggle?
Or am I crazy? How do I win against fate? This was bound to happen...There was no other way... It always had to be Itachi...
Itachi is a fool. Despite everything he told himself, uncertainty now colors his every move. Surely now Shisui should hate him. Under these circumstances…
The older raven watches on in silence, quietly regarding the younger's internal struggle as it plays out on his face, with his too still form, and uneven, rapid breaths.
Doubt, Shisui realizes with disappointment. No, Itoko... I taught you better than that. Never doubt your mission. Only Shisui could do this to the boy. Make him doubt... Make him fearful... Make him blush... Make him scream...
Itachi's face now appears as apathetic as the day he was initiated into ANBU. The older frowns. He hates that face.
Shisui sighs rather loudly in irritation. "That's not the last thing I want to see before I die…" Itachi just stares back at him and Shisui can't help but crack a smile at the awkwardness. It shouldn't be this way...
Slowly, he feels his traitorous shoulders relax, arms open slightly. He closes his eyes in anticipation, "I'm ready, Itoko." Kill me, he almost says.
Neither of you know what comes next.
You are young and so is he. Much too young and everything in your body screams that this is unjust.
Unfair.
Wrong.
But, necessary.
For the good of the whole.
Itachi is 13 and deadly. He is an ANBU. And he is going to kill this man that is his comrade, cousin, and best friend. He knows it. You both know it. And there are no more or less secrets between you than there ever were before. Shisui had hoped for another solution. But, since when has hope ever solved anything?
As Itachi steps into his arms he can feel the tremble in his step, the quiver of his lip, and the tightness in his chest. Shisui had hoped Itachi wouldn't do this right before the end. He'd take pain over the goodbye that was being offered.
Itachi knows this as well.
But Shisui hasn't refused him, yet. The older boy smiles into Itachi's dark hair. He doesn't think he could ever refuse his itoko.
In this world or the next.
His arms close tightly around Itachi's slight waist.
Spoiled brat. Crying because it's the last time I'll ever hold you…
Itachi's hands fist in the back of his shirt, trying to mold himself ever closer.
"Come on, Itachi, surely you've had enough practice killing." Shisui says these difficult words and they have the desired effect. Somehow, the boy half-stifles the wounded sound threatening to tear free of his throat. He hides them in ragged breaths. But, the tears…don't stop.
Red eyes that have nothing to do with the Sharingan stare up at him without hope.
Broken.
"Shisui… Please."
And you both know that he's never asked you for anything like this in his life.
Before Shisui dies he wants to give Itachi what he wants.
What they both wanted. For so long...
"Am I wrong…? For loving the village and my family? For loving you?" Itachi's voice is almost inaudible.
Shisui is 16 years old, a man by any standard in the ninja world. He is about to die for this boy. For his younger cousin that he loves so much more than the world would allow.
Because this time is the last time… Itachi. The last time I will ever hold you.
A strong hand weaves itself into the boy's hair. Shisui unravels the band keeping it together, like it's the key to unraveling everything that makes up Uchiha Itachi.
"Open your eyes, Itoko."
Itachi does and immediately gasps as Shisui's sharingan meets his dark brown eyes.
A hand firmly takes hold of Itachi's face and directs it upward.
Lips meet in their first kiss, trembling.
Quaking like the pit of his stomach. Shaking like Itachi's hands spread wide against his shoulders.
Humming with life and tenderness and desire.
Shisui slips, hot and wet into the boy's parted lips, and it's all Itachi can do not to melt.
His eye stays open the whole time, memorizing Itachi's first kiss… The way he opens his mouth wider as a foreign tongue plunges deep inside. The way his smaller, calloused hands grip broader shoulders and it feels like the boy's climbing up his body with the way his legs are opening and encircling...
Shisui emits a sinful growl into the mouth of his younger cousin.
The heat rolling off Itachi's body is unreal. Shisui needs it, has always needed it.
Itachi is his. His to teach, to protect, to love, to hate...
The raven quakes in his grasp as rough hands drift lower, pulling and pushing like the sea tide. Their movements become erratic.
"Nngh-Itoko… Stop..." Slow down.
But Itachi only wraps his arms tightly around Shisui's neck and kisses him back hard, making their teeth clink.
So Shisui lets go of his previous notions of 'love making' and 'sex' and grabs Itachi roughly by the hips. The kiss breaks as he lowers the younger onto the river bank. Shisui looked down upon the only person he has ever selfishly wanted to possess.
Finally able to gaze unabashedly at his itoko's too red lips and porcelain face. Leaning forward, he licks the saliva from the corner of Itachi's mouth.
Calloused hands are grasping at his armor, expertly pulling the ties loose. Divesting him of more than just clothing: His sanity. His earthly attachments to anything beyond Itachi...
All of it…
Shisui lets him, and it's not long before they're both groaning from skin on skin friction.
He rolls his hips into the smoldering heat below him, driving straight through to Itachi's core. Shisui closes the space between them with a thrust and a kiss. It is sloppy and hot and wet and neither of them really know what they are doing.
There's no more air left for Itachi to breathe, with Shisui filling up every void in his body. On top of him and inside him, and moving like liquid fire. There is nowhere to go. No way to hide from the raw, beautiful, painful, feelings being drawn out of his his body. Itachi remembers thinking, This is love, that I am feeling. The pleasure and pain and freedom.
There was nowhere left to hide. Nowhere for the both of them, once they had crossed this line. And Shisui's grip on his hips is bone-shatteringly tight.
Shisui swallows all of Itachi's groans and half-gasps for air, like a shinigami sucking up his very soul. Dual Sharingans simmering against each other... The young raven learns how to forget, even as he memorizes every thrust and groan.
Shisui. Only Shisui could ever make him forget. It's not long before Itachi's mind is blissfully blank, intoxicated with pleasure as Shisui brings him sharply over the edge of ecstasy.
In that moment, they are together and life is good, better than it ever was or would be again. It is that precise moment, that Itachi would, consumed by thick, black sorrow, torture himself with for the rest of his life.
The moments you want to last forever, have a way of passing in the blink of an eye.
He opens his eyes to stare at his cousin's broad back. Shisui's just sitting there by the bank, staring up at the full moon, looking young and happy and immortal.
Something in Itachi's heart rips open and bleeds.
"How long are you going to lay there, Itoko?" There's a smirk in his voice. "Was I that good?"
Itachi smiles, because it's so like Shisui to make a vulgar joke at a time like this. The younger raven says nothing, which is his usual response.
"I've decided something... I want to make it look like a suicide." Shisui turned his head slightly. "It's all I can do to help protect you from the clan..."
"Shisui-" Itachi starts.
"Please, don't." He interrupts. "It's not up for debate."
And Itachi knows by his tone that he's serious.
"There's also the matter of my last request..."
There is silence, punctuated with the squelching sound of an eye ripped from it's socket.
Shisui doesn't even miss a beat. "I want you to take my eye. Keep it out of Danzo's clutches. But beyond that, I don't care what you do with it." He laughed. "Knowing you, you'll probably find a way to save the village all over again..."
Shisui offers up a bloody smile, seeing in his mind's eye the moonlight reflected off of the ever-changing face of the water. "This isn't a bad way to die. I'm actually grateful...that it's you they sent, Itachi. You see, I was expecting this... After Danzo took my right eye, I knew he'd go to someone else. I never thought you might volunteer to cover up his tracks, though... Makes perfect sense in hindsight."
Itachi's breathing stops.
"You were always the eager one, the responsible one, Itoko... You were always too good." Shisui laugh.
Resolve.
Itach had found his.
The world was not ending. No, it would spin madly on. It was just his heart that he had to kill to perform this mission.
Piece by piece.
And he would kill it for the sake of the Village.
Gently, Itachi led his lover into the bitter river that would become his grave.
"Goodbye, Shisui."
Itoko, may we meet again.