A/N: Posted after a year because it's ShiIta Week and the first prompt-"Confession"-seemed to suit this rather well. Hope y'all are doing amazing~
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when we are out to sea
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The New Year celebrations in the Uchiha compound are a thing of beauty, Shisui's not saying they're not—his clan puts on the most technically flawless display of fireworks in Fire Country and they're damn proud of it—but after fifteen years of more or less the same thing, he decides he needs a change.
He slips away while everyone else is jostling around, eating dango and trying to find the best vantage point for the upcoming show. It's unseasonably warm for the time of year, and the Nakano feels amazing when he dips his feet in (and tries not to get the bottom of his yukata wet or his mother will eviscerate him). He tilts his head back and sighs, the night air cool on his face. The stars are already wheeling above in a black sky. It's getting dark earlier and earlier these days.
But it's just the winter, Shisui knows. The sunlight will come back eventually.
He leans back on the grass, arms crossed behind his head.
"You can quit creeping over there, you know."
Itachi moves out of the shadows without making a sound. He doesn't look at all embarrassed about getting caught, which is just typical Itachi.
"You left early," he remarks, coming to sit beside Shisui. "Have you been drinking again?"
Shisui huffs. "Once—I overindulge on New Year's exactly one time and you're never going to let me live it down."
"What else are friends for?" his cousin says in a deadpan sort of way.
"Cutting you slack when you need it," Shisui retorts.
Itachi's expression doesn't change. "I was not aware we were in such a dire situation."
Shisui opens his mouth, thinks better of it, and resumes his stargazing with a serene smile on his face.
"Whatever you say," he replies.
He can feel Itachi looking at him.
"You are being suspiciously accommodating," Itachi says.
Shisui shrugs. "It's a new year, right? I think it's good to start as you mean to go on."
And, it occurs to him, that goal should probably include honesty. Itachi is thirteen now, old enough to have secrets of his own—and Shisui is fifteen, old enough to try his hand at setting an example.
Things have been off-kilter around the compound lately. Shisui can all but taste change on the air; he thinks maybe if he's open with Itachi, there'll be a better chance of Itachi granting him the same favor later down the road.
So he says, "I wasn't drinking."
"Then why did you leave?"
Like an Inuzuka dog with a bone, that one. But Shisui can't help noticing that Itachi accepted his explanation without any more pestering. His cousin may give him no end of shit over the little things, but Shisui knows he still has Itachi's trust. He wonders how many other people can say that.
Shisui swallows, wets his lips with his tongue.
"Honestly?" he says. His heart jitters up into his throat, nudging the words out. "I was hoping you would come after me."
Silence, a pause while Itachi digests that and Shisui tries to pretend he isn't sweating through his yukata.
He hears rather than sees a sudden shift of movement to his right, and then Itachi is leaning over him with those unreadable dark eyes—unreadable even to Shisui, who's known him his whole life. Who held Itachi when he was just a baby.
Who, at the moment, can't seem to stop staring at his mouth.
"What are you doing?" he manages.
"Starting as I mean to go on," Itachi answers, and kisses him.
Shisui's startled into opening his mouth. Itachi—ever the consummate shinobi—takes full advantage. The woods around them blur into the background along with Shisui's better judgment; it's all a haze of tongues and wet and heat, the weight of Itachi's body pressing Shisui further down into the grass. The damp there, leftover from an earlier rain, soaks into his clothing and for a half-second Shisui's instincts are confused by the sound of running water—for a half-second he feels as if he is being submerged, as if he is drowning.
But it's only Itachi. Itachi is the only reason he can't breathe right now, and oxygen was something Shisui willingly forfeited.
He doesn't have the wherewithal to wonder if he's going to regret that forfeiture later. He doesn't think he will.
It ends with Shisui's hands clutching desperately at the thin material on Itachi's back, trying to absorb the heat of his skin through the fabric, and Itachi's fingers dig into his collarbone so hard he's sure it's going to bruise.
Shisui's probably going to look as if he's been strangled, come morning, but at this moment Itachi is above him with his face loose and awed, the sky mixing with his inky hair and stars glimmering behind his head, and Shisui isn't thinking about anything else.
They lay down side by side, still fully clothed if more than slightly rumpled. Itachi doesn't have a single hair out of place but his mouth is swollen; Shisui considers making fun of him for it but remembers the state of his neck and reconsiders.
Itachi says nothing, only looks at him—not like he's waiting for anything, but as if he's perfectly content to stare at Shisui for as long as Shisui will allow. His eyes are wide and dark; if there is anything lurking beneath them it is gone for now, chased away by what they've just done. Shisui decides he will deal with those shadows if and when they return.
They can take care of them together.
For now, Shisui says nothing either. He drinks Itachi in, drinks in that look on his face. Meets his eyes and feels like he is drowning all over again and doesn't mind at all.