To Penny, my dear friend.
They sit in silence.
It isn't unusual for them. They have been partners for years, now; everything that they needed to say has already been said. Now they simply wear the silence around them, not unlike the red-and-black patterned Akatsuki robes that flutter halfheartedly in the wind. Completely, precisely, exactly the same – except for the fact that the two silences are utterly alien to each other.
Kisame's silence is alive. His sharp teeth are bared in a smile, and his sharp gaze sweeps the landscape time and time again. He breathes in the world, swallowing it, devouring it – and reveling in it. His silence is excited tension, stilled only by an iron will and a former Mist-nin's adamantine discipline.
The other man – the dark-haired, red-eyed, pale-skinned ninja half-hidden by the shadows of the trees – his silence is deathly. Kisame's presence bulges outwards, filling the world; the Uchiha's silence is suppressive. He has collapsed into himself, and his body is left behind, empty and forlorn, and the darkness of his thoughts haunts him behind his shuttered eyes.
Kisame shifts, grumbles to himself. Then -
"Oi, Uchiha."
Blood-red eyes swivel to stare at him, vacant. "Hn?"
The shark-man bares his teeth in a ferocious smile. "Fight me."
Itachi stares at him for a moment, empty of expression. Then his lips curl ever so slightly, and he turns away again, facing the wind.
"Nn."
Kisame grins again, just to himself. Anyone else – anyone in the world – would not be able to differentiate between those two half-seconds of noise that the Uchiha made in the back of his throat.
But he could.
One was empty and one was full.
One was lost and one was found.
And there was an eternity of difference between the two – a difference the gruff shark-man would never have been able to put into words himself.
Maybe that was why the Uchiha didn't speak. Words were limiting, after all. They filled the space between two souls.
Words could bridge an unfathomable distance, perhaps, and lead two distant hearts towards one another.
But they could be a wall, and cut off two lonely souls mere inches from one another.
They didn't need words. Not Kisame and Itachi. They hadn't needed words for a long, long time.
"Tch." The massive ninja leans backwards, arms behind his head. "Later, then" he says, his tone making it clear that this was a promise and not a suggestion – but not a command, no. Never a command. Only a promise.
Those blood-red eyes bled free of color, until they were merely black. And the Uchiha graces him with a tiny, tiny smile.
"Hn." He stands and walks away, but Kisame doesn't need to hear anything else. He could hear the unspoken thanks in the words, the silent gratitude that was wider than the earth, more vast than the skies.
And Kisame leans back against the rock and smiles again to himself, relishing the taste of wind and stone upon his tongue as he listens to Itachi walk away.