Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any characters therein.

A/N: Because everyone knows I can't let this date pass without fic! Rated for a bit of language, some innuendo, alcohol…erm…Shisui, basically. Enjoy. XD

-spontaneity

Itachi was a fan of routine. It was a fairly well known fact. Routine was his friend; it provided the structure that he, with his freakishly too-big brain and equally freakish perfection complex (to quote his darling baby brother on a bitchy day), found extremely relaxing as he went about his day.

Nowhere was this more apparent than at his part-time job in the local library. All of his daily duties—shelving books, organizing DVDs, answering typically mundane questions, compiling lists, readjusting his glasses in the vague hope of fighting off the oncoming headache—had an order and a pattern to them. No exceptions made unless someone who shared his blood was dead or dying, and even that was iffy when you considered the tendency of Uchiha family members to dislike each other…if not loathe each other entirely. (Uchihas as a whole had many interesting and varied tendencies, including but not limited to brilliant minds, inbreeding, and a general leaning towards insanity.)

This is not to say that Itachi was boring, as he was so often accused. He was capable of being spontaneous just as your average person is capable of standing in the middle of a busy road and singing show tunes. And just as your average person chooses not to utilize that capability, so Itachi did not usually utilize his. The overwhelming majority of zany schemes or acts of spontaneity he'd become involved in were the result of the people closest to him—namely his cousin or little brother—dragging him into their messes.

As such, he was perfectly happy to spend the better part of his twenty-first birthday taking books out of a cart and putting them onto shelves (alphabetized, of course). He figured he would treat himself to a quiet, peaceful evening and that would be that—somehow forgetting that his plans went awry with a frightening frequency.

Eight-thirty rolled around, thirty minutes to the closing of the library and thus the end of his shift. Itachi was lingering in the back where they stocked trashy paperback romances that women loved so inexplicably much, making room for a new set of books that all had bare (male) chests superimposed on the covers, when someone pounced on him from behind.

This being Itachi, he did not panic. He did not yell. He merely put eight years of judo lessons to use, pulled his attacker over his shoulder and pinned him to the floor. Without blinking.

And still perfectly in control of the situation, until he looked down on his attacker and realized he was looking into the face of his boyfriend/cousin (long story). Who was grinning for all the world like he hadn't just assaulted someone in the middle of a public library.

"Jeez, Itachi! Paranoid much?"

"You attacked me from behind," Itachi replied, enunciating carefully in case the words alone weren't sufficiently clear.

Shisui rolled his eyes. "That's no reason to go all Chuck Norris on me! What, you didn't use your Ninja Senses to figure out I was coming?"

Choosing not to dignify that one with a response, Itachi sighed. "What are you doing here?"

"Being pinned to the ground by my adorably paranoid boyfriend. And not minding it one bit, I might add, although I didn't think you went for public displ—ouch!"

"Please keep your perverted thoughts to yourself," Itachi said dryly, moving off of Shisui to sit on the floor. Shisui, for his part, rubbed the spot where he'd been pinched with a pout. "So what are you doing here?"

"Surprising you," Shisui chirped, already recovered. "Seeing as it's your birthday and all. A milestone one, too. Now you can get smashed legally!"

"Please," Itachi muttered with the air of one who knows it's futile, "keep it down. I do work here."

"All of these geezers turned twenty-one at some point! Granted, it might've been when dinosaurs roamed the earth, but…"

"Do I need to injure you again to keep you from insulting my colleagues?"

"Anyway, I figured we should celebrate."

Itachi was almost afraid to ask. "…How?"

The Cheshire grin made its usual appearance. "How else? Sex, drugs and alcohol!" Pausing, Shisui considered. "Minus the drugs, though, because they make your brain go completely wonky and all that. We'll just have to overcompensate when it comes to the sex and the alcohol. Sound good?"

A lifetime of knowing Shisui told Itachi that arguing the issue was pointless. Besides, it was a milestone birthday…perhaps letting his hair down a bit, just once, couldn't hurt.

"Fine. You'll just have to wait another twenty minutes or so; that's the end of my shift."

"Ah-ah-ah," Shisui cut in cheerfully. "See, that's the other part. Today is the day you learn to be spontaneous. Live on the edge! Break the rules a little!"

…And this was the problem with not arguing the issue. Give him and inch and he would take a mile and all your self-preservation instincts right along with it.

"Are you suggesting that I skip out on the remainder of my—"

"It's only twenty minutes, you stick-in-the-mud," Shisui informed him with a fond ruffling of the hair. Which only make Itachi want to choke him all the more. "And besides, I'm being nice. You should've seen the shit I got up to on the big two-one. Hint: replace the word 'rules' with 'law'."

Vaguely Itachi recalled bribe money changing hands. He shuddered.

"I refuse to get involved with anything that has even the slightest possibility of getting me arrested," he warned.

"Yeah, yeah, I know all that. Now come on, I already told your supervisor you weren't feeling well."

"You what?"

"Gave her a really vivid mental image too. You have diarrhea and everything!"

"Shisui, I can make it so that no one will ever find your body."

The older boy blanched. "Relax, braniac! I just told her you were getting a bit of a cold and called me to pick you up. Yeesh."

Itachi exhaled very slowly. "Remind me, please, why I put up with you?"

Shisui smirked. "That part comes later, love. Gotta do these things in order, right? Now act sickly. If you want to get revenge on me, drink me under the table so that I have the world's most epic hangover tomorrow morning."

"I intend to," Itachi informed him, and faked a cough.

It was only twenty minutes, after all.

-end

A/N: Happy birthday, Itachi!