Oh my god. So this is what happens when I can't sleep at night and think up an idea, sit on it for half a day, and finally throw it into words, with a song I think describes Kisame so well playing in the background. Well, if Kisame was more emotional and all. But you know that feel.
And guess what? I actually slowly went through and proofread this. Probably not perfect, but I wanted this story to be as close to that as possible...
WARNINGS: I didn't switch any genders for once! (Like that counts as a warning.), Kisame/Itachi (you could call it one-sided), angst, character death, gore.
Enjoy.
"What does… death feel like?"
A pause filled the air. The metallic scent tore into Itachi's senses, and for some reason he couldn't settle his pulse.
"It feels warm," his voice is the softest he's heard it in years.
He remembers leaning over Sasuke as tears flooded from his eyes. The blanket clutched in small hands. His voice left his mouth in that same gentle tone. His hands wandered to the tear-stained cheek, a thumb carefully moving up and down along soft skin.
"It'll be alright," he had said, as gently as possible, offering a small smile. But still those tears had come, that nightmare penetrated the depths of the child's mind in a way Itachi could never comprehend nor resolve.
Just as those tears had come, a throat tensed, and blood gurgled behind gritted teeth. An endless red flow that came up and up, dripping down the chin and sides of the face. Dirt clutched in huge hands. Itachi's hand wandered to touch rough, gritty skin, hardened by blood and sweat and power, his thumb carefully tracing circles below one tiny, beady, wide eye.
"It'll be alright," he said again, just as he had to his young brother so long ago. But no, this was no nightmare that needed to be scared away. This was different – this was death.
Death that penetrated the body and soul in a way Itachi could never comprehend nor resolve.
"Itachi-san," Kisame gurgled again, coughed, his eyes going wide, his chest clenched. "You need to go, before.. others come."
His other hand wavered against the massive wound in Kisame's muscular chest and stomach. A gaping hole. Itachi could stick his hand, no, he could crawl through the hole in Kisame's body. How he was still alive, minutes after the impact, Itachi had no idea in the world. But Itachi had slaughtered that enemy, torn them to tiny pieces, but not in body. In mind.
He hadn't panicked when the fist had blown through Kisame's hardened body. Because Samehada would heal Kisame's wound, as always.
But the sword squirmed away from Kisame, hissing and yowling like a dejected cat, when Kisame had fallen to the ground in a mass of blue and red.
Itachi had snarled at it to return to its owner's side, but it had backed off, wriggled, yowled, and when Itachi drew close the thing tried to bite his arm off.
Without regret, Itachi lit the repulsive thing on fire. It screamed and bucked and fled into the forest as Itachi dropped to his partner's side.
His knees and legs and arms and ivory hands were stained with the deep red of Kisame's lifeblood. It pooled around them, and Itachi found himself quivering, staring into his dying companion's eyes.
"You need to go," Kisame coughed hollowly, and Itachi took this moment to take in Kisame's face.
That face he had taken so heavily for granted was now paled, more gray than blue. The beady, golden eyes were dulling, half-lidded, as though they were decaying. The mouth and teeth forever stained the same red as Itachi's lithe fingers. The big, slightly crooked nose, with a small tear in one nostril. Itachi ran his bloody thumb over the gills beneath Kisame's eyes, memorizing the ridges.
"I'm not leaving you alone," Itachi whispers, "You deserve someone by your side at the end."
A grin pulls at the right corner of Kisame's lips, and tugs them up slightly, but there's not enough strength left to pull them all the way, to reveal the razors he called teeth. That grin that Itachi would never see again.
"Since when did you…" coughing, blood bubbling, a pang of pain, "…become so sentimental?"
A single low chuckle escaped his dry throat. He turned his hand over to run the back of his fingers against soft, deep blue sideburns, in front of often unnoticeable blue ears. Too big for Kisame.
Leaning over him, the smell of his partner filled Itachi's senses. The smell of sweat and blood, dirt and grit. Of an expanse of ocean Itachi had merely waved a hand at, while Kisame immersed himself in it, calling it stunning and all sorts of things Itachi had simply shook his head at in an incredulous manner that had left his partner with a very small frown.
"You gonna be alright without me?" Kisame tries to laugh, but his eyes clench closed and he moans deep in his throat in pain. His hand twitches, reaches for his stomach, but Itachi stops it, taking the hand in his firm grip.
"I'll be fine," he whispers, but there's dejection in his voice. He feels Kisame's fingers wrap around his, but he feels the strength leaving them. It burns the back of his eyes, stings them, with a pain that's worse than any pain his genjutsu could ever bring him.
"I hadn't figured I'd be checking out this early," the voice grows weaker, and it frightens Itachi to the core. The voice that was so powerful and hearty before is now a dull whisper. A whisper that pleads for release. Never again would Kisame's constant talking be firm and full of life. Now he was reduced to dying whispers and choked breaths.
His vision is already blurry, but it blurs even more. He lets out a harsh, quick breath, feeling the first tear slide down his nose, landing on Kisame's thick neck.
Something in Kisame's eyes changes. The acceptance and hollowness turns into happiness.
"I never thought this was how I'd die," the laugh, and he squeezes Itachi's hand to show he's in pain, but he doesn't let it stop him now, "This partner I've been with for eight years, and the day he finally cries is the day I die. Maybe I wasn't as worthless as I thought I was."
"You're not worthless," the Uchiha tries to keep his voice even, but a sob cracks his voice in the middle of the sentence. Another tear trickles to Kisame's neck. "This shouldn't be how you die."
The blue shadow that moves through enemies, leaving the red and dull brown behind him, with a heavy, awkward grace that was all his own. Itachi's memories and his observations of his partner resurface slowly, one after the other. His partner's bloodlust. His determination. His loyalty. Honesty.
His low self-confidence. His instability. His anger. Loneliness.
The hand, shaking, moves to the back of his partner's head. The hair is soft, prickly. The head is heavy, the neck beneath is muscular and strong. He presses his face close to his partner's, cheek to cheek. Kisame lets his eyes fall closed, with a small smile. Their hands are locked together, their Akatsuki rings pressed right together.
"You're right, Itachi-san," Kisame's voice is so soft and gentle in his ear that Itachi can't believe this is even the voice of his partner, "You're so warm."
"Kisame," the prideful Uchiha can't deny this sob, and the few sobs that follow after it.
He doesn't understand why he is crying, why his chest is clutching so tightly, and why his body is shaking so violently with sobs he tries to choke down.
This isn't Sasuke, his brother.
This is Kisame, his partner.
"I'll see you later," his final chuckle, followed by desperate gasps, coughs, gurgling. Itachi's sobs grow louder, as he clutches his partner close in his grip.
"I won't forget you," sobs wrack him, his lips pressed hard to Kisame's ear. His back heaving. His eyes blurred to the point where he can't see anything but messy blobs.
The hand in his goes limp. The body beneath him follows, and the final breath leaves his partner, a relaxed sigh that gently warms his ear.
How long he held Kisame, he didn't remember. He remembers a harsh voice, Zetsu's, and he remembers how he snarled at this encroaching man, threatening to run him through and send him straight to Hell, something he never did to people, something he never meant until now. Zetsu fled away to return later once the Uchiha was stable and the body of Kisame Hoshigaki could be approached.
The blood dried on his fingers. The drops of scarlet felt like scars on his face and chest, arms and legs.
He sobbed until he could sob no more, until the tears stopped flowing. Kisame had gone cold in his grip. He tried to clutch the bigger man closer to him but no matter his efforts the cold skin beneath his wouldn't take in the warmth he so desperately wanted to provide.
Why had he not given Kisame this warmth when he was alive to take it?
Finally, he laid Kisame's head down on the hard ground. He bent up, ignoring the stiff pain in his back.
Kisame, with eyes closed, and very slight smile on his lips, looked truly peaceful in death. Happy, even. The dried blood on his chin marred the strong jaw. He gazed at the gaping hole in the chest and belly, gazed around at the pooled blood all around them.
Finally, he is able to set aside Kisame's cold hand. He looks down at his own two.
The hands that held the lifeblood of his parents, Mikoto and Fugaku.
The injury blood of his younger brother, Sasuke.
And now the lifeblood of his partner, his faithful friend, Kisame.
"You are supposed to be gentle," Itachi tells his hands, flexes them as blood flakes away, tightens them into hard fists. "But why do you do this to me?"
He leans over Kisame for the final time, touching his cheek with loving fingers. He brushes a very gentle kiss to the blue, age-scarred forehead.
He washes away Kisame's blood in the icy waters of the midnight ocean. He gazes out over its depths, watching the waves sway gently. Watching the glimmers of light dance along the top of the water. The occasional stir in the water of a stray fin, making repeating circles that flow on and on and never seem to stop.
And this was what he was missing. The hole in his heart that at Kisame's last moments had been filled, and then torn away again, leaving scar tissue. And now it was permanent, a hole in his chest that would never be appropriately filled again.
He takes steps until the icy water is stinging his neck. He breathes heavily, realization smashing him in the chest.
How ignorant he had been.
And here Kisame was, dead to the world, and the only person who suddenly realized he cared for the monster scorned was an idiot who had no more knowledge of his own feelings than a student did of a lesson before it was taught to him.
He takes another step and the salty water is in his nose. Another step and he's beneath the water. He opens his sore eyes, and gazes into the dark blue.
And this is beauty, the beauty he had been too stupid to observe before. He had observed every other thing about this ocean other than the obvious, the thing that rang so naturally in his head, and yet he had shoved it into the deepest corner of his mind and left it to rot.
This beauty.
As he raised his head, taking a breath of painful, stabbing air, he felt his incentive to die grow.
He could save Sasuke, with the death by his hand, proving Sasuke was man enough to handle this world, but he had neglected the second most important person in his life. The person who had the experience, had the knowledge. The man right by his side, and Itachi had let him die.
"I'm sorry," he whispers, before his head sinks back beneath the waters.