Had this funny "Wristcutters" spinoff idea and thus this fic was born. In which Itachi-lovers unite. If you're looking for smut, there's mentions of smut, but no actual smut. Rated M for aforementioned mentions of smut.

DROWNERS

They said there was a light, and if there was one, Kisame would be clutching his way through water towards it. But the light, at least for him, didn't exist. At least the pain was gone, at least he could say that he did good. Of course, a couple of regrets skimmed through his mind like a knife skimming over beer. Kisame, who prided himself on his forward-looking attitude, happily took those few regrets in. Once he realized the common thread within most of said regrets, he began to choke.

"Itachi!" The name bubbled forth from his mouth as he heaved a breath of stagnant, dry air – air of a new afterlife.

The bed he lay haphazardly on looked as if it came straight from an ill-resourced hospital. A wind, waterless, he noted, swept sand into his eyes. The bed stood in the center of the desert. On Kisame was a shapeless hospital gown.

Kisame cursed his luck. Of all places the afterlife for not-so-good people could be – a dark cave, a dungeon, a piercingly white room – it had to be a lonely desert. Though the sun was low in the sky and colors of night began to seep into the endless blue, the heat was strong enough to produce sweat on Kisame's forehead.

Water. He needed water. It wasn't that he was thirsty or eager to survive. It was that he, so accustomed to the salty sea breeze – or at the very least mist or humidity! – felt sorely weakened by his surroundings. If he was going to begin a fresh start in an unfamiliar dimension, he needed water.

Standing, he attempted to use his chakra to pinpoint a direction for him to begin. His muscles tensed a little, but no such power emitted from his pressure points. Chakra didn't exist in the afterlife. Great.

No landmarks, no animals, no people, just sand. He picked the direction opposite from the sun and walked. The sand quickly burned his feet through his hospital socks. The eerie silence – no rattlesnake hiss or hawk cawing up above – made Kisame feel even lonelier. Maybe he should have stayed on that hospital bed, curled up in solitude, asleep, dreaming. When he looked back, the bed was gone.

If this was Kisame's punishment for the blood on his hands, he figured it was fair. Though many considered him and the Akatsuki's plans evil, he didn't really think so, nor did he really care. Still, if widespread deserts were waiting for those considered evil-doers, at least Sasori would be at home.

After Kisame walked quite a distance, he turned around to look at the sun and check his progress. The sun hadn't budged from his acute angle to the land. Chakra doesn't exist, real clothes and the means to make them don't exist, and neither does time. Kisame pulled up the socks to his calves and kept walking.

Eventually, he did hear something, someone yelling. "Heeeey! Over here! Hey!" Squinting through the heated air, Kisame made out a dot on a sand dune, a bit off his mental beaten path. A person! With discipline, yet with excitement, he took long strides to up the dune to meet this talking being. As he got closer, he could make out some features: it appeared human, had crossed legs, wore something that looked like a white potato sack. Even closer, Kisame could see that he was a curly haired, young teen with familiar eyes.

"Okay. You're a blue person. That's just weird. Are you real?" The boy stood. He was rather small – probably only fifteen – but his arms were muscular. He must have been a shinobi. Kisame stared at the bo longer, only to belatedly realize he was making one-sided conversation and was convinced Kisame was a blue mirage. "Hey, fish, are you listening? Where did you come from? Where is the water?"

"I'm not a fish," Kisame answered firmly. "I'm a shinobi of the Hidden Mist."

"You mean you used to be a shinobi," the boy corrected. "You're new here, aren't you?"

A little irked, Kisame swallowed his pride and conceded – yes, he was new here. "The name's Hoshigaki Kisame."

"Uchiha Shisui. Sit down with me, Hoshigaki."

He felt as though someone threw a rock inside his mental peaceful lake. Kisame was all too familiar with the last name, and was begrudgingly familiar with the first. "You're an Uchiha," he said while taking Shisui's invitation to sit.

Shisui looked Kisame up and down, and finally concluded, "And you must be one of the Seven Swordsman of the Mist."

"Small world, this afterlife." Kisame laughed at the irony. Even here, he was partnered with an Uchiha! The gods must be playing a sick joke on him. At the very least, he and Shisui started out better than he and Itachi did. Unlike Itachi on that first day, Shisui's guard was completely down, and his spine slacked like a normal teenager's would. Then again, what had Shisui to fear? They were both dead.

Kisame bit down the urge to ask Shisui the question he should have asked Itachi.

"You wouldn't have happened to find water on your short journey here, did you?" asked Shisui. Kisame shook his head, and Shisui bowed his in response. "Damn it. I've been looking for ages. And for another age, I've been sitting here, tanning." He peered at his arms, which didn't look any more tan than they would have naturally. "We pulled the burnt match and got the burnt afterlife. How'd you out yourself?"

"How did you know I killed myself?" Kisame dodged the question. He was suspicious of this Uchiha, simply because of that one time – that one time Itachi moaned while Kisame seized his hair and slid inside again –

"You drowned yourself, didn't you?"

There was no reason for Kisame to be angry at the boy's ignorance, but he was angry anyway. "No. Water jutsu."

"Similar concept." A pause. Shisui looked meaningfully at the blue above him. "I drowned myself."

"Good job, kid. Now you're here."

Shisui glared. Kisame knew that focused look. It usually came with a pair of red eyes. "If you're going to bitch about your lot in death, then you can go wander by yourself. But before you can happily relieve yourself of my annoying presence, you're going to have to answer a few questions for me." In the boy's voice was the biting coldness of the Uchiha.

Kisame growled, returning the hostility gladly, "I have questions for you, too, boy."

"My clan," Shisui started.

"Dead." Kisame finished the predictable answer. "Except for one."

"Two." He masked his grief by narrowing his eyes in thought. "Uchiha Itachi, right?"

"Uchiha Sasuke." Kisame looked the boy square in the face to decipher his reaction. Shisui's eyes only relaxed, and he exhaled as if he were holding his breath. He almost looked tranquil, happy, that Itachi was gone. Furious, Kisame said, "What, do you have no love for your brethren?"

Shisui pursed his lips not before saying dismissively, "We were cousins, Itachi and I. And what he went through wasn't fair. But you wouldn't know."

"I do know."

The line between Shisui's lips tightened visibly. "How?"

Sensing the boy's vulnerability, Kisame attacked, "Itachi was my lover."

At that, Shisui stood up. His face, his fists, even his curls were full of rage. Mouth hanging, he searched for words. Upon finding nothing but stammers, his eyes brimmed with furious tears. Grudgingly and loudly, he collapsed back down beside Kisame, knees to his chest. "Fuck you." When Kisame snorted at his immaturity, Shisui yelled, "Itachi is mine."

"He was yours," corrected Kisame slowly.

"Fuck you," he repeated.

"Are you done? You're the whiniest Uchiha I've ever met."

That insult seemed to sober Shisui up. He ran his fingers across his face to dry his eyes, but he didn't give up the fight. "I loved Itachi. And Itachi loved me back. You say you were lovers. Did Itachi love you?"

Kisame hesitated. He loved Itachi, and sometimes he entertained the thought that Itachi loved him back. All those nights in cheap motels sharing beds and sharing toothbrushes told Kisame that Itachi loved him. All those times Itachi snatched handfuls of his hair and begged for more had Kisame thinking that Itachi loved him. But never did those three magic words escape those lips of his, at least, not for Kisame.

"No, huh." It was Shisui's turn to snort aloud.

Conceding a loss, Kisame confessed, mind in a green whirlpool, "He said your name, you know. In his sleep, while he dreamed, during sex. He said your name."

Bitter Shisui held his breath. He said nothing, but buried his face into his knees. "Goddamn it, Itachi," he finally mumbled. "You have sex with a shark but you wouldn't have sex with me. Goddamn it."

Kisame couldn't hold back his laughter, as inappropriate as it was. "Really? That's what you're all concerned about? He said your name, you know. He was moaning for you."

Shisui's neck elongated as he looked up, once again, to the sky. "Was his ass tight?"

Blushing was never Kisame's thing; it looked terrible against his skin. He wasn't quite comfortable discussing the tightness of asses with a young man half his age. When Shisui looked at him expectantly, Kisame, embarrassed, conceded, "I've been with a lot of guys, but Itachi was the best."

"Ugh." Shisui extended his legs from the clutches of his arms and fell backwards into the sand. He continued, unabashed, "And his blowjobs were amazing, right?"

Remembering the image of Itachi, on his knees, head bobbing horizontally, Kisame agreed. "And he always looked up me with his Sharingan."

"Man, he was sexy. And I was with him when he was thirteen. Thirteen year olds are awkward buggers. But he was sexy. Goddamn."

Kisame was too much in disbelief that this conversation was actually happening. He looked carefully at Shisui, who splayed himself on the sand, slight smile on his face. Shisui was, after all this time, so in love. Kisame wondered if he, himself, looked like that sometimes.

If Itachi hadn't suffered as much as he did, if Itachi lived the ideal life he deserved, he would still be with Shisui. And so many times as he slept by Kisame's side, writhing in pain, sweating from nightmares, and waking up to take medications, Kisame wished that he would have a better life.

"A life with you," Kisame confessed, "Itachi deserved that."

"At least," Shisui said, "At least he had you to keep him company."

And they looked at the sky, at its gradients of orange and blue and purple, and sat and thought and marveled at how lucky they had been, slowly drowning in the dunes of sand.