A/N: Another one of my weird little insanity-flashes. Anyone who's read Not Ever will understand what I mean. Marche Funebre is going to be as disturbing and as surreal as I can make it, and that's a fact.
Dislaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of its characters. This story was inspired by Chopin's Piano Sonata Number Two (I think), movement three, the Funeral March.
Please review!
Marche Funebre
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(Funeral March)
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As smooth as ivory pearls, my love
Each sphere as silent as the spellbound sea
Each world an echo in an ivory cheek
Loving, transitory, we never existed
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You are me.
I can see you. Me. Your eyes matching mine in the glimmering curve of a mirror. You are younger, but only a few years between us, a few years and the sheen of a sheet of glass. Hard and cold as the winter hail.
I am so close that I can almost touch you. When I reach out my fingers you reach out yours, and when our fingertips meet I can taste your fear.
– Go away, you say.
– Sasuke, I answer.
You cannot shake me away. I am here, as constant as your own shadow. I am your echo. Or perhaps you are mine. It doesn't seem to matter. Not now.
– I don't love you, you say.
But your fingertips do not move away, stay fixed against mine. I lean forward to breathe against the still pool of the mirror. You lean forward too, and for a moment I wonder what you would do if I kissed you. One kiss and you would be mine, sealed behind the glass.
– I don't love you, Itachi, you say again.
– Don't speak, I whisper, my lips hovering just above yours. Just let it happen. Just don't say anything.
– You killed them.
– Shh, I say. Just let it happen.
– You killed Mother and Father.
Your eyes wander, linger on my own. You are so beautiful. The grace of a swan in those pale limbs, a fragrant music in your eyes. I breathe and the glass mists over.
– Shh, I say again. I can't stay long.
– Where are you going?
– Home.
A wariness enters your fragrant eyes. You don't want me to go. Your fingers trail mine as I wipe the mist of my breath away, matching me sweep for sweep. It is perfect, an elegant grace I cannot fathom. It is beautiful. As beautiful as the haunting in your eyes. I want to kiss you again.
– Home, you repeat, as if the word is foreign to you. Home.
– Sasuke, I say.
You understand. But yet your fear is still there, lingering beneath your skin like a bad dream.
– I don't love you, you say again, as if to remind me.
But I don't believe you. You know this.
So I choose not to speak, content myself with watching you. You have a uniqueness about you, something that separates you from the world. Perhaps it is the glass. Perhaps it is something else. I don't know, I cannot define you. You orbit in your own private sphere, as aloof as the fresh-lit winter.
Your beauty takes my breath away. When I look at you, I see the world hived in a thousand honey-colored facets, arcing like ivory pearls. When I look at you, I see myself.
I will kiss you. You cannot stop me.
– Don't move, I tell you.
You obey. Of course you do. You are mine.
I lean forward and I press my lips over yours, gently, gently. You meet me halfway at the silver glass. Your lips are cool – green as flame and gold as blood – and I wonder, wonder if I love you.
Maybe I do. But that won't stop me from killing you.
I pull back and you do too, we are one and the same. One an echo of the other. The mirror confuses things.
And so I wonder – am I your reflection, or are you mine? You can never know. You move but perhaps you're not the one moving at all – perhaps it's your reflection moving, and you follow him because that is the spell between you. Because you know no other. Because you love him, and he loves you.
You know this. And so do I. Together, it is our spell.
– I have to go, I say.
That fear in your eyes again – perhaps you are afraid that what you see in your mirror is me. Afraid that, one day, you will become me.
– Good, you say.
But you do not mean it.
– Kiss me again, I say.
– I can't, you say. And I can see the light in your reflected eyes. I can't, Itachi.
So I kiss you instead. It is slow, lingering because the mirror-world works that way, our breaths frosting the glass. I'm losing you but even that is beautiful.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
When the spell breaks I keep my lips there still, close my eyes. Even there, with the mirror faded from me, you are there. You haunt me even as I haunt you. There is a sweet symmetry about it, our kiss a meeting of silent worlds. Our blood swirling together, crimson against the pale expanse of your throat.
It isn't the first time I've loved you but I know, somehow, that it is the last.
I have to go. It is the end now.
And if our love is Symmetry – then our death is Symmetry too.
I close my eyes and I wish. The glass cracks under my stilled fingers, shatters behind my eyelids. And I see, for a soft, hived moment, your eyes watching me from the broken shards.
I am bleeding. I've kissed you again, too soon. The blood is crimson copper on my lips.
I love you.
But here, the mirror ends. Here, everything ends.
Tomorrow, you will die. Perhaps I will die with you, the nature of our spell. But at least I know that when you die, when I kill you, it will be in my arms –
– and my eyes, my love, our eyes, our love –
– will be the last thing that you see.
Owari.
A/N: Yeah, well, I did warn you it would be strange.
This is supposed to be a one-shot (as I'm sure you're aware by now), but I am contemplating extending it into a three-shot. It depends how you guys like it.
I should perhaps let you know that I have not read Shippuden, so I'm not really aware of what Itachi's character is supposed to be like, but "insane" and "twisted" is always a good bet on these sorts of things. Hope you liked this little shot of crazy, randomly-inspired piece of work.
(And I hope the lack of quotation marks didn't throw you guys all off…)
Adieu. And please, please, please review.