A/N: Cracky-silliness for the Naruto_Meme community. The prompt was Itachi and Seasonal Affect Disorder. We all need a little more humor.
Itachi wasn't exactly the most cheerful person. Kisame had never expected the boy to be. Missing-nin weren't usually cheerful. Given that Itachi was the I-have-murdered-my-entire-clan sort of Missing-nin, cheerfulness would have been a cause for worry. Kisame actually wasn't fond of sociopaths. The calm, levelheaded, if not prickly Uchiha was fine with him.
There were a lot of adjustments to make, of course, Kisame had never worked with a partner that was so young or so small. Itachi, while a spectacular ninja well-known for his poker-face, was still a teenager, and prone to moodiness, growth spurts, and eating more food than should be physically possible for someone so small and skinny. The moods were subtle but there, and, after a few months, Kisame got good enough at reading them. The growth spurts weren't that common-just sudden and annoying because things suddenly stopped fitting and Itachi could not wear anything of Kisame's without looking more than ridiculous. The food issue was a work in progress.
Itachi even had his days, or weeks on some rare occasions, and teenaged angst, where he subtly moped, slept more than he usually did, and generally looked rather listless and pitiful. Those never lasted longer than a day of two, and Itachi bounced out of them fairly quickly (okay, bounced made it sound too cheerful. Crawled out of his hole of misery?). Itachi wasn't one to wallow in any sort of emotion. They came and went, but Itachi never let them get the better of him for long.
That was what made winters so strange. It took Kisame two years to realize something was drastically off about his partner every time the days got short and it started getting cold. The first winter, Kisame barely noticed, but he wasn't that used to Itachi yet. The second winter, Kisame noticed some things, and maybe they were more pronounced.
The most notable thing was the amount of food Itachi started eating. It wasn't just the normal snacking of someone still growing, and trying to keep up with someone much larger than he was. It was an almost desperate amount. Every time Kisame turned around, Itachi was eating something-dango, riceballs tucked away in some scroll, and sweet rolls-or rolls of any kind. When Itachi wasn't eating, he was sleeping. Anytime they stopped to rest, even if it was for a few minutes, Itachi curled up and fell asleep. He did it on missions. It was the first thing he did after eating when they stopped for the night, not bothering to help Kisame with any chores if they were forced to camp out. Less obvious, and possibly imagined, was the change of mood. Itachi was a little more waspish when he spoke, but, usually, he didn't say anything at all.
Itachi was quiet, but he wasn't that quiet.
The third winter, Kisame decided there was something wrong, and it was getting worse. Itachi had turned sixteen the previous summer. That winter, he didn't get up before noon unless forced to, and the groggy almost stupefied response Kisame got when he woke Itachi was not like the ninja he knew. Given the extraordinary amount of sleep Itachi was squeezing in, Kisame noticed the eating more. Itachi wasn't eating that much more than he had been previous winters, Kisame told himself. It was just that Itachi has less time to eat, so it just looked like more. That was also the reason that Itachi went three whole months without saying anything to Kisame. Except an almost petulant "I'm hungry" when the Uchiha hadn't had something to eat in a few hours back in December.
They came back to base in April, with Itachi practically cheerful. Kisame had the unpleasant task of justifying their expenses with Kakuzu, and they both realized something. Itachi had eaten a lot. More than a lot. He'd eaten almost twice as much as Kisame. That was definitely not like the other years. Kakuzu was appalled, and ranted at Itachi about it. Itachi just shrugged. He'd been hungry. He'd eaten. End of story.
Itachi turned seventeen. The summer months rolled by. Fall came along. Winter approached, and Kisame watched Itachi. Itachi ate a lot, but not that much. He slept no more than Kisame, and woke up at dawn most day, clear headed and ready to face the day. He answered questions when asked, would make observations about their surroundings when he felt like it, and they discussed plans for missions. Itachi spoke, he wasn't cheerful, but he wasn't a sullen lump under a pile of covers either.
As winter approached, Kisame watched his partner, and he saw it. Itachi started to slow down. Gradually, Itachi started sleeping more. He started eating more. He stopped talking, and just sank into some other state of mind. Kisame decided that yes, this was getting worse as the years went by, and he decided if he didn't do something, then Itachi was going to get them both killed by Kakuzu.
Kisame mentioned the problem to Madara, hoping that this might be some sort of Uchiha trait, but Madara had no enlightening views, except a mumble of 'another way the boy's defective.' On his way out of that interview, Kisame met Zetsu, who was sitting in front of a very large, very bright lamp, and he wasn't doing anything except sitting. Zetsu had reluctantly admitted that he never got enough sunlight in the winter when he had to go underground for a lot of Madara's work. Zetsu said it gave him more energy. Kisame was hardly qualified to rag on Zatsu for his weird, biological quirks, so he left the man to...light bathing.
Itachi was curled up, sleeping again. He'd been like that since last night, and the sun was already high. He'd stolen the covers off of Kisame's bed, and he was still cold. He was only drowsing, fuzzily stuck between waking and sleeping. He heard Kisame come in, but he didn't bother to move until his partner gave him a shake.
"Oi, I brought breakfast," Kisame said, and he sounded like he was trying to be cheerful. Itachi managed to get his head out from under the pile of covers, and found Kisame looking down at him. Itachi pulled out a hand and waved his partner away, letting the man know he was awake, and he was getting up.
But he didn't want to. Itachi just wanted to curl up and sleep again. It took what felt like hours to drag himself out of bed and onto the floor (their room lacked a table) to eat the food Kisame had brought. Itachi was starving, and that was probably the only thing that actually got him out of bed. He was so tired, and it seemed rather pointless to get up. He's already made a terrible mess of things, so he'd probably just make things worse.
It was amazing, Itachi mused as he plowed through the food, that someone who'd been vaunted as such a genius could be such an idiot. Really, had Itachi done anything right? He'd thought so at the time, but now that he thought about it, everything just seemed wrong. The sort of wrong that couldn't be fixed-not by anything. It made Itachi want to crawl under the covers and never get up again.
Which made him more disgusted with himself, and he was already certain he loathed himself more than anyone should hate anything. Maybe he should just go die. Then he wouldn't have to watch everything fall apart, and cause more things to implode by looking at them...
Itachi looked at Kisame. Kisame, who had just turned on a very bright lamp-ish looking thing that had come to sit by Itachi. Itachi squinted and looked at the bright white light, and then looked at Kisame. All right, Itachi's eyesight wasn't what it once was, but he wasn't so blind he needed that much light to eat his breakfast.
Kisame smiled. "Just thought you might want some more light. Here, Kakuzu sent us a scroll, but it needs to be translated. You can do that, right?" Kisame handed over a thick scroll, and Itachi nodded. He didn't want to, but he would. After breakfast.
For once, Kisame had brought enough food. Itachi dragged a blanket off the bed and curled up with that as he set on the floor and worked out the code of the scroll. It should have only fifteen minutes, but Itachi's mind kept wandering off, and it was hard to force himself to think about the significance of someone babbling about tailed beasts. Why did it matter is Madara took over the world anyway?
Itachi finished the stupid scroll, and remembered to turn Kisame giant lamp off before he crawled back into bed to sleep again. Kisame would wake him up for supper. Or lunch. Or whatever meal was next.
The next morning (mid-morning, actually) Kisame had another meal and another scroll. As soon as Itachi started eating, the lamp came on again. Itachi gave Kisame an exasperated look. He had no idea what was going on, but it wasn't worth moving. He had a hard enough time motivating himself to get out of bed that morning, much less questioning Kisame's sudden insanity. The world was crazy, so why should he be surprised that Kisame was too?
The week crawled by monotonously. There was a scroll every morning. Itachi knew they were going to be leaving the town soon, off after another tailed beast, but he didn't care when they left. He liked sleeping, and it was too cold for traipsing around looking for people anyway. He wouldn't care if they never left. Madara could have the world. It was ruined anyway.
Itachi woke up. He got up, stretched, and headed to the bathroom to get a shower. After that, since Kisame was still asleep, he went out and found breakfast for them both. When he came back in, Kisame was awake, and poking the pile of blankets on Itachi's bed. They were leaving, so there hadn't seemed to be a point in making them.
Kisame turned around as soon as Itachi walked in, and Itachi was amused and annoyed to see Kisame actually gape. "You're awake."
Itachi nodded, not deigning to reply. He set the food down and pulled out his own portion of food to eat. He was doubly annoyed and disturbed when Kisame watched him eat it.
"That's all? You're full?" Kisame asked. Itachi paused, regarding his partner carefully before he nodded. Kisame, still looking rather pole-axed, walked over to where his giant lamp sat ad turned it on, pointing it at Itachi.
"Kisame, what is that thing, and why do you keep trying to blind me with it?" Itachi finally asked, shielding his eyes and glaring up at Kisame.
Kisame just grinned. "Magic. That's what it is."
Oh gods, Kisame really had gone crazy. Itachi didn't really want to deal with a crazy partner. "It's magic?" He had to be joking. It was a lamp.
Kisame nodded. "You're up before noon. You're speaking again. You didn't eat an entire village before you were full. You're feeling better, aren't you?"
Itachi, for a moment, was at a loss for words. He had no idea what Kisame was talking about. He hadn't been feeling badly. He'd just been cold and tired, so he'd eaten more, and it was always harder to function in the winter-adverse conditions and all of that.
...Except...Itachi wasn't sleepy right now. He felt awake. He really hadn't eaten that much, and he wasn't still hungry. He didn't feel like crawling back under the covers and letting the world go to Hell. He was cold, but that didn't seem like such a problem.
"I...guess..." Itachi blinked. "Why am I feeling better?" Because he was, and he was just realizing how crappy he'd been feeling now that he felt decent again.
"Because, I fixed you-with this," Kisame, still grinning, pointed at the bright lamp. Itachi looked at the lamp, and then looked at Kisame. "I noticed you practically hibernate every winter, and Zetsu said this made him feel better when he didn't get enough sun."
Itachi let the ridiculous implications sink in. "I don't feel good, so your answer is to get me more light?" Granted, it made sense. The days were getting shorter. There wasn't as much sunlight, but that couldn't be it. "What do you think I am, some sort of plant?"
Kisame chuckled. "Sure. An exotic Konoha Fire Flower. Treat with care and make sure it gets plenty of light in all seasons. " Itachi gave Kisame a disgusted look. He was not amused.
But he sat in front of the stupid light for half an hour.
And sealed it in a scroll so it wouldn't get damaged when they were traveling. He really did feel better.