This song "White Winter Hymnal" by Fleet Foxes is entirely to blame for this story. Crackleware is just a synonym for porcelain.
Other than that, I have nothing to say about this.
Warnings/Disclaimers: Mentions of gore, swearing, blood, vomit. Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto, but the plot of this story is mine.
Gore streaks his hands, drying in black clumps and clinging to his skin. Kakashi can smell the blood, still thick and cloying and soaking through his mask. He can taste it and it makes him gag.
Dropping his white armor in the tub he strips, cloth coming away with rusty flakes. Hitai-ate and mask are plastered to his face and he pulls, hard. He imagines tiny teeth tearing at his flesh, craving revenge.
An eye for an eye.
His stomach roils and Kakashi crumples. Fingers claw the back of his neck and he struggles to inhale through the tang of copper that coats his tongue. The bathroom tile is suddenly too white, too clean, and Kakashi rubs a palm across the porcelain, streaking it red. The reflection is muddy, red and black and gray—
Metal hits metal in the other room. There's someone else in the apartment.
Senses still wired from the mission—the loamy dirt under his feet and the scrape of ribs against his wrist as a dying man grins up at him and Kakashi needs to get the fuck out of here before they summon the carrion birds and he's going to heave—the Sharingan swirls in the mirror as Kakashi stands. The living room is devoid of life, but a katana is leaning against his balcony. Not his. Shadows pulse under the glare of his bastard eye and he presses a sticky hand to his temple.
The door to his bedroom is ajar, and he can see nothing but moonlight and that fucking plant his neighbor gave him a month ago through the crack. The nin nudges the door with his foot and Kakashi considers summoning the dogs—Pakkun's jaws close around the missing nin's throat and blood splatters across Kakashi's face—
He decides against it.
Shoving the door open, reckless, he smells blood and jerks away. His sheets are soaked and there's a body and his mind yanks him backwards—he's eight and he has a moment to appreciate how ironic it is that he had liver for lunch before he's throwing up feet from his father's disemboweled body—but then he realizes that the blood is old and the body is still warm.
Two pairs of eyes watch him, one red, one black, both hollow. Kakashi's shoulders sag and he stumbles over to the bed. The boy in his bed is still tacky with blood, and the dog nin can smell salt on his cheeks. Itachi hooks slim fingers around his ANBU mask, pulling it the rest of the way off and tossing it over the edge of the bed—it's more of a mattress, really, Kakashi remembers chuckling about it the first time he pressed this Uchiha back against the sheets, palm gripping Itachi's bicep over a fresh tattoo—his face deceptively neutral.
Kakashi's knee digs into the mattress and he leans over the Uchiha. Itachi is still watching him with cold, cold eyes and slowly he spreads his arms, dried blood crackling across his uniform like lightning and it makes Kakashi's gut clench. Neither of them says anything, but hands dig into muscle and lips find each other in the dark. Their cheeks stick together with blood and tears and grits grinds into Kakashi's chest where he's pressed against Itachi's armor.
Kakashi cards his fingers through sweaty hair and murmurs something about needing new sheets, and something rattles in Itachi's chest that can almost be mistaken for a laugh.
Outside, a storm brews.
/
The next morning, Genma is sitting on his windowsill, saying words like massacre and only survivor and get up, Kakashi, you need to get the fuck up, and Kakashi just stares at his gory sheets.
Genma's hands slip under his arms and yank, but Kakashi is dead weight—the body slumps and takes Kakashi with it, bringing him down to his knees with the cooling bulk pressing against his cheek and the air hisses from ruptured lungs—tangled in the blanket like a noose. There's a bloody handprint on the sheets, but it's not his own. The fingers are too long, too thin.
You have musician's hands. Do you play?
I play with fire.
Kakashi moans, curls in on himself, and Genma throws his hands up in the air and steps back. The jōnin is silent for a long while, and then he starts talking again. Sasuke, he says, and it takes a moment for Kakashi to place the name. Itachi's little brother, Genma continues, only one left.
All alone.
Finally, slowly, bones creaking, Kakashi sits up. Genma's leaning against the window, jostling with the potted plant for space, but a crack of sunlight streams through the crook of his elbow, catching the porcelain façade of a discarded ANBU mask—not Genma's. Not Kakashi's.
Kakashi leans over, throws up, and tastes copper.
Reviews are fantastic.
Ash