A/N: For l Obliviate l.
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We often group fire with earth, water, and air, because it is something we can feel. However, unlike the other primordial elements, fire is as immaterial as it is evanescent. This is because fire is not a state, but a transition.
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Their first kiss was blind, deaf, and weighted by the collapse of an entire sky. Fabric desperately clung to Sasuke's skin, as rain pelted down hard enough to leave bruises. It was too dark to see, too wet to breathe, too loud to hear, and far too cold to feel.
Sasuke thought he knew what a kiss was, but this was nothing like the collisions with Naruto, the sudden break of boundaries and exchange of spit.
This kiss was not corporal. There was no taste. There was no texture. He was not aware of the mouthfuls of rainwater dripping down their chin, the bitter wind and hopeless gasps for breath. Instead, everything had been dominated by the sense of proximity, of warmth, of loving whispers and a sincerity strong enough to be painful.
Between them seemed to be a lost paradise where all the peace and joy had gone.
Between them was memory.
Between them was home.
There was no telling if any of the rain on his cheek had been tears.
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Their second kiss was sheltered and unrushed, lighted by the dim, artificial glow of a lamp.
It was entirely physical. As katon users, every one their exhales were hot. Teeth gently grazed against Sasuke's bottom lip. The inside of Itachi's mouth was sweet, although slightly bitter from tea.
If the first kiss spoke of everything they knew about each other, the second spoke of everything they did not.
There were little slips and pauses that would never happen in combat, and it spoke measures of their inexperience. Not all loves had translated to intimacy, and this may have been the first time it did.
To be learning from each other, as equals, was something new. Sasuke leapt forward. He wanted the find their boundary, to see how high blind passion can take him. Itachi backtracked. He wanted to prolong the time he could hold his brother like this, close in his arms.
Their lips touched again, tender and aching, for nothing but pleasure.
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Their third kiss was searing and violent, a conflagration set ablaze by every mistake in their history of brotherhood. Too much anger and hurt turned into blood.
The assaults were blind and meaningless, and Sasuke knew he desecrated something precious when a kiss became a tool for control. That if he kissed harder, maybe Itachi will change his mind. That the passion can make him forget. That the pain can tear him down, and the guilt force him to stay.
He wanted to see how well Itachi could still think when locked together with no oxygen. To swallow his ultimatum, that I'll kill you before you go.
And, I'll die after you do.
He felt Itachi weaken, then crumble, as his hand fell limp and lips went unresistant.
Sometimes, love is not sustainable. Sasuke could taste the ashes left of his brother's former sacrifices, and the permission to burn him too.
Sasuke used their third kiss as a tool for control. He never thought Itachi would use it back against him.
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The third kiss had incinerated everything. There was nothing left for a fourth.
But if there were a fourth, it would be delicate and fragile, with mercy that the world will not spare them, but they will give each other.
It would have the apology and gratitude and broken I-love-yous that language cannot hope to express.
The fourth kiss would have been good-bye.