Notes: This was written for Airheart for the Chocolate Box Exchange, and beta-ed by iberiandoctor.
If you care for when it's set in canon: This happens at the beginning of the three years Naruto spends training with Jiraiya, and shortly after Itachi learns that Sasuke is learning under Orochimaru. Warning for some semi-public sexual activities of the slash variety.
In the Traditional Way
The village was eerily silent for a weekday afternoon, when the two enemy shinobi crossed over the wall in the brightest of daylights. There was no reaction from anyone guarding, no reaction from any hidden barriers, nothing.
"Hey dude," Hoshigaki Kisame asked Itachi, his silent partner-in-crime. He'd been valiantly trying not to talk for the last few hours, but this took the fish out of the water, like his father used to say. "Is it just me, or is it really weird that nobody noticed us scaling the Konoha border wall back there?"
No answer was forthcoming. Kisame hadn't really expected one, to be honest, but it was nice to be positively surprised sometimes. Itachi, however, was steadfast about his taciturn ways.
"Konoho's security really kinda sucks," Kisame added. "Last time we went over a different part of the wall and there was no security there, too. And then the civilians, they have no awareness of outsiders whatsoever. No wonder you left—it's not going to be long until someone razes this village to the ground. These people are too trusting."
He was greeted with more silence, and Kisame had almost decided to break the tension with on a fish joke, when Itachi replied with a slightly scratchy cough in his throat, "I didn't leave. I killed all my family."
Itachi was strangely sensitive about his family, Kisame had noticed. "In Bloody Mist we simply call that a graduation exam," he tried to comfort him the best way he knew how: with a teeth-baring grin and bloodlust in his eyes. Unfortunately, Itachi wasn't paying any attention to him, as he was looking at things again. It was ridiculous how sight-based all of the Uchiha's techniques were. Itachi was the epitome of why in-breeding might be a bad idea, but he was also the parade example for why it worked nonetheless.
Itachi turned around and said, in not-quite his usual monotone, "We are going to kidnap the ANBU general and his boyfriend. This is my town, and I know it. I enforced security for this dump, and I have been back to study the new security designs in detail, because of said kidnapping. Would you please just trust me with this?"
Kisame eyed the dull and quiet village with its preposterous tree-hugging ways, and then Itachi. "The ANBU general has a boyfriend?" he asked. He knew of Konoha's strange approach to shinobi and relationships (in that they had some) but this was beyond strange. "How do you know? Do Konoha ninja sit around in a circle, paint their nails and gossip, too?"
The only reason Itachi didn't smile was that the motherfucker never did, but Kisame knew that in his heart he was smiling, and that was what counted.
"Come on. Is there a secret Uchiha technique that lets you see the red strings of fate — if so, what a cheat…" At a sharp gesture from Itachi, Kisame fell quiet. They were approaching the main building, which would make it the most defendable spot, too, as it was right in the center of town.
A group of ninja kids were throwing knives at targets, supervised by a long-haired teacher in a chuunin vest. Kisame opened his chakra sense — but there was no other protection present than that of the chuunin teacher.
"Seriously?" he mouthed to Itachi. This was all the protection Konoha's clan heirs had when training?
There was another sharp gesture which Kisame loosely interpreted as, "Just do your thing," and so he silently created a henged clone of the target and moved to intercept before he could be noticed. This turned out much easier than expected, because the academy students were much less aware than he remembered them being in the Mist village, and the academy teacher had been muffled by Kisame's hand and a sharp slap to the neck before he could shout out a single syllable.
Just as easily as they infiltrated the village of Konoha, they slipped out of it again, the academy teacher slung over Kisame's back like a sack of rice. Kisame had tried to knock him out as gently as possible but he'd stay unconscious for a while.
"Now what," Kisame asked flatly, when they had some distance away from the village, hidden by the foliage present throughout Fire country.
"There's a Uchiha hideaway a distance off," Itachi replied.
"You couldn't have mentioned that earlier?" Kisame said with a grunt, but lugged the heavy body along. "He could have carried his own weight there. I hate to expand energy unnecessary."
It was always a bit of a long-shot to engage Itachi in a conversation, but the Uchiha had been unusually stressed since their last contact with the Akatsuki. Something about his brother had him pretty riled up — whenever he spoke now, it was with outwardly calm but with an undercurrent of pent-up aggression. Kisame didn't really know if he wanted that kind of aggression focused on him. Well, that wasn't true entirely. He did want it focused on him — just maybe in a slightly subverted way, and he didn't know if Itachi even went for that sort of thing.
When they finally arrived at the Uchiha hide-out, though Kisame could not tell with any stretch of imagination for the life of him why this cluster of Hashirama trees was different from the rest, until Itachi did something to one of the trunks and a small-sized hut appeared almost out of thin air.
Kisame blinked. He hadn't noticed that particular genjutsu at all.
"Huh," Itachi murmured under his breath, almost as if in apology. "I remember this being bigger."
The shack was tiny — there was room for maybe four people, if they didn't breathe and squeezed in tightly. A stack of field rations was pilled up on one side, providing a bit of cover for the single cot present.
"We can take shifts," Kisame suggested, feeling slightly dubious about sharing a bed with Itachi. Would the ANBU captain really come after his boyfriend when all signs pointed to obvious trap? He put down said boyfriend on the ground in the corner. He was still unconscious.
Itachi looked at the bed, and then back at Kisame. "I don't mind sharing," he said.
Kisame raised his eyebrows. "Who's going to keep watch, then?"
With a quick and fluid hand gesture, Itachi summoned one of his crows. "Ahō can do it. We need to keep our strength up, Konoha might think this is the first act of an invasion."
Kisame had many thoughts about this situation, and none of them were about if Konoha thought they were being invaded, but he didn't argue and instead sat down on the bed. It was a very small cot, and he didn't know how they would be able to fit.
"Are you sure this guy is the boyfriend of the Anbu commander?" Kisame asked and pointed towards the limp bundle. "I can't believe this wimp is still out cold. Are you really sure the commander would be dating such a-" Kisame made a flopping hand gesture that said everything. "Maybe you got bad intelligence?"
Itachi turned around to face him, and said calmly but with emphasis, "I did not get bad intelligence."
"Sheesh, okay," Kisame said, and watched as Itachi summoned one of his crows. "I was just asking."
The bed — cot rather, since Kisame had slept on wider sleeping pads — was still there, looking innocuous. Since Itachi had dealt with the guard issue, Kisame's own summoning creature being rather conspicuous in the wilds of Fire country, he guessed they were going to sleep in it tightly pressed dirt of the floor didn't look any more inviting, and Kisame had slept in worse places with Itachi, for worse reasons — he would not mind sharing at all.
Itachi was already brushing the dust off his feet, and preparing to slip onto the bed.
Kisame decided to stop staring at his partner, and joined him. "What happens when the boyfriend wakes up?"
"He's tied up, gagged even— It's not like he's going anywhere," Itachi grumbled.
"Also, I'm probably going to notice if he wakes up in the night," Kisame answered his own question.
"Ahō is keeping watch," Itachi murmured, and then threw his arm over Kisame.
It was weird, how comforting the weight of the rather skinny arm was — Kisame hadn't had close contact with anyone since he could remember. Even his parents didn't usually come so close to him. And yet, his paranoid brain was calm. There was no secret urge in him to jump up and start attacking Itachi — even the damn sword was silent next to the door.
With Itachi fast asleep next to him, Kisame fell asleep just as abruptly.
"Fool," the crow squawked right into his face, and Kisame jumped up, needing only seconds to reorient himself. Itachi was awake.
"We got company," Itachi said, looking unruffled and kind of hotter than was humanly possible.
Kisame went to pick up Samehada, and then leaned against the door. "I didn't hear your cough," he said. He didn't want to mention it, but of course Itachi had been right about the boyfriend part. "Did you sleep all right?"
Itachi grunted something that could have meant anything. "It's weird that it took them so long to figure out where we are. Usually Hatake is much more possessive— he must have been out on mission," he said, deflecting the question of his health.
Kisame let him put off answering, and looked towards their captive, who was awake and furiously staring back at Kisame.
Kisame chuckled. "Look at that spirit," he said. "If looks could kill you wouldn't even be in this position."
Itachi spared a stray look towards the academy teacher, but focused inward a second later. "They are coming. Hold fire, until we know where Orochimaru is keeping my brother."
The tree tops around them stayed silent, but the presence of a full ANBU strike team could be felt — they were surrounded. Kisame smiled a big shark grin, and hefted the sword onto his shoulders.
"I have something of yours," Itachi said. "I think your commander would really like it back unharmed."
With a flash, the ANBU commander they were looking for appeared a clear distance in front of him, Sharingan revealed — the copy-nin Kakashi.
Kisame wasn't impressed by someone so easily influenced and crossed his arms— and then he felt a change in water chakra behind him.
Quickly turning aside, he evaded the waterbullet, flung directly from the thus far pretty much useless teacher. Kisame was impressed: it looked like the wimp had some back-bone after all."I don't belong to him," the teacher said, furiously red in the face, his scar a stark contrast. "In fact, I'm not even his boyfriend!"
Kisame looked over at the ANBU commander, who seemed entirely too relaxed about these circumstances, and then back at Itachi, and grabbed their hostage by the hair before he could get any other brilliant ideas. Obviously, he wasn't to be underestimated.
"You're still an excellent bargaining chip," Kisame told the teacher. "Though I totally understand why he'd dump you. You're a bit high-maintenance, no?"
Meanwhile, Itachi was asking Kakashi of the Sharingan, "Simply tell me where Orochimaru keeps his… experiments, and I'll gladly hand over our hostage."
"That is really very simple," Kakashi nodded agreeably, "I'll hand over all my files regarding Orochimaru's lairs, except — oh right. I don't carry them around with me. Terribly sorry. No deal."
Kisame gripped the hairs a little tighter, but unlike in the movies, their hostage didn't yelp and showed no signs of any pain.
"Why are you protecting your enemy?" Itachi asked in reply. "Orochimaru is no friend of yours. You gain nothing from keeping this information from you."
"Except the satisfaction of not giving you what you want," Kakashi replied, bold and confrontational. "And maybe to rub in the fact that you kidnapped the person that broke up with me two weeks ago. Your intelligence work was always sloppy, Itachi-kun."
Kisame had no idea how it happened, but from one minute to the next his hands were full with what felt like the entire forest's holding of spider webs instead of the hair of their hostage — the ANBU presences had vanished between the trees.
Kakashi of the Sharingan was still there though. Kisame unsheathed his sword and prepared for a swing.
"Wee~ell," Kakashi drawled. "Now that you've lost your hostage I may as well tell you: Orochimaru has taken Sasuke along with him to Sound, that new town in Rice country. He's probably not going to experiment on him soon, though, since he did want him as a body double — at least that's what our resident expert thinks. Have a nice day!"
And then smoke curled up lazily, and the figure vanished into non-existence.
Kisame could not have told the difference between this guy's clone and the real thing — he looked over at Itachi just to say that, and boy, Itachi was pissed off.
Itachi hadn't really been calm, contrary to his zen-like appearance, since they had left Akatsuki headquarters a month ago, quietly simmering with some sort of rage with every action that he took. Kisame hadn't understood that rage, and really didn't understand why Itachi was so angry now, when he'd gotten what he wanted with no further lives lost. While Kisame loved to fight, and was kind of bummed about having missed this one, Itachi took no pleasures from it and loved diplomatic solutions. This kind of non-violent solution shouldn't have pissed him off.
When another few seconds passed without any reaction, Kisame suggested, "We could go to Rice country to look for your brother if you want."
There was no reaction.
If Orochimaru was preparing Sasuke as a body double, they still had plenty of time to get to him. They should probably really focus on hunting the tailed beast, however— "Or I remember, there's a hot spring not to far from here — we could go there first? I'm sure no one is going to mind if we do a little sightseeing on the way to the four tails."
Nah, hunting was no fun when Itachi was this mad.
Itachi stayed silent. But when Kisame moved out towards his new destination, he followed.
When Itachi started speaking again, his first words were, "I can't believe my intelligence was wrong."
Kisame had been leaning back in the hot spring — the place cleared out not soon after they entered, probably because of their scars, or maybe because of Samehada, who was leaning behind him on the stones — but now he leaned forward again to pat Itachi's back. It was a gesture he used often, but he somehow had forgotten they weren't wearing clothes, and the touch became more intimate.
"There's an ANBU watching from the tree," Itachi murmured. "He followed us from the confrontation."
Kisame didn't know what was new about this information, and so he shrugged. Was Itachi weirded out by being touched where other people could see? Though that other ANBU had probably seen worse things.
"Should we do something about it?" Itachi asked, with what appeared to Kisame's trained ears as a laugh, and then he moved.
Kisame put an arm around his shoulder before he realized that Itachi wasn't moving out of the water towards the lone ANBU, but on top of him instead — and now they were even closer — and still naked.
"What are you doing?" he asked, a bit hysterical.
"It's a sure way to distract someone spying on you," Itachi said, and slid like a wet eel between his legs. If fish metaphors regarding Itachi were ever accurate, they were now. It was — Itachi was always beautiful, and wet even more so — but Kisame didn't want to be distracted if a fight should break out. It wasn't easy to keep focused.
"And where did you learn that, at the same school you learned how to gather intelligence?" Kisame couldn't help but comment. He yelped when Itachi started gripping his cock like a vice. He was half-hard in the hot water, because of course he was. How could he be anything else?
"Who was the one who couldn't find the right direction to Mist, so we ended up in Sand?" Itachi asked. Contrary to his sharp words, he started to loosen his grip, and then traced the veins with languor. Kisame started to get fully hard.
He grabbed Itachi's hips with both hands, and then pulled him fully into his lap. Itachi's cock was hard, too.
"What are you doing?" he whispered furiously. The way their bodies fit together, slid together in the wet water, made shivers run down his spine.
"You look at me all the time!" Itachi defended himself. "And you're hard! Don't you want to have sex?" They were arguing — maybe, Kisame didn't have the brain capacity to know — but Itachi didn't stop their motion, and the contrast between what they were doing, and what they were saying, almost heightened the sensitivity of his skin. It was exquisite.
"There's a person watching us!" Kisame protested, not wanting anyone else to partake in his, or Itachi's, pleasure. This was for their eyes alone.
"Not anymore, there isn't."
And just as Kisame stretched his senses, the stray ANBU had indeed disappeared. Itachi was, naked, on his lap, wet. Kisame lost track of what he was saying—
"Just to work out the stress," Itachi said in his calm, persuasive voice that lacked every hint of seduction, but worked like a charm anyway. Kisame was with him, always, would follow him wherever, no contest, no fight.
"Yes, then," Kisame said, "I want to."
It didn't take long, the heat, Itachi, the way the water helped them when they slid together, and the cheap thrill of being outside, surrounded by stones — and then Kisame laid back down satisfied, against the stones.
"They do teach us seduction in ANBU," Itachi said in the after-glow. "It's traditional. Just like the intelligence missions. But I was specialised in neither."
"That's okay, " Kisame said, once he could string a coherent sentence together again; "that's why we make such a great team, don't we?"
Notes: Hope you enjoyed! Consider commenting?