/*/*/*/

A persistent throb in his head woke him. The ache was dull but painful and annoying as hell, some invisible force hammering away cheerfully on his brain. It was worse like the harshest of hangover. His mind was fuzzy - a million of thoughts seem to swarm on the surface, but when he wanted to grab them they floated away, out of his reach.

Where was he? That seemed the most important question, but no matter how hard he racked his brain he couldn't answer it. So he tried to recall his last memory. Where was he the last time he could remember of being?

Strangely he couldn't answer that either. Wasn't he with Shiro last night? No, that couldn't be right - he was dead, killed by Hashirama Senju. The glassy look of death on his face, the blood in his hair - that burned too deep into his mind to ever forget. So was he in the prison of Konoha? The bed he was lying in contradicted that. Also, he recalled now, his escape and the way back home. Very sharply, like one of the lightning bolts that flashed through the sky that night, he remembered how he took the forbidden jutsu, how it transformed his body. The death of the elders, their chests torn open, his own fingers pushing through their sloppy insides, searching for their hearts...

He raised his arm and saw the stitches on it. That was definitely the reality, he didn't dream it. It had happened, he'd really done it... But afterwards things became blurry. The news of Madara's death. That first man he killed for bounty, the rich reward he got for his body. He could recall the weight of the suitcase filled with the banknotes and his own satisfaction. It had been a clean job- a task was named, he delivered it and got the agreed reward. No shifty business with honor or duty. He remembered countless men he killed after that, for the sake of money, although he hardly spent any of what he eared. If there was a face of an acquaintance he could bring up without any trouble, it was of his banker, the one he kept returning to depositing large sums of banknotes with him.

This went on...for how many years? He couldn't tell.

His recent memories didn't want to return no matter what effort he made to recall them. The last thing he knew of... someone telling him he fell off from somewhere and hit his head. He recalled a face now - silvery hair, violet eyes... but no, that couldn't be. He remembered his death as if it happened yesterday, even though the little details about Shiro he used to hold dear were now vague. A laugh. A raised eyebrow. A kiss...

Dizziness hit him as he pushed himself to his elbows then further up, until he was sitting in the bed. Looking around he noted he was in a hut of some shorts. It must have been early dawn, with the first rays of sun just shining through the cracks of the planks and through the halfway drawn curtains covering a dirty window.

His heart skipped a beat when his eyes fell on the figure sleeping in a battered armchair. So he hadn't been dreaming it... but how was that possible? He must have made some kind of a noise for those violet eyes opened and looked at him.

Kakuzu blinked. His eyesight was somewhat blurry, but of what he could see... there was no doubt. He could be no one else. But how?

"You're alive," he stated as flat as he could manage, trying to keep both wonder and accusation out of his voice.

"So you are," Shiro replied, frowning, as he unfolded himself from the chair and walked up to sit on the edge of the bed.

"I saw you die."

"Big deal," he barked a laugh "I'm immortal."

"There's no such thing as immortality in this world," he didn't know where the words came from but he felt like he said them a hundred times.

"So you keep telling me."

"Do I?"

"You don't remember?" Shiro asked, leaning close. Kakuzu noticed that he didn't look a day older than he remembered him to be. His mind tried to catch up with all that was happening, but the dull ache seemed to get in the way and slowed down his thinking. Sighing he gave up and focused on the present instead.

"I have the feeling I miss quite a lot. Why don't you start to fill me in?" his words came out harsh, much harsher than he ever recalled speaking to Shiro, but he didn't even seem to notice it. He was, now that Kakuzu took a closer look at him, somewhat different to what he remembered him to be. Mostly it was how he held himself - his pose was odd - his chin thrust up haughtily, his shoulders set back in an almost aggressive manner. He radiated confidence, or rather yet, arrogance and that was something he never associated with his lover. His dead lover.

Kakuzu shook his head, trying in vain to grab some memory that kept swimming just below the surface of consciousness. He was sure he should know why Shiro was here and why was he different... if only he could just remember...

"What's the last thing you can recall?" the silver-haired young man questioned, fidgeting on the bed as he tried to find a more conformable position. His hand touched Kakuzu's slightly, and he had to resist the instinct to reach out and clasp it. But no, something was wrong and he had to find out what it was.

"Head-hunting," he replied, waving an arm vaguely.

"That doesn't tell me much," his lover... ex-lover... whatever... snorted "as we're doing it all the time."

"We?" he asked back, surprised. "Listen Shiro. The last thing I remember of you is how you died by the hands of Hashirama Senju. Why don't you tell me how come that you're alive and with me now?"

Those violet eyes he could never forget looked at him steadily for an endless second. He couldn't quite read the emotions behind them as he used to. They seemed more cruel, jaded... but the colour, the shape, that was the same. To chase away his own confusion he raised his hand and touched the corner of them with his fingertips. Shiro blinked and leaned into the touch. When he opened his eyes again he seemed more determined than before.

"That's a long story Kakuzu, and you've just woken up from over a week spent in coma... Why don't you rest, and I'll fill you in on the details later," with that he tried to push him down to lie back on the bed.

The ex-Takigakure ninja frowned at the elusive answer, but as he started to protest Shiro suddenly leaned in close and kissed him. He was all soft lips and sharp teeth and Kakuzu couldn't help but return the gesture, his confused mind grateful for the moment when it could stop thinking and just go with the flow. When the other man tried to pull back he grabbed his arm and dragged him down with him on the bed. Passion flared in the violet eyes. So they were still lovers it seemed, whatever may had happened.

"At least tell me how are you still alive," he demanded, gasping for breath.

"I...I was granted immortality by my god. Jashin-sama."

"By your god?" he couldn't really keep the disdain out of his voice.

"Don't say it like that, you heathen bastard," Shiro pulled back, obviously offended. "I am alive, it's all that should matter to you. You should fucking stop insulting my religion," he was breathing hard as well, with excitement or with indignation at his words, Kakuzu couldn't tell. Inhaling deeply he continued calmer. "Rest now and maybe your memories will return on their own. All right?"

No it wasn't all right at all, but Kakuzu felt too dizzy and fatigued to argue. He closed his eyes, trying to block out all the confusing thoughts running a mad race in his mind. Shiro. Immortality. Violet eyes becoming glassy in death... the same eyes looking at him with thinly veiled violence, lust and a thousand other emotions he couldn't identify.

The solution, the answer for his doubts was right there, he'd just need to reach out for it... it was simple and would explain all...

He felt Shiro's hand on his hair, smoothing it back from his forehead. The gesture put his mind at ease even as his consciousness screamed at him not to let the thought go, that he almost had it...

It can wait he decided, too fatigued to try to fight his own injured mind. He just needed sleep to clear his head. Upon waking he would remember all that mattered, he was sure of it. With that he slid into darkness.

/*/*/*/

Kakuzu was going to kill him. Even if he was immortal, the old bastard would be furious enough to find a way to do him in for good. Fuck. Why the fucking hell hadn't he told him straight away that he wasn't this Shiro guy he thought he was?

"Use your head or you will lose it," hadn't the masked miser told him this a thousand times? And here he was, playing along with his partner's delusional fantasies because... because Jashin-sama's hell would sooner freeze over before he'd have Kakuzu to look at him, when he knew it was him, like that.

With no hint of the usual contempt, animosity and general irritation of Hidan being... well, Hidan. This Shiro person - he must have been a great fuck to have the stitched son-of-a-bitch get so mushy when he thought he was speaking to him. He could be pacified with a fucking kiss, for Jashin's sake!

So all right, it was time to stop panicking and start to make plans for what to do when Kakuzu woke up again. He would open his eyes, glare at him and growl something along the lines of "Hidan! You miserable idiot! I'll make you pay..." then they would fight and he would beat him, but as he couldn't do anything permanent to the priest, they would go back to normal, or whatever passed as normal for them.

But what if... what if he wouldn't remember who Hidan was? What should he do then? Say "I'm not this Shiro you're so obviously smitten with, but as kissing you was fucking huge turn on, let's continue from there and you can shout at me later when your memory returns?" Yeah, that would work our spectacularly...

That left one possibility. If upon waking Kakuzu would still mistake him for that other guy, Hidan would just need to play along to get what he so craved for in the last couple of days. Sex, namely. Maybe even a bit of affection. Passion in those creepy red and green eyes, lust over something else than money.

He rushed to the bathroom, giddy with excitement over his new plan. He fished out the rusty shaving mirror from below a pile of damp towels he kept throwing into the corner in the last couple of days. He wasn't one to keep his living space neat.

All right, he thought, checking out his own face. What did he know of this Shiro so far? He smirked at his reflection, thinking he must have been one hell of a lucky motherfucker if he looked anything like me.

Because quite probably he looked similar. Which automatically meant that he was Kakuzu's type, but no surprise there really, if only at how good the old bastard kept that in secret.

So what else, other than the likely physical similarities?

Well, the guy was obviously dead. Kakuzu said someone killed him, Hidan didn't really remember the name. As he lived for almost a century there was no telling for sure when that could have been but if the priest's suspicion proved to be correct it was a long time ago. He just couldn't imagine his partner hooking up with someone in recent years... or decades.

What if his appearance wouldn't be enough to convince Kakuzu after all, he thought suddenly forlorn. Hidan knew that he wasn't a good actor at all. He needed to think about what the miser liked... what kind of a lover would he take?

He knew what he disliked as he kept grumbling about it - he hated almost everything about Hidan. So he would go for the opposite, wouldn't he? He'd choose a silent, cynic, atheist, boring bookworm... quite the same he was. One who wore a shirt buttoned up till the last hole. Hidan didn't even own a shirt, but he could say that he lost it or something...

The difficult part would be in keeping silent, so he wouldn't give himself away. This Shiro might have known things about Kakuzu's past that he didn't (which wasn't saying much as he practically didn't know a thing about it) so he could add elusive to silent. He'd need to swear less. Maybe he shouldn't mention Jashin-sama that much. His hand closed around the medal resting above his heart, offering a silent apology in advance to his god. But Jashin would be benignant with him, he was sure, he had been such a faithful follower, sending him all those sacrifices... And the end justified the means after all.

He spared one last glance at the mirror and grinned. It was decided. He was going to do it.

TBC...