1AN: I'm trying to incorporate more speaking roles into this story, not only because it helps readers along and is actually fun for them to read, but because I like writing them. Yes, that's right. It's a much needed break from the 'metaphor, simile, metaphor, endless rant full of the latter' that was pretty much the theme in almost all the other chapters.
Again, another Akatsuki chapter, but that's because frankly, a lot goes on in Akatsuki and it's a really big part of Itachi, and also a really big growing part for him-, even just in between the Uchiha massacre and then when you see Itachi in Akatsuki. The next chapter might or might not be Akatsuki as well, but after that, it'll probably go back to Itachi going 'LUST, LUST, LUST lulz', because what else is Itachi's life about? -winks- There is a time line, though, which the story should follow through and which, -gasp-, YES, actually happens in the Naruto anime/manga. I only describe most important events in inner details, as opposed to 'HIDAN WALKED IN THE DOOR AND JOINED AKATSUKI AND THEY ALL LOVED HIM AND ALL THE FANS LOVED HIM AND HE MAKES KAKUZU WANT TO SLAP HIM, LOLOLOL'. No. I won't be doing any of that-, it's just not how I roll.
And for Addie777: Deidara'yeah'!action-, 'Happy reading, Addie777, yeah! Our great author would like to present you with this chapter, the big double digits, yeah. And she told me to tell you that it's dedicated especially to you, because you don't like my 'un's, just my 'yeah's.' (Love ya' my dear, -winks- XP ...I'm sorry, I just couldn't resist -laughs-)
(1) - I was not looking forward to Deidara speaking roles, simply because there's so many damn arguments in his speech and his personality and his titles for Sasori, so I wasn't quite sure which side to lean towards. I decided on 'un', and 'Sasori-danna'...The fan-friendly ones, of course, because I'm too lazy to look it through. If anyone can clear that up for me, I'd love you forever.
(2) - I realized that, at first, I used 'pride' as Kisame's reason...when he said that was the reason of reasoning, pretty much, in the first scene. So why does it look even shittier than before? Because 'greed' can often be similar to pride and so I jammed it in there. Don't say I didn't try 'cause I did. :D
(3) - Some people asked me how the story would end. For this one, the point was to stick by the anime/manga time line, and taking my own twist on it, not taking my own twist on the characters themselves and putting them in bullshitting situations which never happened (that is, of course, reserved for my other fanfictions). Therefore, I will be ending this story abruptly, LIKE THE PLOT LINE, because Itachi isn't THAT main of a character. Kishimoto-sensei doesn't stick to him like flies on shit like he does for the OTHER characters, so we don't really know what bee is in Itachi's bonnet after the scenes we were given. Hence, all I'M trying to decide is whether or not this will go on for more than one or two chapters, or if I should let Itachi do the dirty deed with Sasuke. Poor Itachi, he's been through so much already. I think they'll do it. I hope they'll do it. But you aren't getting any great, hawt butt smex through me, so go find yourself some SasuIta X rated material. Not here, nope, nope. It'll just be INSINUATED. -kisses fans-
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. And truthfully, it's probably better that I don't.
Mankind is, and has always been, infatuated deeper with their age than they ever will be with their partners-, age is above all the one thing which connects us to our person. Without knowing the amount of years one has survived, it is only inevitable that he will feel separated from himself in that he is unaware of the time line of his accomplishments. How can man live without knowing the proof of his existence?
Xxx-xxX
Kisame understands love more than he understands his partner, and when their fingers are worn away with the grips they have on their kunai (stronger than the hold they keep on their lives, something much more sanitary and pure in it's solidity-, ninjas are not particularly smart people, but they are trained to have a common sense which is greater than what the rest of their mind tells them) and their backs are pressed against the sheets of the same bed, he can tell Itachi the truth. "It's pride," he says, fingers clutching the edges of the mattress pad like nothing else has ever been more safe (and that's not true-, his body still lies even as his words shine through, because he is not self-conscious or frightened of anyone but himself and how well his mind can convince him that his days are dwindling into the fine-tuned corners of death even if he is old for a shinobi but still frighteningly young for a man).
"Itachi-san," he continues, like a child with a big mouth that tattle-tales on their sibling (and Itachi wants to be young again in that way, in the ways that lead him to pressing his face into his hands and trying to sob as if he wants someone to recognize that he is no adult), "We can all be separated into the categories of what we want, eventually, because there are no actions which come without reasons."
That is both the best and only way that Kisame tells him he doesn't love him.
Xxx-xxX
Itachi decides that everyone in the Akatsuki is jealous of Hidan's skin. Sasori tells him about him when he asks, feeling more pleasant with the storm raging outside that masks their features (and it makes his bones ache with a longing that only the elderly feel, the need to die and the want to stay alive with the rain outlining what they couldn't say aloud).
"He kills people, for his lord and...savior, and his only consolation is an eternity promised to him- He doesn't age, he doesn't die." Sasori is bitter in his word choice, and he sounds childish in his envy (it's a habit he has picked up within his own eternity, recognizing how much more other's have than him and how much he gave away to be only as beautiful as the darkness outlines him with), crude and undistinguished from the rest of them with his fake ease. Itachi wants to leave, but the crack of thunder immobilizes him by lighting Sasori's face, and he realizes how much forever costs.
Xxx-xxX
It is unfair (in the ways that Sasuke always got the last of something or Hidan had a payment of forever when he only ever did what they would do-, the substance of the eternal unjust, because what is wrong repeats itself for as long as those who are there to see it will stand to watch) that they are aging, and everyone sees it in each other even though the Akatsuki does not celebrate birthdays.
Annual get-togethers for the celebration of something that is as much of a curse to shinobi as it is a blessing to the commoners is not in their best interest, but ignoring something does not work when their eyes glance back at it when they think everyone is unaware they are spying (like children scrambling towards the hole in the fence-, they are as equally immature as they are old).
"He doesn't like you as you age, un."
Xxx-xxX
The mission is drawn out like a false clock, the dials twisted and late and springing into positions that are wrong (it strikes midnight with a lightness to the sky that belongs to six, or perhaps you have just spent too long in a place that is too old, inhabited by evil that you are categorized in but do not belong next to).
Kisame's back is too him, sheets folded out beneath them in something pristine, with his name written over it like Sasuke's childhood crayon scribbles. There is something in both of them that only calls out Itachi, and the one hand resting on Kisame's shoulder snakes down to the blankets to fold them between his fingers and make the wrinkles not look so clean (yet some ancient rule designed by your birth, some sensory input into you makes it impossible for where you walk to be a mess-, perhaps no one loves you because you don't look as young as you used to or because you're aging so gracefully it's hard to imagine you a man).
There is another snake in the Akatsuki, who wears them like silken costumes lined with his own plans. He is like the stories Mikoto told him in his fake eyes and his false smiles, and how he hears everything Itachi never said.
Xxx-xxX
The corners of the room are connected more than they are, even with a hand pressed to the space on the wall above his shoulder and Itachi's lips by his ear (what is said is more unnecessary than the small precautions written clear across his face-, Itachi won't touch Sasuke, because the restrictions are still drawn taught against his skin and they both feel it just as well as the other).
"Hatred."
(It's not what he wanted to say, but it is heard more clearly than what comes from his face.)
Xxx-xxX
It is a clever failure, Kisame tells him over his glance (Kisame's eyes have more messages than his vocal chords, but what Itachi can see most clearly is the indifference like Mikoto as she did not understand what favoring her sons would do to him).
He thinks that Kisame should be doing something with his hands, peeling away the paint from his fingernails or twisting the stray threads off the ripped sleeves of his cloak (he makes things seem messy in the ways Itachi can't accomplish-, there is a difference between opposite attraction and not sharing any similarities), instead of staring at them like they will move of their own accord. Their bodies have their own minds as they have trained them, but Kisame isn't there to kill Itachi and the words he wants drawn from him have nothing to do with anything a higher power has requested. Itachi wonders who is most at fault.
"Is it an apology that you're here for?" His fingers strain against the tea cup in his hands, somehow remembering that it isn't polite to ask something if he didn't give something of himself away, or that being so blunt is little other than rude (the pigments of his skin tell stories that he will not, because it's been too long that he has lived and thrived in the dark of a cave full of men who were born to be in it as much as he was born to love Sasuke too much). He can't tell whether Kisame wants anything from him but the chances of hearing himself speaking-, Itachi sees but doesn't understand and it is rare that he catches his partner speaking ill of him (or perhaps it is that he understands but does not accept-, it goes against what he has planned in the way resistance is a frustration to Sasori-, the strings they pull each other on can't be tangled in their views of the other, or else they will not know where they end and the others begin, and as individuals it is the only way they can feel human).
"No," Kisame says, and as he walks away Itachi gets the distinct feel that he had wanted to comfort him.
Xxx-xxX
Xxx-xxX
He remembers the positions they sleep in, fingers clutching hip bones through the fabric of their pants (bones are a symbol of their existence-, there is no solidity in flesh or blood, and though bones can be sawn or broken, that only makes them more real), hands twisted in solitary positions by their sides, lips pressed against the pillows.
It is a collection of their confinement, of their ultimate humanity that makes Itachi remember the places their bodies twist towards as they dream. It's some clever play to be able to remember their faces like he could never remember his own, some confinement of images which will never hold any meaning in the facts that Itachi was one of them-, being part of any organization holds no joy, because artificial companionship still doesn't make him a friend.
Xxx-xxX
The fingers running up and down his back in miles of their lifetimes (all accounted for by his spinal column-, mutual attraction shares no similarities between what is more than that, except Itachi pretending his partner is who he wants him to be and Kisame for the head-rush, because what is more common than the two together is the straight, strict lines which separate them in Itachi's back bone) and never becoming tired-, and Itachi thinks that that is what love is.
There is no major, distinctive sense of reality when they are pressed into the mattress pad like children tucked in between a mother's breast-, Itachi neither feels a significant distance from life nor any important connection. What is important is their priorities, because they both would never love each other if their pieces hadn't been played so easily into the set-up of believing what people have told them-, and yet, with their gullibility it is hard to imagine that in another situation they never would have met.
He has heard of stupidity mimicking lovers, in the ways that each will be tricked with their attraction towards the other until things that are casual become symbolic and each are unhappy but falsely aware of what is right and wrong in the relationship, to stay with the other.
The Uchiha clan is, after all, the basis of human idiocy (emotions that are wasteful and pointless-, jealousy, pride, who everyone becomes with time but will not admit to being, and if they could simply give that admittance perhaps it would make them different persons; that is why no one ever changes), and only Shisui's tide would ever wash up to a place above his ankles.
Density within feeling, perhaps, is the most important of all things, and they are each shallow and thin cut to the point of being nonexistent had they turned to the side for once (but they face him head-on, as if looking at him will make him disappear into the demons he has come from, because demons are more destroyable than a man who can lie and deceive as easily as they can tell the truth).
Xxx-xxX
Itachi wonders who everyone would be in the Akatsuki had they not been together. As a whole, they are something dangerous and strong, something that is undeniably of higher power than others only because of their companionship (but with strength, reasons have no significance-, only the fact that they are will matter in a man).
But without each other, the mutual power is nonexistent (therefore when Sasori dies, they can't find it in themselves to speak to each other).
Xxx-xxX
"In poisons, Itachi-san," -Sasori's voice is drawn out like the needle in the flesh of the arm in front of them, and for an instant he thinks he remembers who he was-, "There is no lack of emotion-, to poison, you must feel, and to feel, you must be poisoned."
He pauses, a moment of tranquility in an environment that is hostile and flooded with emotions that do not seem real-, they both know that it is only their minds, because Sasori can not feel and Itachi does not want to, "Emotion is a poison-, is that not what has been said, Itachi-san?"
Sasori stops again, letting the tide of something, whether it is fake or unkindly but calming all the same (they both feel that something will go as wrong as it will be right-, in the moaning of the writhing man beneath them, they can understand something about the other), but neither enjoy silence as much as they appreciate it.
"Do you remember it, Itachi-san?"
Xxx-xxX
It is in the knowledge that they will be returning that they allow each other to leave, but at times, they never come back.
Xxx-xxX
Hidan is not like the rest of them-, they all know it, and perhaps that is why Kakuzu hates him more largely than whatever is inside the glances they give each other.
What is most frustrating is the fact that Hidan frightens them-, he is able to murder men before he prays for it, and while in the midst of a religion any other group would consider unchangeably satanic, he can still clasp his hands together with his palms pressed like they are molded into the fact that he can believe more than them (perhaps it is with the same emotion that Kakuzu can love him-, but each of them know that there are lines drawn between love and a dangerous proximity, although none of them are certain where it is he stands).
"He'll get both of them killed, un." Itachi wonders if he is losing himself in that around him, and it disturbs him that he did not hear Deidara entering the room (it's raining, and you wonder if companionship will do enough to affect a man so that Deidara will look as fake as Sasori when the storm lights up his face).
"But then again," he thinks of the smile like something of Sasuke's, something impossibly painful in it's infectiousness with the fact that they both do not regret what they should have been mourning, and Deidara continues with a smugness that falls over his face and drains from his eyes. "The mistake was mine first."
Itachi pauses to look at him, and all the regret he couldn't feel himself comes washing over them in a wave with the next words. "You miss him."
Xxx-xxX
In darkness, their words get mingled with the air until their voices are hushed and immature, speaking in tongues neither of them can identify. They can't understand their own implications, perhaps because accepting them would be admitting their mistakes. "Itachi-san-,..."
"You talk too much."
The room feels like it breaths with them.
Xxx-xxX
Itachi doesn't think that Kisame understands what he is asking when he tells him that he wants to know what he wants (but Kisame does understand that most trades are fair, that Itachi wants to know why Kisame will stay with him as long as he will let him and why Kisame has joined the organization as much as he wants to know why Itachi has a determination on something which has faded but never disappeared from his sight-, perhaps that is part of the reason why Kisame is pulling away, because it seems impossible that Deidara could possibly understand them and be able to say that Itachi is unattractive towards what his partner fathoms in his romance).
Kisame smiles lightly into his tea, fingers wrapped around the grip of the mug, and Itachi wonders whether he doesn't want him to see that his fingers are shaking or that nothing else in the room is stable.
Itachi finds himself clutching his tea cup just as tight, but he is not as certain for his reasons (maybe it is simply habit-, that the throb in his chest is the pattern he has built through his life, a tedious and comfortable suffering that will only go away by forgetting it was ever there; habits do not fade and his are as stubborn as the shroud of a feeling he has hanging over Sasuke's head). "My brother."
(His hands are trembling like the first moments of realization that he loved the child who looked so much like his family but couldn't possibly be related-, Sasuke shares no traits of his clan, because he cannot hate, even if for most of his life he looked up to a brother who hated him where he could not; Itachi thinks that Kisame must be shocked, surprised, even if he is not, because loving a brother is only natural even if the ways he loves him is not-, but Kisame does not understand him like that.)
"That's a nice reason, Itachi-san." And he must be surprised for that, because Kisame knows that Itachi is not a nice person, even if he sometimes does nice things.
Xxx-xxX
Itachi knows that he doesn't understand what he is asking when he tells him that he wants to know what Kisame wants (but he knows that he couldn't go without asking, because his curiosity is defined and stretching over the fact that Kisame knows (Kisame thinks he knows, at least, because Itachi told him even if he assumed the meaning that wasn't meant exactly) what he wants, what he works for and what his weakness is on, but he has no idea what is Kisame's).
They both cling to each other like children during a bad storm, their eyes lit with either the imaginary lightning or how fearful they will be of each other once they have the information to understand their partner (understanding is different from acceptance, it is something larger and overwhelmingly huge when perhaps the deep-down reason of why they are who they are is because they have never once understood a single thing in their life-, Itachi didn't understand why his family told him to love his little brother and when he ended up doing it suddenly he loved him too much, or why going against what is not fair is wrong, or why he liked feeling the blood on his hands after he placed the skeletons in his closets into tombstones, and Kisame didn't understand the fact that momentary love is different from eternal love, or why Itachi would almost never answer his questions), and Itachi can't tell.
Itachi thinks, for a moment in the long silence of his question, that perhaps if he holds onto Kisame's shoulder tight enough, he can make him tell him why.
"It's greed," he says, and Itachi wonders how a lifetime can be summed into such short sentences. "I want to pride myself in what I've done-, and is that such a crime, Itachi-san?" (Yes, yes it is a crime, he thinks, it is a huge crime and just because you need something doesn't mean you can have it.)
He whispers back meekly into the quiet, "No,", because the truth hurts and he can't think of anything else to say.
Xxx-xxX
Ten minutes are an eternity in stillness-, eleven minutes and they're still in the same position they were in when they didn't know anything about the other. It's now that Itachi realizes how fast impressions can change, even if their actions are moving torturously slow and the lesson has been pressed to his face a million times (like the one night where Sasuke crawled into your bed to sleep and the next morning when he asked if you would fight him, and that's a lot longer than the eleven minutes of silence Kisame and you share or the amount of time you can bring yourself to speak, but it's still not long enough).
He distinctly wonders why he can't think of anything to say, and perhaps it is because the quiet of their surroundings seems so justified is why when Kisame murmurs the next words into them he is so dumbfounded (and yet, that is not the word you're looking for-, you are muddled, you are nostalgic, you are in reprimand of the fact that you have had to sink so low in your memories, but you are not in any way surprised; Kisame is predictable in most of the things he does and to please you he would do any and all things it might take, even if you can't ever be pleased with just him and sometimes you don't think he wants you to).
"You can pretend I'm him."
Itachi counts the number of times he blinks (twelve, thirteen-, everything is in an order, because nature still bends to your will even if the people in it have known for a long time that you've sank too low to be a god) before he lowers his hands to Kisame's forehead and brushes away the hair to the side, closing his eyes and pretending they're both not who they are anymore.
Xxx-xxX
Itachi doesn't speak to Kisame for three days afterwards (not until the awkward silence, even with the buzz of laughter and happiness and half-drunk men being blinded by the twice-cursed sun is resounding through the hills like sound-mirrors (and for a moment, they believe that perhaps they have completely and utterly lost their minds, or whatever they had remaining resting in the crook of their skulls) is broken with Kisame's equally as awkward whisper, and later they will believe that perhaps the quiet was less uncomfortable than the blades of grass pressing into their bare backs), and during the time he converses with the rest of the Akatsuki.
Even if it is only in small nods of confirmation, or murmured answers which make him wonder why everyone is not as wise as Shisui to know when he does not wish to speak, it makes him glad to provide to the spot reserved and empty that serves the purpose of connecting them all together.
Even if it is little, Itachi thinks that perhaps if he had not been there, they wouldn't have spoken until their deaths, still looming ahead of them, inevitable and restless and clinging to the edges of them (for it is not always someone else's death the men who see them are aware of in their auras).
He thinks that for a small moment, perhaps his cousin does not need a replacement.
Xxx-xxX
-What runs to the depth's of a man's bones is not his marrow, his sorrows, his love or anything like that. I have come to believe that there is no true state of loving, at least not for me, and it is the state of extreme lust and liking which I feel from the bottoms of myself.-
Extra Note: Yes, I do see that this chapter may look like it ended rather abruptly, but I don't want to prolong this anymore than need be and sitting here with my thumbs up my ass dawdling because I want to make a better ending IS NOT WORKING. :/ -pouts- So enjoy this. The length isn't have bad, and it's almost like a cliffhanger. Besides, it's kind of important to show that Itachi is slowly unwinding from around his past, slowly looking at the present, as the present, instead of as a link to what used to be, what he was so wrapped up in. So sue me. It's a nice leaving-off place for the next chapter, too, I think. It'll leave me lots of wriggle room to do something with it, though I don't have any clue what yet. XD Fish face! -smooches-
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