ii.
Chapter Twelve: Stay With Me (Until the Time Comes)
"There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls."
Nanami pushed the cabinet door open with the tips of her fingers quietly, and tumbled from her sleeping space (which now included a pillow courtesy of Burning Earth) into the dark and empty kitchen. She crouched low, sticking to the walls and corners like a mouse.
Her eyes swept the back wall of the great stone room. Loud Blood and Beating Heart's door was wide open. They always left it open. (Maybe not for her, she got the feeling neither one of them really enjoyed being trapped in a room alone with the other.)
Burning Earth and False Peices door was closed, but they weren't home right now anyways.
She bit the inside of her cheek, the fresh stitches in her arm tugging unpleasantly. Raven Eye's room was a toss up. Sometimes he left it open for her, and other times he would close it if he wanted privacy.
She never intruded if any of the Red Clouds wanted to be alone. They dealt with a lot of bull shit and it wasn't her place to step into that.
Sometimes though, she thought they liked having her company after a particularly rough experience.
There had been one time, (which she would never repeat to anyone upon unspoken threat of death) when Burning Earth had been sent on a mission- she didn't know the details, but she did know he'd been forced to kill a good childhood friend.
He'd be distraught, in a quiet 'I accept that I'm a killer' kind of a way. She snuck into his room, the door had been left unlatched while False Pieces had been in the livingroom and she had crawled on top of his bedspread to sit with him. He just sat there for the longest time, elbows on his knees with his chin cradled in his palms with a far away look in his blue eyes.
He didn't send her away, and she didn't pry- but he let her lean against his arm as they sat there. Then he'd just sort of- started talking in a low, unhappy voice. Explained to her what the boys had been like when they were young, how his friends mother had always made room at their table for him.
He talked a lot about nothing, and everything. She listened. Burning Earth had a good heart underneath all his bluster and pride. (He didn't want to be here, she knew. She ached for him, for the life he could have had.)
She had sat with him until False Pieces came back in and Burning Earth had kicked her out like she'd been a bother. She smiled for him, because she knew better.
But right now, if her vague sense of Raven Eyes was anything at all, and the door he'd left cracked for her was a sign, then maybe he'd like her company. (She had this feeling…)
She slunk across the floor with soft fingertips and toes. She rose slowly at the door and pushed at it with soft child's hands.
"Raven Eyes" She called in a whisper. Oceans was here too, for the first time. She didn't want to startle anyone. He didn't... know her. (A deep ache at the realization.)
"Nanami." was his gentle response. She stepped inside, refusing to turn her head to look at the bed that was normally empty. She knew if she did she might break, and she wasn't here tonight for him. (It wasn't about what she wanted anymore. Maybe it never had been.)
It was dark, and she heard Ocean's shifting as she made her way to Raven Eyes. She sat at the edge of his bed, she wouldn't venture further into his personal space without permission, even if he was the most receptive of the Red Clouds to such things. (She suspected it was because he was once an older sibling, still is one.)
He let out that soft breath that she often debated between being more a sigh or a laugh.
"Did you see your brother?" and he didn't stiffen, because he was… used to (but probably not really) her whispers in the dark of things she shouldn't know.
Oceans shifted more, there was the slide of cloth and she thought he might be sitting up. She didn't look.
"I did." He confirmed. She reached into the dark with a little hand, blinking at nothing because there was nothing to see. It was dark here beneath the earth when the lights were out.
His fingers touched the top of her hand, and he guided it down to rest beneath his larger one between them.
"Someday." She whispered to him, and she paused because she wanted to say the right thing.
"He will be everything you fear and hope he will become," another pause, his fingers twitched atop hers.
"...but until then, you'll have to be strong for a little while longer, because the things he will have to face after you are gone will be much worse." She hoped the words were comforting, in their sad helpless truth.
A ragged exhale.
"Nanami wishes…" She hesitated. "Nanami wishes she could take the pain away for you. I'm sorry you always have to be the one to be strong."
His hand curled over the top of hers, and he tugged her forward gently. She felt the fingers of his other hand tap the space between her eyes.
"You are a sweet girl Nanami." and he sounded so empty and hopeless, he had long ago accepted the world as his burden. Her heart broke for him.
"May I…" She hesitated again.
More shifting cloth.
"You may stay." So she tumbled forward, and his slender form lifted the covers so she could crawl beneath them.
She fell asleep to the sound of his ragged (almost wet) breathing, wishing she could take his burden, wishing she could make him better.
She was just a little girl, stumbling around in the dark hoping for a purpose. She thought maybe she'd found one here. Small, pointless little things that meant the world to her.
Other times she felt like the helpless child she truly was.
She couldn't stop the future from happening. (But she could stop herself from thinking about it)
Itachi deserved to rest. He'd done enough, given enough. She wasn't so selfish that she'd take that away from him.
"She's a lot paler than she used to be." Kisame murmured once her breathing evened out. Itachi made a noncomental humming sound as he gently pried her vice like grip from the front of his shirt.
"Nanami has been with us for just shy of a year." He reminded the other man. Kisame grunted.
"The others seem to like her."
"She grows on you." was his soft response. Kisame snorted. "And you warned me about attachment."
Itachi sighed, but didn't offer a rebuttal.
It was a telling lack of a statement.
"Has Leader-sama asked about her yet?" Kisame changed the subject.
"Not in some time. Her presence here is tolerated because she lacks the option to leave, and Zetsu sees her as some kind of house pet. Leader-sama thinks one of us will grow bored eventually and kill her."
"House pet?" Kisame snickered.
Nanami murmured in her sleep, rolling over to dangle an arm over the side of the bed- her newly stitched arm- which Itachi quickly retrieved and pulled back onto the bulk of the mattress.
"She get into a lot of fights?" The shark man's voice was full of good humor.
"Only with Hidan."
"Really- Hidan, why him?" Itachi flashed him a flat look, because he knew the other man could see just fine despite the dark.
"Aside from his overly abrasive personality? She knows it pleases him." Kisame snorted again.
It was quiet for a little while as Kisame watched the little girl's chest rise and fall with her breathing. Itachi closed his eyes.
"She chews her at her lips a lot." Kisame noted aloud. Itachi cracked an eye back open to look at him.
"A nervous habit." He informed the shark man absently.
"What's the plan here." He asked finally, voice lowered to a whisper.
Itachi made an aborted gesture, like he might have done something as undignified as shrugging. He adjusted Nanami's sleeping form again instead.
"Nanami has knowledge that we have worked to keep secret, but it is only a matter of time before someone realizes she isn't a normal little girl. I suspect Kakuzu already knows; although he seems to keep it to himself. She is intelligent for her age, astoundingly so, the rate at which she learns and comprehends is impressive."
"So, what then." Kisame pressed silver eyes flashing in the dark.
"We continue to wait, let Zetsu and Leader think what they want for now. We can use her knowledge as she gets older and the Akatsuki begins to mobilize. We still have a few years time." Itachi considered aloud.
"So we're still think this whole thing," a sweeping gesture, "is a ruse then?"
"Yes." Itachi confirmed. Kisame grunted in annoyance.
He hated being lied to.
