A/N: For Kisame Week 2022, prompts: 'blue is the warmest color' & 'misty mornings.'
Sometimes, it's like this: stolen refuge in a room of another quiet inn. It's a cold season and even colder climate, and outside mist weaves through the throng of trees to choke morning sunlight filtering through the haze on the window. It's thick enough in the distance to obscure the rest of the world, blocking its less savory aspects and other harsh reminders out of sight, out of mind, for a time.
They're lying on the bed in a suspended state of placidity.
Itachi traces the skull in Kisame's tired face, both idly and with curious intent. Runs fingers over the steel cut of his jawline, up the hollow carving of his cheek. Glides leisurely over that broad, hooked nose, to jutting cheekbone before dipping carefully, timidly into the slits of his gills. Kisame twitches then, gills fluttering. Breathes out a mild chuckle as he leans into those teasing fingers with that lovely, lazy grin of his. He turns his head to plant soft kisses into Itachi's hand, strong arms tightening around his naked waist.
Stirs things in Itachi's chest that he still pretends to not know were buried there.
He wonders if Kisame is aware of the effect he has on him. Of how weak his own bones get when he lets himself soak up this man's presence. Anywhere, they could be anywhere — the battlefield, a garden of corpses, the very edges of Earth far removed from their own humanity and all Itachi has to do is look next to him, at the towering figure standing at his back, blue skin a reprieve from all the red — all blood, fire, and rage — that stains his vision.
That impossibly warm, blue skin.
Like caressing the tips of a flame, he trails slowly down Kisame's face, down a vein in his neck and over his muscled, bare chest. The skin is slightly rough, worn as Itachi expects such a man should be, but he finds comfort in that, too; it's a testament to Kisame's strength, his dependability that Itachi can trust himself to fall onto when the weight of too many ghosts manages to drag him to his knees.
He feels Kisame's intense eyes studying his face, but doesn't look into them, just keeps his gaze on his own fingers spidering on Kisame's chest. There's a strange feeling of mourning enshrouding his body, like someone had cracked open the window to let some of the mist seep in.
Kisame removes the knuckles brushing his spine to hold his chin with a tenderness he doesn't think he'll ever get used to. That large hand moves to cup Itachi's face then, thumb smoothing over the tired lines grooved into his cheeks. "What are you thinking about?"
Never a demand, but an honest question that Itachi avoids by nuzzling into the touch, his eyes fluttering shut. Their legs are still tangled and he feels utterly aware of how starved he is of this kind of… affection. The kind of affection he hadn't known since Shisui, in what now feels like a lifetime ago but is no less a hollow ache in his chest cavity.
He's thinking about how they can't have this. Itachi knows exactly where his own self-immolating path will take him, but he has always wondered at Kisame's. He's talked before of a world free of deception, and Itachi finds it both cruel and vaguely amusing that he's managed to ensnare Kisame into his own web of lies. Of course, there is no comfort in knowing that they will both end up the same anyway: bloody and before their time.
At the moment, they're two killers playing pretend. Playing another life where fate drew things differently, and they are just two lovers enjoying one peaceful, domestic morning among many. Their hands are clean; consciences more or less.
When he looks up into Kisame's eyes he thinks he identifies that same longing.
"Itachi-san?"
He's thinking that he could explain what he's feeling, but he's used to letting it suffocate him from the inside out instead. Letting it strangle any thought that he hasn't deserved such punishment. Kisame won't pry, doesn't need to, he's an expert in reading him to the core anyway.
Mist crowds the window and Itachi's fingers curl against his partner's chest.
"Kiss me," he breathes finally, with an air of desperation.
And Kisame obliges.