Chapter III: Itachi

A hand was stroking his chest gently. It was familiar and soothing, and even though Neji had the impression of only having slept for a few minutes, he felt oddly awake. The hand smoothed over his abdomen, and Neji made a little noise and arched into it. Something cold pressed against his belly—a ring, on one of the fingers. The person was using their right hand, and there was a ring on the hand's ring finger.

Slowly opening his eyes, Neji saw the first few golden rays of light from the sun breaking through the curtains dimly; it was still enough to backlight Itachi though, sitting on the edge of the bed. He was wearing the Akatsuki coat he had worn so many times when he'd met Neji, the collar pulled up to obscure half his face. But Neji could tell the other was smiling; it showed in a certain light in his whole face. Itachi had deactivated the Sharingan, and the light pooled in eyes such a dark blue they were black. His hand was still moving over Neji's skin, and as he brushed his fingers over a certain spot Neji gasped softly. The other's look of smiling intensified.

Neji closed his eyes, wondering what kind of dream he'd been given this time. Usually it was the nightmare about that day, or erotic, half-formed things between fantasy and memory. But when he opened his eyes again, Itachi was still there. He'd pulled the collar of the coat down so it was wrinkled up under his chin, and his full lips were pouting slightly. It was an unconscious habit, but one that was undeniably Itachi.

"Have you come to visit me?" Neji murmured.

His own voice frightened him; it made the whole thing so much more real. Looking around, Neji wondered if he'd really dropped all his clothes and things in the places they were in now, and resolved to check when he'd woken up.

"How long will you be here?" he asked.

The sun must have risen by now, and Neji knew it was a dream. He had gone to sleep in the late afternoon; there was no way he'd slept through an entire night, he never did anymore, so it must be a dream. Laying there, enjoying Itachi's simple caress, Neji wondered why he did not wake up. Screwing his eyes tightly shut, he tried to go back to sleep.

There was a shifting, rustling noise, and Neji opened his eyes again. Itachi was leaning over him, long hair freed of its ponytail and hanging down around their faces. Reaching up, Neji traced the strange scars on Itachi's face, and kissed him. It was a short, shy kiss at first, thought and memory making him awkward, but their kisses never stayed that way for very long. Soon, he pulled Itachi on top of him, whimpering a little as he put his arms up around the other's shoulders. It was rare he had a good dream of them together, one so clear and sharp, and he wanted to savor it. His heart ached secretly for Itachi, an ache that slowly moved downward as Itachi's tongue stroked his and his hands wove into Neji's long hair, the tips massaging gently at his scalp just as he liked it.

Neji's entire body buzzed with pleasure (remembered pleasure? He wondered.) as they lay together, Itachi moving so surely and paying such diligent attention to every place that made his breath hitch in his throat. But even as evidence of his arousal became clear, even as he began to crave more, a glimmer of thought crossed his mind. Putting out a hand, Neji pushed the Uchiha off him and back, so he could sit up.

"What do you want?" he asked breathily, damning his body for betraying him so easily. Everything in him screamed to continue; for six damn years, he'd wanted something he couldn't have, and now that it was within his reach he denied it to himself. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed he looked away, because the hurt expression on Itachi's face made his heart ache again.

Good thing he never made that face when he was alive, Neji thought. But then it occurred to him; Itachi never had…of course, it was just a dream, so it didn't have to obey the rules.

Neji pinched himself hard. Surely that'll wake me up, he thought, but the dream continued. Itachi was leaning against the wall, staring at him with a sort of wistful look combined with quiet interest.

"Where have you come from?"

Itachi said nothing, but reached up and traced the lines of the Caged Bird seal. Neji shivered, with both sensation and a growing unease; although if this were a dream, all Itachi's mannerisms when they were in bed together would be preserved…right?

"I don't know," he replied easily, confidence ringing in his voice. Something in Neji thrilled to hear that rich tenor he'd so dearly missed.

"Were you seen?"

"I…I don't know," Itachi said, his brow furrowing slightly. It wasn't a natural look for Itachi, and that warm feeling from hearing the other's voice began to dissipate slightly. "Neji, what's wrong?" His fingers were still tracing Neji's seal, but they had faltered slightly.

"Itachi."

"Yes, my love?"

Neji scowled. That was definitely not something Itachi would have said. They had never had pet names for each other, preferring the sound of each other's names falling from kiss-reddened lips…he shivered and smiled. "How'd you find me?"

Itachi shrugged and leaned in, nuzzling against the Hyuuga's neck in a show of affection so needed and so repulsive to Neji that he froze before he responded, stroking Itachi's hair. "I don't know," Itachi said. "I just wandered around this house until I found you. I didn't want to wake you up though. You're beautiful when you sleep." He sat back Indian-style on the bed and stretched, yawning. With his hair falling over one shoulder, the ends touched by gold light, he was more beautiful than anything Neji had ever imagined. But there was something…

Scooting over, he placed himself in Itachi's lap, leaning his head against the Uchiha's shoulder. Automatically Itachi's arms were around him and he was being kissed and nuzzled, and for a moment he forgot about what he wanted to find and lost himself in the touches. But he managed to keep himself together, and tugged down the collar of Itachi's coat. There, marring the silky pale skin, was a very fine red line; without looking, Neji knew it would be all the way around Itachi's neck. Touching it with a finger, Neji wondered; he'd often woken up with one hand lightly grasping his own throat, as though he was reliving the moment when he'd seen the chakra blade held in Sasuke's hand slice neatly through Itachi's neck.

There hadn't been much blood, he remembered. The heat of the chakra had cauterized the blood vessels too quickly. Back then, he'd thought he would never see Itachi look at him with desire in his eyes ever again.

But here he was. Neji reached up and ran his hand through Itachi's bangs, and the older man turned his head and nestled his cheek into Neji's broad palm. He could feel Itachi's eyelashes tickling the heel of his palm.

"Where are we, Itachi?"

"We're at home, aren't we?"

"Where's that?"

"Neji."

"Yes, Itachi?"

"I'm happy."

And Neji ceased to think of it as a dream, and began thinking of it as how he could defend himself from a threat.

"Did you bring your gear up here?" Neji asked as he stood and stretched.

"What gear?"

"Didn't you bring anything else?"

Itachi frowned, getting up and absently brushing off his clothes before wandering around the room, touching various objects, picking some up before putting them back down. Neji dressed and watched him move around; he'd known Itachi for long enough to know that these motions were restless, not calm and calculated. At last, Itachi paused in the middle of the room and looked at Neji.

"Have I been ill?"

Neji stared at him. "Yes," he said finally, his voice soft. "Yes, you've been slightly ill." If being dead counts as a disease.

To his surprise, Itachi brightened visibly. "That explains it then," he said. "That's why I can't remember very much."

As Neji watched the other move around the room again, serious and stoic, examining everything with a shinobi's trained eye, he began to relax and think that this might indeed be the real Itachi. Somehow, he had been given back his lover, even though he seemed somehow skewed, simplified into the mannerisms Neji was so attached to, and given new ones that didn't quite mesh with the person Neji knew. Of course, Neji realized that he might not have known Itachi as well as he thought he did, and that the Uchiha could have and probably was hiding things from him even when things were more serious between them. But some things just didn't work out in Neji's analytical mind. Some things just weren't Itachi.

Suddenly, Itachi was clinging to him. "What's going on, Neji?" he asked, tucking the brunet's head under his chin. "Is there something wrong? You have such a serious expression on your face."

"No, things couldn't be better."

"That means there is something on your mind."

"Of course not!" Neji said, nuzzling Itachi's shoulder as he pushed away. "Itachi, I've got to go. Wait here for me, okay? Should I bring you something to eat?"

"Eat?" Itachi shoot his head, his beautiful hair flopping around his shoulders. "No, I'm not hungry. How long will you be?"

"Only an hour or so."

"I'm coming with you."

"You can't. I have work I've got to do, Itachi."

"I'm coming with you."

This wasn't Itachi; he would have shrugged and gone to sit on the bed, or wandered off on his own. Itachi only insisted when it was obviously something in line with his interests, and while being around Neji after so long away might have been in line with them, if Neji was insistent about being alone, Itachi would have let him be.

"You can't."

He was seized again tightly, bone-crushingly; and Neji stayed in the warm embrace (for it was warm; he had ascertained that Itachi was quite warm and the muscles quite supple), his hands curled on Itachi's chest and head pillowed on the other's shoulder again. Itachi leaned his head against Neji's and sighed. Neji couldn't help himself; his mind recognized Itachi and responded to the other's body, desiring him beyond reason into the realms of madness.

How did you do this to me?

A blanket spread on sun-warmed grass, crushed under their bodies and fragrant even through the cloth, limbs tangled together and black and brown hair running together across the cloth. Itachi ran his lips over the seal, following them with his fingers, and Neji shivered. Itachi pressed chakra into it in a certain way, and he whined, arching against the other's body. It hurt, but Itachi made it hurt in a way to make it turn to pleasure.

I could ask you the same question.

Swallowing, Neji pushed himself away again. "Itachi, it's out of the question. You can't come with me."

"No." Itachi's face was closing up.

"Why can't you stay here?"

"I…I'm not sure," Itachi said. "I can't."

"Why?"

"It's as though…It is as though I can't let you out of my sight." Itachi had undergone an imperceptible change, something that Neji realized marked him as a wholly different entity than the man whose shape he wore. He was holding and being held and gazing into the eyes of a creature that he did not know, his hands were sliding up Itachi's chest and over his shoulders, down his arms, pinioning his own shoulders to grasp Itachi's wrists and pull them from around him, twining their fingers together. And slowly, he began to push Itachi's hands behind him, looking around for something to tie them with—his garrote wire was in his pack—

Suddenly Itachi jerked his elbows together; Neji resisted for a second but was knocked backwards with more strength than he remembered Itachi having and when he looked up again, Itachi was smiling calmly at him as though nothing had ever happened, as though he had no recollection of almost throwing Neji across the room.

It was not a dream. It was very, very real. He held this in his mind and quelled a rising tide of panic.

Going through his things, Neji's fingers hit a tiny glass vial at the bottom of the bag, and trembling, shifted so he could look at it without pulling it out. It was the panic pill that every shinobi of a rank above chuunin carried with them. Bullying his mind into ignoring the presence of the thing that looked like Itachi, Neji concealed the vial in his hand as he pulled it out and wandered into the bathroom, grabbing one of the glasses by the sink and filling it with water. Dropping the little tablet in, he watched as it fizzed at the bottom of the class, the tiny black piece of death shrinking as it dissolved. He made no secret of what he was doing; Itachi was still poking through the things in the room, and wasn't paying much attention to him at the moment.

When the rock had dissolved entirely, Neji carried the glass out into the room, smiling at the other. "Here, drink this," he said, and handed the glass over. Without a second thought or a question, Itachi took the glass and drained it in three swallows, setting it aside after and nuzzling up against Neji again. Neji sat on the bed; Itachi sat on the floor and leaned his head against the Hyuuga's knee. Unable to help himself, Neji reached down and ran his fingers through Itachi's hair over and over. It was just as he remembered it, slightly coarse, but soft.

The minutes passed. Glancing at the angle of the sun, Neji reasoned it had to have been at least half an hour; the pills took longer to work when dissolved in water, but Itachi should have been thrashing around on the floor in pain by now. Shaking the other's shoulder, he called softly, "Itachi."

The other murmured something and shivered. His face was drawn in pain, and Neji sighed. His heart hurt, but he told himself sternly that whoever this was, it was not Itachi.

All of a sudden the other leapt up, laughing merrily. Horrified, Neji stood too. "What's so funny?"

"I don't know," the other said, getting control of his laughter at last. "It's just…I am being so…I'm behaving like an idiot, and you are too, aren't you? Like Glee."

Neji stared. "Like—who?"

"Glee. You know, your teammate?"

After Lee had been too exuberant upon returning home after being delayed on a mission for a week, Neji had snapped that Lee ought add a 'g' to his name to make it 'glee.' But there was no way Itachi could have known that, because it happened four years after he had been executed. Neji sat down; this was beginning to give him a massive headache.

Itachi came over to the bed and laid his head in Neji's lap, looking back up at him. "You stare at me a lot," he said softly, and reached up to trace Neji's nose.

"I have to go out, Itachi…if you insist on coming with me, I'll take you."

"Good." He sprung up, straightening his clothes and tying his hair back again.

"But you can't wear the coat. It's still a symbol of terror from my comrades."

"That's all right." Itachi went to take off his coat, and found he couldn't; the buttons on the front were only for show. He wiggled it over his head and tossed it on the bed. Neji could only admire the firm, muscled abdomen that he remembered caressing so many times, taut under the mesh armor shirt.

Looking out, Neji saw nobody in the corridor, and heard no noise from the rest of the floor. Leading Itachi by the hand, he led the other out of the house and through the deserted, dead town to the lip of the cliff overlooking the lake. They followed it for about half an hour, to the waterfalls at the far side. Itachi was looking around with interest, at the sky and trees and the grass under his sandals; Neji was right at the lip, looking down at the base of the waterfall, where there were many jagged rocks. If someone fell off, there was no way they could possibly survive.

"This is a beautiful place," Itachi said dreamily behind him. Neji made a sound of agreement and beckoned him closer.

"Look down there," he said. "The sun's at just the right angle to make a bow in the mist."

As Itachi leaned over, Neji wrenched his hand free, then gave Itachi a mighty shove; he went over the cliff and didn't even make an attempt to stop himself with chakra. Neji turned away and was running before he could hear the impact. Tears streamed out of his eyes as he ran back through the forest, through the town and up to the house.

He had just killed the closest thing to his lover that he'd had in six years. What kind of a monster was he?

Shoving the makeshift door aside, Neji burst into the foyer, and came face to face with Orochimaru.

Hinata bolted up in bed, a cry on her lips. Immediately Naruto was beside her, blinking sleep from his big blue eyes.

"What's wrong, Hinata-chan?" he asked, putting a hand on her shoulder. Her skin was hot to touch, and worried, he felt her forehead and cheeks. She shook her head as he did, she didn't have a fever.

"It was just a bad dream," she said, and lay back down.

"Aw, those suck-'tebayo," he said, laying back down himself. "I used to have 'em a lot after the bastard had run off."

"What was it like, losing a teammate?" Hinata asked, laying on her side to face Naruto on his futon. His blue eyes were almost luminescent in their depth of color, and he hummed softly as he thought.

"It would be like losing you," he said thoughtfully. "Imagine someone who's always been there, and then take them away. Off the map completely, poof." He spread his fingers to illustrate. "It's like being empty."

Hinata burrowed in her futon a bit. Neji had had such dreams almost nightly after they'd let him out of the ANBU holding area. She'd heard him screaming all the way in here in the heart of the main house. She wondered if he felt the same way after losing Itachi. She was sure he did.

Unlike with Orochimaru, Hinata could have compassion for someone like Itachi. Where Orochimaru had killed and then violated the bodies with his perverse pseudoscience, Itachi had had a cause, had killed and then left the bodies and run off. His crimes were no less heinous and she was shocked that someone like her cousin would find it in him to share a bed with someone like Itachi, but, she thought, Neji was a genius. He must have known something that she didn't. And he'd grieved for a long time. He still was; she often saw the incense in front of the marker he'd insisted on placing in the shrine.

Perhaps Neji was just more compassionate than she was.

"Empty…" she murmured.

"But hey, don't worry," Naruto said with one of his winning, cheerful smiles. "We aren't gonna leave you. At least, I won't. Sasuke probably couldn't either. I really like you, Hinata-chan."

That warmed her from the inside out, and she blushed furiously. Naruto watched as she nestled under the blankets and closed her eyes, Sasuke's words from before rattling around in his head.

I do like her, he thought. But could I love her? Naah, she can do better than a fox like me…but I bet she'd like it.

Mind chasing itself in circles, Naruto fell into sleep.

On the roof above, Sasuke relaxed, and went back to patrolling. He always took the night patrols now, preferring the company of the moon and stars and his own head.

Being around the Hyuugas so long had brought snide remarks about the incident from the less thrilled members of the clan. Orochimaru was stirring more often in his head, and Sasuke was worried. He had scheduled an appointment with Tsunade for the day after tomorrow, to check up on the seal, but for now he battled it out alone.

His strongest opponent was the voice that said he wouldn't mind seeing the snake again, even if it was just in his head.

Neji dropped into a crouch, furiously wiping tear-stains from his face. His eyelashes were gummed together and obscured his vision, but as he activated the Byakugan he paused. Orochimaru had no chakra system.

Anko suddenly blazed out of nowhere, stepping on front of her old sensei. "Don't attack him!" she shrieked in an oddly high-pitched voice. "Leave him alone!"

"Anko-san," Neji said, panting. "He doesn't have a chakra—"

"I know," Anko snapped.

"Hello," Orochimaru said. "You're a Hyuuga, aren't you? And a strong one too; I can tell."

"Hyuuga Neji." Now that he was calmer, Neji could notice details; Orochimaru wasn't wearing the purple bow and tan robe that Neji had glimpsed at the Chuunin exams, but the gear of a Leaf jounin. The hitae-ate glinted on his forehead, and Neji shivered. It was like looking back sixty years in the past.

"Come on, let's go into the kitchen and have something to eat," Anko said, and took Orochimaru by the hand. Neji's gut clenched; they were interacting the same way that he had with the thing that looked like Itachi.

"Wait here," Anko instructed, once she'd gotten Orochimaru seated. "I'll be right back. I'll be just in that other room there, okay?"

"I want to come with you."

"I'll only be a moment, sensei. I just want to talk to Neji here."

Looking sour, Orochimaru watched them as they went through the door. Breathing a sigh of relief, Anko looked Neji up and down and said, "You've had a visitor, haven't you." It was not a question.

"Yes," Neji said, and gulped.

"I think I can tell who it was. And you didn't resort to any direct attacks? No Jyuuken, nothing?"

"No. Restraint, then panic pills."

"Well," Anko said, looking impressed. "You're doing far better than any of us did. No broken sinks or broken bones, you didn't even turn the room upside-down. Just one, two, and—over the cliff, I'm assuming, since I didn't see any smoke?"

"Yes." Neji swallowed. How could she talk about it so casually—then he smirked. They were shinobi; they killed without thought or remorse.

"So, we have about three hours before he comes back," Anko said, looking at the sun through the window. "I am going to tell you a little bedtime story, Neji-san, about how all of this came about. But we'll have to be very quiet; if he hears it out there, he'll be upset. And we must be quick, because they cannot leave us alone for very long."

Neji swallowed. He felt as though a great many things were rushing toward him at once, and he was defenseless against them.