But I swear I'll never leave you here.
Cause we deserve a second chance.
I promise I'm not looking back.
I'll love you till the end of this.
I'll take away your fear.
I can't believe we're doing this.
And all the secrets that we've kept have kept us from the best of this.
The best of you and me.
Itachi stood with the pieces of his broken life in hand. Genius, they called him. Wonderful. Smart. Special. He could do anything. He was amazing. He was perfect.
So why did he hate himself? Why-why did everything he do seem hollow? It was never good enough. Every tiny failure(no, not failure, because he'd never really failed at anything) hit him harder, knocked him lower than any success could ever lift him? Why, when everyone seemed to love him, did he hate himself? Why did he despise not the things he did, but the very core of his being-the essential parts that made up who he was. Why did he feel so useless, so extraneous? So...
Despicable?
It was embarrassing, this unreasonable feeling of self loathing that crawled up and strangled him in the middle of his greatest moments. He considered confessing to depression, but he had his days of delight, happiness, and the gentle ups and sharp downs did not effect his ability to function. Not really. He didn't think about suicide. Or he hadn't. Not for ages-he'd shied away from that idea for years. He didn't want to die. He wanted to live, to be happy, to fulfill something that he could never find.
He could never find any of that. Just cold hatred and anger. Just frustration bottled up tight inside, never allowed to fully manifest. There were breaks in controls sometime that manifested as smashed projects, deleted files. Little parts of wonderful things that made Itachi proud enough to be sick. Proud enough he wanted to gouge his eyes out, cut off his hands, puke until he could taste nothing but bile. Didn't he deserve some pride? Shouldn't he feel accomplished in every good thing he did? He did good things. He did great things.
Why wasn't that enough?
Itachi sat on the edge of the concrete bridge railing. The river was swollen this week. The Nakano raged as an angry, righteous god imbued with might beyond his means. For a moment, Itachi had the desire to be swept away in that river, to be lost, to be nothing.
To be free.
Death held no allure, but the river did. He wanted to plunge so deeply down he'd never be found again. He wanted to be wrapped in the anger and might of something stronger than he was. He wanted to let go. His hands curled against the rough concrete, and his breath fogged into the cold air. He wanted to let go. To fly down. He wanted...he was going too...
He was going to fly. He was going to crash. He was going to be smashed and drowned and imbued with the anger he couldn't make himself feel. It felt so fitting-so right. Itachi just wanted to fall. He wanted it. Needed it. He didn't understand it, but he felt it. Wasn't that reason enough? Itachi swung his legs and shifted his body. One push. One push. One fall. One-
Arms wrapped around him-held him back, grounded him against something real. Gloved fingers knotted in his jacket. Itachi felt the press of a cold face against the back of his neck. A second heartbeat joined his. A second cloud of breath bloomed out into the night. Two hands. Two hearts. Two breaths.
"Don't. It's not that bad." A rough voice, hoarse and silk all at once, emotion filled, tinged with desperation. Itachi's hands fell away from the concrete and folded over the hands hanging onto him. He held on. Tight.
"Okay."
The seconds breath rushed out in a relieved sigh. "Okay."
The arms lifted Itachi up and away like he was a child, whirling him from the edge of the bridge and back onto the safety of the sidewalk. Itachi let himself be man handled, curling up and then setting his feet on the ground. Itachi looked down at the hands he gripped, and he knew he should be awkward and embarrassed that someone had seen him like that. He knew he should peel his white knuckled grip from the white and blue gloves.
The arms flexed and Itachi was spun around again, like a dancer guided through complicated steps. His grip shifted, and his own arms crossed as he came to face the man who'd dragged him back from the edge. The man was tall, stringy as he looked down at Itachi. His skin was evenly tanned, the curve of his pink lips, thinner than full, cracked. As Itachi looked, the man's tongue darted out, wetting the cracked skin, maybe nervous. The jaw was defined, clean and not as masculine as it could have been. There wasn't any down on it, but Itachi could see the curls of hair coming around the pierced earlobes that tickled the jaw.
The hands shifted to envelope Itachi's hands. "You're freezing." The lips and tongue and white teeth pushed the words out in a puff of smoke. Itachi blinked. Watched-stared-mesmerized. He was afraid to see what was above those lips.
"Hey, are you okay?" The man bent down, lips bobbing low, out of sight. "You don't look so good."
Itachi finally looked up, slowly, hesitantly. The eyes were tilted, outlined with liner to emphasize this. The eyes were brown-dark and deep and (even though Itachi always hated the description in books) dark chocolate rich and warm. Warm like they actually cared. Like Itachi mattered. Like he was important. Itachi looked up. Up to the black, black, black curls of hair sprouting from under the red and white ski cap. He looked at the jaunty little pompom on top of the man's head.
Itachi took a breath. "I'm fine."
He was always fine. Itachi blinked and felt a constriction on his chest. He wasn't fine at all, was he? The gloved hands seemed to cup his more.
"Hey."
The tone, the word, the gentle coaxing tug as Itachi was drawn a little closer. Itachi blinked and looked down at those eyes. Warm. Warm eyes in a cold night.
"I hate myself."
He'd said it, and the eyes didn't change. Not really. Maybe they got warmer but Itachi didn't see much of them as he was folded into a hug that crushed him against the smell of chlorine and coffee and orange. A hand cradled the back of his head, gentle, gentle, loving, warming, guarding.
So much better than the cold embrace of the river.