Edited to comply with FFN rules as I've, unfortunately, had whole stories removed before.

Full version as always is on my AO3, link in bio.

xox,

-Vivi


xi.

It has only been three days since their...encounter in that abandoned farmhouse, but luck nor fate had been on their side in that time. Their meeting with Pein had sent them on some mission along with Sasori and Deidara to squash a violent villager uprising, a boring affair that took longer in travel time than it did to kill the targets. With an audience Itachi and Kisame could hardly act upon their desires, which had only exacerbated them in turn.

Upon the group's disbandment the two of them had made their way to the closest inn, a modest thing in the heart of Grass Country, with false leisure. Itachi had used all of his willpower not to break into a sprint, and if Kisame's glances in his direction were any indication, he was feeling much the same. It was almost its own form of foreplay to make small talk with the innkeeper as she slowly fetched the old keyring and fingered through them for the right one, walking at a snail's pace down the hall and thanking her as she knelt and slid the door open and shut for them.

They'd made for the small bathhouse immediately—it's been days since last they had a proper wash. It is late, the night sky a void outside of the wide fogging windows high on the walls, but the steamy room is lit by a faintly flickering light that's warm and inviting. When Kisame shrugs off his robe and other clothes, Itachi watches carefully, his eyes raking over those broad shoulders and the sleek swoop of his back and his muscled ass and thighs—then he turns, much more boldly than he'd ever done before. He grins to've caught Itachi staring, brushing past him much too closely.

"I've never seen the boss so displeased," he says as he throws a leg into the hot water. Itachi blinks, finally regaining control of himself again and stripping down to follow suit. "Something must be happening behind the scenes to send so many of us for such a small thing."

"It's possible," Itachi agrees after a short hum. He can feel Kisame's eyes on him as he pulls his shirt over his head. "Though a show of strength can either be a threat or a bluff. I've a mind to start keeping tabs on his affairs."

"You don't trust him?"

"Do you?" Itachi makes his way to the bath, stepping in and letting the heat soothe his aching feet. "It doesn't necessarily matter to me if he's trustworthy so long as he continues to permit us to do as we please, but it would be inconvenient to my personal goals if he were to begin acting rashly."

He settles, grateful he can blame his flushed face on the temperature alone as Kisame spreads his arms to prop them on the lip of the tub with a contented sigh. Itachi finds that alone and naked his heart is far more frantic than he'd been expecting based off of his memories of that night; the experience is still far too new. He simply cannot help his stare, and of course it lands between his legs.

That Kisame has two penises should not have been the shock it was. On Itachi's part, he simply feels stupid—it's something he should've noticed long ago. He thinks back on Kisame angling himself away just so as they dressed, or that he always slunk off to any bathhouses by himself when it wasn't unheard of for men on friendly terms to go together. He'd only asked for the dip in the hot springs after it'd gotten dark, too, and that same night Itachi had been so distracted trying to look anywhere but between his partner's legs that he'd successfully not noticed anyway.

Nothing had come close to the feeling of raw arousal and surprise that evening in the snowy house when Itachi had finally seen Kisame without his clothes. At first it was because Itachi had never been in such an intimate situation before nor seen another man's hardness so blatant before him, but when he saw that in place of testicles Kisame instead had another, slightly smaller cock? The bewildered flip of Itachi's stomach was so great it'd made his head spin.

To repay the favor his partner had given him that night, he worked the larger one with his mouth and stroked the smaller one with his hand. Then the deed was done, the debt repaid, and they'd slept in each other's arms and were back on the road by morning. There had been little time for Itachi to think of the logistics or biology of the turn of events, his mind little more than a pleasantly numbed buzz whenever he thought back on it.

Now, though, the time is both ample and right. He blinks, lifting his gaze to Kisame's own. He does not want upset the other man by staring at something that is clearly a sensitive topic. Neither of them are hard anyway, a feat Itachi is struggling to manage with just his single one. He swallows when Kisame acts what's got him so quiet.

"I was hoping," he starts, drifting through the water to straddle his partner and sit there on his lap, "that you could tell me more about these."

He'd taken his palm and lightly covered the bigger member, their skin just barely making contact. It throbs beneath his hand and Kisame winces just a small bit, resituating his posture and bringing one arm to rest on Itachi's waist.

"I'm surprised the sight of it didn't send you running," he says with a laugh.

"Happened to you before, has it?"

"As a boy," he admits. Before Itachi has a chance to imagine something horribly grim, he clarifies: "Skinny dipping is a favorite pastime in Mist; I've known for a long time that I am different from others. My earliest memories are of being ostracized and teased for my appearance, and I did not have many friends."

Itachi wonders if many might mean any at all. He himself had thought poorly of him when he'd first seen him, knew at once he was hardly the first. He decides then to shift the subject, hoping to spare his partner any further painful memories. There are far too many of them in this world than need to be revisited.

"Is it double the pleasure?" he asks as confidently as he can manage. The concept of dirty talk is so far from his talents that he has no frame of reference to know if that was a sexy thing to say. It doesn't seem horribly out of place, though. "Or is one just for show?"

"I—" Kisame stops himself before he can stammer, glancing away briefly. "The truth of it is complicated. Are you really interested?"

"Of course," he says, because it is the truth. He wants to know all of Kisame that the man himself is willing to divulge.

He almost regrets it. In the next few minutes he learns more of sharks and the breeding habits of sharks and the family dynamics of sharks and the hunting structure of sharks than he thought possible, but it is an almost regret because Kisame is beaming in a way Itachi has never before seen. There are many misconceptions about sharks, he explains with that dazzling smile, but some of the stereotypes do hold weight. They can be bloodthirsty and ruthless when crossed, and even when mating they seem brutal by the standards of a human, males using their teeth to keep the females from swimming off.

"So you lied to me, then," Itachi teases. He'd meant the comment to be lighthearted and even smiles, but Kisame is furrowing his brows there in the water.

"Never," he says seriously. "What do you mean?"

"You told me a shark's bite is meant to kill. Would it not have been the more appropriate thing to say that it's also meant to hold a lover in place?"

As Kisame understands his mood lightens, and he shakes his head as his smile returns. "I am only shark in so many ways. My hands, which my distant ancestors lack, are perfectly suited to holding you in place should they need to." He brings one to Itachi's face, caressing it with a gentleness the likes of which a man who looks so monstrous should not be capable.

"And what do you mean by should they need to?" he asks quietly, closing his eyes. He will not draw attention to the fact that Kisame has not denied that they are lovers.

"You seemed quite willing to stay there beneath me without my interference. If I am wrong," he says, his free hand dropping to touch at one of Itachi's thighs under the water, "then please tell me at once."

"You are not wrong." His blush is so harsh it is as if his face is scorched by flames. All is quiet around them, and when Itachi's eyes lazily fall back open he finds Kisame studying him intently.

"You're beautiful," Kisame murmurs in a tone as if the thought simply cannot be contained any longer. "I wanted to tell you that first night."

A punch to the gut would've been easier to take. Beautiful is quite the sentiment, though not exactly foreign to Itachi. He's been told that his hair is beautiful, the spitting image of his mother's. The weaving of his hand signs and the lithe way he fights have been similarly praised, but no one—regardless of what they really think—has ever been so bold as to pay him a compliment like that.

And to know that Kisame, the most handsome thing Itachi has ever beheld, is the first to say it?

They hurry to finish their bath, quickly and haphazardly pulling on the plain kimono that'd been folded in the small shelves lining the wall. The moment Kisame slides shut the door they are upon each other, their mouths meeting more in one long and passionate kiss than it is a series of small ones. The flats of their tongues press together and Itachi can feel his lips bruising from the force of it all as they push and pull and fall onto the futon.

Everything about Kisame is hard and rough and calloused. His mouth and his teeth and his tongue, his fingertips and his grip on Itachi's thighs, his low grunts and quiet growls tangling in his throat. He is so barely restrained that Itachi sees clearly the throb of one of the veins snaking across his bicep as he undresses him.

His robe falls from his shoulders and now his lips are at his neck, sharp teeth scraping the surface of the frail skin. Large hands are wandering along Itachi's legs beneath his robes and squeezing here and there as he fights not to squirm. The task is becoming exponentially difficult, the sensations so exciting they're bordering on nauseating. He's hyper-aware of the small, pleasured twitch of his eye, his nipples puckering ever so slightly, and his covered erection pressing hotly against Kisame's clothed chest as his kisses and bites grow more intense by the second. Then he makes his way back up, and just before their mouths can meet once more he murmurs,

"Let me fuck you, Itachi-san." It is equal parts the most and least polite thing he's ever said.

Though Itachi's thoughts are dizzy and his breaths heavy in anticipation, the moment he nods his consent things begin to move in flashes. The other man tugs at his own obi, his robe falling open sensuously as he parts Itachi's disheveled kimono beneath the belt, bracing himself atop him. They press together; he bites at his knuckle to keep from moaning too loudly. Kisame's are both hot and solid as iron left in an open flame, and Itachi's slides between them as he rolls his hips in slow, lazy circles until the smaller one falls and finds its place with fantastic slowness.

A shiver shoots through the both of them. Itachi at first feels nothing but full and warm, the sensation of fullness not exactly good nor bad. It is the other man's reaction that is of particular interest: he hangs his head and gives his hips a tentative thrust that sends tingling waves through Itachi's stomach and thighs. Nothing, though, prepares him for hearing his partner hiss,

"God damn, you're tight."

Itachi finds that the experience of being under him is still so new that it makes him lightheaded. For all Kisame defers to Itachi and follows Itachi's lead and fusses for to just please take the medicinal pill, Itachi-san, in matters of a sexual nature Kisame's presence is commanding and his voice alluring and the loaded looks on his face so gorgeous that the younger man could drop dead beneath that gaze for how it squeezes his heart. The way he moves his hips is perfect, and to be with him in t his way feels better and better the more the both of them ease into it. Itachi widens his legs, Kisame attanining a slightly better rhythm and angle as Itachi relaxes further, and they kiss and they bite and they moan until they are holding each other so close, too close, a mess of wrapped and squeezing limbs on slick, flushed skin.

It is Itachi who comes first. He feels it on his stomach before the pleasure itself hits, but when it does it's in time with his pulse and makes him throw his head back onto the stiff pillow. Kisame's face is buried in the crook of his neck, and he squeezes roughly at his waist when he finally reaches his peak. His arm hooks beneath him, lifting Itachi's hips off of the futon and pulling him in, impossibly deep inside him—it hurts, the pain sending bright starbursts he sees against the black of his shut eyelids.

Kisame's throbbing mimicks the heartbeat Itachi can feel against his palm. He basks in the bittersweet combination of the intense but quickly-fading euphoria and the accompanying ache. It takes only a few moments for his partner to process the change in his breaths, pulls back to see the wince on his face. When he withdraws the loss is so staggering that Itachi flings his arms around his neck once more, a sudden desperation to not yet part rooting within him.

"I did not mean to hurt you," Kisame murmurs somewhere into his hair. "I apologise."

"Please," Itachi insists, their breaths calming. "I enjoyed every moment of it. You think too much of my wellbeing."

Kisame, though, gives a gentle push. They lie now side by side and facing each other, and he looks so serious that it would be funny if they'd not done what they'd just done. They stare at each other for so long that Itachi starts to wonder if he should be worried, and that is when Kisame's voice cuts through the silence. It is a correction that is said with composure, though of course that does not necessarily mean that it is said with ease.

"If this is to be the nature of our relationship, then, Itachi-san, you must know at least one thing: I do not think too much of your wellbeing. In truth, I cannot think enough of it."