Itachi&Mikoto drabblefic.
Title: The Lord is My Shepherd.
Genre: Angst/tradgedy/musings.
Characters: Mikoto and Itachi.
Word Count: 782
Rating: PG-13, for some darker themes and death.
Music: Lighthouse, by The Hush Sound.
Author's Notes: UHM WELL. Idk how this came about really, it was just like, all of a sudden, MIKOTO MUSE SPROUTS IN MY FACE and I honored her a dance on paper. She's nice :] AND AND idk if you'll like this, the_lady_lamb but I can hope so ;w;
The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want;
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters;
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for His name's sake.
---
Fugaku is dead long before she can find the time to cry.
Mikoto is quiet, at first, though. She only stares at her fading husband, her black licorice eyes meeting his black coffee ones. There's only a faint twitch of her brow, a small spark of emotion that makes her heart choke on itself, and the light is then gone from Fugaku and she breathes again.
Her head is spinning, actually, although she appears to be composed. She is. Or maybe she isn't.
Maybe she isn't a thing.
Her inhale is shaky, as her eyes flit up to see her son. Her dear son. The last man she'll ever see.
"Th-this wasn't supposed to be so hard," she jokes, feebly and in a whisper; it sounds like the words of a dying mother. Itachi's expression softens, and she realizes that there wasn't much humor in that at all.
Rising gracelessly, as if her knees aren't shaking and her body doesn't want to collapse to the tatami floor she'd known forever, she strides over to her destroying savior, smiling. His troubledness finally shows, like a heavy discontentment on his shoulders, and she knows.
For years, she thought she didn't Itachi as well as she believed, but she realizes then that she was wrong as she knowingly places a hand on the junction of his shoulder and neck, and the other on his cheek.
"Don't worry so much," she reassures him, and his resolve cracks just a little more.
"I must," he replies, tone restrained. "You know that." And what he means is that no matter how justified this killing is and will be and has always been, he's one of them, and he deserves to go down, too.
(Just like her. She's on Itachi's side, she knows that Fugaku's predatory need to destroy her village, their village, is wrong, but the Elder's are always right, always, always right, and so she obeys. She may be on his side, but she had always been one of them, and so as one of them she will die.)
The chains of thought rattle Mikoto, and she flinches again. Her eyes go bright with saline. She ignores his statement, and kisses his cheek. She knows she'll never do it again, so it's long and slow and lingering, and she says more words in it that Itachi would care to ever hear.
"Just take care of Sasuke, okay? That's all you need to promise me."
It's the rapt calmness of her tone, and the sincerity of her soft smile that mends Itachi's will, and he only nods, uttering, "Where do you...?" His voice trails, unable to finish his own sentence still.
"Next to your father, please."
Itachi knows very well if he doesn't do it now, it will never happen. So before she's even properly ready -- not that she would ever be, come to think of it -- he delves the blade into her chest so it would be quick.
She gasps without volume, blood puddling and rising like everything she wished she had the courage and power to do, and it spills. She spills. He catches her, holding her against him, listening to her breath as a newborn infant would. His breath is shaky, tentative; hers isn't. It's slow and sleepy, maybe like a lamb that's nodding off.
His thoughts go bitter in his head. Sheep. They were all only sheep, and he the shepard. It was his flock, but yet, he was no Jesus and had no land for them to graze upon in wherever-they'd-go. He couldn't promise anyone happiness, or peace, or no more troubles.
His mother's hand barely manages to clutch his shirt, and he closes his eyes.
"I'll take care of Sasuke. I promise."
She smiles.
And then she is gone. Her resolve broken, her eyes burnt out by tears and her favorite apron and dress stained with all the things she'd never accomplish. Her fragile frame fits fine over Fugaku's strong, burly one, and her hair sprawls lovely on the floor. Long, black silk ribbons that smell like meadow flowers and crying babies and some sort of heartbreak.
Itachi stands slowly, head bowed in deep something. Respect, for sure, but mostly it's a lot of apologies he doesn't have the heart to say, and guilt and regret, and the desires of a two year old to hold onto their mother's bosom like it was the world.
His whole being seems to stop in that moment, and when the door opens he isn't ready to face Sasuke. Sasuke wasn't either.
Fugaku wasn't ready.
Neither was Mikoto.
Then again, as Sasuke bleats, he knows that no sheep is ever quite ready to die.