[fic]: Shisui: A Guidebook for the Newly Dead, & accompanying mini-FST
Title: Shisui: A Guidebook for the Newly Dead
Rating: PG-13 with a heavy dose of creepiness, mild angst, absurd fluff, drowning
Pairing: Itachi/Shisui
Length: 6,137
A/N: Featuring timeskips, (they are numerous, you have been warned!) vague inspiration from Anchored In Dust, and a made-up holiday existing in Konoha that is kinda like All Soul’s Day. Beta’d by the brilliant ronsard.
Summary: You should be careful of lantern season in Konoha, the other villages say.
*
HE’S NOT DEAD, he knows that much.
The ghost lanterns have just shifted his soul into another plane of reality, that’s all. No need to panic. No need to freak out that his body is still moving, as he watches through a film of cloudy haze. The corporeal Shisui, clearly not him, grins widely in a way Shisui associates with demonic spirits and kitsune. It reminds him of the tapestry of the Kyuubi that hangs in one of the Uchiha meeting halls.
Does he suddenly have sharper teeth than before, or is he imagining things? The corporeal Shisui looks at him, and its grin grows impossibly wider.
…Are those fangs?
*
Shadows of shadows pass, and many a light
flashes a signal-fire across the night.
You should be careful of lantern season in Konoha, the other villages say. Shisui has never been good at listening, though, unless he deems it truly important, and on this occasion, he didn’t.
But oh how he wishes he had.
*
Itachi has suggested this little excursion, perhaps prompted by his family, in their unending love for traditions, for age-old festivals - the things the Uchiha clan passes on doggedly from generation to generation, whether during war or peace. Whether the next generation wants it or not. Shisui thinks that this sort of thing is useless unless it’s injected with new vitality, new energy to stave off stagnation and cruelty. But hey, the day the clan starts listening to him is the day he’d better pack up and leave for saner pastures.
Shisui has to clean the blood off his ANBU uniform first, and when he finally emerges, Itachi has changed into a kimono. Deranged traditionalists to the core, Shisui thinks. But it’s striking: Itachi is always striking. His high cheekbones stand out clearly in the open door as the twilight leaks in. Shisui stands there gaping for a moment before snapping his jaw shut and collecting the little pieces of his brain off the floor.
“Should we go…?” Itachi murmurs. Shisui darts closer, and grabs Itachi’s arm, abandoning his plans to change as well. He begins to yank Itachi away.
“Yes, please. Before your family tries to stick me in silk.”
Little lanterns, bright orange flames wavering bravely against the dark, dot the lanes of the Uchiha compound and the shore of the Nakano, floating in the water like tiny boats.
“Kinda a lot of them, aren’t there?” Shisui drawls. Itachi smiles in that way of his that indicates he is bemused by Shisui’s apparent idiocy.
“They’re for the spirits of dead clansmen,” Itachi says. “They can only return to visit the world they left behind one day in the year. These lanterns are meant to light their path…” He stops, and amends, “Or so they say.”
“Ugh. Spare me. Knowing our relatives, they’d spend their day grilling their descendants about proper conduct.” Though the lights are kind of pretty, he has to admit.
“Our clansmen have more wisdom to impart than that, if they could only have a day in return,” Itachi says, demonstrating once again that he has no sense of humor.
“And, of course, there are other lanterns,” Itachi adds.
“Yeah?” They are slowly making their way to the wooden bridge spanning one of the narrower sections of river.
“In Konoha, they say that at the turn of the seasons stray demons can get caught, too. They cast their own lights to mimic the human dead.”
There is something enchanting and lyrical about Itachi’s voice that Shisui has never been able to place. It catches him like a spell; the same way it has been doing in all the years they have been friends. Shisui tries to battle down the blush suffusing his cheeks like a riot. They stop on the bridge, and look out over the water. Shisui glances sideways at Itachi, who is standing right next to him with a careless disregard for personal space. This is a trait Itachi seems to have developed recently, and only with him. Itachi just does not stand so close to people: it isn’t in his nature..
Fuck.
“At least they have one day,” Itachi says softly. Crap. This is a Moment now. The only sounds are the quiet chirping of crickets and the thunderous, panicked pounding of Shisui’s heart, which surely Itachi must be able to hear.
They are very close, and the lack of distance is a thrilling undercurrent of communication just as effective as words. Itachi turns towards Shisui without even a trace of fear and his breath mingles with Shisui’s across the space between them. He is all soft skin and elegant angles. Shisui wants to throw up. Hopefully not on Itachi, that would ruin the mood - what mood? What is he saying? This isn’t happening!
White noise roars in his ears, and he can feel himself stammering something like, “Itachi! Um, you know, I, I always, um, wanted… I-” Distance. Anything to sort this out in his head.
“I- I- I want to see the lanterns on the river,” Shisui hedges, hysteria lending quickness to his words. “You know, before they, um, get put out.” The lanterns stay lit all night. Everybody knows this.
Itachi’s mouth curls into a subtle smile, something approaching smug, and he leans back.
“As you wish, Shisui,” he says, and stares off into the distance. Shisui takes the opening and backs away, his face flaming.
*
A TINY LANTERN bobbing in the river catches his attention.
Lost in the turmoil of what to do about wanting to kiss his male cousin, Shisui wanders aimlessly closer. Its light seems to be flickering with more colors than the ones around it. Never one to pass up the opportunity to meddle, Shisui goes closer. The light inside it is changing colors, which Shisui is pretty sure candles don’t do. He pokes at the thin red paper covering the light.
Immediately he feels a sort of hitch in his ribcage - a tug. Except that it seems to be pulling on his chakra, gently, insistently. He resists, and it begins to pull with a force he can’t fight. All of a sudden, he is very dizzy and everything around him is losing focus and color.
The world spins out of recognition.
*
When he comes to, his own body is grinning maniacally at him. “Hey! HEY! That’s my body! You can’t have it, whatever-you-are!” Shisui yells. The spirit tips its head sideways, then rolls Shisui’s neck with a sickening series of cracks. It flexes his hands and stands up.
Cold, unbridled panic shoots down Shisui’s -spine? ether? what is he made of, now? - quicker than ever before.
Itachi!
Sure enough, Itachi is still on the bridge, staring out into the inky blackness, serenely not sucked into a parallel dimension, Shisui notes with a petulant flare of irritation. Itachi has never looked quite so ghost-like himself, though, his kimono of such a dark blue it’s almost black, his eyes and hair melting with the darkness, the only light a soft glow against his pale skin from the lanterns in the water and on the ground.
Itachi looks up as the impostor approaches. Shisui is horrified as the doppelganger grins, looking more human now, and leans on the bridge next to Itachi.
“Did you see the lanterns as you wanted?” Itachi asks.
“I did! They’re even better up close. Waaayy up close.” Bastard, Shisui thinks viciously. The voice is perfect, but of course it is, it’s his own bloody body being hijacked. This is so unfair.
Itachi reaches out very deliberately and grasps Shisui’s forearm. The fake Shisui looks up, and its face softens into something approximating tenderness, nearly perfect, if not for the persistent smirk. Hell, even that might be accurate- how much does he smirk, anyway? Maybe he should be less cocky, smirk less. Yes. Smirk less, that expression is positively terrifying, but also a little hot, too-
Stop right there.
Itachi is pulling Shisui’s body forward, till they are standing in front of each other with barely an inch between them. Their foreheads come to rest gently together.
This is as much as Shisui can stand.
“Itachi! Hey, Itachi! Look at me! I’m RIGHT HERE!” he shouts. He reaches out and tries to grab Itachi’s arm, to drag him backwards. His ethereal hand goes right through. Itachi does not even sense him. The impostor, the demon who has stolen his body, flickers its eyes over to where Shisui stands near Itachi, a silent taunt. Shisui mouths an obscenity at it and scowls. This is a catastrophe of unmitigated proportions. Itachi is acting like a human being with hormones, and Shisui is on a parallel plane of reality. Fuck, how did this happen? Oh right, I was being nosy again. And this is where it gets me.
The other Shisui runs his hand slowly along Itachi’s chin, lifting it till they are a hairsbreadth apart, sharing the same air. Itachi sucks in a breath and his other hand fists in a handful of Shisui’s shirt. The light from the lanterns all around is impossibly gentle. No, no, no, no! Shisui is frozen in horror.
Itachi’s eyes flutter shut.
They kiss, melting against each other. It makes a startlingly beautiful image. We would have such attractive children, his brain hums in the background, even in the midst of this disaster-
He looks on, feeling his stomach turning over in large swoops. It is a feeling nearly identical to a rush of joy, but one that Shisui can accurately identify now as despair.
*
“OKAY! Allright! This ISN’T FUNNY!” he yells at the body-snatcher. “The laughs are over, you can’t have my body, let’s just switch back now.”
It ignores him.
“You had fun, right? You even, uh, kissed your cousin, er, my cousin, which I’ll admit I was a bit irked at, but I’m willing to forgive and forget, you wouldn’t like him anyway, he’s kind of standoffish and taciturn when you get right down to it, icy, some might even say!”
It narrows its eyes at Shisui without breaking stride, profoundly disinterested. Shisui throws up his hands in disgust. “Arrgh! What do you want?”
“Look. I mean, you can run around a little bit, I wouldn’t begrudge you that, but then I really need my body back. Because you can’t just go around stealing other people’s bodies like this. It’s- it’s-” Shisui casts about for a way to express it’s wrong to something that came out of a colored lantern. “…there are rules against this sort of thing.” He finishes stupidly.
“…worthless,” the spirit says.
“Come again?”
“I said you’re worthless,” it hisses loudly. “Insignificant. You should at least know that you come from a long line of deliberately obtuse humans, and you all just seem to be getting stupider with time. So you should feel honored,” it continues, “because you are the very latest addition to this collection of bumbling peons.” It smiles villainously. “I think you should stay as you are.”
It only takes Shisui a few seconds to collect himself from the shock before he smiles back grimly.
“Fine. If that’s how this is going to go, I’ll find a way to change this. You’re gonna regret this.”
*
The novelty of having ghostlike powers wears off quickly. He discovers things he never wanted to know about his clansmen, and many he already suspected about Kakashi. Ninja are dirty sluts, he concludes. Old news.
So Shisui trails Itachi and the body-stealing demon, cursing whatever improbable fuckery allowed this to happen, wondering when Itachi will wake up. It is damaging his sanity to watch the two of them sparring and see Itachi’s face so alight with happiness - something he clearly never noticed before, but finds blindingly obvious now. Around him, Itachi relaxes, something so subtle it is almost unnoticeable, but also stunning, if only for the reason that it is happening at all.
Itachi finally calls an end to the practice session, and they lean against a tree together as the day fades in a rush of warm orange light.
The demon is trying to mimic his personality. Why, Shisui cannot say, but he is gratified to see it hasn’t gotten everything right. It is shifty-eyed and mildly paranoid, something that Shisui hopes is not escaping Itachi’s notice. Shisui continues his quest to affect something in the material world, anything.
I am an unparalleled genius. I can figure this out. This should be easy.
*
I am but mad north north-west
When the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.
Shisui is not sure whether to be flattered that Itachi seems to know something is wrong, or disconcerted by how his best friend is handling said problem. That method, of course, being avoidance, and whatever slow, nebulous thought processes Itachi uses on a daily basis.
Sometimes he thinks he is feeling the material world, but he can’t be sure.
Smoke curling up. Autumn in Konoha. Burning off the edges; he is losing both the outer fringes of substance and his wits.
Am I going crazy? How would I know, if I was?
*
For one glorious moment, he knows he has touched Itachi. The other boy gasps and his eyes shoot wide open, looking around wildly.
*
There is something crawling down his spine, ice cold. Could you get attacked in the spirit world? What other creatures are seeing him when his back is turned, when he’s preoccupied?
*
ITACHI! Shisui is yelling at their retreating backs, but he’s already given up hope.
*
For just a moment, Shisui tastes copper in his mouth, smells lilies and river water. It’s nostalgic, and then he remembers: of course. The Nakano; the parts of its shoreline given over to slow streams and plants. He and Itachi paddling through it as kids, swallowing river water in great gulps, because neither of them were good swimmers yet.
Inspired, he walks along the bottom of the riverbed; probably the only experience thus far so sublime it almost makes up for the fact that he is losing his fucking mind. It is something he would never have seen otherwise, long strands of giant kelp rising from the bottom, schools of fish darting about. The river responds and he swears he can feel the warm water shifting around him. Shisui feels at home.
*
ANIMALS CAN SEE HIM, Shisui learns. This is just another confirmation that he is somewhat more than a ghost, something in-between. He startled a fox walking through the woods, which bolted immediately, but still. Cats and dogs respond to him, which Shisui is pathetically grateful for. Standing next to Itachi for hours and getting even less response than when he wasn’t incorporeal is starting to feel like a deliberate slight, though he knows he can’t really hold it against him. He can’t smother the relentless sense of hurt that permeates his senses, though. If he were missing in action, or had simply disappeared, there would be search parties, rescue. But he’s still there, the impostor carrying on his life while he can do nothing but watch. The only ally he has is Itachi-
-who, from the looks of it, hasn’t slept in days. They are down below the clan’s meeting hall in the dead of night. Itachi is reading by the light of a single candle, poring over old scrolls. Shisui glances over. The Tricks of Kitsune and How to Avoid Them. Wrong, Itachi. Still wrong.
Then a brainstorm hits him. Animals.
So when Itachi is next with the doppelganger, Shisui makes sure to run into their path with a dog that hangs around the Uchiha compound. It likes him; it has always liked him. Shisui could not have felt more indebted, because it works like a movie script: the dog jumps up and licks his face. Its front paws look like they are being supported by thin air.
Itachi stops dead in his tracks, but the impostor keeps on walking, used to Shisui dogging their steps. It is a fatal mistake, and Shisui knows it, because be still his beating heart, Itachi’s gaze snaps to the fake Shisui, who finally turns back. He gives a little gasp, but it is far too late.
Elated at this tiny window for communication, Shisui scratches its floppy ears, mushing them around its face. The dog is delighted, barking and wagging its tail, slobbering all over him.
Shisui can practically see the gears turning furiously in Itachi’s head. For once, the tables are turned, and when he taunts the lantern spirit, it can do nothing to acknowledge him.
It is a sweet victory. The day is cloudless and beautiful when Shisui eventually strolls off with the most magnificent of all canines.
*
Turning and turning in the widening gyre,
The falcon cannot hear the falconer.
Itachi moves his hands in a seal so fast Shisui is instantly reminded of why Itachi is so impressive, why he is called a genius. He slides his hand under Shisui’s shirt (when did he get so devious? The movement is seamless…) and channels chakra into the fake Shisui, who shudders. Whatever Itachi is doing seems to be working. His mouth parts after a moment, his brows furrowing, and he withdraws his hand.
“…You are not Shisui.”
Shisui didn’t know his face was capable of producing such a slow and chilling smile, but the effect it has on Itachi is startling: his friend reels back as if he’s been slapped.
“I am right, then.” His voice has an unfamiliar timber to it, like Itachi is speaking around sawdust. Nevertheless, Shisui could cheer for joy that Itachi has called the intruder out. Finally. If Itachi was possessed by some bizarre lantern spirit, Shisui is confident he would have had the mess pinned down and sorted out within a day. Probably.
“Took you quite awhile, cousin. ” Fake Shisui smiles again. Itachi is stony, his lips pressed together so tightly it makes Shisui wince just looking at them.
“Don’t worry about it, Itachi,” Shisui murmurs consolingly, patting Itachi on the shoulder. “We’ll figure it out, or I’ll just haunt you forever.”
“Who are you?” Itachi monotones. The impostor steps daringly into Itachi’s personal space. Itachi jerks back, and the other Shisui follows, wrapping his arms around Itachi’s waist and leaning in, his mouth hooking onto Itachi’s ear. “Does it matter? Do you need him back for some… urgent reason? I think we both know you can let him go, right?” The snap in Itachi’s face breaks Shisui’s heart. He cares! Of course he cares, why was I doubting him in the first place?
Itachi moves backward, creating space between them. “What are you, then? Tell me.” His voice is a hard command.
The spirit gazes at Itachi for a long while. “I’m… lost.”
Itachi raises an eyebrow, and nods for the spirit to continue. It bites Shisui’s lip, “I… I’m a lantern spirit. I took your cousin’s body on the night of the festival. When he wandered close to my lantern on the river.” Shisui has the sudden impression that this confession has a contrived air to it. Or maybe it is just the vast gulf between what it is and what they are, and the spirit is unused to human emotions or how to convey them properly.
“Your cousin was the first in a long time in whom I sensed something similar. A way to cross the veil.”
“Do you know what that something was?” Itachi’s voice is low and careful.
Finally, it smirks. “Of course. We have both loved you from afar.”
Secrets! Shisui’s brain hisses frantically. Secrets being just thrown about! Too many shocks in one day, Itachi’s going to-
But Itachi grabs the other Shisui’s shoulders and locks eyes with the spirit.
“Then... you’ll understand. I need him back. I will help you with whatever it is you need to accomplish in return.” Itachi is appealing to this thing’s sense of mercy? Shisui knows this is a lost cause. It has been able to hear him for weeks, and that hasn’t helped a whit.
The thing gives Itachi a burning look, confirming Shisui’s suspicion.
“Where is Shisui?” Itachi pleads. The spirit moves forward, wrapping its arms around Itachi, tucking its face into his neck, crawling into his lap.
“What I want… is you.” Itachi is stiff as a board. It trails hot kisses along Itachi’s neck, who closes his eyes and almost looks like he’s considering it, weakened by something Shisui cannot guess. Shisui will kill him. If Itachi sleeps with a clearly batty lantern spirit that has hijacked his body to bring him back, there will be violence. There will be no prodigious heirs from Itachi’s line, and it will all be Shisui’s fault.
The spirit brings their chests close together, and caresses Itachi’s protruding vertebrae. He is way too skinny, supplies Shisui’s brain irrelevantly. Skeletal. Unhealthy.
They are sinking together, melding like pieces of a puzzle, warmth diffusing into warmth. Itachi’s eyes are too clear, wavering like a candle flickering before it sputters. Which way is he going to choose?
“Please. This is all I want out of this world,” intones the spirit. If Shisui didn’t know better, he would say it was being sincere - or trying to approximate it.
“We can’t cross over often, or for fickle reasons. I watched you for years. I know you.” At that, Itachi shudders violently, and gently pushes the fake Shisui away to an arm’s length, his elbows locked.
“I- I’m sorry.” Itachi stands up. His eyes are dead.
“No? I think I’ll stay, then.” And just like that, it is back in its normal heartless state.
The fake Shisui turns around, laughing, waves over his shoulder, and bounces off with a spring in his step, then a flicker. It’s learned the Shunshin?! His Shunshin?!
Itachi stands frozen to the spot, his expression coffin-like and jaw clenched, and Shisui knows exactly how he feels.
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
All that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Awaits alike the inevitable hour:-
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Shisui sleeps next to him that night. Itachi never sees him, despite the fact that he spends most of the night awake, gathering bags under his eyes as he stares at the ceiling.
*
Itachi’s face disappears in the lowest of low bows, his knees and forehead touching the floor in front of the spirit.
“Please give him back.”
The spirit looks down with an expression somewhere between scorn and pity.
“I can’t.”
Shisui feels cold, the winter gliding into his bones, or at least, what he imagines are his bones. White. He’s white all the way through, winter having robbed away those excess things, taken the spiraling glee out from under him, the colors that paint your soul. How one can miss those things, he doesn’t know. The world hasn’t changed its spectrum, but he feels like the colors have been leached out of him, that he’s disappearing into himself. The cold heart of winter is eating at him, a tangible center. The heart of the whiteout, and him on the fringes, trying to hold on to himself.
How can he go back now?
Dull. He’s been trapped like this too long, maybe it’s changed him. Maybe Itachi has changed. How long can you want something, someone, before you go mad with it? It’s not only that he wants to feel Itachi in his arms, but he wants to just be able to feel again. He’s going crazy with it. There are so many things he wants to do. Itachi just happens to be on the top of that list. On top of every list Shisui has ever made.
“…He doesn’t want to come back,” the spirit says.
Itachi’s head jerks up and his face is streaked with tears. “Excuse me?”
“I spoke with him. He has been in the spirit world this whole time. There’s no pain there, no doubt, no fear. Who would trade that world for this one?”
Shisui is trembling with rage. The expression on Itachi’s face keeps trying to rearrange itself, but it is breaking, collapsing in on itself. Of course when Itachi decides to feel more than one emotion at a time, it’s during a crisis.
It’s then that something unexpected happens. Itachi rises, his expression shuttering.
“Get out.” The body-stealing lantern spirit finally looks taken aback. It sneers.
“Don’t you want your Shisui back?”
“Yes, but if you aren’t going to help me, I’m going to have to find another method.” His voice chilling to the bone. How Shisui ended up on Itachi’s list of people to fight till the end of the earth for, he doesn’t know, but it feels like fireworks exploding in his stomach. Horrible fireworks.
Be near me when my light is low,
when the blood creeps, and the nerves prick
and tingle; and the heart is sick,
And all the wheels of Being slow.
He visits Itachi again that night. His cousin is laying on his mattress on his side, staring off into space. By this time Shisui is in extraordinary control of what part of his spirit is passing through what.
Itachi has curled into himself pathetically. Shisui crawls on the futon on all fours and wraps insubstantial arms around him, trying to feel body heat, anything. He has to get between Itachi and the vast open night, the gentle cool air that seems like it is trying to suck away Itachi’s essence, bit by unthreatening bit. Maybe if his ghostly body can get between Itachi and everything else, it will be all right. He can protect him from the disaster that seems to be waiting in the wings, curled just out of sight. Nightmares.
He tries to imagine the warmth that should be flooding him right about now. The scars on Itachi’s forearm from the kunai accident when they were eight. The softness of his dark hair. Shisui presses against Itachi like he’s trying to merge them together. “Itachi, please.” Maybe if he keeps up a litany of his name his best friend will respond. He tightens his fists and concentrates everything he has here, right now. Hope and desperation, body and soul. You can have all of me, anything you want. I’m so tired of this incorporeal madness. Just please. For once - see me.
It’s clearly a lost cause.
It is about then he notices Itachi’s eyes are spinning red with the Sharingan. Itachi frowns, peering, as if trying to see around a corner. Irrational, desperate hope lights up in Shisui’s belly.
“ITACHI!” he yells, and wraps his body more fully around the other boy’s. This is how they would be tangled if they were sleeping together. Sleeping platonically. Just happened to be cuddling on the same bed. If he were able, his hand would be on Itachi’s cheek, cupping his chin and neck. The other would be wrapped securely around Itachi’s thin waist. Their faces are tragically close. Itachi’s breathing has gotten rather strained.
“S-Shisui?” he queries hesitantly, but the look on Itachi’s face suggests that he clearly thinks he is going insane, and that even giving voice to the question is slightly more than he wants to be doing right now.
“Itachi!” Shisui presses insubstantial lips to Itachi’s forehead, who gasps at if startled. Shisui can just barely feel the warmth emanating there. He presses his hand against Itachi’s cheek with all the willpower he has. There is contact, ever so slightly, wavering in and out like a breath of wind.
“Shisui…” Itachi’s voice is hushed. “You’re here.”
Shisui knows he can feel something, because his hand has changed the fabric of Itachi’s shirt where it rests on his waist. Itachi trembles, shaking like a leaf, and there is naked relief breaking on his face. He reaches out his hand and tenderly brushes it against Shisui’s eyelids. “I will fix this,” he promises.
Shisui believes him.
*
Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed,
Or walked to ecstasy the living lyre...
:
No storm can last forever, but there are a million ways to drown.
IT’S CALLED a torrential downpour. The water of the Nakano swells dangerously, currents pulling splintered fragments of tree branches off into oblivion with maddened glee. The rain pounds so heavily that the streets are flooding, and anyone out in this storm would be wading through water up to their calves. The crash of thunder rattles bones when it strikes.
“Well, fuck,” Shisui says feelingly, gazing out the window as the sky unloads.
His body is at home. Shisui checked. Itachi flattens a hand against the screen, the intermittent light from the storm lending severity to his features.
“Shisui. Are you here?”
Shisui gathers all his will in his hand, and slams it into the wall. It makes a dull thump. I’m always here, you moron. I’m watching over you, so you don’t get seduced by a crazy demon in my body.
Itachi smiles in a broken way that Shisui does not like one bit. “I may have a plan.”
*
IT IS GRATIFYING to see the lantern demon wrong-footed and clearly alarmed. Itachi has dragged it out into a storm that is probably going to end the world, yanking it by the hand through the rain. They are both instantly soaked. Shisui floats ahead of it, snickering meanly as it attempts to jerk its arm back, to turn tail and run.
Itachi wrenches it forward with brutal force, pins its arm behind its back, and slams it cheek-first into the street, partially submerging it under the water streaming down the streets. Shisui winches a little- that arm is going to hurt later. You never had reflexes as good as mine, Shisui thinks, glaring at the body-snatcher.
The demon is hissing and spitting at Itachi. “-No manners, none! Barbarians, all of you-”
Itachi leans over its back, grip firm on the twisted arm and intones, deadly serious, “…you’re going to cooperate, or I’m going to break your arm.” Shisui knows he is in love with Itachi at this precise moment, reaffirms it in his mind- this ruthlessly competent crazy person who threatens demons.
The other Shisui glares at Itachi through crazed spikes of wet hair, silenced by rage. Without waiting for a reply, Itachi hauls it up and drags it along until they reach the swollen banks of the Nakano, temporarily made murderous by the storm.
“What are you going to do, drown your best friend? I think n-” is as much as the demon gets out before Itachi gives it a hard shove into the water. It is only the shallow part, so it manages to struggle up against the current, but Itachi follows it, grabs its hand, and shoves its head under the water.
Shisui spares a moment to hope that this is going to work, that he’s not going to end up dead in a permanent sense of the word. Hedging bets against a demon is not exactly what you’d call “smart.”
“I doubt that even a demon, foreign a creature as it may be, wants to experience dying in a human body,” rings Itachi’s voice in his head from earlier in the evening.
The winds pick up, flinging the branches of the willow tree above them across the water. Itachi looks like death. His arm is locked straight, hand closed around Shisui’s throat, but Shisui’s other hand, the one he has grabbed, is forcibly held against Itachi’s neck, fingers laced tightly together. The demon in Shisui’s body thrashes wildly, one clawing hand grasping against Itachi futilely.
“GET OUT!” The storm is churning the water into a maelstrom, and Itachi braces their two bodies against the terrible current. The demon increases its struggles, smashing its free hand into Itachi, raking claws down his skin. Itachi is as immobile as the roots of the willow tree sticking out of the water.
Shisui suddenly tastes river water and the same sense of disorientation as when he first lost his body to the lantern fiend. Double vision assaults him- suddenly he is looking up at Itachi through the churning water and feeling rage rushing through him. A mind brushes against his; hate and panic tangled in the dark waters. Foreign, incomprehensible, and just as strange, the sensation of ancient time, of years pressing against him.
Fine then…
and Shisui feels the call home.
*
The sensation that must undoubtedly be him regaining his own body is a white heat that flares like a bonfire, accompanied by a huge snapping noise that may not have been quite audible in both realities. The soul really snaps back into place? What a fucked-up metaphysical reality, Shisui muses before facing the very physical facts of the situation at hand-
“Itachi-” he gasps out, but the words are lost in bubbles. He feels lightheaded, dizzy, and not just because Itachi’s hand is crushing his windpipe. The cold water is an oppressive thing, stabbing against his eyes like needles. If he can’t get Itachi to understand that it’s him, he’s really going to drown, in the most ironic way possible. His lungs are burning, and he’s starting to see black around the corners of his vision. The pain is unbelievable, and his heartbeat pounds in his ears.
Abruptly, Itachi rolls off of him, his face spasming. Shisui gasps for air.
“I can’t - even if you aren’t him-” There is a sort of delayed paroxysm breaking over Itachi’s face, anguish making him look disheveled, and well… crazy. Suddenly unsupported against the river trying to carry him away and more than a little woozy, Shisui flails for a footing and grasps the roots of the willow tree desperately, clutching at them with shaking hands.
“Itachi, it’s me!” Shisui gasps. “It’s me, I’m back, the demon-thing left,” he manages, flinging his hand towards Itachi, who catches it, stunned. They somehow manage to make it out of the river, flopping like fish on the bank near the trunk of the willow tree, tangled together. Their water-logged clothes are heavy, making it easy for Shisui to collapse against Itachi’s chest and let the weight press them tight against each other, chests heaving.
He realizes Itachi is crying at the same time he feels his friend’s arms tighten in a secure circle around his chest. “It is you…” Itachi mumbles.
This isn’t his job. He should get to relax, Itachi should be welcoming him back to the human side of the fence. His throat feels brutalized, his limbs are numb from the icy cold, and he’s sure he’s not breathing right somehow. But Shisui finds he can rise to the occasion. He murmurs soothingly against Itachi’s ear, “Shuush. Shush. It’s okay. I’m back. I’m back,” and kisses the protests away, meeting ice-cold lips, tasting mud and silt.
“…I drowned, but you saved me.”
Itachi’s thin chest is warm despite the storm, and Shisui can hear the dull thudding of his heart when he presses his head there. It would be tempting to just lie there, breathlessly confirming what they both already know, but a shudder wracks them both, a reminder that heat is being leeched from them constantly by the wind and water. “We should get outta here,” he whispers against Itachi, who nods. “Like, soon.” He tries to push himself up and falls back against Itachi with a gasp, his twisted arm protesting with a throbbing ache. Itachi sits up and pulls Shisui’s other arm around his shoulder, and together they make their way up the shore.
No storm can last forever.
*
EPILOGUE
In the end, he stays bedridden for three days, battling fever and pneumonia, wheezing against the fluid in his lungs. Shisui cannot find it in himself to be bitter, though. He’s okay with this- welcomes it, even. Colds are okay. He would take any illness right now because it means he’s material again.
He spends a lot of time clutching at Itachi’s hand feverishly, which Itachi tolerantly allows because he knows Shisui is just confirming that he can feel it.
“…you’re gonna get sick…” he rasps at Itachi one day, feeling like his head is going to explode.
“I’m not,” Itachi replies, and wipes a cold cloth over Shisui’s forehead, which feels like bliss.
“Well, in that case. I want a kiss like the one on the bridge.” Shisui grins cheekily up at his friend. “You know, the one where you kissed a crazy demon possessing my body.”
Itachi looks like he’s about to feel bad, so Shisui laughs at him, earning a full-minute interlude of coughing for his trouble. But Itachi bends down toward him then, and the kiss is perfect.
-----------------------
A GUIDEBOOK FOR THE NEWLY DEAD: an itachi/shisui FST
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=TD1PQ3XQ
This is the tiniest of FSTs, just three songs, but oh so lovingly hand-picked!
neko case: a widow's toast
[it’s mostly the haunting beauty of this short little song that makes me want you guys to hear it, and I listened to it as I wrote the fic. Seriously, you’re missing out without it. It’s perfect for the feeling I wanted when I tried to inject creepiness and nostalgia into Guidebook.]
Specters move like pilot flames
…better times collide with now,
the tears were warm I feel them still.
ingrid michaelson: soldier
[cause it fits them, and the melody is aces.]
this soldier knows
the battle with the heart isn’t easily won
blue october: congratulations (ft. imogen heap)
[this song has a really slow start, don’t give up on it till you get past the 0:50 mark. It’s beautiful, plus it has a darker undertone.]
to give you something I’ve been wanting to
give to you for years:
my heart.
…My heart can’t take this cover-up…
…you left me!
I can’t take this back,
I can’t change your mind.
Rating: PG-13 with a heavy dose of creepiness, mild angst, absurd fluff, drowning
Pairing: Itachi/Shisui
Length: 6,137
A/N: Featuring timeskips, (they are numerous, you have been warned!) vague inspiration from Anchored In Dust, and a made-up holiday existing in Konoha that is kinda like All Soul’s Day. Beta’d by the brilliant ronsard.
Summary: You should be careful of lantern season in Konoha, the other villages say.
*
HE’S NOT DEAD, he knows that much.
The ghost lanterns have just shifted his soul into another plane of reality, that’s all. No need to panic. No need to freak out that his body is still moving, as he watches through a film of cloudy haze. The corporeal Shisui, clearly not him, grins widely in a way Shisui associates with demonic spirits and kitsune. It reminds him of the tapestry of the Kyuubi that hangs in one of the Uchiha meeting halls.
Does he suddenly have sharper teeth than before, or is he imagining things? The corporeal Shisui looks at him, and its grin grows impossibly wider.
…Are those fangs?
*
Shadows of shadows pass, and many a light
flashes a signal-fire across the night.
You should be careful of lantern season in Konoha, the other villages say. Shisui has never been good at listening, though, unless he deems it truly important, and on this occasion, he didn’t.
But oh how he wishes he had.
*
Itachi has suggested this little excursion, perhaps prompted by his family, in their unending love for traditions, for age-old festivals - the things the Uchiha clan passes on doggedly from generation to generation, whether during war or peace. Whether the next generation wants it or not. Shisui thinks that this sort of thing is useless unless it’s injected with new vitality, new energy to stave off stagnation and cruelty. But hey, the day the clan starts listening to him is the day he’d better pack up and leave for saner pastures.
Shisui has to clean the blood off his ANBU uniform first, and when he finally emerges, Itachi has changed into a kimono. Deranged traditionalists to the core, Shisui thinks. But it’s striking: Itachi is always striking. His high cheekbones stand out clearly in the open door as the twilight leaks in. Shisui stands there gaping for a moment before snapping his jaw shut and collecting the little pieces of his brain off the floor.
“Should we go…?” Itachi murmurs. Shisui darts closer, and grabs Itachi’s arm, abandoning his plans to change as well. He begins to yank Itachi away.
“Yes, please. Before your family tries to stick me in silk.”
Little lanterns, bright orange flames wavering bravely against the dark, dot the lanes of the Uchiha compound and the shore of the Nakano, floating in the water like tiny boats.
“Kinda a lot of them, aren’t there?” Shisui drawls. Itachi smiles in that way of his that indicates he is bemused by Shisui’s apparent idiocy.
“They’re for the spirits of dead clansmen,” Itachi says. “They can only return to visit the world they left behind one day in the year. These lanterns are meant to light their path…” He stops, and amends, “Or so they say.”
“Ugh. Spare me. Knowing our relatives, they’d spend their day grilling their descendants about proper conduct.” Though the lights are kind of pretty, he has to admit.
“Our clansmen have more wisdom to impart than that, if they could only have a day in return,” Itachi says, demonstrating once again that he has no sense of humor.
“And, of course, there are other lanterns,” Itachi adds.
“Yeah?” They are slowly making their way to the wooden bridge spanning one of the narrower sections of river.
“In Konoha, they say that at the turn of the seasons stray demons can get caught, too. They cast their own lights to mimic the human dead.”
There is something enchanting and lyrical about Itachi’s voice that Shisui has never been able to place. It catches him like a spell; the same way it has been doing in all the years they have been friends. Shisui tries to battle down the blush suffusing his cheeks like a riot. They stop on the bridge, and look out over the water. Shisui glances sideways at Itachi, who is standing right next to him with a careless disregard for personal space. This is a trait Itachi seems to have developed recently, and only with him. Itachi just does not stand so close to people: it isn’t in his nature..
Fuck.
“At least they have one day,” Itachi says softly. Crap. This is a Moment now. The only sounds are the quiet chirping of crickets and the thunderous, panicked pounding of Shisui’s heart, which surely Itachi must be able to hear.
They are very close, and the lack of distance is a thrilling undercurrent of communication just as effective as words. Itachi turns towards Shisui without even a trace of fear and his breath mingles with Shisui’s across the space between them. He is all soft skin and elegant angles. Shisui wants to throw up. Hopefully not on Itachi, that would ruin the mood - what mood? What is he saying? This isn’t happening!
White noise roars in his ears, and he can feel himself stammering something like, “Itachi! Um, you know, I, I always, um, wanted… I-” Distance. Anything to sort this out in his head.
“I- I- I want to see the lanterns on the river,” Shisui hedges, hysteria lending quickness to his words. “You know, before they, um, get put out.” The lanterns stay lit all night. Everybody knows this.
Itachi’s mouth curls into a subtle smile, something approaching smug, and he leans back.
“As you wish, Shisui,” he says, and stares off into the distance. Shisui takes the opening and backs away, his face flaming.
*
A TINY LANTERN bobbing in the river catches his attention.
Lost in the turmoil of what to do about wanting to kiss his male cousin, Shisui wanders aimlessly closer. Its light seems to be flickering with more colors than the ones around it. Never one to pass up the opportunity to meddle, Shisui goes closer. The light inside it is changing colors, which Shisui is pretty sure candles don’t do. He pokes at the thin red paper covering the light.
Immediately he feels a sort of hitch in his ribcage - a tug. Except that it seems to be pulling on his chakra, gently, insistently. He resists, and it begins to pull with a force he can’t fight. All of a sudden, he is very dizzy and everything around him is losing focus and color.
The world spins out of recognition.
*
When he comes to, his own body is grinning maniacally at him. “Hey! HEY! That’s my body! You can’t have it, whatever-you-are!” Shisui yells. The spirit tips its head sideways, then rolls Shisui’s neck with a sickening series of cracks. It flexes his hands and stands up.
Cold, unbridled panic shoots down Shisui’s -spine? ether? what is he made of, now? - quicker than ever before.
Itachi!
Sure enough, Itachi is still on the bridge, staring out into the inky blackness, serenely not sucked into a parallel dimension, Shisui notes with a petulant flare of irritation. Itachi has never looked quite so ghost-like himself, though, his kimono of such a dark blue it’s almost black, his eyes and hair melting with the darkness, the only light a soft glow against his pale skin from the lanterns in the water and on the ground.
Itachi looks up as the impostor approaches. Shisui is horrified as the doppelganger grins, looking more human now, and leans on the bridge next to Itachi.
“Did you see the lanterns as you wanted?” Itachi asks.
“I did! They’re even better up close. Waaayy up close.” Bastard, Shisui thinks viciously. The voice is perfect, but of course it is, it’s his own bloody body being hijacked. This is so unfair.
Itachi reaches out very deliberately and grasps Shisui’s forearm. The fake Shisui looks up, and its face softens into something approximating tenderness, nearly perfect, if not for the persistent smirk. Hell, even that might be accurate- how much does he smirk, anyway? Maybe he should be less cocky, smirk less. Yes. Smirk less, that expression is positively terrifying, but also a little hot, too-
Stop right there.
Itachi is pulling Shisui’s body forward, till they are standing in front of each other with barely an inch between them. Their foreheads come to rest gently together.
This is as much as Shisui can stand.
“Itachi! Hey, Itachi! Look at me! I’m RIGHT HERE!” he shouts. He reaches out and tries to grab Itachi’s arm, to drag him backwards. His ethereal hand goes right through. Itachi does not even sense him. The impostor, the demon who has stolen his body, flickers its eyes over to where Shisui stands near Itachi, a silent taunt. Shisui mouths an obscenity at it and scowls. This is a catastrophe of unmitigated proportions. Itachi is acting like a human being with hormones, and Shisui is on a parallel plane of reality. Fuck, how did this happen? Oh right, I was being nosy again. And this is where it gets me.
The other Shisui runs his hand slowly along Itachi’s chin, lifting it till they are a hairsbreadth apart, sharing the same air. Itachi sucks in a breath and his other hand fists in a handful of Shisui’s shirt. The light from the lanterns all around is impossibly gentle. No, no, no, no! Shisui is frozen in horror.
Itachi’s eyes flutter shut.
They kiss, melting against each other. It makes a startlingly beautiful image. We would have such attractive children, his brain hums in the background, even in the midst of this disaster-
He looks on, feeling his stomach turning over in large swoops. It is a feeling nearly identical to a rush of joy, but one that Shisui can accurately identify now as despair.
*
“OKAY! Allright! This ISN’T FUNNY!” he yells at the body-snatcher. “The laughs are over, you can’t have my body, let’s just switch back now.”
It ignores him.
“You had fun, right? You even, uh, kissed your cousin, er, my cousin, which I’ll admit I was a bit irked at, but I’m willing to forgive and forget, you wouldn’t like him anyway, he’s kind of standoffish and taciturn when you get right down to it, icy, some might even say!”
It narrows its eyes at Shisui without breaking stride, profoundly disinterested. Shisui throws up his hands in disgust. “Arrgh! What do you want?”
“Look. I mean, you can run around a little bit, I wouldn’t begrudge you that, but then I really need my body back. Because you can’t just go around stealing other people’s bodies like this. It’s- it’s-” Shisui casts about for a way to express it’s wrong to something that came out of a colored lantern. “…there are rules against this sort of thing.” He finishes stupidly.
“…worthless,” the spirit says.
“Come again?”
“I said you’re worthless,” it hisses loudly. “Insignificant. You should at least know that you come from a long line of deliberately obtuse humans, and you all just seem to be getting stupider with time. So you should feel honored,” it continues, “because you are the very latest addition to this collection of bumbling peons.” It smiles villainously. “I think you should stay as you are.”
It only takes Shisui a few seconds to collect himself from the shock before he smiles back grimly.
“Fine. If that’s how this is going to go, I’ll find a way to change this. You’re gonna regret this.”
*
The novelty of having ghostlike powers wears off quickly. He discovers things he never wanted to know about his clansmen, and many he already suspected about Kakashi. Ninja are dirty sluts, he concludes. Old news.
So Shisui trails Itachi and the body-stealing demon, cursing whatever improbable fuckery allowed this to happen, wondering when Itachi will wake up. It is damaging his sanity to watch the two of them sparring and see Itachi’s face so alight with happiness - something he clearly never noticed before, but finds blindingly obvious now. Around him, Itachi relaxes, something so subtle it is almost unnoticeable, but also stunning, if only for the reason that it is happening at all.
Itachi finally calls an end to the practice session, and they lean against a tree together as the day fades in a rush of warm orange light.
The demon is trying to mimic his personality. Why, Shisui cannot say, but he is gratified to see it hasn’t gotten everything right. It is shifty-eyed and mildly paranoid, something that Shisui hopes is not escaping Itachi’s notice. Shisui continues his quest to affect something in the material world, anything.
I am an unparalleled genius. I can figure this out. This should be easy.
*
I am but mad north north-west
When the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.
Shisui is not sure whether to be flattered that Itachi seems to know something is wrong, or disconcerted by how his best friend is handling said problem. That method, of course, being avoidance, and whatever slow, nebulous thought processes Itachi uses on a daily basis.
Sometimes he thinks he is feeling the material world, but he can’t be sure.
Smoke curling up. Autumn in Konoha. Burning off the edges; he is losing both the outer fringes of substance and his wits.
Am I going crazy? How would I know, if I was?
*
For one glorious moment, he knows he has touched Itachi. The other boy gasps and his eyes shoot wide open, looking around wildly.
*
There is something crawling down his spine, ice cold. Could you get attacked in the spirit world? What other creatures are seeing him when his back is turned, when he’s preoccupied?
*
ITACHI! Shisui is yelling at their retreating backs, but he’s already given up hope.
*
For just a moment, Shisui tastes copper in his mouth, smells lilies and river water. It’s nostalgic, and then he remembers: of course. The Nakano; the parts of its shoreline given over to slow streams and plants. He and Itachi paddling through it as kids, swallowing river water in great gulps, because neither of them were good swimmers yet.
Inspired, he walks along the bottom of the riverbed; probably the only experience thus far so sublime it almost makes up for the fact that he is losing his fucking mind. It is something he would never have seen otherwise, long strands of giant kelp rising from the bottom, schools of fish darting about. The river responds and he swears he can feel the warm water shifting around him. Shisui feels at home.
*
ANIMALS CAN SEE HIM, Shisui learns. This is just another confirmation that he is somewhat more than a ghost, something in-between. He startled a fox walking through the woods, which bolted immediately, but still. Cats and dogs respond to him, which Shisui is pathetically grateful for. Standing next to Itachi for hours and getting even less response than when he wasn’t incorporeal is starting to feel like a deliberate slight, though he knows he can’t really hold it against him. He can’t smother the relentless sense of hurt that permeates his senses, though. If he were missing in action, or had simply disappeared, there would be search parties, rescue. But he’s still there, the impostor carrying on his life while he can do nothing but watch. The only ally he has is Itachi-
-who, from the looks of it, hasn’t slept in days. They are down below the clan’s meeting hall in the dead of night. Itachi is reading by the light of a single candle, poring over old scrolls. Shisui glances over. The Tricks of Kitsune and How to Avoid Them. Wrong, Itachi. Still wrong.
Then a brainstorm hits him. Animals.
So when Itachi is next with the doppelganger, Shisui makes sure to run into their path with a dog that hangs around the Uchiha compound. It likes him; it has always liked him. Shisui could not have felt more indebted, because it works like a movie script: the dog jumps up and licks his face. Its front paws look like they are being supported by thin air.
Itachi stops dead in his tracks, but the impostor keeps on walking, used to Shisui dogging their steps. It is a fatal mistake, and Shisui knows it, because be still his beating heart, Itachi’s gaze snaps to the fake Shisui, who finally turns back. He gives a little gasp, but it is far too late.
Elated at this tiny window for communication, Shisui scratches its floppy ears, mushing them around its face. The dog is delighted, barking and wagging its tail, slobbering all over him.
Shisui can practically see the gears turning furiously in Itachi’s head. For once, the tables are turned, and when he taunts the lantern spirit, it can do nothing to acknowledge him.
It is a sweet victory. The day is cloudless and beautiful when Shisui eventually strolls off with the most magnificent of all canines.
*
Turning and turning in the widening gyre,
The falcon cannot hear the falconer.
Itachi moves his hands in a seal so fast Shisui is instantly reminded of why Itachi is so impressive, why he is called a genius. He slides his hand under Shisui’s shirt (when did he get so devious? The movement is seamless…) and channels chakra into the fake Shisui, who shudders. Whatever Itachi is doing seems to be working. His mouth parts after a moment, his brows furrowing, and he withdraws his hand.
“…You are not Shisui.”
Shisui didn’t know his face was capable of producing such a slow and chilling smile, but the effect it has on Itachi is startling: his friend reels back as if he’s been slapped.
“I am right, then.” His voice has an unfamiliar timber to it, like Itachi is speaking around sawdust. Nevertheless, Shisui could cheer for joy that Itachi has called the intruder out. Finally. If Itachi was possessed by some bizarre lantern spirit, Shisui is confident he would have had the mess pinned down and sorted out within a day. Probably.
“Took you quite awhile, cousin. ” Fake Shisui smiles again. Itachi is stony, his lips pressed together so tightly it makes Shisui wince just looking at them.
“Don’t worry about it, Itachi,” Shisui murmurs consolingly, patting Itachi on the shoulder. “We’ll figure it out, or I’ll just haunt you forever.”
“Who are you?” Itachi monotones. The impostor steps daringly into Itachi’s personal space. Itachi jerks back, and the other Shisui follows, wrapping his arms around Itachi’s waist and leaning in, his mouth hooking onto Itachi’s ear. “Does it matter? Do you need him back for some… urgent reason? I think we both know you can let him go, right?” The snap in Itachi’s face breaks Shisui’s heart. He cares! Of course he cares, why was I doubting him in the first place?
Itachi moves backward, creating space between them. “What are you, then? Tell me.” His voice is a hard command.
The spirit gazes at Itachi for a long while. “I’m… lost.”
Itachi raises an eyebrow, and nods for the spirit to continue. It bites Shisui’s lip, “I… I’m a lantern spirit. I took your cousin’s body on the night of the festival. When he wandered close to my lantern on the river.” Shisui has the sudden impression that this confession has a contrived air to it. Or maybe it is just the vast gulf between what it is and what they are, and the spirit is unused to human emotions or how to convey them properly.
“Your cousin was the first in a long time in whom I sensed something similar. A way to cross the veil.”
“Do you know what that something was?” Itachi’s voice is low and careful.
Finally, it smirks. “Of course. We have both loved you from afar.”
Secrets! Shisui’s brain hisses frantically. Secrets being just thrown about! Too many shocks in one day, Itachi’s going to-
But Itachi grabs the other Shisui’s shoulders and locks eyes with the spirit.
“Then... you’ll understand. I need him back. I will help you with whatever it is you need to accomplish in return.” Itachi is appealing to this thing’s sense of mercy? Shisui knows this is a lost cause. It has been able to hear him for weeks, and that hasn’t helped a whit.
The thing gives Itachi a burning look, confirming Shisui’s suspicion.
“Where is Shisui?” Itachi pleads. The spirit moves forward, wrapping its arms around Itachi, tucking its face into his neck, crawling into his lap.
“What I want… is you.” Itachi is stiff as a board. It trails hot kisses along Itachi’s neck, who closes his eyes and almost looks like he’s considering it, weakened by something Shisui cannot guess. Shisui will kill him. If Itachi sleeps with a clearly batty lantern spirit that has hijacked his body to bring him back, there will be violence. There will be no prodigious heirs from Itachi’s line, and it will all be Shisui’s fault.
The spirit brings their chests close together, and caresses Itachi’s protruding vertebrae. He is way too skinny, supplies Shisui’s brain irrelevantly. Skeletal. Unhealthy.
They are sinking together, melding like pieces of a puzzle, warmth diffusing into warmth. Itachi’s eyes are too clear, wavering like a candle flickering before it sputters. Which way is he going to choose?
“Please. This is all I want out of this world,” intones the spirit. If Shisui didn’t know better, he would say it was being sincere - or trying to approximate it.
“We can’t cross over often, or for fickle reasons. I watched you for years. I know you.” At that, Itachi shudders violently, and gently pushes the fake Shisui away to an arm’s length, his elbows locked.
“I- I’m sorry.” Itachi stands up. His eyes are dead.
“No? I think I’ll stay, then.” And just like that, it is back in its normal heartless state.
The fake Shisui turns around, laughing, waves over his shoulder, and bounces off with a spring in his step, then a flicker. It’s learned the Shunshin?! His Shunshin?!
Itachi stands frozen to the spot, his expression coffin-like and jaw clenched, and Shisui knows exactly how he feels.
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
All that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Awaits alike the inevitable hour:-
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Shisui sleeps next to him that night. Itachi never sees him, despite the fact that he spends most of the night awake, gathering bags under his eyes as he stares at the ceiling.
*
Itachi’s face disappears in the lowest of low bows, his knees and forehead touching the floor in front of the spirit.
“Please give him back.”
The spirit looks down with an expression somewhere between scorn and pity.
“I can’t.”
Shisui feels cold, the winter gliding into his bones, or at least, what he imagines are his bones. White. He’s white all the way through, winter having robbed away those excess things, taken the spiraling glee out from under him, the colors that paint your soul. How one can miss those things, he doesn’t know. The world hasn’t changed its spectrum, but he feels like the colors have been leached out of him, that he’s disappearing into himself. The cold heart of winter is eating at him, a tangible center. The heart of the whiteout, and him on the fringes, trying to hold on to himself.
How can he go back now?
Dull. He’s been trapped like this too long, maybe it’s changed him. Maybe Itachi has changed. How long can you want something, someone, before you go mad with it? It’s not only that he wants to feel Itachi in his arms, but he wants to just be able to feel again. He’s going crazy with it. There are so many things he wants to do. Itachi just happens to be on the top of that list. On top of every list Shisui has ever made.
“…He doesn’t want to come back,” the spirit says.
Itachi’s head jerks up and his face is streaked with tears. “Excuse me?”
“I spoke with him. He has been in the spirit world this whole time. There’s no pain there, no doubt, no fear. Who would trade that world for this one?”
Shisui is trembling with rage. The expression on Itachi’s face keeps trying to rearrange itself, but it is breaking, collapsing in on itself. Of course when Itachi decides to feel more than one emotion at a time, it’s during a crisis.
It’s then that something unexpected happens. Itachi rises, his expression shuttering.
“Get out.” The body-stealing lantern spirit finally looks taken aback. It sneers.
“Don’t you want your Shisui back?”
“Yes, but if you aren’t going to help me, I’m going to have to find another method.” His voice chilling to the bone. How Shisui ended up on Itachi’s list of people to fight till the end of the earth for, he doesn’t know, but it feels like fireworks exploding in his stomach. Horrible fireworks.
Be near me when my light is low,
when the blood creeps, and the nerves prick
and tingle; and the heart is sick,
And all the wheels of Being slow.
He visits Itachi again that night. His cousin is laying on his mattress on his side, staring off into space. By this time Shisui is in extraordinary control of what part of his spirit is passing through what.
Itachi has curled into himself pathetically. Shisui crawls on the futon on all fours and wraps insubstantial arms around him, trying to feel body heat, anything. He has to get between Itachi and the vast open night, the gentle cool air that seems like it is trying to suck away Itachi’s essence, bit by unthreatening bit. Maybe if his ghostly body can get between Itachi and everything else, it will be all right. He can protect him from the disaster that seems to be waiting in the wings, curled just out of sight. Nightmares.
He tries to imagine the warmth that should be flooding him right about now. The scars on Itachi’s forearm from the kunai accident when they were eight. The softness of his dark hair. Shisui presses against Itachi like he’s trying to merge them together. “Itachi, please.” Maybe if he keeps up a litany of his name his best friend will respond. He tightens his fists and concentrates everything he has here, right now. Hope and desperation, body and soul. You can have all of me, anything you want. I’m so tired of this incorporeal madness. Just please. For once - see me.
It’s clearly a lost cause.
It is about then he notices Itachi’s eyes are spinning red with the Sharingan. Itachi frowns, peering, as if trying to see around a corner. Irrational, desperate hope lights up in Shisui’s belly.
“ITACHI!” he yells, and wraps his body more fully around the other boy’s. This is how they would be tangled if they were sleeping together. Sleeping platonically. Just happened to be cuddling on the same bed. If he were able, his hand would be on Itachi’s cheek, cupping his chin and neck. The other would be wrapped securely around Itachi’s thin waist. Their faces are tragically close. Itachi’s breathing has gotten rather strained.
“S-Shisui?” he queries hesitantly, but the look on Itachi’s face suggests that he clearly thinks he is going insane, and that even giving voice to the question is slightly more than he wants to be doing right now.
“Itachi!” Shisui presses insubstantial lips to Itachi’s forehead, who gasps at if startled. Shisui can just barely feel the warmth emanating there. He presses his hand against Itachi’s cheek with all the willpower he has. There is contact, ever so slightly, wavering in and out like a breath of wind.
“Shisui…” Itachi’s voice is hushed. “You’re here.”
Shisui knows he can feel something, because his hand has changed the fabric of Itachi’s shirt where it rests on his waist. Itachi trembles, shaking like a leaf, and there is naked relief breaking on his face. He reaches out his hand and tenderly brushes it against Shisui’s eyelids. “I will fix this,” he promises.
Shisui believes him.
*
Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed,
Or walked to ecstasy the living lyre...
:
No storm can last forever, but there are a million ways to drown.
IT’S CALLED a torrential downpour. The water of the Nakano swells dangerously, currents pulling splintered fragments of tree branches off into oblivion with maddened glee. The rain pounds so heavily that the streets are flooding, and anyone out in this storm would be wading through water up to their calves. The crash of thunder rattles bones when it strikes.
“Well, fuck,” Shisui says feelingly, gazing out the window as the sky unloads.
His body is at home. Shisui checked. Itachi flattens a hand against the screen, the intermittent light from the storm lending severity to his features.
“Shisui. Are you here?”
Shisui gathers all his will in his hand, and slams it into the wall. It makes a dull thump. I’m always here, you moron. I’m watching over you, so you don’t get seduced by a crazy demon in my body.
Itachi smiles in a broken way that Shisui does not like one bit. “I may have a plan.”
*
IT IS GRATIFYING to see the lantern demon wrong-footed and clearly alarmed. Itachi has dragged it out into a storm that is probably going to end the world, yanking it by the hand through the rain. They are both instantly soaked. Shisui floats ahead of it, snickering meanly as it attempts to jerk its arm back, to turn tail and run.
Itachi wrenches it forward with brutal force, pins its arm behind its back, and slams it cheek-first into the street, partially submerging it under the water streaming down the streets. Shisui winches a little- that arm is going to hurt later. You never had reflexes as good as mine, Shisui thinks, glaring at the body-snatcher.
The demon is hissing and spitting at Itachi. “-No manners, none! Barbarians, all of you-”
Itachi leans over its back, grip firm on the twisted arm and intones, deadly serious, “…you’re going to cooperate, or I’m going to break your arm.” Shisui knows he is in love with Itachi at this precise moment, reaffirms it in his mind- this ruthlessly competent crazy person who threatens demons.
The other Shisui glares at Itachi through crazed spikes of wet hair, silenced by rage. Without waiting for a reply, Itachi hauls it up and drags it along until they reach the swollen banks of the Nakano, temporarily made murderous by the storm.
“What are you going to do, drown your best friend? I think n-” is as much as the demon gets out before Itachi gives it a hard shove into the water. It is only the shallow part, so it manages to struggle up against the current, but Itachi follows it, grabs its hand, and shoves its head under the water.
Shisui spares a moment to hope that this is going to work, that he’s not going to end up dead in a permanent sense of the word. Hedging bets against a demon is not exactly what you’d call “smart.”
“I doubt that even a demon, foreign a creature as it may be, wants to experience dying in a human body,” rings Itachi’s voice in his head from earlier in the evening.
The winds pick up, flinging the branches of the willow tree above them across the water. Itachi looks like death. His arm is locked straight, hand closed around Shisui’s throat, but Shisui’s other hand, the one he has grabbed, is forcibly held against Itachi’s neck, fingers laced tightly together. The demon in Shisui’s body thrashes wildly, one clawing hand grasping against Itachi futilely.
“GET OUT!” The storm is churning the water into a maelstrom, and Itachi braces their two bodies against the terrible current. The demon increases its struggles, smashing its free hand into Itachi, raking claws down his skin. Itachi is as immobile as the roots of the willow tree sticking out of the water.
Shisui suddenly tastes river water and the same sense of disorientation as when he first lost his body to the lantern fiend. Double vision assaults him- suddenly he is looking up at Itachi through the churning water and feeling rage rushing through him. A mind brushes against his; hate and panic tangled in the dark waters. Foreign, incomprehensible, and just as strange, the sensation of ancient time, of years pressing against him.
Fine then…
and Shisui feels the call home.
*
The sensation that must undoubtedly be him regaining his own body is a white heat that flares like a bonfire, accompanied by a huge snapping noise that may not have been quite audible in both realities. The soul really snaps back into place? What a fucked-up metaphysical reality, Shisui muses before facing the very physical facts of the situation at hand-
“Itachi-” he gasps out, but the words are lost in bubbles. He feels lightheaded, dizzy, and not just because Itachi’s hand is crushing his windpipe. The cold water is an oppressive thing, stabbing against his eyes like needles. If he can’t get Itachi to understand that it’s him, he’s really going to drown, in the most ironic way possible. His lungs are burning, and he’s starting to see black around the corners of his vision. The pain is unbelievable, and his heartbeat pounds in his ears.
Abruptly, Itachi rolls off of him, his face spasming. Shisui gasps for air.
“I can’t - even if you aren’t him-” There is a sort of delayed paroxysm breaking over Itachi’s face, anguish making him look disheveled, and well… crazy. Suddenly unsupported against the river trying to carry him away and more than a little woozy, Shisui flails for a footing and grasps the roots of the willow tree desperately, clutching at them with shaking hands.
“Itachi, it’s me!” Shisui gasps. “It’s me, I’m back, the demon-thing left,” he manages, flinging his hand towards Itachi, who catches it, stunned. They somehow manage to make it out of the river, flopping like fish on the bank near the trunk of the willow tree, tangled together. Their water-logged clothes are heavy, making it easy for Shisui to collapse against Itachi’s chest and let the weight press them tight against each other, chests heaving.
He realizes Itachi is crying at the same time he feels his friend’s arms tighten in a secure circle around his chest. “It is you…” Itachi mumbles.
This isn’t his job. He should get to relax, Itachi should be welcoming him back to the human side of the fence. His throat feels brutalized, his limbs are numb from the icy cold, and he’s sure he’s not breathing right somehow. But Shisui finds he can rise to the occasion. He murmurs soothingly against Itachi’s ear, “Shuush. Shush. It’s okay. I’m back. I’m back,” and kisses the protests away, meeting ice-cold lips, tasting mud and silt.
“…I drowned, but you saved me.”
Itachi’s thin chest is warm despite the storm, and Shisui can hear the dull thudding of his heart when he presses his head there. It would be tempting to just lie there, breathlessly confirming what they both already know, but a shudder wracks them both, a reminder that heat is being leeched from them constantly by the wind and water. “We should get outta here,” he whispers against Itachi, who nods. “Like, soon.” He tries to push himself up and falls back against Itachi with a gasp, his twisted arm protesting with a throbbing ache. Itachi sits up and pulls Shisui’s other arm around his shoulder, and together they make their way up the shore.
No storm can last forever.
*
EPILOGUE
In the end, he stays bedridden for three days, battling fever and pneumonia, wheezing against the fluid in his lungs. Shisui cannot find it in himself to be bitter, though. He’s okay with this- welcomes it, even. Colds are okay. He would take any illness right now because it means he’s material again.
He spends a lot of time clutching at Itachi’s hand feverishly, which Itachi tolerantly allows because he knows Shisui is just confirming that he can feel it.
“…you’re gonna get sick…” he rasps at Itachi one day, feeling like his head is going to explode.
“I’m not,” Itachi replies, and wipes a cold cloth over Shisui’s forehead, which feels like bliss.
“Well, in that case. I want a kiss like the one on the bridge.” Shisui grins cheekily up at his friend. “You know, the one where you kissed a crazy demon possessing my body.”
Itachi looks like he’s about to feel bad, so Shisui laughs at him, earning a full-minute interlude of coughing for his trouble. But Itachi bends down toward him then, and the kiss is perfect.
-----------------------
A GUIDEBOOK FOR THE NEWLY DEAD: an itachi/shisui FST
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=TD1PQ3XQ
This is the tiniest of FSTs, just three songs, but oh so lovingly hand-picked!
neko case: a widow's toast
[it’s mostly the haunting beauty of this short little song that makes me want you guys to hear it, and I listened to it as I wrote the fic. Seriously, you’re missing out without it. It’s perfect for the feeling I wanted when I tried to inject creepiness and nostalgia into Guidebook.]
Specters move like pilot flames
…better times collide with now,
the tears were warm I feel them still.
ingrid michaelson: soldier
[cause it fits them, and the melody is aces.]
this soldier knows
the battle with the heart isn’t easily won
blue october: congratulations (ft. imogen heap)
[this song has a really slow start, don’t give up on it till you get past the 0:50 mark. It’s beautiful, plus it has a darker undertone.]
to give you something I’ve been wanting to
give to you for years:
my heart.
…My heart can’t take this cover-up…
…you left me!
I can’t take this back,
I can’t change your mind.