Work Text:
The stubborn bastard, as Kisame liked to call his partner in his head(because it certainly wouldn't do to call him that out loud), had finally done it. Despite Kisame's warnings that he was overusing the sharingan, Itachi had managed to burn himself out. Thankfully, he hadn't passed out in the middle of the mission, but it had been close. They'd barely walked away from the corpses of the men who'd they'd been tracking when Itachi had stumbled, then slumped onto the ground.
Now his body was a negligible weight on Kisame's shoulder as he quickly cut through the forest, leaping from branch to branch. The money they'd reclaimed from the men they'd killed was safely tucked away into his cloak pocket. There was a town on the other side of this forest, larger than the one they'd just left, and one of the inns there had an arrangement with Akatsuki. One flash of the black and red cloaks and they were hurried up the back stairs.
They didn't have to hide, of course. Akatsuki was still a relatively new organization, albeit one with some highly influential members, and even if some Villages were beginning to be wary of them after Orochimaru's betrayal, a member who couldn't defend himself wasn't worthy of his place.
But this was different. There was a man down, and he needed a place to disappear for a while. There were two rules in Akatsuki: finish the mission and bring your partner back, dead or alive. Right now, Itachi was in no shape to go back, and well, Kisame had had enough of dead partners for one life.
He lowered Itachi onto the floor with a thump. The smaller man leaned back, letting his head loll against the wall, eyes open to thin black slits under heavy eyelids. "Where are we?"
"One of the Akatsuki inns." He kneeled in front of Itachi. "How long until the sun rises again?"
Itachi was silent for a moment, then said in a clipped voice, "Twelve hours. The money?"
"Is safe with me."
"Leave it here if you go out. And if you go out, I need something to eat." He closed his eyes and went still, so still that Kisame would have thought he was dead if he wasn't familiar with the sharingan coma.
His hat had fallen to the ground when he'd dropped Itachi. He took off his sword, cleaned and rewrapped it. His cloak was a mess, covered in blood and slashed in places on top of the usual damage his skin did to the lining. He wasn't wounded apart from a few scratches where one asshole had tried and failed to pierce his thick skin. If they hadn't been ordered to leave the corpses as a message, he would have taken great pleasure in eating them.
He tossed his cloak and forehead protector on the mats, and headed out the door, locking it behind him.
There was a small food stand a short walk from the inn's entrance that smelled of cooking fish and noodles. He pushed the awning out of his way and took a seat. The elderly man behind the counter mumbled out a bored, "Welcome. What can I get you?"
He looked at the menu. This place seemed like the type where the cold sake would be too warm and the warm sake would be too cold. "Tea, please." It was habit by now, and things always seemed to go easier if you talked pretty.
The man bustled around for a moment and set the steaming cup in front of him. "Anything el-" he sputtered to a stop as he finally looked up at his customer. HIs eyes widened and he took a step back, knocking over a stand of knives.
"I serve you."
"That would be nice."
The man laughed nervously. "No, I mean I serve you." He pointed up at the menu behind him, at the entry for shark's fin soup. "Good for the old get up and go, if you know what I mean." He cleared his throat and looked away as Kisame continued to stare at him.
Finally, Kisame broke into a wide grin and slapped some money down on the counter. "I'll take two orders of it. If I'm lucky, it'll be one of my bitch aunts in the soup."
"You have to be from Mist, right?" the server asked as he set the first bowl of soup down in front of Kisame.
He nodded as he lifted a spoonful of soup to his mouth. It wasn't bad, heavily seasoned with maybe too much salt.
"Thought so, I've seen those teeth before. Not often, though. We don't get ninjas much here, not as much as you'd think. Not unless they're with merchants." He chuckled. "There was a big stir here a few weeks ago, one of the legendary ninjas was in town. Tsunade-sama."
That got his attention. "There's a gambling parlor here?"
"Well, there used to be a casino, but they made so much money off her that they packed up and retired to Wave Country."
"Hmm." He fished out a hunk of fin that had gotten caught on one of his teeth. "Keep that second order hot for me. I'll pick it up on my way back."
The general store was well-stocked. He bought bandages, food, thread to repair his cloak, and a hat to replace the one Itachi had left behind; carefully tallying up the prices in a small black book to submit to headquarters later. The rest of the city didn't offer up much more entertainment: the whores looked at him funny and the gambling dens were rigged. A few hours had passed, so Itachi would be out of the worst of it by now. A quick run by the food cart from earlier and then he was going up the back stairs of the inn again.
He unlocked the door and let himself in, being careful not to open the door wide enough so that anyone would know he wasn't alone. Itachi had somehow found enough energy to roll out one of the futons and had dragged Kisame's discarded cloak, as well as his own, over himself as a blanket.
At the sound of the door opening, his eyes flickered open, no longer pure black but not yet sharingan red. Kisame set the lukewarm--and hadn't he said to keep it hot for him--soup by Itachi's head and settled into a cross-legged sitting position a few feet from him.
"I brought you some soup, and bought supplies. We'll be good until we reach headquarters."
Itachi nodded, sparing a short glance for the soup, then pushed himself up on his elbows. "How many hours has it been?"
"Six, maybe six and a half." He opened the bag from the general store and took out the needle and thread. Itachi handed his cloak over without comment, then took the cover off the soup container. There was silence for a few minutes as Kisame sewed the rips in his cloak shut, keeping one eye on his partner.
Itachi took a drink of the soup, paused, and looked over at Kisame, raising his eyebrows the slightest amount before going back to eating.
It was enough.