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Uchiha Itachi is just what you expected: cold. He wears the half-lidded composure of a man who has never met his equal.
A clan killer with fancy eyes. When you’ve seen one traitor, you've seen them all.
The only surprise is his age. When he first turns to face you, after the creepy blood red eyes, that’s what catches your attention. He’s young, hardly more than a kid. Not that you weren’t as young when you first dipped your hands in blood.
Spilling blood, he’s good at it. Itachi fighting is nothing short of beautiful. He moves like a bird, smooth and effortless, graceful like water. His face stays distant and dead, a mask, the kind of man you never play cards with.
The two of you work like a pair of hands weaving signs. He anticipates your moves, and fighting with him is different than with anyone else you’ve ever worked with. You watch him bring enemies to their knees without moving a finger, just looking at them with those unsettling eyes. He can stare like no one else. He does a lot of it, sitting silently and looking off into the distance like there is something to see.
It’s almost surprising that he sleeps like a mortal instead of standing breathless in a corner all night.
***
You are with him for a month before you notice the nightmares. He wakes you up. You have Samehada in your hand before you realize that the noise came from him and not someone surprising you in the cave. The shadows are hard to parse out in the glow of the dim embers from the fire, but you manage to make him out. He’s curled up like he’s in pain, muttering.
You haven’t had a nightmare in so many years. Men like you only have one fear, and it haunts your every waking moment already. You get closer, curious. He looks younger sleeping. His face isn’t blank, but scrunched up. The most expressive you've ever seen that face.
You drop a log on the fire. He shoots up, his red eyes glowing.
“Just me.”
It was cold; that's why you dropped the log. It just happened to wake up the kid.
***
Covered in blood and slinging Samehada on your back, you watch him pull a kunai from a body and wipe it clean on the grass. He drops the kunai in his pouch and leads the way back to the road. The bandits picked the wrong people to waylay. You focus on his back. Someone as cold as that snapping and wiping out an entire clan, you almost can’t imagine it; there is not an ounce of passion in the kid. You're walking for a good hour before you ask.
“Why did you do it?”
He keeps walking.
“To see how far I could go.”
You laugh. He’s cold as a dead fish.
***
You don’t remember most of it. A fight. Itachi dragging you, arm pulled across his shoulders. Your feet planted one step at a time. Itachi pulling you on every time you think you’re gonna lay down. Stupid kid, not letting you rest.
“Keep your eyes open.”
The taste of blood in the back of your throat. Itachi’s voice. His rough breathing. Rain, like shards of glass against your skin. Muddy water running over your feet.
Some shack in the dark. Lightning flashing. The red glow of Itachi’s sharingan watching the door, his face slack and cold. A kunai held in his fingers so casually it could be a book he forgot about. Waiting. You don’t know for what.
Every time you blink, your eyes are heavier. There’s something wrapped around your leg, tight and uncomfortable. Your skin prickles. A bandage. No, a piece of black and red cloth.
“You can rest now,” Itachi says without looking at you.
Men like you can never rest.
In the morning you’re stitched up. A white bandage around your thigh. Itachi leans back against the door, watching you with black eyes. His cloak is missing. That’s probably it in bloody tatters on the ground.
“Should have left me. I probably would have ditched you back there.”
He doesn't say anything. He’s not much of a talker. Sometimes he goes all day without saying two words. You talk enough for the both of you anyway.
***
You’re on watch. The night is clear, and you didn’t light a fire. You are probably still being pursued by the hidden mist.
Itatchi starts tossing under his cloak.
He mutters and you can make out the word ‘no’. Like a plea.
Your eyes have adjusted to the dark, and you can see his fist balled around the fabric of his robe. You clear your throat, loud, almost a cough, and look away, over the dark forest. You hear his breath hitch. He rolls over and falls back to sleep.
***
He likes sweets. The first place he goes to whenever you hit civilization is a dango shop or a bakery. You tag along because sweets aren’t that bad and because sometimes the kid almost smiles.
***
These guys are good. Really good. You have the time for the thought as you slam back-first into a tree. The breath is sucked from your lungs, and the forest spins. You stumble onto your feet. Ankle a little weak from a twist. Head a little light. Back, well back screwed to Hell.
You're aware of Itachi to your left flying through the trees like a freaking bird, three guys hurling everything they can at him. Good luck with that. The two guys are back on top of you. The one with something like steel lining his fists going for your ribs and the other one coming in on the right with something sharp. You duck and sweep the legs of the first and bring Samehada up to catch the jab of the second. You laugh because you haven’t had a fight this good in such a long time.
You would have managed the third guy. Probably. Maybe. You didn’t see him, but if there’s one thing you know how to do, it’s take a hit. But Itachi slides in between you and the guy’s projectile jutsu in the split second that you realize that it’s there.
You’ve seen him weave through arrows and divert kunai like fleas — but he collapses to the ground.
He got hit.
You grab him because he isn’t moving, and the three he was handling are bearing down. Whatever that guy was throwing really packs a punch, poisoned most likely.
Stupid kid. Blood slicks your hand as you feel for the wound. Shoulder, straight through.
You sling him over your back and run.
You are stuck hiding in a cave for three days, and he’s out of his mind, burning up.
Sweat beads on his forehead, his hair spreads lank around his face, and he shivers under the combined warmth of your two cloaks.
He doesn't look aloof anymore. He looks young.
When his eyes open, they watch your hands washing out the wound. He doesn't make a noise even though it must hurt like hell. You pull him up to wash the exit wound. It's the first time you’ve done this for someone else in years. When you’ve wrapped the bandage you push him back down. He breathes rough and fast. His eyes go glassy.
You aren’t sure he’s going to live through the night. That would be a real pain; who knows who you might end up with next.
Sometimes he’s awake, but he’s never lucid.
He keeps apologizing to people who aren’t there.
Shisui. Mom. Dad. Sasuke. Again and again he calls for Sasuke.
“I’m sorry.” He grabs your wrist as you change the bandage on his shoulder. His eyes are wet and dark.
“I forgive you,” you say.
Words that no one will ever say to you, and words that no one will ever say to him.
He closes his eyes like he was only keeping them open for that.
The fever breaks the next day and when he opens his eyes again, they finally see you instead of the dead. You don’t say anything about what happened and neither does he.
***
A week later you walk knee high through waving grass, Itachi a few feet ahead. The sun burns pleasantly on your face and you ask.
“Who’s Sasuke?”
He stops walking and looks at you, his eyes ruby red. It isn’t until the next day sitting in some tea shop that, setting down his cup and looking out at the street, he says, “he’s my brother.”
***
The nightmares are worse after kills. Once, you wake him up by sliding a window shut and you pretend not to notice the way his cheeks glisten wet in the moonlight. If you start dealing the final blows more often, it’s just because you want to sleep in peace.
***
You don’t let him go out alone to get dinner for the two of you after the time he brings back a cake. Maybe it was a joke. Then again, Itachi really likes cake.
***
The nightmares get worse after you meet Sasuke.
Itachi is all wrong. He’s normally icy and quick, getting the job done so fast that the person doesn't know that they are in danger until the body hits the floor, nothing moves him, and you have never seen him provocative before, like he’s picking a fight. If you hadn’t spent years fighting, traveling, eating, and sleeping with the guy, you wouldn’t have noticed. If you hadn't heard him beg for forgiveness in the dark, burning up and babbling, you would think he acted just as a clan killer would. But you know better.
It’s his business, so you let it go.
For weeks afterwards, you wake him up from nightmares you pretend not to notice, and he pretends not to remember; it's how you do things, the two of you.
***
He thinks you don’t know he’s sick. He tries to hide it. Idiot. He’s coughing up blood after a hike that was only mildly strenuous. Your arm is probably the only thing preventing him from eating the dust.
“You need a doctor.”
He shakes his head. “Can’t help,” he says, wiping his mouth with a trembling hand and staggering upright. He won’t meet your eyes and tries to wipe the blood from the corners of his mouth with his thumb.
“How long?”
“Long Enough.”
Some nights you listen to him cough until dawn then you both pretend you are well rested and trudge up another mountain or into another fray or just spend the day drinking tea in some tea house because gathering intel is important, not because Itachi’s hand is shaking around his cup.
His skin turns a new shade of pale. He forgets to eat until you hand him something. His face grows lean as a skull.
You wait, leaning against a tree, as he coughs up blood, again. You don’t ask because he wouldn’t tell, and it's none of your business anyway.
***
You watch the fire. Itachi sleeps wrapped up as close to it as he can get. Flakes of snow drift down from the pine boughs far above your heads. The creak of the branches sounds like conversation in the dark. You wrap your cloak tighter and add another log to the fire. Itachi starts to murmur, curling in himself; his face lit by the orange glow scrunches up. You say his name, and he opens his eyes, red and ready. Instead of turning over and going back to sleep, he sits up. His sharingan fades.
You want to ask him what he dreams about. You think you know. You want to ask him if he’s afraid. You toss him a canteen instead. He takes a drink.
“Couldn’t sleep?” he asks you.
You’ve had the same dream for three nights in a row. You're standing beside Itachi on the edge of a cliff. The sky blows stormy and dark; wind whips his hair around his face, so you can’t make it out. You look off the edge and see a roaring sea, slate gray far below. Itachi meets your eyes before stepping backwards off the cliff. You always wake up gasping.
You shrug. “Not tired.”
“I am.” He closes his eyes and leans back.
The fire cracks and a stream of glowing sparks explode up into the dark, you watch until they fade out and are gone.
“There’s nothing like rest waiting for men like me.” You say the words like they fell out of your mouth.The fire flares as the wind ghosts through the trees.
He’s watching you. His eyes are heavy, heavier when they are dark than when they are red and sharp.
“Men like us ,” he says.
You meet his gaze across the fire.
You shake your head. “We’re not the same.”
“Aren’t we?”
“You want something.”
“You don’t?”
“Me? I’m just killing time.”
“Why join the Akatsuki then.”
You shrug. “Curiosity.”
The corner of his mouth lifts and he looks down at the fire.
You want to tell him that you and he are different breeds. You want to say that he has more honor than any ‘honorable ‘man you’ve ever met.
You don’t say anything.
***
You walk in a murky wood. Silence lies over everything. Your feet don’t make a sound. The trees part into a clearing. Itachi lays on the ground, his hands folded onto his chest. You move closer even though you want to turn around. You are looking down at him. Two blood red flowers bloom where his eyes should be.
You wake up, heart hammering. The fire is gone. The blue just before dawn soothes you back into a doze. You can see Itachi across the ashes, and he looks like a body.
***
He’s picked out the place. He’s just waiting now. You know how this is going to end.You go out for food and when you come back, he’s sitting high in a tree looking far away at who knows what; by now his eyes are wrecked. You jump up, shaking the branches. He doesn't startle; he never does. You hand him a stick of dango, and he smiles. You sit with him as the night falls.
He sleeps, quiet as the dead, but you don’t.
***
It’s over. You walk alone into the gathering night, Samehada on your back. Uchiha Itachi wasn’t what you expected.