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Shisui opened his eyes in the middle of the night. An elusive dream slithered out of his consciousness, leaving him dazed.
Where is it? was the first thought that crawled into his dry throat, trying to become words.
He blinked himself fully awake, the room and the ceiling appearing before him in dark and dim shapes. As his awareness settled inside his slowly awakening body, strange tendrils of cold permeated across his chest, diffusing into his bloodstream and numbing his limbs all over again. His throat was gripped with an errant, elusive pain, and clicked audibly when he tried to swallow. His lips parted, chapped:
Where is it? he whispered, his breath shaky, like it was holding sadness.
Where was what, exactly? The dream? His sleep? Himself? His eyes flitted about, searching for a phantom longing that he couldn’t understand. Where is—
Itachi was asleep beside him, his back a stable solidity even in the dim, his long hair a black swathe on the pillow. His breathing was never audible in sleep, so Shisui had to stare hard for some time before he could discern the gentle rise and fall of Itachi’s body. The painful tendrils released his chest for some time, and Shisui found himself slipping out of the blanket and the futon in one mindless gesture he could not control. He rose.
Sliding the door open and closed was the first movement he felt control over since waking – slow, deliberate and mindful. It was difficult to shut it all the way, the wood long parted and bent with age, and it made a rattle in the last few inches. Shisui slowed it, stopped the slide before it could reach that bit of noise – Itachi slept very lightly…or it was more so that sleep left him rather quickly.
It still wasn’t gone, the feeling, the tendrils over his chest, a tickle at the back of his throat that wasn’t a cough nor a yawn. He narrowed his focus, trying to understand this sensation that escaped from the fringes of his awareness, like air being inhaled, only to have it disappear inside his body with its routes impossible to trace.
He padded his way through the narrow, dark corridor and out into their living space. The moon was full that night, its light settling over everything like a thin film of dust. His breathing, though quiet, was loud enough that it seemed to animate the familiar items around him, as if they were listening: the misshapen shape of the kotatsu was a dark creature in midmovement; the shelves that held their scrolls stared at him blankly; and the vase holding a crooked branch of early peach blossoms—Shisui thought he saw the petals quiver.
He stood still and purposeless for some time, clueless as to what he was doing until he caught the tenseness in his shoulders and the clench of his jaw – he was waiting. Waiting for a danger he hadn't foreseen until now, because was that not what had woken him? This terrible feeling. It was the only way his body could respond to such an anomaly, what it was trained for, to brace itself for an attack.
The world was muted with old snow, but it would sound with a crack should anyone step on the ice. Nothing. Not a sound outside. Nor inside. The shadows did not meld into human shapes to attack him. The light and dark objects around him remained in ignorant silence. It was winter-quiet, but it did not hold the stillness of ill-intent.
Shisui’s body relaxed in hesitant increments. He saw his own shadow slump on the wall adjacent to him, his shoulders weighed down by remnant sleep and exhaustion.
It was only then that he registered the cold, the bite of the first month of the new year. It soaked through the soles of his bare feet, tickled his cheeks and the skin of his neck and forearms, almost as if it was tasting him before a meal. Shisui was used to the cold; he had walked in the snow for a long time one night, barefoot—how many winters has it been since Mother passed away? Almost thirty—and it was still unpleasant, the way the air was thin and sharp, how it pressed on his bare skin like unseen teeth.
He sighed, his breath coming out as fog. He ran a hand through his hair which was still damp from the shower he’d taken before they’d slept. His hand came down to his face now, palm smoothing over the angles and dips of his features, now pressing over one closed eye:
“Where is it?” he murmured, his voice falling soft and foreign in that quiet space, and the dull, anonymous pain of what had preceded those nonsensical words followed in its wake—now pulsing behind his eyes, the next moment spasming across his chest.
He turned around just as mindlessly as before. A very slow pull and push to the door, and he was inside their room. It was like walking into a soft cloud, his skin instantly encased by the warmth of their accumulated breath and body heat, creating the musky scent of their sleep. Itachi’s position hadn’t changed; his sleep was deeper than usual that night.
Kneeling beside Itachi, Shisui took a lock of his hair and caressed its smoothness between his thumb and forefinger. He brought it up for a kiss, and ended up kissing his own finger more. How ridiculous, he thought with some amusement. He adjusted his limbs, making his elbow take his weight and brought his forehead to rest atop Itachi’s head. Heat that came from deep within Itachi had warmed the cushion of his hair as well. Shisui was not surprised when he could feel Itachi’s head turning, the rustle of the sheets sounding a quiet overture to his awakening. Itachi blinked his eyes under a slight frown, the sight of which made Shisui falter with some guilt.
“...Shisui?” The silence of the night adopted his mumbled name and adjusted itself to make room for Itachi’s presence.
“Sorry, I didn’t want to wake you,” Shisui confided.
Itachi turned more fully, on his back now, his frown intensifying. “What is it?” and no sooner had he murmured those words his body tensed, his eyes flicking about, charged with a sudden alertness, all familiar habits Shisui tried to abate with a hand over Itachi’s clenched one.
“Nothing like that,” he assured, “I had a bad feeling, and…” he trailed off.
Itachi had settled now, still lying down. His face was calmer, trying to blink away the sleep. “About what?”
Shisui sighed, laying his head over Itachi’s chest, whose hand came to rest atop Shisui’s hair, and the ease of that gesture made Shisui close his eyes in surrender. “I’m not sure,” he began, “it’s strange. This has never happened before,” then he added with some hesitation, “I disturbed your sleep.”
“I’m glad you did.”
They settled in another bout of silence. Shisui listened to the faint sounds of Itachi’s stomach and the calm beating of his heart. “You can go ahead and sleep,” he said, the guilt from before falling heavier now.
“You don’t want me to.”
Shisui huffed out a chuckle, “How selfish of me,” he remarked.
Itachi’s hand, which was combing through Shisui’s hair, stopped for a beat, “I like it when you are.”
Shisui had to move. He had to, Itachi’s words gave him no choice. He met Itachi’s gaze evenly – the other’s dark eyes were belligerent, ready to fight for what he’d said, and perhaps that was what had woken Shisui, yes, the need to see those eyes.
“Even when I take too much?”
Itachi didn’t blink, didn’t even need to think, it seemed, when he said, “Keeping you company is not too much.”
Thin moonlight had filtered in through a shoji screen, one they hadn’t pulled the wooden shutters over. The room seemed to be getting dimmer and dimmer as the night deepened. Shisui’s eyes strained to see Itachi, the way his lips were parted, the sheen of his open eyes, trained on him. Shisui sighed, avoiding that gaze. “Haven’t I taught you before? To ignore me when I start asking such questions?”
Itachi shifted a little to meet his gaze. “You woke me tonight. Why is that?” he countered.
Shisui parted his lips but nothing came out at first. He had not wanted to wake Itachi, he really hadn't.
I had.
“Because,” he began gently, “it hurt not to.”
They became silent. It was what this wakefulness called for: look at me, heed me, and it asked for no more words.
Shisui found himself back on his side of the futon, under the blanket. Itachi kept his eyes on him, alert but kind, as if that was what his own wakefulness was for: looking at Shisui, looking for Shisui.
Shisui recalled the painful cold under his feet, on his bare skin and one that spread across his chest, possessing no meaning but an absence. It had been almost thirty winters now that he’d walked in the snow, barefoot. His body still hadn't forgotten.
Itachi’s arm rested heavy and soothing over Shisui’s waist. Shisui’s thumb caressed over Itachi’s knuckles. Sleep wasn't a thing he could beckon, only one he could wait for, and eventually, it loomed over him as a warm cave does at the end of a long journey. And despite that, a persistent thought pervaded his mind: the door of their room, had he slid it all the way? The room would turn cold if—
Ah, Shisui thought before his consciousness dipped into the dark, he had closed it. As quietly as he could.