So much to do, so much to see

Mumford and Sons/Itachi and Shisui

bizzylizzybee — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 13:54:49 GMT

1. Babel

2. Whispers in the Dark

3. I will Wait

4. Holland Road

5. Ghosts That We Knew

6. Lover of The Light

7. Lover's Eyes

8. Reminder

9. Hopeless Wanderer

10. Broken Crown

11. Below My Feet

12. Not With Haste

13. For Those Below

14. The Boxer

15. Where Are You Now?

A written tribute to Itachi and Shisui and Mumford and Sons. :D Song is For Those Below

Singing Callous

Though Shisui learns the instrument for a mission, Itachi calls is a godsend.

Shisui scoffs at the idea of using his Sharingan to learn to play, and instead plies his long fingers to the wire strings, squinting at the sheet music spread before him. He growls and grouses and his callouses squeak and whine across the strings as he fumbles to find the right note. The right fret. The perfect sound.

Itachi sleeps on his back under the summer window, eyes closed as Shisui mutters and hums and curses life and foreign fetishes with impossible instruments.

As the mission draws near, Itachi rubs Shisui’s cramping fingers, aware his cousin is there. Visible and coherent in an eerie way that he has not been for days. Weeks. Maybe months or years if Itachi is honest with himself and his ghosts. It is as if, Itachi realizes as Shisui presses the string down, he presses himself down and firms the fly-away mess of his mind.

Itachi naps away his nightmares under Shisui’s open window, the only sleep he gets these long hard days as his cousin frets away on his instrument, lips bowed and firmed, loose and open as notes tinkle and tinker and fall from his reaching fingers.

Whispered notes from the piano in the corner of the room, Hold your throat is that healing that you're hearing in her tune. Wanting change but loving her just as she lies. Is the burden of a man who's built his life on love.

Soft words on the breeze, sliding in and out of Itachi’s head as he opens his eyes and finds Shisui eyes half closed.

I'll be locked up in a store. In the lavender ward. 'Cause my mind is just like her's. Just as broken just as crippled just as burned.

“Hey, you’ve got it,” Itachi murmurs as he rolls over, still heavy with sleep and promises of fickle dream.

“Hm? Oh, yeah, guess I do.” Shisui smiles a little, absent in a funny, warm way as his fingers caress a few more notes.

And then I find myself on top as the leader of the flock. Called to be around for those below.

“Guess I’m ready for the mission,” Shisui hums, breathless and happy. Content. Itachi smiles and rests his head again.

“Maybe you should play it one more time before you go,” Itachi suggests.

Shisui smiles, laughs, nods, and bends his head. His lips make a soft warming noise, and then he begins again.

Helpless she lies across the stairs. Haunting your days consuming your breath. There will be healing but don't force this girl to stand. As she's counting the ceilings with pale voice and trembling hands.

Itachi drifts to sleep.
~
It is odd, Kisame thinks, that Itachi hums whenever he sees a river, or wakes in the night, or when he shakes. It is odd that he flinches when a callous squeaks over trap wire, or when one rasps over metal.

It is odd.

But not so strange.

'Cause my mind is just like her's. Just as broken just as crippled just as burned.

And then I find myself on top as the leader of the flock. Called to be around for those below.

Sketch dump of gratuitous hugging.

bizzylizzybee — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 18:44:58 GMT

I was cleaning my room and found a crapload of old sketches of Itachi and Shisui lying around. So...now they're compiled. Here. Oldest to newest, I think. Image heavy post under the cut, you've been warned.

Fem!Shi for lonleyaura

I haven't colored in ages...
From the RP Stranger Games, where there's more Itashi Angst than anyone can handle.

ICONS :O

bizzylizzybee — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:15:25 GMT

Textless
1-4.

5-9.

10-14.

15-19.

20-24.

Text

Fanart credits: xii_itachi (4-5) nthcoincident, hoge, gemini, lily (15-24)
No hotlinking!
Please credit, and comment are appreciated!

Fic: Best Text

bizzylizzybee — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 05:14:32 GMT

Fandom: Naruto
Characters: Itachi and Shisui
Summary: AU:: Shisui's away from home, and Itachi knows how to make his day.
Notes: Written for lonelyaura

Itachi didn't text. Period. The man had sensibilities from another age, one two generations back that thought all conversation should take place face-to-face. Maybe it was partially Itachi's paranoia of being lied too. Given his family (parents and grandfather), Shisui couldn't hold it against him. Sasuke would, but he'd been the receiver of thousands of 'DO NOT LIE' sermons. Yes, coming from Itachi, it was a sermon, and one that made Shisui want to cross himself. He should have gone into theology, though why such a cynic would seem like a good theology major, Shisui didn't know. Itachi lived paradoxes like that.

But, the text. The one Itachi had sent him. Shisui stared at his phone, wondering who had died. He was in Peru for a foreign study, which rocked so hard he now wanted to LIVE there forever, if he could just get Itachi and Sasuke to move with him. Now he was one month away from home, visiting the local Uni for his daily dose of Spanish Professors and pretending he understood more than he actually did. He didn't get good reception anywhere but the Uni, and phone calls were so hellishly expensive he hadn't bothered to even try to make any calls back home yet. Another odd attribute Itachi had that Shisui shared, they were spend thrifts. Coming from old money families, they shouldn't have been, but after Shisui had been disowned and Itachi orphaned with a baby brother he had to care for...yeah, pinch, save, and pray for a miracle. Even when they had a safety net, they didn't spend unless they had too.

What had Itachi said, four months? You don't have to call. Meaning, if you call you're a wimp. Uchiha were strong and stoic--that and they were both so dysfunctional when it came to motions it was better not to throw them at others lest they be scarred for life. Bottle it up, swallow it, and move on. Maybe cry into your pillow if you have to, but only under extreme circumstances such as death or utter abandonment.

Which made the text even more extraordinary. The first Itachi text Shisui had ever gotten. FIRST EVER. Shisui wondered if it was Sasuke or his mother who had died as he hurried to open the text. Trepidation vanished for an almost nauseating warm fuzzy feeling as he read the two words.

Miss you. <3

Best. Text. Ever.

Even if he was homesick for the rest of the day, totally worth it.

MERRY CHRISTMAS NONSENSE

bizzylizzybee — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 14:35:42 GMT

Because what better way to celebrate than bad art? :D (and gift fics)

Photobucket view here.

November::28

bizzylizzybee — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 00:12:55 GMT

Fandom: Naruto
Characters: Itachi and Madara
Summary: Do you remember how we pulled stars from the sky? Do you remember how they burned out hands? Do you remember when we opened our hands and found only crushed fireflies?
Warnings/Ratings: Madara

Do you remember when we opened our hands and found only crushed fireflies?

Madara meets Itachi for the last time a week before he dies. He only knows his protege is about because of the wracking wet cough that issues from the darkness. Madara waits for his eyes to adjust and sees Itachi sitting in the starlight. Itachi doesn't glance to the side, but he must hear Madara.

"I see you, Madara."

"Do you? With those eyes?" Madara takes up a perch on a rock to the left of Itachi, the higher vantage giving him some security.

Itachi's lips curl into a gentle smile. "It would be most rude of me to say I smelled you."

"Humor. The well of the self sacrificing is indeed deep," Madara returns, watching Itachi's silence and stillness. He isn't fooled by Itachi's collection. He knows the trials of the everyday. He's seen the
collection of track marks on Itachi's arm, Kisame's sudden carefulness around Itachi--that watchfulness that has never been there before, even when Itachi was small enough to crush.

Itachi has come a long way since ten and the river. Madara had thought the child put together at thirteen, but now he sees the whole of it. Oh, he is too thin, too agile, too weak in the joints, but to see him in motion was true bueaty. True terror. Oh, what he could have been without moral constraints.

Itachi dips his head. He coughs--a deep wet sound that brought up the smell of blood and rot. Madara looks at the boy and smiles. Oh, what he could have been.

Oh, what he is, withered and burned away to the barest essentials of a human being. Still--still he is more than a match for Madara. That is why he sits to calmly, his face to the stars.

"Such peace for a man whose brother is running loose in the world, plotting his death," Madara adds.

"Sasuke will learn what he needs to after my death," Itachi's reply cuts easily through the night. The young, dying man looks at his blood smeared hands. "It's almost over. . ."

"Such joy--do you find life a burden?" Madara presses.

Itachi closes his eyes. "I've been lying dead in a river bed for eight years now. It's past time I stopped walking the restless earth." Those red eyes open. Madara refuses to flinch as they touch him, dissecting him from head to foot as he had once dissected Itachi. "Did you feel it, when your best love died?"

Itachi's turns of phrase, the fluidity he seems to have between the idea of friend and lover, often annoys Madara. Love. Love is not something for the Uchiha. "No."

"When you brother was killed?" Itachi wears no smile, but Madara feels it as the barb sinks in.

When his brother died. When his lifelong friend was found half dismembered in the trees. . . Did he feel it?

"You could have been the greatest and settled all these petty wars with your own hands," Madara muses.

"No," Itachi clears his throat. "I only learned to kill people to solve my problems. The world needs someone with a different solution if things are ever going to change." Itachi coughs again, deep, wet, wracking. Madara waits for the fit to pass, scathing comment for the soft pacifistic sentimentality. It doesn't pass. It doesn't end. He can see Itachi's lips going blue, but the coughing does not stop.

For a dazzling moment, Madara thinks Itachi will die right here.

"Itachi-san." Kisame brushes by Madara (something he never would have done before, such disrespect), crouching down by his wheezing partner, pressing something to Itachi's face. The young man's hands are filled with the sludge from his lungs--blood and necrotic tissue and pus. Madara sneers at the smell and turns, leaving the two crouched in the faint starlight, whispering faint assurances to each other.

Madara feels he has bitten a promising apple and found only worms and canker inside. The idea of Itachi sours in his mind, fretful and disgusting. Wasted. Wasted on foolish sentiments.

If Izuna were alive. . .

But he lies dead, and has for a count of more than eight. Unlike Itachi, Madara still lives. He shakes his head. Itachi is dead.

Now.

It is tome for a new protege.

If Izuna were alive, he would laugh because his protege overcame Madara's in the end.

November::27

bizzylizzybee — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 00:53:31 GMT

Fandom: Naruto
Characters: Itachi and Madara
Summary: Do you remember how we pulled stars from the sky? Do you remember how they burned out hands?
Warnings/Ratings: 2 of 3

Do you remember how they burned out hands?

"I see you, old man." Uchiha Itachi doesn't turn his head, but keeps gathering up his kunai, each slammed into a precise point of the clearing.

Madara keeps his high perch. "Old man? Didn't your parents teach you manners?"

At ten this child had promise untold. At thirteen, as he turns his red eyes onto Madara, the man knows something.

"I see you, Uchiha Madara."

This is a child that will one day surpass even him.

"Ah, a little one who listens too hard at his bed time stories? Shame, you should know better than to mock old men. I could be a tengu of the woods." Madara leans forward to cock his orange mask at the boy. Itachi's eyes, no smaller than they were, blink slowly. Purposefully. He is not frightened by you, intimidated or awed.

The child entrances Madara. Oh, these years he has far surpassed his gangly cousin, growing in harmony with every part so that at thirteen, he hardly looks out of place in any way. How Madara would have laughed at Izuna for choosing the lesser child as Itachi soared past his common cousin and took to the skies with flaming wings destined to burn them all. Izuna would defend his protege by saying Itachi was too unstable, too bright, too hot, too anxious and earnest. Too everything, for he looks at his cousin with the world and heaven too in his eyes.

"If you are a tengu, I have nothing to fear." Itachi's smile--small quick quirk of the lips--barely registers before Madara feels the kiss of metal at his neck. The breath of fear, the cold realization of death immenent he has not felt in years. "Cats fear no birds."

Itachi's speed is more than he had guessed. Perhaps more than the genius of the mirage he still clings too with childish fists? Madara can respond with more skill, but he halts the blade inches from the arrogent child's throat, longing to shove it into that pale column, and see those passive eyes turn frantic.

Izuna would laugh and say that was why Madara never was a good teacher, if he were still alive.

"Teach me." The child demands, knowing he has gotten the better of the old man lurking in trees. Madara looks at the large red eyes, the pale cat face, and he smiles. Teach this child who will leave him behind in the next few years? Teach this child who will drive him mad with jealousy and paranoid fear of that knife in the back?

"How can I resist such elegant persuasion?"

Better chained to Madara's side than flying free over the waters with his cousin.

November::26

bizzylizzybee — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 23:38:25 GMT

Fandom: Naruto
Characters: Itachi, Shisui, Madara and Izuna
Summary: Do you remember when we pull stars from the sky?
Warnings/Ratings: 1 of 3

Do you remember what it was like, to pull stars from thes sky?

If Izuna had been alive, he would have taken Shisui, Madara would have had Itachi, and the Uchiha name would have been one to fear.

Madara had long become disenchanted with his clan, but these two little ones, ten and thirteen, playing in the shallows of the Nakano, excite him. They use chakra indiscriminately, climbing on the water and Shisui flickers around, leaving sun bright bursts as he throws water into the air. They roll like puppies onto the banks, deadly blows pulled in jesting, quick numbing strikes blunted by blocks and chakra blasts.

This natural puppy play, for them, is deadly. Madara sees seventeen times Itachi almost dies. Twenty for Shisui because Itachi lacks control at this age. These children, growing to killers, turn their murderous intent into affection, and they can because it is such a part of them. They own it. They are it. They will be terrors unknown in this world of watered down ninja.

If Izuna were still alive, he would have smiled and pointed to the awkward one with elbows and knees and curly hair and said 'he's mine.' Madara would have taken the neat, cat like one with the sleek dark ponytail and large eyes. Together they would have raised them to be gods. Horrible. Terrible. Amazing.

Itachi tackles Shisui into the shallows, smiling as they splash down. Shisui shoves him free, onto the bank where they lay, panting for breath with smiles. Itachi looks at Shisui, and all the world is in his eyes.

Madara leaves them tangled on the bank, growing bodies and limbs intersecting like lifelines on the palm as the little one falls asleep with his face against Shisui's neck. If Izuna were alive, these two might be more than a passing amusement. But.

Izuna is dead and Madara just a ghost.

"I see you."

Shisui's red eyes track Madara's shifts in the trees. Blood red, bright and real. Anxious and excited.

"I see you in the trees, old man."

Madara smiles behind his mask and steps from the branches, vanishing before he hits the ground.

November::25

bizzylizzybee — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 23:33:08 GMT

Fandom: Cal Leandros Novels
Characters: Cal
Summary: Laundry, soap operas, nachos, and good company. How did it all go so wrong?
Warnings/Ratings: Swearing

After careful sorting, the laundry was delegated to Cal. He bitched about it because, really, laundry?

Really?

Yeah, really, move or get a katana across your ass.

Niko hadn't used so many words, but Cal could take a hint when it came to metal and violence. That he got. What he didn't get was how, for six months straight, he'd gotten laundry duty every Wednesday morning (okay, lunch time, but morning for him). Niko was good, but every week? Laundry? Cal had started thinking he was getting domestic. Did it make him more kick-ass he could fold shirts in as much time as it took to clear a room of baddies?

No. No it didn't.

The only other person as committed to Wednesday laundry as him (rather, Niko, therefore Cal) was Rosa and Barracuda. Rosa being the Hispanic woman who watched Spanish soap operas on her tiny TV as she waited for about a ton of laundry to get done, and Barracuda being possible the most deceptive kitten ever to exist. Seriously, you'd think a kitten so cute wouldn't sound like a dying chain saw. Barracuda lived in the laundromat. Cal wasn't so sure Rosa didn't. He didn't speak any Spanish, Rosa spoke no English, though she happily ranted about how Fernando shouldn't have divorced Cleo for Hester--or something like that. Cal bitched about Niko, who the woman might have thought was Cal's boyfriend. Maybe. He wasn't so sure 'brother' had crossed the language barrier yet. She also shared her cheesy spicy nacho concoction that would probably kill him. He ate it out of defiance to Niko and tofu everywhere.

He also shared with Barracuda, and after two months the thing seemed to have stopped growing. Whoops. Sorry cat. That's what he got for using Cal's balls as a springboard for jumps at the stupid ceiling fan.

Despite the bizarre addictiveness of Spanish soap operas and cheesy nacho goodness, Wednesday laundry days still sucked.

But it was so worth the look on Niko's face when Cal went off in a rant in Spanish.

Until Niko decided this meant the language learning part of Cal's brain has suddenly started existing and Cal should learn Latin too.

Cal wondered what day of the week he'd have to show up to find Cicero doing his laundry.

November::24

bizzylizzybee — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 23:52:17 GMT

Fandom:Naruto
Characters: Itachi, Kisame, Shisui
Summary: The ritual symbolism of dango.
Warnings/Ratings: None

After Shisui's first Gennin mission, he drags Itachi out to the small sweets store run by Obasan.

Itachi, Itachi, pick out what you want. Shisui grins, his face bruised from the silly little mission, bis eyes far too bright with pride. Anything you want.

Even at four Itachi realizes 'anything he wants' must be paid for with the small change in Shisui's grubby hand.It's not much, but Itachi remembers the coins and carefully picks something that will allow Shisui to get something for himself. A stick of dango, solemnly chosen.

Shisui laughs. Yeah, you love sweets, don't you?

Before this, Itachi remembers having no partiality to sweets. He agrees and they eat the dango on the porch of the sweet shop, trying to be too careful and still getting their hands sticky-sweet. Because he agrees, Shisui makes a point to drag him out for dango, first after every mission, then after every injury, then whenever they happen to meet in their busy lives and need a moment to be children again.

I didn't know you liked dango, Itachi-san.

Kisame does these things. Makes these almost friendly observations that make Itachi, at times, respond in the same manner. He holds to his carefully constructed persona instead, one that really shouldn't like dango. One that wouldn't cherish the memory of sun and sugar and sticky fingers as he too proud cousin fairly radiated pride that he had bought something for Itachi.

Itachi glances away without responding, slightly embarrassed for his lapse. If he doesn't comment, perhaps Kisame will forget it, discount it.

The next time Kisame orders them food, Itachi find a plate of dango by his food. Kisame doesn't mention it, Itachi wonders if it's a warning or an offering. Either way, it strikes him as too dangerous a gesture to move on without careful consideration.

Still, he eats the dango, and Kisame makes a point to buy (to buy with his own money) Itachi some whenever it becomes avaliable.

Novemer::23

bizzylizzybee — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 02:57:15 GMT

Fandom: Naruto
Characters: Genma, Hayate, and Raidou
Summary: AU::The lover, the dying, the voyeur. Quite the trio they make, playing for their supper.
Warnings/Ratings: Pretty old little bit reworked for giggles.

When Raidou thought of soul devouring, he always thought of concerts.

What else could he think of? Raidou beat out the rhythm of the song on his drums and watched the real show in front of him. Hayate and Genma were into it tonight. They played back-to-back, Hayate hunched shouldered and head bowed like he was in pain or totally absorbed in the music. Genma was leaned back against Hayate, head thrown back as if he was basking in the heat of the artificial light, face wet with sweat. They look so different, Genma golden all over and Hayate dark in his every nuance and color. One crouched like a crippled old man, the other flung open like a new flower. They were the reason for the screaming people bouncing in the darkened stadium.

Raidou didn't mind. He was the drummer. He was the beat all their hearts pulsed with--the subtle thing that took them over and made their bodies sway. He liked it better that way, and Genma did have a point that his face would scare everyone off. Sitting back behind Genma and Hayate was best for him, and he liked watching them in any case.

They broke apart. Hayate bent over his instrument like he was going to kiss it, drawing deep, throbbing sounds from it, like it was dying. He moved across the stage to his own mike, nursing the sounds from his bass as he went. His hands were spiders, sliding up and down, plucking and strumming, creating art in the air. Genma seemed to dance to the other side of the stage, guitar screaming under his fingers--wailing its plight to the world. Genma seemed to be opened to the world with it, shirt wet with sweat and slicked to his body. He moved towards the crowd, teasing and tempting them with the sight of his golden hair thrown across his face. There was a renewed scream from the crowd before Genma flew across the stage to his mike.

Genma sang, and though Raidou couldn't see his face, he knew what was there, Genma had his eyes closed, his mouth open. He pulled at the soul of each person in the audience with his every word. Each motion he made sold them to him--made them worship and loved him for everything they thought he was. Genma could sing about anything, and everyone he sung it to would swear he'd written the song just for them. It was a gift, and Lord knew the boy needed some great ones to make up for the other things in his life.

Hayate sang too, sorrowful, hoarse today, and stretching to catch up to Genma's effortless song. Hayate fumbled with his broken wings before remembering how to use them, and then soared up with Genma, just behind him--just perfect. Raidou felt the music build in him like a scream, as it always did, and then Genma's voice faded away. Everything fell back into a grey sort of normal as he stepped back from the microphone and the final notes faded from the electric-charged air. For a moment there was perfect silence, and then the world seemed to explode with noise.

Hayate was the first off the stage, coughing now that no one could hear him. Raidou followed him, sticks stuck in his back pocket. Genma stayed on stage, thanking the audience whose souls he'd just stolen, and swearing he loved them as much as they loved him. It was the truth. Genma would kiss every face in that crowd, and make a lover out of every one of them, if he could. He called and kissed, arms spread wide to embrace them all, and then he walked off the stage too.

Raidou heard someone telling people to give 'Fractured' another hand, and the next act was on the way. Genma leaned against Raidou's side, sweaty and musky-smelling as he grabbed Raidou's arm and gave him that happy little smile of his. Hayate lit up cigarette and wiped away the blood on his lip from his coughing fit, keeping himself just to the side and ahead of them.

None of them spoke as they walk away into the cool night air, but there was nothing really to say.
</ljcut>

November::22

bizzylizzybee — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 02:25:47 GMT

Fandom: Naruto
Characters: Sakura
Summary: Sakura wanted to die her hair and change who she was.
Warnings/Ratings: None

She considered dying her hair because the color pink reminded her of the little girl who couldn't defend her teammates, and had failed to help bring Sasuke home. She didn't know what color she would dye it. Red, maybe. Or black. Or bleach it blond until she decided--she didn't know. She just knew she hated the color pink and the weak little girl it showed her every time she looked in the mirror.

She couldn't decide for a week.

Then a month.

Then.

It stopped bothering her.

She stopped checked her face in the mirror after she washed it and hurried out the door. She stopped thinking about what people saw when she hurried down the street to a team meeting or training to Tsunade. She didn't think of what they thought when they saw her pink hair, wrinkled clothes, bruised knuckles. She thought about organs, tissue, how it connected, what could go wrong, and how she could kill.

Important things.

Like catching up to her boys, learning how to heal the dying, and how to kill someone before they killed you.

November::21

bizzylizzybee — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 01:12:34 GMT

Fandom: Naruto
Characters: Kisame and Itachi
Summary: Kisame and Itachi in the last stages of Itachi's life.
Warnings/Ratings:

Through-out his life, Kisame had been many things, some of then surprising, some of them expected. Perhaps the most surprising, and just bizarre was his new role as a hospice nurse.

Who for? Well, he certainly wasn't watching someone waste away for charity.

In truth, he couldn't even say why he was doing this. He'd never been particularly caring or nurturing when it came to comrades. He didn't form bonds, he didn't see a point when he would, more than likely, see that person's bloody death. The problem happened that when someone stuck around and stayed alive for eight years, being completely impartial to them became a bit impossible. Still, he wasn't sure he'd edge too far past a light friendship--an odd comradeship and morbid fascination. Uchiha Itachi had a way of drawing you in completely without your consent.

Whatever way it had happened, Kisame found himself unwrapping a small needle with glove covered hands, feeling suddenly very out of place at Itachi's bedside. At this point, Kisame had no doubt that Itachi was dying. Between the Mangekyou and the disease, his body was literally breaking down. Kisame wondered if the same genetic quirk that had made him a genius had something to do with how weak his body was, or if the incomplete Mangekyou truly was that harsh. Madara offered no real opinion, considering Itachi now a simple waste of skin.

Some days, Kisame felt inclined to agree. Why would a man try so hard to stay alive just to die?

Despite his thoughts and doubt, he still found himself with that needle, quietly discussing dosage--that much? Really? You sure?--oxygen percentages, diet, and anything else. Kisame knew Itachi was not as weak as he looked. For now, the small man saved his strength so he could make a good showing for his brother. That didn't change the fact that he was dying, he was in pain, and he really did need rather intensive care at times.

"Sharktits," Kisame grumbled under his breath as Itachi winced. He'd learned long ago that the smaller man had a pain tolerance to rival his own, but as the body shriveled, nerves became more concentrated, and more pain on top of debilitating pain. . .

"I didn't know sharks had those," Itachi murmured, making that soft humming noise in the back of his throat as he kept his eyes closed and breathed.

"You've been hanging around the wrong sharks," Kisame returned as he grabbed the small ice pack on the bedside table. Kakuzu railed--had railed about them renting rooms instead of paying for hotels or sleeping outside, but that had stopped being an option. Itachi put on his normal front for the Akatsuki, and a cloak that had always been too big could hide a multitude of wasting sins. Itachi's thin face never changed much. It fact it matured, which helped with the illusion of health because the man now had at least the suggestion of a masculine jawline. Kisame hadn't really noticed a change until he turned around on day and realized how papery Itachi's skin looked, how sunken and bright his eyes.

Then he'd known Itachi was dying.

"It seems safer to stick to one shark. I wouldn't want to complicate things," Itachi took the cold back, doubling up a nearby cloth to press over the growing bruise. His hands were feverish hot, that papery burning quality that slowly consumed Itachi from the inside out.

"Shark monogamy, always a good idea." Kisame wondered idly if the drugs made Itachi inane, or if this was something more. They dying man grasping for humanity and that last attempt to feel human and connected to someone alive. Perhaps it meant nothing, maybe everything.

For now, the certainty was Kisame needed a different vein.

He looked at Itachi's throat, pared down to the bare essentials. He could easily make out the veins there, large and sluggish. Itachi cracked one grey eye open, quirking an eyebrow.

"No."

"They'd be easier."

"No, stop staring lustfully at my neck. . ." Itachi didn't sound half as put out as he should have. He turned his arm over, presenting a hand laced with track marks and faded bruises. Kisame stared at the small hand, looked at the comparatively huge needle and sighed.

Compared to Itachi's hands, Kisame’s were enormous. The dwarfed the needle, the little vein that stood out on Itachi's hand he was trying to skewer. All in all, and impossible task for a butcher. Kisame had missed out on the basic medic training most ninja seemed to have. Itachi could start an IV with aplomb and never roll or blow the vein. Kisame. . .it was a work in process, and when each botched attempt turned up hideous bruises on too thin and pale skin. . .

Something happened when you switched from killer to care giver. Some switch was flipped, somewhere in the primal parts of the brain. Kisame would kick it back if he could, but nothing seemed to work. He held his concentration tightly as he threaded the needle into Itachi's skin, feeling the tiny tense as the bite of the needle registered. Kisame breathed out with relief as he realized he'd gotten it right this time and sat back to start to morphine drip.

"Compassion becomes you." Kisame glanced up to find the very smallest of smiles on Itachi's face--a real one that reached his tired eyes before they fell closed.

Kisame looked at the drug paraphernalia shoved into the waste basket. The Oxygen tank, bloody tissue from bloody noses and what Itachi had been coughing up. He smelled the general stink of sickness. Saw a body failing too early, too fast, with too much pain.

Compassion. This? No. This wasn't compassion. This was another form of torture, one filled with pain for administrator and victim.

And some days, it really pissed him off to watch all his hard work do nothing but alleviate and know some idiotic sixteen year-old acting under delusions of grandeur was going to kill this dying wreck of a man and call it his life's work.

November::20

bizzylizzybee — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 00:53:08 GMT

Fandom: Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Characters: Link
Summary: Dark and skeleton children: even the Hero of Time has his hang-ups.
Warnings/Ratings: None

There happened to be plenty of things in the world to be frightened of, he just wasn't scared of them. Re-deads creeped him out, sure, as did wall masters, but most things didn't scare him in the slightest.

Bongo-Bongo--creepy, but not scary even though he was made up of giant bugs. While he wouldn't go as far to call himself fearless, he was pretty brave. Or maybe stupid, but that was all perspective, now wasn't it?

There was something that frightened him.

Stalchildren. And here he was, in the middle of Hyrule field with the sun coming down. One would think that after doing so much, fighting to many baddies of far creepier origins, he'd be completely unphased by these skeleton children.

No, they freaked him out.

It didn't help that it was dark, or that he happened to be ten again. Something happened when he reverted back through the years. Even though he hadn't lived those seven years, there was something different between the brain and a ten and seveteen year-old. It didn't matter how much he told himself, at ten, that he'd killed things five times as tough as the Stalchildren, he could see just fine in the dark, and he had a sword!

But they popped out of the ground, in the dark when he was alone except for Navi who didn't help much, really. When they got in front of him, they didn't scare him. It was the spine tingling feeling of waiting for one to pop up behind you. The noise of steel on bone covered up the sound of one popping out of the ground pretty well. That meant the first thing he knew about it was when one smacked him in the back.

While he did have fairies, potions, and he knew he wouldn't die, pain was still pain. He still felt it, wanted to avoid it, and that blow in the back always expected, never sure when it would fall. . .

That was the worst.

He'd forgotten how stubby his legs became at ten, and how much larger than made the field. He heard the distant sound of the drawbridge coming up as the sun slithered the last few feet from the sky, behind the ridges. Link sighed and drew his sword, watching the bounce of Navi from point to point as they readied themselves for the Stalchildren.

It was going to be a very, very long night.

November::19

bizzylizzybee — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 02:19:14 GMT

Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Characters: Edward and Alphonse
Summary: The triumphant heroes return home, limping all the way.
Warnings/Ratings: None

"You shouldn't be so worried about Winry, Ed."

It was, quite possibly, the most absurd thing Alphonse could have said.They'd been walking home for the past hour, stopping and letting Alphonse rest as he needed to. If anyone should be worried about Winry's reaction to their return, it should be Al! Alphonse, who still looked so terribly emaciated he reminded Edward of pictures of people who'd spent months in war concentration camps. Alphonse, who couldn't walk a mile without needing two breaks. Alphonse, who still looked so weak and pathetic Edward badgered him to eat and drink his milk until Alphonse threatened to vomit on his shoes--all matter-of-factly and scientifically because his stomach simply wasn’t used to big meals and needed time to get used to eating again.

The point stood, if anyone should be worried about Winry's reaction to their current state, it was Alphonse. Alphonse of the chicken bone limbs and too sharp cheek bones and chin. Winry was going to stuff him until he was sick. Then he'd vomit on Edward's shoes because Alphonse has always been a gentlemen. Edward wondered if all those years in a body too large helped enforce his sense of manners but didn't like to think it had. Alphonse had always been the more polite brother.

"You're the one who should be worried."

A grumble. Alphonse's the one with the weak looking body.

Edward happened to be the one with a metal limb. The one who didn't do exactly what they promised. Original bodies...

Alphonse smiled. "I'm not. Winry likes me more."

"Hey, you're the one she rejected," Edward snapped, rocking back on his heels. He could hear the metallic sound of his ankle moving, suddenly hyper aware of the metal limb he'd taken for granted for years.

"I said she likes me more. She loves you. Love is the more volatile and violent emotion."

Alphonse stood, dusting grass from his pants as he stood. Had he looked any less frail, Edward would have gone for a blow, but Alphonse was still. . .

Still new, and the normal bluster hadn't overcome the reverence of having Alphonse's body back. It would, soon, but, until then. . .

"I'm not worried." Edward shoved his hands back in his pocket and walked. He'd just helped save the world. It was going to take a lot to worry him now. Winry? He wouldn't worry about what she'd do to him for returning with a metal leg.

"I know." Alphonse's tone made Edward aware he had that dopey smile on his face--the one that tended to happen when he thought about Winry lately. Edward scowled and shoved Alphonse--lightly, so very lightly and only shoved Alphonse a tiny bit of balance. Not as hard as he should have or enough to make him stop laughing.

November: 18

bizzylizzybee — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 00:52:29 GMT

Fandom: Naruto
Characters: Itachi and Shisui
Summary: On a cold December night, things go a bit differently than usual. One friend goes, another stays.
Warnings: None.

On a bitter December evening, Uchiha Itachi received his sentence for Most Contemptible Plotting Against his Clan, with the vicious attempt to eliminate them. Due to his age, and his relatively good intentions, mercy had been called for, even though the serious charge was compounded with the attempted murder of Uchiha Shisui. The sending off was small, predictably. The only unexpected one there was Uchiha Shisui himself.

Itachi’s headband had been sliced through with much ceremony the morning before, and he wore it like a wound on his forehead. His clothing was unadorned black, and he’d been allowed weapons despite his new status as an exile and missing-nin. Konoha had placed no bounty on his head, offered no rewards. Still, killing him, torturing him, anything was free game now. As soon as he walked out of those gates, he would be officially a criminal.

Shisui watched the proceedings. Sarutobi spoke for a while to Itachi. Whatever he said, the boy’s face didn’t chance. All in all, Itachi looked amazingly composed for a condemned man. He didn’t look stricken or lost. He looked confident, actually. Maybe even a little pleased with himself as he stood and received the official ruling and what it all meant. He looked small among all those great men, his slim shoulders held stiff and square, but still obviously lacking a man’s growth. He’d never looked more a child, and never looked more capable.

Shisui didn’t think everyone there could read all that he did. Shisui had made an extensive study of Itachi’s facial expression, slight though they were most of the time. It came from being someone’s best friend, only friend, for ages on end. Until today, or, technically, the day Itachi had tried to kill him.

Shisui slowly unknotted himself and stood up. He slipped through the trees and over to the gathered people. Sarutobi and Itachi glanced up at him, and the old man moved to intercept him.

“Shisui-kun, I don’t think you should be here. The clan agreed—“

“That he would be banished.” Shisui waved a hand, showing empty palms. “I’d like to have a few words with my cousin before he leaves. At the very least, he owes me an explanation.” Shsiui glanced at Itachi, who gazed calmly back before looking to Sarutobi.

“I do owe him that,” Itachi agreed, shouldering his bag. Sarutobi still looked reluctant. The bruises were still livid on Shisui’s throat, and heavy on his mind. Itachi stepped away, tucking his cloak tighter. Shisui followed, just far enough not to be heard. Shisui glanced at the men and back to Itachi, who angled himself to they wouldn’t see Shisui’s lips.

“What did you want to know, Shisui.” Itachi tipped his head up.

Shisui glanced at the side and then back. “It’s going well, thing aren’t resolved completely, but I’ve gotten at least fifteen others who don’t want war. The rest should come around if I beat it into their heads enough we’d get slaughtered.”

“It’s difficult to explain…” Itachi’s hand moved, scout signing. Try to look angrier.

“You try to look less like you’re being set free,” Shisui countered. Itachi’s lips thinned, but his eyes were on the verge of a laugh. Really, Shisui couldn’t blame him. He wished he were going as well. Still, he set his shoulders and let his hands knot into fists.

“I am sorry.” I’ll miss you and Sasuke.

“You’ll be coming back one day.”

“I don’t think so.” Itachi did smile now. Hit me. Shisui hesitated until Itachi signed again. Then he slapped Itachi’s face, faster than a man could think. Itachi stumbled a little, hand coming to touch his bloody lip. The ANBU were around them then. Shisui felt Kakashi’s hand on his arm, and he managed a decent snarl at Itachi.

“For all we’ve given you, this is how you repay us?” Shisui leaned against the hold. Itachi dabbed blood and shrugged.

“For all you taught me, I am grateful. I only hope you can learn a greater lesson from this.” Itachi smiled—real, soft, personal, and then he turned. He bowed to the Hokage and few elders who had come to see him off then vanished into the night. Kakashi kept his hold on Shisui a good fifteen minute after Itachi had gone, though the elders dispersed within minutes.

The Hokage walked up to Shisui. His withered hand landed below Kakashi’s. “Hate is a hard legacy to carry.”

Shisui slowly shifted his eyes from the space he had last seen Itachi—Itachi and his small shoulder. “Yes, it is.”

November: 17 (cop-out)

bizzylizzybee — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 02:43:45 GMT

dying with each breath
young man shrivels into old
a fulfilled promise

watching decay creep
the ever faithful partner
holds the crumbling shell

burning vengeance comes
flies on corrupted black wings
lifts all life away

barren space remains
murdered prospects never seen
incinerated.

November: 16

bizzylizzybee — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 15:11:19 GMT

Fandom: Naruto
Characters: Naruto and Kyuubi
Summary: Give and you get. And old man and a young women offer Naruto the faces in his dreams with a wicked smile.
Warnings: None

It took Naruto a month to realize that the woman and the old man were the same people. This raised some questions, answered others, but sent him over to sit down and ask the old man a question.

“What do you want?”

It wasn’t not exactly ego that made him assume this person, or whatever it was, was after him. Everyone knew he ran this corner of the city—police, gangs, everyone important. If the man didn’t want something from Naruto and was making himself so obvious in the very heart of Naruto territory, he was stupid. As he sat, Naruto would see in the corner of his eyes, Konohamaru and Gaara waiting to see if he needed any help. Naruo wasn’t insulted. His friends were just paranoid. With good reason, but paranoid.

The old man on his multi-colored mat covered in odd carvings and old tea pots looked up. His fox-like face and bushy eyebrows were comical when paired with coke bottle glasses. He looked like a typical old guy, holding no harm for anyone especially not someone like Naruto. Naruo felt his hackles go up, that gut reaction life had taught him to follow. Naruto had excellent instincts when it came to people. The old man smiled.

“The question is, Naruto, what do you want?” The voice wasn’t old, not young, not really anything but incredibly easy to listen too. Naruto shifted uncomfortably.

“Hey, you’re the one bumming around in my park,” Naruto defended. “You here to give me something, or you just messing with me?”

The old man tipped his head. “I have been called quite the prankster.”

“Your make-ups pretty good, but it takes more than that to get past me, you know,” Naruto grimaced. “I am the prankster here, believe it.”

The old man’s smile widened just a fraction. “I have no doubt. I only came to ask if you wanted to meet them.”

“Who? You’re not talking any sense, old man.” Naruto had a good humor. A wild temper, but a good humor for idiots like him and old men who made no sense. He didn’t get violent unless people really needed it.

“The pink haired girl from your dreams—the dark haired boy too,” The old man’s arthritic fingers fiddled with a bundle of carvings. “Oh, what were their names…”

“How do you know about them?” Naruto’s body had tensed all over at the mention of them. He saw Gaara and Konohmaru shift in response to his body language and made himself relax. “What’re you driving at old man?”

“Mmm? I was just wondering if you wanted to meet them, the ones you’ve been looking for your whole life.” The man flashed a look at Naruto, eyes bright and no color of the human eye. That grin turned to something less friendly and harmless. Something with a lot more bite in it. Naruto grabbed the old man’s coat, realizing something he’d known all along. This man, he wasn’t human.

“Don’t play with me.” Naruto growled. He’d reached the point he could feel Gaara and Konohamaru behind him.

“I’m not playing. I’m just offering a deal,” The man apologized, holding his amazingly young looking hands out in appeasement. They were rough hands, with viciously calloused palms and thick nails.

“You haven’t got anything I want,” Naruto retorted. “Nothing I can’t get without you. I want to find someone, I find them.”

“Ah, but you can’t find them, can you? Nor can you find out why you dream about them, and other people you meet. . .” The old man flashed his eyes towards the approaching Gaara and Konohamaru, then back to Naruto. “I can tell you all those things you want to know about yourself. Why you dream of someplace that doesn’t exist, and of people you’ve never met.”

Naruto shoved the old man back and stood. “I don’t need your help.” Warning bells were screaming off in his head. This man was dangerous. The things he talked about were things not to be messed with. Naruto should go back to his people, his friends, and take care of them.

The man just kept smiling. “If you change your mind, just let me know.” Gaara and Konohamaru were at his shoulders. Naruto turned with a smile, assuring them that everything was fine. He ushered them away from the old man, glancing back once to see that the old man was still watching. Waiting.

He could wait until Hell froze over. Naruto wouldn’t be back.
~
A month and dreams of faces he didn’t really know. Naruto went to sit on the old park bench the old man had been by. He lit up a cigarette, ignoring the fall bite in the air as he breathed out smoke. Temmee. That name followed him in his dreams. It drove him crazy that while he knew faces, he didn’t know their names. He knew them better than anyone else, but they weren’t real.

Were they?

He’d thought the same about others. Konohamaru he’d dreamed about before they met. Gaara after. Genma after as well, though only once. Naruto had a string of people who’d shown up in dreams only to appear in real live and vice versa. Was he crazy? Psychic? Too many books in the orphanage?

When the young woman in her old fashioned Kimono leaned against the table and stole the cigarette from his fingers, Naruto didn’t jump. He’d been waiting for her, after all.

“What are their names?”

“Sasuke and Sakura,” The names come out with a noxious curl of smoke. Naruto repeated the names. They sounded right against his tongue. Naruto glanced at the golden eyes woman with the fox face.

“Where are they?”

Her smile wasn’t kind. “I said I was here for a trade, not charity.”

“What do you want, money?” Naruto dug in his pocket, but the woman’s thin hand fell on his wrist.

“No, favors,” Her smiled stretched. “I find them, you do what I ask, no questions.”

Naruto considered. He’d made it this far in life without shackling his soul to the devil. He’d made deals, but he’d never gone back on his standards. He’d always come out on top. “I don’t kill people, or ruin those who don’t deserve it.” Naruto extended a hand. “Deal?”

“Deal,” The scimitar smile as the woman shook his hand sent shivers down his spine.

Naruto hoped he landed on his feet this time

November: 15

bizzylizzybee — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:19:56 GMT

Fandom: Naruto
Characters: Shisui and Itachi
Summary: In which Shisui is a dork, and Itachi is frustrated.
Warnings/Ratings: Crack, fluff, nonsense.

Itachi hated going to parties with Shisui.

Well, he must not hate it completely. He just hated what Shisui did at parties. It always happened, and as Itachi had been to a total of seven parties with Shisui, and it happened every time, one would think he would stop going.

The problem was, Shisui played in a band.

...not that Itachi had anything against bands, not really. Some, well, yes, he did, but Shisui's band actually sounded good. They were a garage band, but Shisui was magically devoted to his guitar, constantly plucking it and playing, even when he should be doing other things. His voice was, despite his age, mid-range, with a hint of roughness on the edges that made girls flush at the sound.

Yet another thing Shisui excelled at. Itachi wasn't jealous, but it stood to mention that Shisui was second in all his classes with Itachi, first in the rest, played quarterback, had all the track records in the state by now (almost), and was the most popular smart jock in school. He could do no wrong.

Except now, Itachi was going to strangle him.

At least Itachi had had the foresight to drag a few of his friends along with him. It wasn't helping much. Itachi buried his head in his hands and waited to die. Something was going to hemorrhage soon and he would be spared another round of humiliation. People were cheering, but most of the sound in the room was Shisui singing.

Singing to Itachi.

A love song,

Again.

"Run baby run, don't ever look back. They'll tear us apart if you give them the chance."

If Itachi looked up, he knew Shisui would be looking right at him.(Don't say we're not meant to be.) Shisui's singing was embarrassingly earnest when ever he did this. He had a, admittedly, sexy voice. Itachi liked sounds. He was intensely visual, yes, but sound was like candy.

Shisui’s voice sounded like dark honeyed candy with a granulated texture. It scraped the tongue as it melted into the taste buds. (Wishing wanting, yours for the taking.) The guitar was higher, thinner, and almost sour. (3-2-1 fall in my arms now)

Itachi peered through his fingers and found Shisui was doing that dorky heart thing with his hands as he took a break from being the 'awesome' lead guitarist. (The view from here is getting better with you by my side.) Itachi let his head thump down onto the table. He groaned. Shisui. Shisui was an IDIOT.

"Gee, Itachi, don't be so loud. Need some alone time?" Iruka asked. (Forever we'll be you and me, You and me~) Itachi picked up his head and glared. Having Shisui embarrass him was bad enough, but comments from the peanut gallery? That was taking it all just a little too far. A little more than he could take with the bass thrumming in his ears, and the wailing strains of guitar whining sour in his mouth. Shisui's band ended the song with a bang, just as Itachi kicked Iruka's chair out from under him, punching him in the face before he hit the ground. Itachi seethed out of the room, ignoring the applause and the gasps. His face was burning, and Shisui just grinned like he'd given Itachi the best present ever.

Stupid. STUPID. Shisui.

But.

Itachi was the one who always came to the stupid parties.

November: 14

bizzylizzybee — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 04:00:57 GMT

Fandom: Naruto
Characters: Kisame and Itachi
Summary: Itachi is a puzzle. Kisame does not solve puzzles. He prefers to let them unfold.
Warnings/Ratings: Third day of fever induced writing, character pondering.

Itachi is an odd puzzle.

Madara sells him with that smile that says he knows more than he says,but he sells him as a prodigy that has just killed his entire family as a test. Kisame, a true believer in the pervasive fabrication of reality, takes nothing at face value and pushes his new little partner when they meet. Itachi pushes himself as not a fish, not bound to the
ideology of violence, lies, and kin slaying Kisame knows to be the only way of the world.

For a sadist, Itachi plays quite the pacifist.

Itachi tries to sell himself as what Madara issues him to be, and what he needs the world to see him to be. Thirteen years living is still young, Kisame ponders that he has lived almost twice as long as his killer partner. He does not doubt Itachi's status as a killer. He doubts the boy's sincerity in his killing fervor. Give a man red eyes, and they can still be cold. Give him slaughter, and his heart can still shrink from it, body be repulsed, mind sidestep the glory of a blood bath. Kisame has been killing for years. He has known killers, slain killers, watched ninja grudgingly stick a knife in someone. Kisame considers himself an expert when it comes to death and the attitudes people carry about it.

Itachi does not fit as a killer.

At first, Kisame feels only the niggling doubt that this child is not what he has been told he is. Thirteen is young, even an old thirteen like Itachi's. For the first month, Itachi acts the perfect robotic ninja. He does as told, eats without relish, moves with the contained, dispassionate grace of someone doing a job with no enjoyment, no
remorse, no emotion at all. A perfect little psychopath.

Almost a month to the day--Kisame counts later when he knows more and realizes a month to the day of Shisui's death--Kisame wake to the soft, tiny, suppressed inward breath of a broken child. Itachi sits watch, still silence in the woods, back ramrod straight. The quiver of a shoulder, the upward twitch of the head. The absence of breath then another, muffled, sharp, needy gasp for air coupled with that high, involuntary sound Kisame hasn't heard in years. It takes another little gasp, followed by an imperceptible sniff to make Kisame realize his little mechanical partner is crying. The ridiculous thought that Itachi will rust invades Kisame's mind, pushed out by the morbid speculation that, once again, nothing is as it is. Itachi is a lie. Try as he might, he cannot impersonate so fully something he is not, not yet, not completely.

Uchiha Itachi is a perfectly functional human being with regrets and sorrows.

The Sharingan hides the red eye in the morning, but Itachi does not preform as normal. Kisame watches and the boy stumbles. His hands stutter through motions, he eats nothing, he looks at the tea Kisame places in front of him with eyes a fraction too wide, lips a bit uniform. What Itachi is remains a mystery, what he isn't became all too clear. Not a murderer in cold blood. Not heartless. Not one who killed with satisfaction of a job well done or a challenge well fought.

No, Itachi is a child. Thirteen and aching with what he doesn't know. For what Kisame doesn't know.Kisame can guess, in the Mist style three ringed necklace Itachi wears, and the Mangekyou that makes his eyes bleed with guilt. Rivers bring Itachi low, erode any sense of control the boy clings to with tired hands. Low fall brings bitter cold that Itachi's not used to, and the wide, sluggish river can't be one the boy has ever seen. Still, two dark haired boys dart about on the surface of the ice, laughing and calling names to each other. One wears a bright red cap, the other blinding blue as they slide and crash together on the sullen, dark river ice.

Itachi draws that tense breath through his nose, his jaw tightens, loosens, lips purse and relax before he bites his lower lip. Children and a river. Memories a killer would not cherish. Memories that would not bring him near tears in the harsh daylight of a winter morning. Itachi startles badly when Kisame touches the back of his arm--a mindless jump with no direction, no violent reaction of protection. His head whips around, for a moment Itachi looks wide open. Crazy, trapped, flying loose from all moorings and sense as he looks up up at Kisame. For a moment, Kisame thought he might see a break down. A total loss of very restraint and control.

Oh wouldn't that be interesting, wouldn't it be fun?

Wouldn't it be terrifying?

Itachi's eyes dart back to the children. Body tense for a five count longer. He swallows, breaths in an unsteady breath then lets it all out.

"It's going to snow."

Something the dark clouds have told them both all day, but Kisame nods. Snow. Itachi suggested a lodging, Kisame agrees. They walk along the river bank. Before Itachi slams up a genjustu to hide them, Kisame catches him wiping tears from his face with a hand that trembles.

Not a killer, not a mechnical robot, just a child with nowhere left to turn.

Kisame gives Itachi the privacy of their room for whatever grieving ritual the boy needs to follow. He picks out foods he knows Itachi is partial too, spends too much time being beaten by the new falling snow while he considers what has changed, what hasn't, and how he will deal with all of this. The answer seems obvious. Carry on as before. He will let Itachi decide if the lie should be lived, or if it should be discarded for something more like the truth. He returns to find Itachi asleep, though he wakes when Kisame enters they door.

In that moment, the red rimmed eye are real, the disorganized hair, the bitten lip, the sleepy hand clutching the necklace like a life line. All real and intensley private.

Kisame does not fool himself into thinking Itachi could not have hidden this or that he trusts Kisame.The most likely reason is the simplest, the one that fits best with a thirteen year-old killer who doesn't love or wish to kill.

He simply doesn't care anymore.

November: 13

bizzylizzybee — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 02:41:21 GMT

Fandom: Original/prjct_wildchild
Characters: Emmett
Summary: Philosophy of lying and breathing under water.
Warnings/Ratings: None

Truth was something that happened to other people.

Emmett knew the difference between truths and lies. Truth was real. Lies were fake--fabrications of the mind.

"There are stars on the ceiling."

Sometimes lies were bad ones.

"I understand."

Ambiguous.

"No, I don't mind."

When everyone knew you lied, was there really a point to lying at all? To making it beleivable?

"I'll find her."

Oh, and how important it now was to tell the right lie, which was actually the truth when they KNEW you were a dirty liar and had taught you to be one with every word. Emmett, this is a lie. Emmett, this is the truth. Emmett, you must never tell a truth. You must never be true.

You are a lie.

Well, not he himself, that was being just a bit over dramatic. The lie, the fake, was just everything everyone else knew about him. A very bad lie, because everyone knew he was a lie, but he had learned. He had schooled himself to never let himself slip any truth into his words, because that would be lying, in a way.

It struck him all as very backwards and nonsense, but he did it. He was good, whatever else he was. A liar by training, but the child everyone always knew to lie all the time, so basically the most truthful person Emmett knew was himself. The liar.

(They'd given him a book, once. Jakob the Liar. Shown him what lies could do to someone. To a people, how they could give hope and despair all at once. It also showed him how large lies were. How they grew and morphed and you had to be SMART to keep them up and running. How the best had that small, skewed nugget of truth at the center.)

That wasn't all of his training. There was the water breathing. They had tanks for him--pure water, pool water, ocean water, and pond water. He wondered how many like him they'd drowned before they'd gotten him right. What happened to the failures? Did they die? Did they get adopted out? How many took that first breath of water and felt their lung burn and reject instead of the heavy weight of water surging in and out so smoothly?

Emmett didn't know, and he'd never asked. Hard to lie when asking a question, but he felt that he didn't want to know that. He had enough problems without feeling like the end result of a line of dead kids. A liar was enough of a burden for him to carry while he was lying under the water, breathing in and out for as long as he could without choking.

"Fifteen. Try for twenty next time." Captain pulled him out of the chilled water, letting him slid out of the tank and onto the mats below. Emmett coughed up a lungful of water. Breathe freezing water for twenty minutes.

"NO problem," Emmett wheezed. Unlike everyone else, Captain gave him that scar crooked smirk.

"You do that, Emmy, you do that."

Because, Captain always said, one day people will f------- believe you, and you better be ready for it. Emmett just thought the former Seal was a sadist.

Who would ever believe a liar?

November: 12

bizzylizzybee — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 12:50:38 GMT

Fandom:Naruto
Characters: Kakashi, Team 7
Summary: Kakashi ponders Team 7 and the problems they will cause.
Warnings/Ratings: Character exploration and experimentation.

Kakashi hated politics.

He really shouldn't have taken Team 7 on, no matter how they intrigued him. Sakura posed no problem. She had civilian parents, no real concept of what it meant to be a ninja, and Kakashi didn't know if she'd actually stick it out. Her infatuation with Sasuke would only carry her so far, but he wasn't going to drag the girl into things too quickly. These peace kids were so very different from what he was used to, he was not certain how to gauge them. Only Sasuke showed the normal gravity and blood lust, and Kakashi would not call him typical.

More like broken.

It was taken for granted that Kakashi, as the last possessor of the Sharingan, would teach Sasuke how to use his. Assuming he had it. Kakashi didn't think anything was certain. No one talked about the Uchiha that popped up with the Sharingan, but they had happened. Obito had worried obsessively about his Sharingan activating. Needlessly, but obsessively. Sasuke, well, time would tell if he had more than Gennin promise. He was nothing like Obito, completely opposite and uncomfortably like the Uchiha stereotype Kakashi had grown wary of.

Beyond the unstated obligation people seemed to think he ought to have towards Sasuke, there were other complications with teaching the boy. One, he'd never be satisfied with a moderate pace that Kakashi would rather take with these kids. Two, there was the subtle suggestion he'd gotten that, maybe, Sasuke shouldn't be pushed to his full potential. After all, his brother had gone crazy and slaughtered his entire clan. Enable Sasuke, and who knew what he would do? Kakashi could see it stemming from the age old distrust of the Uchiha. Yeah, the Uchiha were great, after they were dead and couldn't cause anymore problems.

Kakashi didn't have anything against Sasuke personally, but he was getting tired of having pivotal Uchiha in his life. The kid gave him a queasy feeling, and after Obito and Itachi, Kakashi was starting to think, not that all Uchiha were bad, but and he managed to come into contact with ones that ended badly. Obito has caused much guilt and many changes in Kakashi's life, some not really pleasant or helpful. Though there was really no way Kakashi could blame himself for what Itachi had done, he had just had coffee with the boy the morning before. Itachi had seemed exceptionally normal, even cracking a joke. A bad, rather morbid joke, but ANBU humor wasn't very nice either, so Kakashi had let it slide. He;d thought Itachi had been trying, an failing, to be normal.

It didn't make him the best person to mentor Sasuke, who seemed on the path to flying off the handle as Itachi had.

And then. Naruto. Political complications likely to strangle Kakashi.

Disregarding his blinding personality, Naruto was Konoha's jinchuuriki. More than that, he had the Kyuubi shoved into his stomach after the creature had demolished a good portion of Konoha. While Naruto hadn't done it, people had directed their anger at him. Now the kid acted like he had something to prove, which he did, but no one wanted him to prove it. The council was of two minds about Naruto. He was a great asset, but he was also wild and unpredictable. Sarutobi had demanded he be allowed to become a ninja, but now Kakashi had people leaning on him, hinting that maybe, just maybe, Naruto would be safer in Konoha, you know? Wouldn't want someone else to steal their demon box, now would they? Kakashi hid behind his porn when this happened, and the pleasant 'I'm sorry, were you talking to me?' often worked to dissuade people. Not all people, but some. It convinced them he was bumbling and harmless. Just another crazy jounin, that was him.

He felt a little partial and repulsed by Naruto. He was Minato's son, but he was also a great reminder of the man's death. It helped that he didn't act a thing like Minato, but his personality also grated of Kakashi's nerves. The loud bravado was getting old fast, and Naruto seemed to be as socially blind as he was color blind. Orange, really? Was he trying to make himself a more visible target? Kakashi didn't believe in pushing people into the rather damning role of the ninja. Naruto would figure out how to work it or that it wasn't for him soon enough. Kakashi would make sure the kid didn't kill himself before then.

Really, he still couldn't decide why he'd taken on Team 7. They were only going to cause trouble and potential heartbreak. Maybe Kakashi was a cynic, but these kids both disgusted and aggravated him. They were too young, too niave, and had no idea what they were getting into as they squabbled amongst each other. They reminded Kakashi of his own team, and that did not bode well.

No, Kakashi got the feeling the story of Team 7 would not be a happy one, and now he'd shackled himself to another heartbreak.

Novermber: 11

bizzylizzybee — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 22:35:55 GMT

Fandom:Naruto
Characters: Itachi and Shisui
Summary: Coffee and kisses and a little something more. (Prompted for "Girl With One Eye")
Warnings/Ratings: R for violence, a little swearing, and some disturbing things.

Two cups of coffee and a kiss. Innocent enough, yes? And Shisui was so innocent. That quirky grin, his odd sayings and mannerisms. Childish.

"Don't step on the cracks."

That smile. Eyes crinkled at the corners, warm and kind. Bright like his funny scarf and hat. And you like bright things. Yes, you do. An odd weakness for someone like you.

"You'll break you mother's back!"

His hand curls into your back, ushering you forward. Even through your shirt, his hand is warm. Your cheeks heat. People turn to look as you glance up at him. Are they jealous? Are they wondering why his touch lingers? Siblings? Friends? Lovers? Shisui smiles, and you wish you knew the answer to that question.

He was the one who approached you as you checked your hair in the mirror. He grinned behind you, never creepy, simply there and ask if you wanted some coffee. He said you looked like a little doll. You wore the little blue sundress your mother had gotten you, the drape and flare at the hips gave you the illusion of a better figure--or any at all, really.

He bought you coffee. He bought you a cookie. He promised you another coffee next week. He made you excited.

Two cups of coffee and a kiss. A warning. A touch on the sidewalk.

"Don't fuss. Relax." Another kiss, just as soft. His knees on either side of your hips. His breath warm on your face. He smells like coffee, and he curls his warm fingers against your skull, sliding up your thigh. Today you're wearing a red dress, black tomoe patterns on it. You put it on and felt pretty.You wondered if he would like it.

The skirt bunches up around his hand. He kisses your jaw. Your neck. Hot shiver, prickles of excitement and fear as your body tenses. His fingers rub your skin, trace your eye. His lips do something that makes your back arch.

Two cups of coffee and a kiss. That's all he had over you. That's all you'd given him.

How did you end up like this?

"Don't worry, it's not going to hurt." The sleeveless dress has slid down. You feel exposed. he's rucked your skirt up around your waist, teased his hands along your flesh as he pets you. You try to push him away, but he's larger and stronger. You can't move him. All his nonsensical chatter doesn't seem so charming anymore.

Such pretty eyes.

He strokes your face.

Such beautiful eyes.

He presses his fingers into your flesh, and his lips muffle your scream. His flesh dips into yours. Pain rises up sharp and real and breaking everything in your head apart. As hard as you fight, as hard as you struggle, nothing changes. His nails scrape against bone. A scream is swallowed in his mouth. You want to scream loud enough for the world to here, but he won’t let you. Something tears. Lights flash in your head, colors brighter than anything you’ve ever seen. You feel the flow of blood.

Hot blood all over. Sliding thick and burning down your skin. You're crying, but it doesn't matter, does it. He's telling you so stop being silly. It doesn't hurt. Stop screaming. Stop crying. It doesn't hurt. Really, it doesn’t hurt. Hush. Shhh.

Shut the fuck up bitch.

Your eye doesn't close all the way anymore. The damage to the eyelid was extensive, the doctor’s said. The acrylic eye looks almost normal, but it doesn't move. Of course you can't see out of it. There's nothing there to see with. You take an extra ten minutes putting on eye make-up. Taking it off. Putting it on.

It never looks quite right.

And you used to have such pretty eyes.

November: 10

bizzylizzybee — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 04:20:17 GMT

Fandom:Naruto
Characters: Iruka and Kakashi
Summary: Iruka teaches Kakashi and old teaching tradition
Warnings/Ratings: Drinking, angst, unpolished.

It's an old tradition Iruka teaches him in the bar, the morning after. Too early for drinks, but in a life of too lates, it works out.

A teacher's tradition. One shot for each student lost.

Five other teachers join then, Asuma watches, no drinks and only the stale taste of cigarettes to remind him of the bitterness of life. One old teacher doesn't seem to have enough, and Kakashi is told:

When you can't drink them all, that means it's time for you to let go.

This can't be healthy, but Kakashi watches as Iruka lines up the bitter, bitter shots, more poison than pleasure. Iruka names all five. He rotates through names on different days, because Iruka hasn't learned how to let go. Each name has a face. A story. A death.Kakashi doesn't want to know about them.

Instead, he taps the cold glass on the counter. Everyone stares at him, and he drags the mask from his face.

Sasuke.

One motion, bitter burning bit of a taste, blazing an acid trail all the way down as he swallows. Kakashi's eye waters, and Iruka something between slaps and pats him on the back. Camaraderie in failure. In grief.

Kakashi feels no better, no closer to absolved. He's told:

That's not the point. You remember--his face, what you did wrong, what happened to make you lose him, and, next time, you do a kid better, and you don't lose him.

Kakashi feels almost compelled to point out multiple shots some down, ask why 'better' does not seem to be good enough. Iruka has that sickly sideways look of pain in his eyes, and Kakashi tactfully does not speak his though, or ask why Iruka drank a shot for Sasuke too.

Guilt and logic have never been good bedfellows.

November: 9

bizzylizzybee — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 00:16:26 GMT

Fandom: Naruto
Characters: Ino
Summary: Ino on life, love, teamwork, and when to kick a guy in the nuts.
Warnings/Ratings: Swearing, name calling, Experimentation with characterization.

Ino was a bitch.

She gained that name from the other girls in their last year at the Academy. The fist girl who said it ended up poisoned by lunch. The second and third developped horendous body ordor. Then, it ceased to bother Ino. After all, the girld were right.

She was a bitch, and she was going to be proud of it.

She was mean, she was hard, she didn't take flak from any boy, girl, woman or man. She thought much of herself, and why not? She was Ino Yamanaka, and no one had better forget it. It took a tough woman to be a Kunoichi, and that was what Ino was going to be. Sure, she liked boys, she mooned over Sasuke, but that was because Sasuke was the pinnacle. He was the top of the class, and if Ino could get him, she'd win. What she'd win wasn't so clear, but it would be a win. Oh, it helped that Sasuke was hot and all mysterious, but it was mostly because he was the best. Ino wasn't the best herself, but she could certainly have the best.

By Gennin, she had embraced her title of bitch, though fewer people used it. Shikimaru only called her that once before she knocked him out. Chouji never did, though he might have thought it. Ino was just trying to whip her sorry boys into shape. They were her team, and if they didn't make a good showing thay'd be letting down the Ino-Shika-Cho tradition! They had to make a good team. Had to.

Ino was a bitch, and you didn't mess with a bitch unless you wanted to get bitten.

She knew her limits. She wasn't the best, she needed work, and she would never be the best. She did have things she was going to do. Like never let her team down. Drilling endlessly past exhaustion to get their formations right and learn everything about each others techniques. They were going to be a team, and maybe if they couldn't be the best alone, they could be the best together.

"I'm a bitch, you're lazy, and Chouji's fat." Ino sat tucking flowers into Shikimaru's hair.

"Sorry your team's not glamorous,' Shikimaru muttered, not really awake.

Ino laughed. "It just makes me look better."

And she wanted to look better, because maybe that school girl crush on Sasuke was something more, and gods he was so hot. He excelled and made every around him look bad--especially those in his team. Ino was no glad they hadn't been placed on a team together for that reason. Chouji and Shikimaru saw her at her worst, rarely at her best. At this point, she couldn't take that risk with Sasuke. Her resolve to make Sasuke hers was even stronger now. Goals? Let Sasuke know she was interested and show him she was the best kunoichi for the job. Bloodlines were impoartant to clanners, something Sakura couldn't understand. It gave Ino an edge. Sasuke wasn't looking for a nice personality (not that Sakura had that, but...).

Her edge walked out of Konoha when she was thirteen. Sasuke left. Her boys couldn't bring him back, and now he was a Missing-nin. A bad guy. It was one thing to moon after an 'bad boy' another to pine after a village betraying criminal. Childhood affections still held on, but fourteen was young, and there were hot boys aplenty in Konoha, all willing to have a litle fun. Winning Sasuke had just gotten harder, and Ino wasn't going to give up. She trained twice as hard with Sakura and Chouji to make Chuunin, getting all the silly sad little Team 7 stories she could stand, which made it easier to put Sasuke on the back burner. Chuunin first, then think boy.

Then get your heart broken. What did you know? Even bitches had hearts.
~
"You can have him."

Sakura looked up at Ino, who felt more like a ninja than she ever had in the new uniform. "Who?"

"Sasuke," Ino shrugged when Sakura flinched. Oh, she'd cried when she's heard about everything he'd done, but that had been more for something she'd known was dead for years. Ino knew how villages and loyalties worked. Missing-nin were not people you could trust or love. She practically deserved getting hurt like that for hanging onto Sasuke for far too long. It had taken her too long to let go of someone who didn't deserve her. Hadn't she always wanted the best?

"He's an ass," Ino flipped her hair over her shoulder and shrugged.

Sakura still gave her that dumbfounded look for five seconds longer, then she smirked. "Donkey and the pig? Sounds like a good match to me."

Ino scoffed, waving a hand. Her nail polish was chipped. Probably wouldn't get a chance to fix that for a while. "Funny billboard brow, really funny. I've got my own boys to look out for, so you've got to take care of yours on your own." There was love, then there was team love. Sakura looked at Ino, clouded green eyes, and Ino knew Sakura had never given up. Sakura would never understand how to let go of a missing-nin who didn't deserve anything anymore.

Ino couldn't blame her. Sakura didn't have ninja parents, she didn't have the edge Ino had when it came to knowing these things. Also, she was a bleeding heart, not a cold bitch who knew when to kick some bastard in the nuts for break her heart, her best friend's heart, and throwing himself into the wrong side of a war that would get them all killed.

Ino was a bitch, but that was the way to survive this world.