Muse

Muse

By Acacia-Brown

Chapter Three

* * * *

There was the sound of high heels and screeching wheels on the pavement outside and Itachi found himself turning to look out of the window onto the grisly gloom of the day outside. The slight misty rain tumbled down onto the tarmac road, a slight grey fog wavered over the ground, clinging to the sides of buildings like thick, moist cobwebs, that dripped down the sides of bricks in fat cold tears of rain.

The café was a small one, situated on a greasy street corner, where dirt filled the pavement cracks, just before the landscape morphed into upper class areas, just between the good properties and places where the houses sold two for a penny.

At night gang leaders, thugs, and prostitutes hung about in the shadow of buildings, the latter all in black stilettos and green stockings, lashes of thick mascara beneath black blocks of eyeliner, the cheap smell of perfume and rub of crimson paint across lips. Others with stubs of fingers in pockets, thumb and forefinger running over the edge of a knife, the rolling eyes of a drug addict and the plastic scuffle of syringes as they rolled down in piles towards the gutter. Itachi slowly rocked forwards in his chair. There was a thin film of something on top of his cup of grimy tasting coffee that could sometimes be seen in the hard yellow light of the ceiling lamp as it flickered erratically on and off, on and off.

He let the film condense against the side of his cup, unconscious of the look of disgust that rolled crossways over his lips as he did so, the sound of tinny Latin music ringing inside his head from the cheap mounted stereo on the wall.

Why had Shisui chosen this place? This grimy, greasy little café where the waitress’s hair was so blonde it looked like she’d used a bucket of toilet bleach on it that morning instead of hair dye. A place where the toilets didn’t flush and a constant crust of dead skin, grime and dirt coated the outer rim of the taps.

This place was simple really. This dingy little corner of the world was the same as all the other places which Shisui insisted they met up in after hours, the times in which Itachi would say to Sasuke ‘I’ll be back later’ only to turn up at 4 am in the morning too tired to speak, all his energy pointed in the direction of his own bed and a few blissful hours of sleep. Sasuke never asked…Itachi didn’t even know if he supposed and thank god he never told either. It was blessing in disguise perhaps that Sasuke hardly talked to Itachi anymore, because the less Itachi told him, the less Madara would be able to squeeze out of him at those unexpected but accursed family summons.

Madara was the reason Itachi was sitting in a squat little café on a rainy evening with nothing but a chipped cup of undrinkable coffee between his frozen fingers staring intently at the rain slithering down the window.

This was a place were no one would see them.

Warm fingers wrapped around his wrist, a meandering warmth sliding down to his palm and then making small circles.

“Hey, if I get promoted to Chief Superintendent, do you think I should get a Panama hat?”

The languid, bored expression on Itachi’s face slipped suddenly, taking in the words and who had said them. His mouth twisted into half a smile, and half a grimace of confusion.

“A Panama hat?” he asked contemptuously, “don’t be a moron Shisui, you’d look ridiculous.”

A sharp bark of deep laughter, but the fingers still hadn’t left Itachi’s wrist, the rub of skin which moved down to each of his individual fingers until they were prised away from the side of the cup, linking with a hand rougher and darker than his own.

“You don’t think it would make me look distinguished?” there was a flicker of laughter in Shisui’s light grey eyes, a characteristic quirk of his mouth and a soft dimple in one cheek.

“It’s just a hat Shisui,” Itachi replied smoothly, his fingers neither holding back, nor pulling away, “it can’t perform miracles.”

Shisui laughed again a low deep sound, almost melodious, and Itachi caught himself thinking of a time five years ago, after his life had been turned over and onto his head, and that same laugh he’d heard from the top of the house echoing it’s way down. The sort of laugh that made him think of closets, alleyways, cheap hotel rooms and the strong smell of alcohol mixed with sweat and semen.

A breath of the past and the present, but not the future.

“I missed you,” Shisui said simply, he had that look on his face again, rough features inside of a handsome face crowned with high cheek bones and a strong chin.
Itachi wondered calmly if he actually meant it, he bit back the retort on his tongue that fought to come surging up his oesophagus.

“Like hell,” he thought bitterly, “like hell.”

“I thought maybe you’d like to-” Shisui began, that charming smile like warm chocolate, slow and sincere. But there was only so much that could be played on Itachi’s fraying nerves. He’d left the office early on a miserable day and had got into the car with the full intention of picking Sasuke up from his lecture on his way home from work for perhaps a surprise trip to the theatre or movie (Itachi’s choice of course) when he’d received a text on his mobile with the street address and the letters ‘I need to see you’ glinting fresh and black on his Motorola monitor.

He’d stood for a moment, drizzle in his hair and edging down the nape of his neck, rolling thoughts over and over in his mind. Today was that day, he should see Sasuke and apologise about interrogating that blond man whom he had found standing semi-naked in his kitchen the other day. Not that he had been that harsh on the youth, considering. Besides once Itachi had convinced himself that the blond had no brains but more libido that could fill an eggcup, the conversation had more than happily drifted onto sports, racing cars and classic cars. Only Sasuke had taken the odd notion into his head that Itachi had actually been flirting with the young blond, and in a cloud of silent anger had been ignoring Itachi all week. Although Itachi could hardly understand as to why something like that would actually bother Sasuke; he scarcely seemed to care about anything anymore.

But here he was, ignoring his brother, ignoring his better sense, ignoring his dignity, his pride and even his judgement. Just for this man with the slow infectious smile and silver grey eyes like the beginning of a mercury lake.

“You want,” he began slowly, “what you always want when we meet up like this.” There was no bitterness in his voice, but a sharp clear resolution as he flicked the half full coffee mug with the tip of his forefinger.

He could feel Shisui giving him a long steady look, “Can I help it if I always feel the same way after meeting you?” he said simply, his fingers still laced over Itachi’s his other fingers reaching forward.

A meandering trail across his lips dragging his lower lip down with the rough pad of his thumb, Itachi could taste salt and the tart tingle of metal against the tip of his tongue, for a moment he considered biting Shisui’s thumb, but only found himself to be closing his eyes and allowing the trail of fire to move down and across his chin, spanning the length of his neck and bringing the back of his head in closer for a kiss.

He didn’t resist, he didn’t even try.

The thought swimming leisurely about his head in a bobbing pool of other thoughts of how he ought to stop and turn away, but only felt his free hand, the one that Shisui wasn’t touching gripping the side of the small table fiercely until his knuckles bled pure white.

Shisui pulled back first, eyes half closed and heavy, he was the initiator, the negotiator on rigged and uneven ground where the enemy lurks restless and uncaring in steep pitch shadows on either side.

“Itachi,” he said again, slightly hoarse, slightly strained. They shouldn’t be doing this, they shouldn’t be here, if Madara ever knew…

Perhaps that’s what attracted Itachi to Shisui so much, the fact that he was forbidden territory, a dark night in shining armour inside the enemy’s fortress. Something that Madara would absolutely forbid, Itachi’s way of rebelling against the family rules, his way of twisting the lines, some place to channel his anger into someone who knows…who understands…who is also part of that system. Like stars intertwined in fate, if they were either of them exposed, together they’d fall.

This time Itachi didn’t even hesitate.

He went outside in the rain to hail down a taxi, he sat in the backseat with Shisui pressed up against him, next to him, fingers running through the dark strands of his hair, teeth biting at his lower lip as he closed his eyes and tilted his head backwards…back and back…delirious, high…full of anything and everything altogether and all at once.

The scene changed again, the rough scratch of keys in a cheap lock and the light wood like substance of a door being pushed forcefully backwards, shuddering as it slammed against the interior wall as Itachi stumbled through, clinging to Shisui’s neck pressed right up against a wall and held there. He felt nibbling at the base of his collarbone and let out a low, sensual groan, wishing that Shisui would just hurry the fuck up.

It had been so long, three months almost, three months since Shisui’s case took him to Greece, the Caribbean, the tip of South Africa, places far, far away and oceans apart.

They haven’t had each other since then and suddenly they were both ravenous.

The foreplay was almost savage, rough fingers pulling at clothes, Itachi laughing, dark eyes almost black looking up into the face of his lover as he lay flat on his back feeling completely in control, arching, winding, twisting against Shisui’s flat, taught chest.

Shisui…Shisui who was by no means his first, but the one who had opened his eyes when he was just barely eighteen years old.

Shisui who had told him a month after his parents had died when Itachi had been vulnerable and alone…so alone…that he had loved him and always had. Shisui…his second cousin, five years his senior, Shisui who had whispered all those delicious, unrepeatable things into his ears in the backseat of his car at a late night movie drive in.

Shisui who had fucked Itachi slowly, bareback that first time, both of them almost fully clothed, Itachi who hadn’t understood until then how much pleasure and pain had been the same thing. Hadn’t understood how two people could so completely fit together, or what it was like to control someone from underneath.

He hadn’t understood the craving that had fled pell-mell around his system. Hadn’t understood the nervous tick that had bothered him until they’d gone round to the main house again and he’d seen Shisui standing in the foyer. He’d made some excuse, left Sasuke inside and gone out into the garden, it had been raining that day too and he’d walked all the way towards the Summer House before Shisui had caught him.

His light brown hair flecked with rain and water dripping from his lashes, lightening stippled the sky at odd intervals, illuminating everything black, white and grey, but nothing had seemed to matter…to compare even to the heat radiating between them.

Itachi didn’t describe it as love; he couldn’t describe it as love.

It was obsession he felt for Shisui, the sort of obsession that could get him out of bed at two in the morning and meet him down some obscure alleyway just so they could suck each other off. The sort of obsession where they stole kisses in the dark from each other, where blind eyes sought fumbling hands in a chase to strip each other of clothes and devour as much naked skin as possible.

Itachi couldn’t hide what he was, his personality was too strong to conceal, the sort of selfish calculating that had resided inside of him all his life, torn out for the entire world to see after his parents death when he had seen the world go tumbling to his feet.

Itachi was controlling, he was arrogant, he self-assuming, he liked to belittle people and make them feel beneath him, but he also felt.

He didn’t feel in the same way that Sasuke felt, his little brother who was always trying to stop himself from feeling too much less he should be hurt again. Itachi felt in a distant way, how people tried to hurt him, or tried to know him, sometimes he liked them and sometimes he didn’t.

Relationships fluttering like red ribbon on a gentle breeze. He could see where each of them where going and to each where they wanted to lead, but no further. There was no desire, no craving to get closer.

With Shisui it was the same.

He had no doubt that Shisui loved him, in his way, and the thought made him as excited as it had done on that stormy rainy day when he was eighteen in the Summer House, damp and naked, straddling Shisui’s naked hips and pushing himself onto Shisui’s cock, taking him deep and full into himself and moving fast and hard.

Wishing that he could make it last longer, knowing he’d learn, hearing himself cry out first and then being flipped onto his back and pushed into again, rocking their hips, back and forth, back and forth, until there was a break down of rhythm and a collapse on top of his body, wet, hot, sticky substance sliding down the inside of his thighs and down the back of his calves.

Shisui had never become a fixed part of Itachi’s world. He was always moving, flickering about, and asking for more or less, neither here nor there. Sometimes he’d turn up at the front door unexpected, that slow smile and light brown hair. He’d never ask for Itachi directly, but softly imply until Sasuke had left the room and gone out, leaving Itachi with a bottle and a half of empty wine and fingers dancing across his chest, sliding smoothly down the skin of his inner thighs.

It was the same now as it always had been. Shisui touching, tasting, trying, sliding and Itachi giving only as much as he wanted, everything by half measures, always a calculating smile and a slanted look.

Shisui left him on the bed then for a minute, half clothed and panting, fingers running through the mini-bar, “Vodka or Baileys?”

“You’re going to get me drunk?”

“I want you to relax. You’re thinking about too much again, I can see it in your eyes.”

Itachi laughed at this, flipping over to lie on his stomach and hissing a little at the friction between himself and the bed.

“Champagne,” Itachi Uchiha said lightly, “don’t you always use Champagne?”

“Champagne is for the first and last time only.” Shisui told him, the words hanging in strings that trailed across the floor.

Itachi’s eyes narrowed at this. The line seemed practised, or at least the notion behind it did, and his mind sped to Greece, the Caribbean, South Africa, and faceless lovers, thousands of them, all without names but all with silent intentions.

“Paris,” Shisui had told him when he was twenty-one, whispering against the soft spot of Itachi’s neck as they lay beneath crisp linen bed sheets, “one day I’ll take you to Paris and we can walk down the Champs-Élysées, or go to Montmartre and I’ll show you the groaning steeples of Notre Dame. Maybe one day we can go all over the world together.”

Itachi hadn’t believed him then, he still didn’t believe him now.

“Vodka,” he said flippantly, “and don’t bother with a glass.”

Whether Shisui actually thought Itachi was holding back from him, or whether he wanted to forget something himself, Itachi didn’t know. Anxious, keen and wanting all at the same time, he’d pulled Shisui back onto the bed with him, pulling his starched white shirt off his head and running his fingers through Shisui’s short brown hair, kissing, biting and nipping. Palms against the soft brown curls on Shisui’s chest and laughing when Shisui took a long draft of the alcohol and Itachi leant forwards to swirl his tongue across Shisui’s mouth.

Shisui laughed more when he was tipsy, that was a commonly known fact, but there is nothing so consuming as a lover laughing against your navel as they kiss it, gentle tremors, the sweet smell of spirits and spinning ceiling fans merging into one and the same thing as Itachi lay on his back and let Shisui do what he’d been wanting to do for the past three months. One leg hooked over Shisui’s broad shoulders, the other pulled tight against his slim waist, they made the same motions, Itachi’s breathing laboured, it came up almost fractured, sweat across his brow, his chest, and a hot flush creeping up his body. Shisui moved into him, then out again, hot, warm, pulsing, twitching, rocking, yearning, FUCK! And Itachi cried out in the end, despite that fact that he didn’t want to, and that he’d rather not. He cried out, yelled, very nearly screamed, noise smothered by the clumsy wet kiss against his lips as Shisui followed after, thumb and forefinger pulling, entwined in his hair.

They lay there for a while, getting their breath back, and Shisui leant across Itachi to pull out a cigarette from his coat pocket. It’s at times like these when Itachi notices Shisui’s build, broader, bulkier then his own.
Wider shoulders, broader, rougher face and those eyes, like a silver moon.

Shisui hadn’t changed much; not really, he still looked like the young man Itachi became infatuated with when he was only eighteen years of old. There was that same playful boyish expression, same rugged public school boy good looks and momentarily Itachi felt a twinge somewhere in his chest where he supposed his heart might have been and he moved forward to kiss Shisui voluntarily, lightly, and playfully almost on the lips. Hot tongue sliding to Shisui’s neck, nibbling, biting, sucking, tasting, worrying at the skin there, until the growl of appreciation from Shisui turned into a short but sharp intake of air.

“Don’t do that,” he said, almost fiercely, “it’ll leave a mark.”

Itachi blinked before the hard expression settled across his face again once more.

“Leave a mark for whom?” he asked acridly, sitting up cross-legged, dark eyes even darker in the shabby artificial lighting.

There’s a short start and a long fall of silence, then hesitantly, almost tenderly, which is the last thing in the world that Itachi wanted, or could ever want, “I thought you knew.”

It was a bold statement, not a question, and the full force of something Itachi had been steadily trying to ignore for these past coming weeks turned round to punch him full in the face.

“Madara arranged it Itachi. I’ve hardly ever met her, she’s part of the Kunaicho. I’m told it’s a great match and she’s certainly very lovely, I have to meet her tomorrow afternoon for lunch with-”

Itachi cut across him, not caring for details. His legs felt numb, his hands felt numb, his body felt numb, numb and cold all over as if he was unable to feel a single thing.

“When are you getting married?”

“Next month.”

There was a wry smile on Itachi’s lips as he turned to look towards the door, wondering if he should put on his clothes and leave right now.

Somehow, he’d known this was coming.

“And you want to continue this?” the last part was spoken with an inflection of revulsion and aggression, as though the syllables left a dirty taste on the inside of Itachi’s mouth. Shisui heard all of it and none of it at the same time, cigarette between his lips as his grasped Itachi by both wrists and forced him back down onto the bed and under him.

“Don’t say it like I’m the only one!” Shisui hissed down at him, as ash fell from the cigarette butt onto Itachi’s cheek. Itachi found himself prying his wrist loose so he could take the cigarette out of Shisui’s mouth and inhale the curling smoke down into his own lungs.

God, he missed nicotine.

“But you are the only one, Shisui.” He said simply, holding the long white cylindrical object between finger and thumb, “Because you can’t live without me.”

And he reached up then, small, devilish, flirtatious smile on his face beneath long lashes, and extinguished the burning embers of the cigarette on Shisui’s perfectly broad flat chest.

Shisui gasped then, and grit his teeth, it would leave a perfectly oval scar, and the pungent smell of ash and burnt skin went coiling into his nostrils.

He bent Itachi’s hand back and throwing the cigarette to the floor, nose-to-nose, mouths inches away from each other as Shisui whispered and spoke lover’s words, almost a mantra as Itachi rolled his head to the side and tried not to listen.

He was manipulative, and he was manipulated, pulled like a puppet on a string as Shisui let his hands trail across his body, feather light caresses, it was hard to resist and hard to ignore as Shisui insisted that Itachi needed him as much as Shisui needed Itachi.

Hard to ignore the way Shisui played with the shell of Itachi’s ear, tongue glancing across the rim, teeth nibbling at the lobe.

Somewhere along their intricate dance Itachi let his fingers lace one by one with Shisui’s, one by one succumbing, falling under again, moving to a rhythm that was not his own, surrendering and fighting at the same time. Trying to move the impossible and let the impossible move him.

Shisui…Shisui was his past and his present…but he was not his future.

Those were the lines he had to keep himself from crossing.

He just had to remember to remind himself of it.


* * * *



“Get out!” Sasuke yelled at Gaara with mock annoyance in his voice, throwing the television remote across the room and the pale skinned, black-eyed red head.

“Ah,” said Gaara, his hand on the side of the door ready to bolt less Sasuke Uchiha should actually become annoyed, “just making sure you weren’t suffering from a broken heart, that’s all.”

“I don’t care what your excuse was, searching through my room for my ‘Secret Diary’, which doesn’t even exist by the way, for future reference, is not, under any circumstances acceptable.”

“No,” was Gaara’s smooth and somewhat humorous reply, “you’re just mad because I found your secret stash of gay porno mags, I bet you’ve stashed your diary with your vibrator.”

This really was the last straw for Sasuke; with a yell like a wounded bull he’d leapt from the couch and chased Gaara down the stairs, through the hallway and out of the house. Gaara had stood arms crossed on the front porch and said in his calm, deep throaty voice if Sasuke was coming to his brother’s band’s performance next week on Tuesday night, taken the Uchiha’s disgruntled silence as a universal ‘yes’ and with a casual wave over his shoulder had walked off to the nearest tube station.

Sasuke had laughed, shaken his head and taken out the garbage, humming to himself distractedly and washing his hands under the kitchen sink. He’d tried hard not to think of the blond in the past few days, tried hard to think of it as a one time thing, tried not to think of Naruto kissing him, pushing him back down against the bed, tried not to remember the squeaking of the springs or the way Naruto smiled, or the way that Naruto inclined his head when he laughed.

“It would never work,” he’d told Gaara stubbornly, looking into lime green irises and finding his own bullshit to be promptly spat back out at him again, “we’re worlds part.”

“Enlighten me.” Gaara had bitten back astringently.

Sasuke’s expression had wavered for a moment his eyes flicking to the screen as the movie played the ending credits.

“He likes chocolate, I like vanilla.”

Gaara had turned round then and punched him.

* * * *

Sasuke was still humming some long forgotten tune from his childhood when the phone rang off the hook, the high-pitched sound echoing down the corridor and into the kitchen.

As soon as Sasuke picked it up he regretted it.


Madara Uchiha was never kind to Sasuke when they saw each other face to face, but then again Madara was never kind to anyone stat, but there was a certain way in which Sasuke’s eyes widened as he clutched at the receiver against his ear that showed a small trace of the panic he felt inside at the sound of Madara’s dusky thick voice.

“Where is your brother?”

Sasuke didn’t know, mistake number one.

“When will he be back?”

Sasuke didn’t know this either and felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle, as he knew it to be mistake number two.

There was an impregnated pause on the phone, the silence spiralled horribly, a head drop and a sickening crunch, “Give him a message for me.” Madara said finally after Sasuke had stood there for a moment utterly still, too afraid even to breathe loudly less Madara should disapprove.

He fumbled for a pen and paper, his hands sweating, almost shaking with repressed nerves. He wanted to slam down the phone and retreat to his bedroom, close the door and hide under the bedcovers. The sort of emotion that made him want to barricade down the house and turn on all the lights, walk into his brother’s room and…and…oh why wasn’t Itachi here?

“Oh Sasuke,” Madara said silkily just before the receiver was pulled away from the pale shell of Sasuke’s ear, “it was your mother’s birthday today wasn’t it? Shame Itachi isn’t there. But I suppose he’s got better things to do, hasn’t he?”

The sound of the unoccupied phone signal rang in his ear.

* * * *

“Someone’s at the door!” Shikamaru yelled at Kiba Inuzuka from the living room sofa from where he and Naruto were watching TV. The flat was a mess, half empty cola cans, beer cans, books, magazines, socks, underwear and t-shirts littered the floor as the two young students sat in the middle of the mess, fingers pressing feverishly onto the Playstation 3 handhelds between their fingers.
Kiba came stomping moodily out from the bathroom, hands on hips, metal piercings in his ear glinting.

“And neither of you can walk ten meters to the door?” he snapped down at both of them, picking up an empty pizza box and stuffing it in the bin.

“Nope.” Was the universal reply, Naruto’s tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth as he concentrated hard on winning, almost going cross eyed in the attempt.

“Make Shikamaru take that cancer causing abomination out of his mouth this instant!” Kiba called over his shoulder heading towards the front door.

“Shika,” Naruto said without looking away from the TV screen, “Kiba wants you to put out your cigarette.”

“The nicotine doesn’t want me to.” Was their friend’s indistinct reply.


When Kiba Inuzuka opened the door on a crisp Friday evening in the middle of September, he expected a pretty young girl that Naruto had recently courted to be sitting out on the doorstep looking forlorn and wanting some comfort. He expected Temari to be standing there, hand on hips, wild explosion of blonde hair and in a towering temper. He expected Lee, with tickets to some theatre production that no one had heard about. He expected TenTen with a handbag full of makeup, drinks in one hand and stories about Neji on her tongue. He would like, and expected Hinata with a mouth full of smiles and a body full of warmth, but today wasn’t one of those days.

The person standing on the door step was tall, with dark hair and silvery grey eyes, he was wearing a long dark trench coat and a thin black scarf around his neck, the sultry light from the street lamps showed his skin to be pale and smooth like molten larva.

“Does Naruto live here?” the person asked in a voice that was both polite but unsure at the same time, almost withdrawing from Kiba into the depths of his scarf and coat.

“Yeah,” was Kiba’s immediate but intrigued response, “he does live here. Hang on…”

He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, “NARUTO YOU SHIT, GET YOUR BLOODY ARSE DOWN HERE NOW!”

There was a triumphant yell and a groan from inside the flat, Kiba laughed, leaning on the doorpost as the clattering of feet could be heard against wooden floorboards.

The person stood uneasily for a moment, awkward, unsure, shoulders slumped, biting their lower lip. Kiba could smell his unease as he wrinkled his nose and felt Naruto press up behind him, grinning.

“Who wants to see me-” he began, and then stopped, Kiba felt fingers dig into his shoulder and looked from one to the other intrigued.

“Sasuke?” Naruto breathed out slowly, as if he couldn’t believe…as if he’d never considered it possible.

Sasuke in Kiba’s head meant Sasuke Uchiha, and if Naruto said anything in that breathy voice it meant…well, certain graphic details that Kiba didn’t much want to think about in all honesty. But it was the look on Sasuke’s face that caught him, the half horrified, embarrassed look of someone who has lost his or her nerve.

Sasuke took a step backwards and Kiba felt the fingers dig into his back deeper and harder this time.

“I’m sorry,” Sasuke said, almost laughing and yet there was nothing that suggested laughter in his eyes.

“It was a stupid idea, I’m sorry for wasting your time.” And then he turned round and ran down the street.

Seconds later, Naruto ran after him.

* * * * * *