Fire and Water, Salt and Ashes

Summary: Itachi and Sasuke face off in a different sort of rivalry, but the younger brother is haunted by something neither one of them understand. AU, Mystery/Suspense/Horror, Ita X OC, Sas X OC onesided

Warnings: Language, Mild Lemonyness, Mild Masturbation, Occult/Supernaturalish stuff

A/N: OK, so I'm not entirely sure where this came from, all I know is that I took a nap and this morphed out of the ending of my last dream. I actually saw it in my head more like manga than as prose (which I can probably blame on overdoing it with said literature this week) but I can't draw that type of art for crap, so prose it is. It's kinda dark, kinda twisted, kinda angsty, pretty weird, very different from anything I expected to write, but it wants to be told and I really wanted to get it down. Let me know what you think - um, yeah.

Disclaimer: I do not own Itachi, or Sasuke, or Naruto, or any of the other peeps and bad guys.

...........

Marina waved baibai to the taxi driver before turning towards the beachfront apartment building. She’d been back in Japan for three days, getting settled in her new apartment. He knew she was back. He always knew where she was. He hadn’t called. But then, he never called. She didn’t call either.

It was easier to just drop by. The evening air was chill against her ankles as she climbed the steps to the entrance and used the old, familiar code. They had redecorated the entryway, she noticed. As she entered the elevator and punched the top floor, she remembered the first night he’d brought her here. She leaned back against the safety bar, feeling its coolness. It had been the only cool thing she remembered from that night. The rest of her had been on fire.

She played a bit with the frills on her dress. He hated frilly things, hated to see her dressed in something so girly. Hated it when she curled her hair and used hairspray on it, or when she wore flowery perfume. Hated it when everything she wore was loud and screamed ‘American’ – like the blonde hair and grey eyes and unnatural height didn’t give her away. Only five foot seven and a quarter, but it was tall for a woman here in Japan. She’d forgone the perfume this time, and had used mouse instead of hairspray, but wore heels to make up for it.

She opened the door to the flat, old key working like a charm. She slid her shoes off in the entryway. She could see his office door cracked open down the hall. The light was on. He was probably working. She passed by the open doorway without glancing in, though she knew he knew she was there. Instead, she continued on to the double doors at the end of the hall, opening them to bright lights and loud music. All four of the room’s occupants turned their heads toward her.

“Good evening!” she said. Two of the room’s occupants jumped up squealing, and she prepared herself for hugs from the two girls, looking down and laughing at the blonde and bright pink hair. “Sakura!” she said, pushing the pink-haired girl away from her to examine her properly. “What did you do to your hair!”

“You like?” she said, bouncing back a bit. “I love it!”

Marina stared at the bright pink locks and shook her head, then smiled down at the blonde. “Ino! It’s good to see you.”

The blonde beamed up at her. “You too! Did you bring us back anything from Milan?”

“Yes, but it’s back at my apartment,” Marina said. She didn’t miss the flinch from one of the room’s other occupants, a raven-haired teen who was sitting next to the window on the far side of the room, sullenly ignoring her.

“Did you get your bag there? Can I see?” said Sakura.

Marina glanced down at the purple canvas bag on her hip. “Oh, no. I got it in, um, I think Istanbul?” She furrowed her brow, trying to remember. “I’ll show it to you in a minute if you want,” she said, racking her brain to make sure there wasn’t anything really dangerous inside.

“Cool!” the girls squealed.

“Bur first,” she said, looking at the fourth occupant of the room, “I want to say hi to Naruto.”

The blond boy blushed. He’d been standing behind the two girls, videogame controller in hand. It looked like the girls had been watching him play some sort of game when she’d walked in, something that involved a ball and loud music. He hugged her tightly. She’d always been fond of the two blond kids. Their parents had died at birth, and they’d both been adopted by two different sets of grandparents. It was hard on the kids growing up – their dad had been an American serviceman, and their birth had revealed that there were probably some traces of Dutch lineage in their mother’s bloodline. Their mom's parents had been divorced – taboo enough – and the impurity of their Japanese heritage was enough to cause the two to have to deal with quite a bit of prejudice growing up.

They dealt with it well. Ino was a natural-born leader, and had become best friends with Sakura when they were very young. The other girl was actually more of a target for bullies than the blonde when they were younger – something Ino didn’t put up with well. They’d gone through some drama when they were in their mid-teens – she could still remember having to listen to one side, then the other, over sodas – but had remained best friends. Naruto’s childhood had been across town, in a poorer part of town. She’d heard his circumstances had been much harder, and that his grandmother had blamed him for her daughter’s death. He’d met Sasuke when he got to middle school. They had a strange friendship, but then again, she reflected, it was hard to have anything but a strange relationship with one of the Uchiha brothers.

Sitting down on a couch next to the wall, she pondered at how much had changed in the household during the four years she’d been away. The girls crowded around her, exploring the contents of her purse while Naruto when back to his video game. Sasuke just stared out the window – though from time to time she caught his eyes on her. He looked awful, thin and pale with bags under his eyes. She couldn’t help but worry about him. He’d grown in the time she’d been gone. When she left, he’d barely turned fifteen, and had been about to enter high school. Now, he was in university, studying anthropology and drama, according to Itachi.

The girl’s squeals drew her attention. She smiled at them indulgently. When Naruto’s grandmother had gone into a nursing home their senior year, he’d gone to stay with Ino and his grandfather. Their grandfather and his new wife had been killed in a car wreck a few months later. Itachi had let them move into the flat so they would have a place to stay. At the end of their senior year, Sakura’s parents had been called away on business, so she and Ino had ganged up on Itachi to make him let her stay in Ino’s room. He really was a big softy when it came to girls. She should know.

Sasuke wasn’t terribly pleased with all these new arrangements, or so she’d heard. The apartment only had three bedrooms, and so Itachi expected him to share a room with Naruto. Not a terribly unreasonable request – the two boys got along well enough – but Sasuke was stubbornly against sharing a room with someone. Itachi refused to make Naruto sleep on one of the couches. It was somewhat of a stalemate. Itachi didn’t understand Sasuke’s reticence (or wasn’t willing to accept his reasons), but Marina did. Sasuke was haunted.

She remembered waking up in the middle of the night, the first night Itachi had brought her home. She’d been exhausted – as usual – but the screams coming from down the hall had startled her awake. Itachi had nuzzled the back of her neck when she tried to get up, tightening his arm around her.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, sleeply.

“Your brother –“

“Oh. It’s nothing, just nightmares. Don’t worry, he’ll get over it.”

She had frowned, but the arm around her waist was like iron, and she could tell that the man behind her was now fully awake. She had a bizarre thought that he would try to seduce her again, but he was still, just breathing against her neck until the screams passed. She was trying to get back to sleep when a thought occurred to her.

“Itachi – if we can hear him so easily – can he?”

The man had chuckled, nipping her neck. “Just go back to sleep.”

She had blushed, but finally gotten back to sleep.

The next morning at breakfast, Sasuke had given her an odd look. Wanting to win his favor, she’d insisted they all spend a day at the carnival. It wasn’t until they got there that she realized that she was having more fun than the two stoic males accompanying her – though Itachi played along, and said nothing until they got back to the apartment. She’d watched the dark-haired boy walk passed her and go up the stairs to his room, not saying a word, hands stuffed in his pockets. After the door slammed, Itachi had rubbed the small of her back, and mentioned lightly, “Maybe he’s too old for carnivals.” She’d turned to hit him in the chest, but he just smirked and grabbed her wrist, drawing her into a kiss.

She couldn’t say that Sasuke had ever really warmed up to her – it was more the little things he did. Like letting her watch her favorite show. Going with her to the bookstore, an activity they both enjoyed. Making an extra cup of tea on the mornings when she slept in and Itachi went in early to work. Never complaining about the time she took up with Itachi. It was never in anything he said, but the silence between them spoke volumes.

One night, she’d gotten up in the middle of the night to get a glass of water. Sasuke had fallen asleep in the den on the couch. She’d heard him start to moan when she was in the kitchen, and decided to see if she could wake him and give him some water too, maybe he would sleep better. She’d just opened the door to the den when she saw it, standing over the couch, watching the sleeping boy.

It hadn’t paid her any attention. The best she could tell, it looked like a man covered in snakes, yellow eyes gleaming in the darkness. She could see the moonlight passing through it, and vague outlines of the furniture behind. She’d gasped, dropping one of the glasses of water onto the carpet. Itachi had been right behind her. She jumped when he put his hand on her lower back, looking up at him with fright.

“What’s wrong?” he asked her.

She pointed in the direction of the couch. “Its – he –“

He gave her an odd look, then walked over to his brother and sighed, shaking him. “Sasuke, you need to go sleep in your own bed, wake up.”

She watched with wide eyes as Sasuke let his older brother sit him up, then walk him out of the room. Itachi hadn’t noticed the creature at all. Sasuke’s eyes were blank, like he was sleepwalking. She’d pressed her back to the door when they went passed, watching as the apparition followed them silently. It didn’t notice her at all, though she though she saw one of the snakes hiss and snap in her direction. Itachi had looked back at her from the base of the stairs with frustration in his eyes. “Just come back to bed.”

She’d followed them mutely up the stairs, then crawled into bed. Itachi had been grumbling when he slid in behind her a few minutes later. “I swear if I have to deal with two of you,” he said tiredly.

She was silent. He’d held her close, tenderness in his touch belying the tone of his voice. He always indulged her, even if at times it was merely to humor her. The only thing they ever really fought over was his brother. He refused to believe her the next morning, saying it was just womanly superstition, that there was no such thing as ghosts. It was an old samurai attitude, she thought, that allowed no possibility of such supernatural beings. The attitude was undergirded by his devotion to science. As one of the premier electronics engineers in the area, he believed everything could be boiled down to something logical. She knew better, but her words just washed over him, leaving her frustrated.

She’d tried to research the thing at her job, but she was too new to the company. Her boss had just asked her to describe the situation. When she told him it was just causing nightmares, and had been going on for a couple of years, he waved it off as unimportant. “There are worse things out there,” he said, “and we’re working on getting you ready to deal with them. This is too minor to waste your time on.”

She wanted to storm against both of the impossible men in her life, but it did her no good. She just tried making Sasuke’s life as comfortable as possible, getting to know all his friends, trying to tease a smile from the stoic boy. Any hint of a smile faded, however, when she told the brothers her company was making her transfer. Itachi was just as upset.

“How long?” he asked her.

“A few years,” she said miserably. More training, they had said.

“A few years? Can’t you do research here?”

She had shrugged. She’d never really gone into detail about what exactly her job entailed.

“Quit,” he’d said.

She’d looked at him in surprise. “Would you quit? If the circumstances were reversed?”

He’d glared at her. They both knew the answer to that question, knew the unspoken prejudices that lay behind his demand.

In the end, it was just another thing to come between them. Their arguments were silences that came after almost everything had been spoken, and anything left to be said were things neither were willing to voice. Like glass walls that they both walked carefully around, because even their arguments didn’t change the truth of what bound them together.

She was never able to make it back to Japan during those years abroad, but he would come visit her sometimes, and they would pretend in a hotel room that everything was perfect. One day she’d tied a red cord around both of their wrists, told him it matched the one on their ankles. He laughed at her, but later let her tie him down with the rest of the cord, and blindfold him with a red scarf. That night, he wasn’t laughing. He held out well, but after a while the cord that held him down was broken, and she was consumed by the flames of his desire.

Their latest argument was about her having her own place. It was an argument with few words. She suspected he thought he could break her down once he got hold of her in person. He might be right. She didn’t want to just play like things were perfect anymore, though. And she had her reasons for not wanting to rush into things now that she was back. Sasuke, it appeared, seemed to side with his brother in this argument. She was wary about that as well though – the looks he was giving her were different, and she thought she caught a faint blush on his cheeks. It was hard to believe he was almost nineteen, not the boy she had left behind a few years ago.

“What’s this?” Ino said, pulling a folded wooden board from the purple bag.

“Oh,” Marina said, looking down in surprise. She forgot she left that in there. “Its um, a portable Ouija board, kinda,” she said, opening it up to show them. “You see, you just kinda…”

She moved the pointer around on the board, holding it lightly. “See, it points to letters, then you write them down on a piece of paper – here, I have a pad in here somewhere –“

The blonde and pinkette peered over the board, pushing the pointer around. “Isn’t it supposed to move or something?”

“Well,” Marina said, taking the pointer back, “not always. Sometimes it’s just – woah.”

The pointer had tugged at her fingers, landing on the letter G. The girls’ eyes were wide with amazement. It pulled again, to the letter O. Ino dutifully wrote down the two letters, then continued as the pointer moved slowly around the board, stopping at different letters. Marina sat back when the compulsion lifted, and the girls read out the message.

“Go to the island – what does that mean?” Sakura said.

Marina saw Sasuke jump when he heard the pink-haired girl, and turn to share a glance with her. They knew about an island. It was a small island off the coast. Sasuke and Itachi had gone there when Sasuke was about twelve, for a picnic. It was after that that the nightmares started, though Sasuke couldn’t ever say why or what had happened. All Itachi knew was that Sasuke had gone off wandering on his own, and when he came back, he was in a strange mood, rubbing his neck. There didn’t appear to be anything wrong, though.

“Hey girls,” Naruto called, “Want to come play?”

They perked up, looking at her apologetically. “Go on,” she told them. “I’ll be around more now.”

They grinned and jumped up. Marina looked down at the message, rubbing the pointer with her fingers. She noticed Sasuke get up and walk over to the window closest to her, acting like he paid her no attention. She felt the compulsion start to wash over her again, and called him over.

“Sasuke, could you help me with something?”

He walked over and stared down at her sullenly. He’d grown taller, though it still looked like he was shorter than she was. His hair was longer, and there were muscles on his frame, even if he was thin. “What?”

“Just sit down and – if I point to any of the letters, can you write them down on the pad?”

He sat down. She thought he might disapprove of the whole exercise, but he had a look of mild interest on his face. She supposed he wasn’t quite as much against the whole superstition thing as his brother was. She had heard he had done a report on the Kwaidan for one of his anthropology classes, a fact that Itachi had relayed almost as a peace offering in one of his letters. The older brother still thought it was all nonsense in reality, but had compromised on the possibility that there was some reasonable explanation behind it all, like that her subconscious mind was influencing the messages she “received” through her board. All imagination and suggestion still – but he was trying.

She could feel Sasuke’s leg pressed against her as they sat on the couch, and he leaned over to get a good look at the board in her lap. It was no different than the way Ino had been sitting – but it was also completely different. She gave into the compulsion before worrying about it too much, setting the pointer back on the board. It started to move around, and Sasuke watched closely, trying to keep up. For a while, he tried to make sense of the letters as they came, but his English wasn’t that good and the pointer was going too fast. She fell deeper into the trance, almost hearing a voice speak to her, a woman’s voice speaking poetry that flowed through her mind before she could catch any of its meaning. Pictures painted over the letters on the board in her mind’s eye. Her brain tried to assign some semblance of sense to the pictures, but they resisted, and she couldn’t remember them when the trance lifted a bit a few minutes later.

Itachi was sitting on her other side, his arm around her waist, nuzzling her hair. Sasuke had edged closer to the arm of the couch and was sitting up straight, staring at the paper in his hands. She looked up at the older sibling. “Hi,” she whispered.

He slipped his fingers under her chin and pulled her in for a soft kiss. “Hi,” he whispered against her lips.

“I need to go to the island,” she whispered, staring into his ebony eyes.

He raised an eyebrow, almost amused. “Tonight?”

She nodded, still caught up in the edges of her trance.

“You can’t tonight,” he said, a veiled look in his eyes. “I have business.”

“I’ll help you get it done.”

“Yes,” he said, “you will.”

She blinked at him, not comprehending his meaning. He frowned down at the ruffles on her outfit before reaching over and folding up the board, slipping it into her bag. “I have a present for you,” he said.

Sasuke had gotten up and gone back over to the window seat, holding the pad of paper in one of his hands as he looked out the window. She thought about going to go get it, but decided to open her package instead.

It was a an electronic device just bigger than her palm. She opened it up and turned on the switch, looking down at the screens curiously. One side appeared to be a touch pad, the other blank. The touch pad was filled with circles containing different characters.

“Look,” he said, pressing the touch pad. The letter he pressed appeared on the other screen.

“You can do it on a piece of paper, I thought you’d be able to do it on this too. After all, it’s all subconscious suggestion. And this way, it records things automatically.”

She looked up at the raven-haired man, slightly exasperated. “Only you,” she said, “would make me an electronic Ouija board.”

His face was expressionless as he set it between their laps, glance going over to his younger brother. She peered down at the device, touching a finger to it curiously. He was right – she could feel the tug. She’d hoped her experiences of the night were over, but she just watched as her finger slid over the characters. She frowned. “The only problem is, Itachi –“ she started, before things began to blur again and she forgot whatever she had objected to. She could hear the same voice from before, only now there was music behind it. She began to hum along, finger sliding over the cool plastic surface, eyes not even processing as the screen next to her finger began filling up with characters. It was only after the compulsion passed that she was able to voice her complaint.

“Itachi.”

“Hn,” the raven replied, rubbing the small of her back.

“These are hiragana characters.”

“Hn.”

“I don’t read hiragana.”

“You should.”

She blinked up at him in exasperation. “How am I supposed to read this?”

“Well, obviously, your subconscious understands it. Or else it’s all nonsense,” he replied, looking back at her with a straight face.

She opened her mouth to voice her reply, when they heard raised voices from the center of the room. She looked over. The two girls had already gone to bed, and Sasuke and Naruto were glaring at each other, Naruto fisting the video game controller in one hand. Itachi frowned, getting up. “Sasuke. Hallway. Now.”

The two ravens left the room, and Marina could hear slightly raised voices coming from the hall. Naruto sighed, and started putting the console away. She slid her new toy into her bag and went over to help.

“What was that all about?”

The blond sighed. “Same old, same old. The bastard’s decided he’s ready to go to sleep. I wanted to finish my level. Itachi thinks he should just go up and go to sleep in our room. And –“ He gave her a measured look, then stopped whatever he was about to say.

“And?”

“Nothing,” he said, closing the cabinet. He turned and hugged her impulsively, smiling up at her. “I’m glad you’re home,” he said. She patted his head, and followed him as he turned to walk out of the room. “I bought earplugs for just this occasion.”

It took her a minute to process what he said, and then she hit him on the head. “Naruto!”

He winced and rubbed his head, looking at her with a big grin. Then his face got serious and he opened the doors to the hall.

The raised voices stopped, and the two dark-haired men were glaring at each other. Naruto slipped past them, saying, “Night guys,” before climbing the stairs to his room. Sasuke turned without a word and brushed past Marina as he went into the den, closing the doors firmly. Itachi narrowed his eyes at the doors, and then looked at her, grabbing her hand. “Bedroom. Now.”

She shook her head and followed him up the stairs, wondering at the mood swings Uchiha blood seemed to bring. She wasn’t wondering when he pushed her up against the bedroom door after locking it behind them, giving her a bruising kiss. Or when he tossed her bag down in the corner, pushing her backwards towards the bed, not giving up the kiss. Or when he looked at her as she stood beside the bed, frowning down at her outfit.

“I hate this shirt,” he said, not worrying about where the buttons went as he pulled it off. “I hate this skirt,” he said, pulling her close and fighting with the zipper as she sank into another kiss. The offending garment fell to the floor. She was stepping out of it when he pushed her back onto the bed. “I hate these shoes…” he said, looking at them critically as he ran his hands down her legs, “I think.” A gleam came into his eyes and he hooked his hands around her ankles, pulling them up a bit. “Maybe not so much.”

She just watched him, bending her knees and pulling her legs up, letting the heels rest flat against the covers. She folded her arms behind her head languidly, enjoying the view as he stripped out of his own clothes and came to hover over her on the bed.

“Better?” she asked him, heart racing in her chest.

“Getting there,” he answered, before swooping down for another searing kiss, his hands traveling down her body to pull at her underwear, leaving her fully defenseless. Everywhere he touched, her skin burned. Everywhere he looked she felt pulled closer to his heat. This act, she had discovered at the very beginning, this act with Itachi wasn’t just sex. It wasn’t just making love. It wasn’t just fucking. It was so much more. He held her eyes with his gaze as he entered her, before kissing her hungrily, taking her breath away. This was more than pleasure, this was more than pain. It was like her essence was boiled alive, evaporated into mist and the mist burned into ashes, falling down pale white against the darkness of the man whose eyes could see into her very soul.

Later, she got up and walked over to the window, picking up his shirt and wrapping it around her to guard against the chill air. She could see the island in the distance, a smudge of darkness against the horizon past the edges of the bay. He came up behind her, hands rubbing her shoulders. She leaned back against him.

“Whats going on with Sasuke?” she asked him. It seemed like more than just the nightmares and an argument about who would sleep where.

“Nothing,” he replied.

“I have an extra room at my place, if you guys need it. One of the tenants just moved out.”

His fingers tightened on her shoulders, and he turned her around, looking down at her with an unreadable expression before saying, “No.”

She frowned. She hated when he kept things from her. It was rare. Normally even if they didn’t speak about things, she still knew, he still knew. This time, she only suspected. He pulled her into a kiss, forestalling any further conversation. She let him, wrapping her arms around his neck, pressing back into his hands as they roamed lower on her body, following him as he walked them back towards the bed.

After, she lay on her back letting her fingers play in his long black hair as his mouth roamed around her skin. Her breath quickened as he sucked on her neck, biting down firmly. He worked his way lower, biting the skin of her left breast above her heart. It wasn’t really foreplay. It wasn’t really afterplay. She knew what it was, it was marking territory. Marking her as his territory. He confirmed this when he raised his head and looked deep into her eyes, intertwining their fingers in a firm embrace. “Mine,” he said.

She knew what he meant. She knew he was possessive. She also knew that he loved her, truly loved her, enough to accept her even when she drove him crazy, even when they drove each other crazy, even when she made him miss her like crazy. And she knew she was his, to the very core of her being.

She turned over on her side, facing him. The moonlight from outside washed over his face. She knew hers was steeped in shadow.

“Move in with me,” he said.

She also knew she still needed her freedom. It might be close – but she wasn’t ready to give it up yet. The cord between them was still tangled. She straightened her fingers, teasing his up so their hands pressed palm to palm. She knew he knew what she meant. She’d told him the poem before she left, only once, but once was enough for memory. If you love something, let it go…

He sighed. “You’re so cold.”

She kissed him gently, then turned around, tugging his arm around her. He held her tightly. Slowly, slowly, as they lay there in the dark, she felt him slip into sleep, felt the slight shudders as dreams overtook him. She wasn’t cold, she wanted to tell him. She just wasn’t quite ready to be as hot as he was.

. . .

Down in the den, Sasuke put away the video game controller. He’d been forestalling sleep as long as he could. Even downstairs, he could hear the sounds of the couple upstairs, though the sounds were muffled. If he’d had the sound of the TV on, it would’ve probably covered them completely, but he wanted to hear. Even if it was a twisted desire.

He went over to the couch and pulled out a battered tin box from underneath. He sat down and pulled it into his lap, opening it up. Looking at the notebook pages he held in his hands, he folded them up and slid them along the edges of the box. He fingered the contents. A few photographs. Tickets from a carnival. A hair ribbon. An empty pocky box. Treasures and memories. Sighing, he put the lid back on the box, and slid it underneath the couch.

He lay back and let his hand slide down to undo the buttons of his jeans, listening. There was no more noise from upstairs, no noise of anyone at all awake in the house. He teased his fingers over his length, and reached to pull out a towel he’d hidden earlier under the couch. He let the images of the evening play over in his mind as he slid his thumbs inside his underwear, lifting up slightly to push the constricting garments away. He thought about her sitting on this very couch. It made him harder, thinking about what he’d done while thinking about her on this very couch, where she had been sitting. He smirked in the darkness. She’d been sitting right about here, he thought, giving himself a squeeze.

His mind wandered back to the past, when she’d lived here before. He knew Itachi tried to wait until he was asleep, but it didn’t always happen that way. He remembered one time when he’d gotten up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. The bedroom door hadn’t been fully closed. He’d stood in the darkness, watching as she moved above his brother. He didn’t know if Itachi had seen, but the door was never left open that way again.

And then, there was the time when he had opened the door to the bathroom, not realizing she was in the shower. She hadn’t heard him, but he’d seen more than enough. He’d closed the door when he heard Itachi’s footsteps coming up the stairs, walking away. He thought he’d seen a look of suspicion in his brother’s eyes later, though.

After she left, he was angry. He was angry because she never came back to visit. He was angry because Itachi never took him to visit her. As he listened to their fights through his brother’s office door, he focused his anger on Itachi. They fought more often. When they fought, it started to be about her sometimes, the way Itachi treated her. One day he lost his temper, yelling, “I could love her better than you ever will!”

It was the one argument Itachi had walked away from, his hands fisted. His eyes had been more angry than Sasuke had ever seen. He knew, with that one sentance, he’d crossed a line between them. In the heat of the battle, he didn’t really care. Later, he convinced himself it didn’t matter.

Sighing, he pulled his mind away from memory and turned towards fantasy. The fantasy that she would be touching him, making those sounds for him, hovering over him, being his. It didn’t take too long before he gave a quiet gasp, shuddering, making sure to catch all of his release with the towel. He folded it and shoved it under the couch, pulling his clothes back up and curling over onto his side, letting sleep rise up and take him.

. . .

No one was awake to see the form that hovered outside the window, looking in at the sleeping boy. No one saw it press against the glass before pushing through, fingers sliding soundlessly past the transparent barrier. The rest of it soon followed, and it walked over to stand over the couch, hands hovering over the boy as if they desired to touch but couldn’t quite reach.


. . . . . . . . . . ~ ~ ~ . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . ~ ~ ~ . . . . . . . . . .


The next morning, when she awoke, Itachi was gone. It was not unexpected – the clock read 8:30 already. She remembered vague hints of a kiss on her forehead this morning when he woke up. She looked around – her clothes from the night before were nowhere to be found. Smirking, she walked over to the chair next to the bed, finding some clothes there neatly folded. An old pair of jeans – she’d thought she lost them. The thief must have been hiding them. She grinned, noticing he’d moved her cell phone from the skirt to the front pocket of the jeans. Flipping it open, she checked the battery. He never called, but it was important to them. There was some sort of super-powerful GPS application in it so that he could locate her whenever he wanted. She didn’t mind. He would’ve let her do the same for him, if she’d had any talent working the program. Even said he would put it on her phone, but she’d demurred. She trusted him.

He would never admit it, but Itachi had severe abandonment issues. His parents had gone out one evening and never come home. No one knew what had happened – they just disappeared. He’d been in his second year of university, left with a ten-year-old brother to take care of. He’d been a genius in school, but parenting was not something he had been expecting. Trying to deal with the financial and estate responsibilities was rough as well. A couple of years ago, he’d finally had to declare his parents legally dead. It was during those months that she’d wanted to be back here for him the most.

She put down the jeans, and held up the shirt he’d picked out for her, frowning. It was a gray t-shirt – two sizes too big for her – with a large Uchiha fan on the back. She snorted. “Might as well say property of,” she said to herself, before crumpling the shirt up and throwing it back on the chair. Looking over at his closet thoughtfully, she decided she had a better idea.

A few minutes later, she walked down the stairs, fixing the cuffs of one of his button-down shirts. There was still a small fan on the back of the collar, but she could live with that. She hummed as she threw open the doors to the den, catching Sasuke unawares. He looked up and blushed, quickly hiding some sort of white cloth behind his back before standing up from the couch.

“Oh! Sorry,” she said. “I thought everyone was already gone.”

“My class isn’t for another forty-five minutes,” he said.

“Ah. Well, if that’s the case, want me to make you some breakfast?”

He nodded, standing and walking past her stiffly, going upstairs to shower and change. She walked into the den, sniffing slightly. Underneath all the other smells, she could just catch it – it was sour, and slightly sweet, like decay. She walked over to the window and put her fingertips up to the glass. There was an almost imperceptible smudge on the outside of the window. Pressing against it, she sucked in her breath at the feeling of malevolence and hate. Turning, she could see from here the couch where Sasuke had been sleeping. She hadn’t heard the screams last night, but it looked like the intruder was not just a figment of her imagination. Turning back towards the window, she caught a glimpse of the island in the distance. She shivered, and then turned and went to the kitchen.

She cooked scrambled eggs while she waited for Sasuke to come downstairs. They ate in silence on either side of the small table in the kitchen. He kept his gaze on his food, though she kept intercepting stray looks when he thought she wouldn’t catch them. Finally, she decided the direct approach was best. “Sasuke, what’s wrong?”

He was silent for a moment, and she thought he wouldn’t answer. Then he looked up at her with a heated gaze. “Itachi –“ he started, then stopped, trying to figure out what to say. “I think I’m in love with you. Itachi thinks I shouldn’t spend any time alone around you until I’ve ‘resolved my feelings.’”

“Oh,” she said, blinking. “Well that’s foolish.”

He raised his eyebrow in a perfect echo of his older brother, asking her to clarify.

“Well, I mean,” she said, unable to look away from the boy, “love is – how are you supposed to figure out your feelings if you never spend time with the other person?”

A faint blaze of victory rushed through his eyes, and she wondered if that had been the proper way to go about things. Itachi would probably be pissed.

“Spend the day with me,” he said.

But even more pissed if she did that. However – “Don’t you have class?” she argued.

He shrugged. “Just a presentation this morning, the rest of the day is free.”

She thought he was probably lying about that, but decided not to call him on it. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. She didn’t think it was love – he didn’t really know her well enough for that – and she knew infatuation more often died of gluttony than starvation. “Ok.”

He smirked and grabbed her hand, pulling her up from the table and towards the front door.

“My purse!” she said.

“Don’t worry about it. You don’t have to pay for anything, and I need to get to class.”

Looking backward, she sighed, and let him drag her outside.

. . .

He really was very good; she had to give him that. She was sitting in the back of his historical drama class, listening to his presentation on the history of music as used in Kabuki Theater. His talk was interesting and informative, and he was even able to play a short sample of music on both the Shamisen and the Nohkan. She wondered where he’d gotten his talent; she didn’t remember him being interested in music before. Four years, she supposed, was a lot of time.

Afterwards he took her to lunch at a tiny noodle shop by the bay. He listened to her as she talked about her travels. She was careful not to act too affectionate – the last thing she needed was to lead him on any more than she already had. In return, he talked about his own life the past four years, careful to stay away from any mention of Itachi. She could tell he cared more for his friends than he let on; there was a hint of pride when he talked about Naruto’s performance in sports, and Sakura’s talent in pre-med. He didn’t talk much about Ino, but she felt from the way he looked out the window that there was more behind the silence.

She couldn’t help but compare the two brothers. Itachi, she thought, was like the deepest darkest heart of a roaring fire, so silent you don’t even notice it's on you until you're burned to a crisp. Sasuke, by contrast, was like wildfire, quick and hot, more chaotic. Part of it was probably from being so tired. He didn’t eat much at lunch, but he drank ice water like it was going out of style.

She had never seen him talk so much. It wasn’t loud like Naruto or bubbly like the girls, but it was intense. He was intense. There were moments when all his attention was on her, and she wasn’t quite sure what she was doing there.

He took her on a walk down by the bay after lunch, holding her hand. He asked her if she wanted to go to the carnival, but she demurred, suggesting a boat ride instead. There was a moment of silence between them at that, both remembering the night before. They rented a small boat and took it out on the bay. She didn’t know the first thing about boats, but she loved the ocean. For a while, she went down to the back of the boat and watched the wake, wanting to get some distance between them even though she could feel his gaze on her every so often.

After a while, he cut the motor, and called her up to the front. She stood across from him, leaning back against the railing. She curled her hands around the cool metal, and looked back at the shore. She could see the apartment building from here.

“Do you believe that I love you?” he asked her.

She looked at him. “Sasuke, I’m not sure you –“

“Let me prove it to you.” He came closer, and put his hands on either side of her. She could feel his breath against her skin. He was just a bit shorter than she was, more so since she wore heels. She saw his mouth coming towards her, but she turned her head. He kissed her neck instead. She stood there, still, not stopping him. She felt his hands on the buttons of her shirt (Itachi’s shirt, some part of her mind cried) and heard him growl in frustration when he saw the marks on her skin. He kissed them harder, as if trying to erase the marks his brother had made the night before. She just stood there. His kisses felt like fire on oil on water, she couldn’t feel anything past the surface. Itachi burned her up from the inside out. She glanced up at the balcony of the apartment and felt her heart stop when she saw someone standing there, looking out at the bay.

Finally, she spoke. “Sasuke,” she said, then more insistently, “Sasuke.”

He looked up at her, face flushed. “What?” he said harshly, then stepped back when he saw the look in her eyes.

“Sasuke. If you loved me, would you really be doing this?”

He frowned at her.

She sighed, moving over and sitting down. “And did you ever think to ask me how I felt about you?”

He was silent.

“I think,” she continued, “that what you’re feeling right now isn’t love. Its lust, probably some rivalry with your brother, maybe a bit of infatuation. But not love. Not that you don’t care for me,” she said, holding up a hand as he opened his mouth, “but I don’t think you really care for me like that. Not really.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, and looked down at her. “So how do you feel?”

She shrugged. “I’m in love with your brother.” She’d never told that to Itachi, not in those words. But then, he’d never told her, either. It was one of the silent truths in their relationship that hadn’t ever had to be spoken out loud. Although, she thought, glancing towards the balcony and feeling a slight bit of relief that the silent watcher was still there, it might need to be spoken after today. If he was still speaking to her.

She looked back at the boy in front of her. His face was unreadable. After a minute, he turned back towards the controls of the boat, and turned it back on. For a second, she thought he was going to turn the boat around and head back in, and then he spoke. “Let’s go out to the island. You wanted to go, right?”

Her breath caught in trepidation.

“So let’s go.”

. . .

Itachi’s lungs felt like they were on fire. His hands were wrapped tightly around the binoculars, watching the boat as it sped into the distance. He was hurt, he was furious – he was so hurt he could barely breathe. He stormed inside his bedroom, tossing the binoculars into a chair. He didn’t know what to think. A voice inside whispered that she was truly leaving him this time, that she’d decided his brother – his brother! – was a better match, that he would be left all alone with no one.

Another part of him still trusted her, trusted that there was some explanation. That part of him knew her – knew her body – knew she wasn’t ever one to just stand there and take it. But she had let him touch her! His hands – other hands – had been on that body! He was so, so, furious. A part of him wanted to go down there, drag her back here, and lock her up, forever and always, so that only he could see her, only he could touch her. He curled his hands. He knew he couldn’t do that. That would be like trying to hold water in a closed fist. But trying to hold it in an open palm – he felt like it was dripping away anyways, leaving his hand empty, leaving him alone no matter how hard he tried.

He took his frustrations out on her bag, which she’d left lying in the middle of his floor. Objects spilled out from the force of his kick, and he saw his gift to her shoot out and slide across the floor, stopping before crashing into a wall. He sighed and walked over, picking it up and flipping it open to make sure it still worked. Idly, he looked over the characters she’d come up with the night before, wondering how much nonsense they made. He frowned a moment, then his blood ran cold. It made no sense. No, that was the problem – it did make sense. As he read further, he glanced back up toward the window, remembering the direction he’d seen the boat take off towards. All of a sudden, his anger was replaced by fear – fear for the two people he cared about most in this world, even if they could also hurt him worse than anyone else. He finished reading and snapped the object shut, going over and picking up her purse. He checked the objects inside. He didn’t understand everything the message had said, but he thought she might. He ran into Naruto as he rushed down the stairs.

The blond looked at him in trepidation. “Is everything alright?” he said. “Sasuke skipped all his classes this afternoon. Not that we had a test or anything, but –“ He paused, not certain what to make of the look on Itachi’s face.

“I may be back late,” Itachi said. “Tell the girls, and order takeout for dinner or something.”

“Yeah, sure,” the blond said, face furrowing with worry. He didn’t miss the fact that the older man didn’t answer his question, or the fact that he was carrying Marina’s purse. The worry stayed with him as he watched the door slam shut. He hated when there was nothing he could do.

. . .

Marina was terrified. She shouldn’t be, she knew she should be professional, but she couldn’t help it. She was stuck out on this dreadful island, without any of her tools, crouched on the deck of a ship holding an almost catatonic boy, without a clue as to what was out there in the night.

They’d reached the island just a little after dusk. He’d been cold on the journey, barely replying to any of her questions. She could tell he was angry – hell, she supposed it was pretty reasonable, all things considered – but she felt helpless. When they’d reached the dock, he’d just stared for a few minutes, as if now that they had reached their destination, he wasn’t sure what to do. Then he tied up the boat and came back up to get her.

“You coming?” he asked.

She’d wrapped her arms around her, shivering in the cold. She looked over at the island. It was dark, and everything appeared deserted and run down. There was a trail leading from the end of the dock up into the woods. Normally, she liked the woods at night, but she didn’t like these woods.

She'd turned here head to see him looking at the island, frowning. Then, all of a sudden, he started to tremble, reaching back for the railing before falling to his knees, eyes still locked on the darkness before them. She’d rushed over to him and wrapped her arms around him, gasping as she felt the malevolence surrounding him. Quickly, she’d dug into her pockets. Picking up salt packets was a habit she’d gotten into early in her career, just because of the sheer usefulness of it. She pulled out one of the packets she’d flinched earlier that day and broke it open over his head, shaking the powder into his hair. The malevolence retreated, but she could still feel it out there in the dark. Sasuke had fallen into a deep sleep. She’d tried the engine of the boat, but it wouldn’t start. A noise in the water had made her turn around and rush back to the raven-haired boy, checking to make sure he was ok. He was breathing, but non-responsive.

Now, the only thing should could do was hold him, rocking him to her, scared of the silent shallow breaths he took. All she could think about was how utterly stupid she had been, how much she wished she had her bag, but above all – how much she wished Itachi was there at her back. She was utterly miserable with worry about him. She was utterly terrified of what was out there in the dark. It didn’t feel like just some insignificant spirit now.

She must have dozed off for a few minutes, because she didn’t hear the other boat pull up on the other side off the dock. She woke with a start when she felt the boat shift beneath her, though, and looked up in shock to see the person who had climbed aboard.

“Itachi,” she whispered. His face was totally closed to her, and she felt her heart ache with a different type of fear.

He looked down at his brother, worry flashing across his face. “Is he ok?”

“I think so,” she said, wanting to lean closer to him as he knelt beside her. “The boat wouldn’t start, and I didn’t know what to do.”

“You could have called me,” he said.

“Oh.” She watched as he placed her bag down between them, and pulled out the device he’d given her the night before.

“You need to read this,” he said, opening it up and turning it on. She took it, frowning up at him.

“Itachi, I can’t read-“

He huffed impatiently, and took the device from her hands, pressing a button at the bottom of the screen. “Here.”

She blinked. Evidently he’d built in a translate button without letting her know about it. It was labeled in kanji, she noted, before glancing up to read the message. The translation was poor, but she got the jist of it.

“You should have everything you need,” he said, looking down at his younger brother and rubbing his hand. “I don’t like it though. I think we should just go back to the mainland in my boat and worry about this tomorrow.”

She started to nod in agreement, and then gasped when Sasuke’s eyes shot open. She waved her hands in front of his face, but he was unresponsive. Itachi frowned. “What-“

“I’m not sure we can make it to the mainland,” she said. Sasuke had started to push himself up, shrugging off their hands. His eyes were still fixed on the island before them. She grabbed his wrist and fished in her purse for a moment, pulling out a spool of white thread. She wrapped one end around his wrist three times and tied it off, holding the spool in her hands.

Itachi tried to block his brother, but found himself brushed out of the way. He looked up at her with wide eyes as she grabbed her bag and started to follow the boy as he got off the boat. “I think,” she said, “I think we just have to follow him.”

Sasuke didn’t walk too fast once he was on the trail. They could keep up easily. Itachi kept one hand on his brother’s shoulder, not looking at her. She walked along beside him, holding the string in her hands. The woods were utterly silent in the night. At a fork in the trail, they turned left, going uphill through a series of switchbacks. Finally, the woods broke away into a clearing. Sasuke stopped.

Marina could see a small deserted shrine at the far end of the clearing, illuminated by moonlight. One of the stone lanterns had been knocked over, and there was a pile of dust at its open end. She could see a dark snake curled up on the dust, looking at them over the edge of the broken lid.

Suddenly, she felt a tugging on the string in her hands. Sasuke turned his head toward her, frowning. She took in a breath. His eyes had turned pure black, and his face had an ashen cast. The frown – it wasn’t his frown. He lifted his wrist, tugging again at the thread that hung between them.

“Let go,” he said. His voice was off.

“No.”

He looked at her for a moment, considering, and then launched himself at her with a snarl. She jumped back, surprised, but Itachi was there between them, wrestling the boy to the ground and holding him down. He looked at her, worry on his face, totally out of his element.

“What now?” he said.

“Just – hold him down!”

She scrambled in her purse, opening up the side zipper and taking out two small items. She knelt beside the two men. Itachi’s eyes narrowed when he saw her bring one of the items up close to Sasuke’s forehead. “What are you –“

“Just trust me!” she said.

She placed the silver needle in the center of a dark mark that was spreading between the boy’s eyes, locking her knees on either side of his head to hold him still as he thrashed. Taking one last look at Itachi, she brought the tiny hammer down on the tip of the needle, driving it into the mark. The boy stilled. She didn’t have time to answer Itachi’s questions as she threw the hammer back in her bag and pulled out a small pouch, reaching inside it and throwing a handful of its contents in a circle around them. Just in time.

She stood and looked back at the shrine, seeing the apparition she had seen those many years before. Here, at its true resting ground, it was more solid, at least on this night. This time, she definitely had its attention.

It hissed at her. “You’re too late,” it said, voice caressing the darkness. “The boy is mine.”

“I won’t let you have him.”

The voice laughed, mocking her. “I’ve had him for years. Your little parlor tricks can only hold me at bay for so long, witch. There’s nothing you can do.”

“You’re wrong,” she said. She knew exactly what to do.

She reached into her purse for two more items, slipping them into her pocket. She gave Itachi one last look. He was checking Sasuke’s pulse. He looked up at her, and nodded slowly. She stood and turned, walking to the edge of the circle.

She reached into the pouch again, and flung a handful of salt out before her. The apparition hissed, waves of malevolency crashing over her, trying to scare her away from her path. She’d faced down worse. She’d just never faced down anything with such high stakes weighing in the balance.

She threw another handful of salt, creating a path towards the shrine and the desecrated lantern. He threw wind at her, trying to knock her from the path, or scatter the salt. The salt held to the ground as if the wind was not there. She did not waver.

Another few steps, and he sent snakes after her, but they were repelled at the edge of the path, and hissed in frustration as she passed.

When she was almost there, he sent illusions, first horrors, then when that didn’t work, just darkness, hoping to confuse her and make her step from the path. But the salt shone crystal white, reflecting moonlight like stars in the darkness. And the heart of the darkness hid her goal.

When she reached it, she knelt down, sprinkling one handful of salt over the pile of dust before putting her hand down into it, mixing them together. It burned her hand, even with the salt. Burned her then froze her then hurt her, made her feel like all she would pull back was a bloody stump. With shaking fingers, she used the other hand to pull the vial of water from her pocket, pushing the stopper out with her thumb before pouring it over her other hand and the pile of salt and ashes. It hissed and smoked under her hand, turning into a muddy pile. She worked it with her other hand, feeling the mud pull together to form a coherent shape, one that it had held in the past, before the lantern had been knocked over and it had shattered into dust. When she looked down, she saw a small figurine of a winged serpent. Its eyes were black, and glittered in the darkness. It felt like it was trying to move in her hand.

She held it, and pushed the lantern upright, placing the figurine at the bottom. It fit perfectly. She lifted the two pieces of the lid and brought them together, murmuring a few words. After they fused back together, she placed the lid on the lantern, and drew the chalk from her pocket. She could see the sparkles from the serpent’s eyes as she marked around the lantern, working to reseal the container and strengthen its walls. When she was done, she felt the final strings of connection between the spirit and the outer world snap. She turned, seeing that Sasuke had curled up against Itachi, and was murmuring something it his sleep. She’d never seen him quite that peaceful.

It was over.

. . .

Their journey back home was quiet. Itachi carried his brother back to the boat, and she followed along behind, filled with exhaustion. He lent her his coat as she sat shivering on the bench behind him, cradling his brother’s head in her lap. They would worry about the other boat in the morning.

She followed him into the apartment as he carried the sleeping boy, climbing the stairs behind them. She stood at the doorway and watched as he placed his brother in the bed next to Naruto. The blond was unnaturally quiet. He’d stayed up reading comic books, worried about his best friend. He looked up at her, but she just looked back expressionless, leaning against the doorframe. Itachi knelt by his brother’s bedside and tucked him in like he hadn’t done since he was a child. He smoothed the hair from his forehead, and then looked over at Naruto. “You should get some sleep,” was all he said.

The blond nodded, and marked his place, putting the book down on the bedstand and turning off the lamp. She turned and walked towards the bedroom, hearing him behind her. He didn’t say a word. When she got there, she just took off her jeans and slid under the covers. She turned to him, but he was curled on his side away from her, so she turned back, looking at the window. She cried, silently, until sleep overtook her.

. . .

The next morning, when she awoke, he was there.

She lay on her back. He was on his side next to her. It looked like he had been watching her sleep. She looked at his face, hardly daring to breathe, but he was looking down at her body.

“You’re wearing my shirt,” he said finally.

She swallowed. “I didn’t like the other one.”

He didn’t answer her, just lifted a hand to undo the buttons, one by one. He flicked the material open, and frowned down at the extra marks marring her pale skin.

“You let him touch you.” It was an accusation. The weight of the emotion behind it crashed down on her, stopping her breath.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered softly. She’d never said those words to him. But then, she’d never felt the need to. Words of explanation and pleading filled her mind, but she didn’t speak them. She couldn’t beg. It would be unworthy of him. All she could do was wait.

He continued to frown down at her chest, letting his fingers trace lightly over her skin, rubbing at the marks. After a while, he looked up at her, as if expecting something more.

“I love you,” she said. She wanted to say it now, even if everything ended in the next few minutes, just in case she never got the chance to say it again.

He looked at her, expression unreadable. “Marina,” he started. Her heart sank. He never used her name. His next words surprised her. “Move in with us.” It wasn’t a request.

She blinked at him. He wanted her here? After everything that had happened?

He could read the questions on her face, and continued. “I trust you. I have to trust you, if this is going to work. But I need you here. I can’t deal with you not being here. I need you here, all the time, not gone away, not staying across the city, here. I don’t understand everything that’s going on. I know we have more to talk about. We’ll get through it. But I need you. Here. With me.”

She felt his hand on her chest, above her heart. Not pressing down hard, just firm, solid, cupping her breast with an open palm. She wondered if he could feel her heart fluttering. She looked up at him in wonder, feeling a rush of emotion and impulse overtake her. “Marry me,” she said.

He frowned down at her, and she felt worried. “What?”

“It’s not right for the woman to ask that question,” he said. “It’s for the man to ask.”

Her mouth fell open, indignant. “Well the man hasn’t asked!”

He kissed her in reply, but she pushed at his chest. He captured her wrists and looked down at her.

“What’s your answer?” she said.

He made another face. “The question is invalid.”

“But!”

“Hush,” he said, kissing her eyes. “Close your eyes.” He lifted her hands to the headboard. “Keep your hands here.” He kissed her lips as they opened again. “And be patient.”

She was quiet, at least for a bit. She couldn’t help the ragged breathing that came as he worked his way down her body. Patient. She could be patient. Maybe they could get a bigger apartment, with more bedrooms, and thicker walls. Maybe she could talk to the office and make it clear that she wasn’t willing to go out on assignment anymore, but she would have to stay here. Maybe Sasuke would wake up and start being happy, and forget about his feelings for her and realize his feelings towards the blonde in his life, and they could be one big happy family. Maybe Itachi would actually ask her the question himself one day. Maybe she could trust him not to try and control her life, but to accept her for who she was, and she could accept him too.

Suddenly, all the maybes didn’t really matter all that much, because her hands were tightening on the headboard, and she couldn’t be quiet anymore, and all that mattered in her entire world was Itachi and his mouth and his hands and the fact that she was burning up, consumed, nothing but ash falling into his palms.

She opened her eyes and looked down at him. His eyes were pure darkness, and promised that things were only beginning. As she watched, he attached his mouth to her inner thigh and bit down, harder than he needed to. He sucked leisurely at her skin for a minute, and then looked up at her. “Mine.”

It took all her strength to nod at him. “Yours,” she said. “Always.”

He hummed in satisfaction, and then gave her one last lick before crawling up her body to kiss her. The kiss was full of heat, but like a banked fire, filling her with delicious warm that ran all the way down to her toes. She could feel him brushing against her, hovering between her legs, but he was waiting. He broke the kiss and looked down at her face, serious for a moment.

“I love you too,” he said. Then he dove in for another kiss. She wrapped herself around him as he entered her, and they moved together, slowly, mouths silencing sound, not rushing to get anywhere because they were already together. She knew that outside their door there was a whole world waiting for them to deal with. But right now, she had him, the other half of her soul, tied to her with an unbreakable cord, and she would never let him go.