AN: Title taken from WCW's The Ivy Crown, but please see the end notes for more on that.

Warning for sexual content that's more mild than wild.

Itachi settles into a village north of Takigakure and waits there for Karin. The travel pack he brought is light, but still ought to last him the week should Karin arrive late or wish to remain in his company longer.

There is nothing wrong with either of those possibilities, he tells himself. The longer they are together, the more opportunities she will have to report on Sasuke and Orochimaru, and the additional time will allow Karin to think of any details she might have forgotten.

(He ignores the part of him that unexpectedly jumps to her defense—that she may be dramatic and emotional and occasionally distracted, but Karin has never been forgetful or in any way incompetent.)

He frames it as practically as he can: an underpaid informant is an unhappy one. An unhappy informant can be a dangerous informant.

Karin has only ever asked for his attention, after all. It seems such a small price to pay.

The longer Itachi goes without seeing Karin, the stranger their relationship seems to grow. He has always associated distance and separation with decay, with a weakening of memory and of bonds. Being apart from Sasuke is what allows Sasuke's memory to rewrite itself, to dig further and prune away all the inconvenient recollections of his older brother, to emphasize what remains. It allows Sasuke the space to nurture his hate without Itachi needing to interfere.

And yet, the longer Itachi waits to see Karin, the tighter she will cling to him when they're alone. The more he will find himself wondering about her after he leaves, and the longer he will spend watching her undress at their next meeting, squinting while he leans back on his elbows to count the new scars on her body. And, when she looks back and quirks an eyebrow at him, to turn away and say nothing.

It would be best, he thinks, if Karin prolonged their stay.

It costs him nothing but time (of which he already has too much) to keep her content, and she has done more than enough to have earned it. His finds this disposition is at sharp disagreement with Sasori's, whose advice on the matter of informants had been to use a firm hand. A domineering hand.

It is not a hand Itachi would use to touch Karin, and so he had quickly disregarded the suggestion.

("And another thing," Sasori had said, shaking his clunky head. "Never use a woman." Deidara had snickered, but Sasori ignored him and continued. "I've yet to find one who could show up on time.")

Itachi skips the formalities and rents a single room at one of the several inns in the village because he already knows Karin will insist on staying with him once she arrives.

He has the option to rent a room with more than one bed. He has, and always has had, the option to refuse her.

He sees no benefit in taking either.

It is part of a good ruse, Itachi thinks, because this is the easiest way for him to rationalize what it is they do. Any too-curious stranger who might look at the two of them would assume they were only lovers, that their hushed conversations were flirtations. That it is infatuation, and not concern, that will keep his eyes trained on her when they sit to have dinner.

It helps to convince others that, when Karin will close and lock the inn door behind her, nothing of significant value might be overheard from behind it.

(He arranges a meeting with her near a civilian village outside of Suna, where the people are known to be more conservative, more traditional. Where Karin, in her midriff-baring blouse and shorts, is somehow considered scandalous. The women in their head-coverings and ankle-length skirts watch them both with stern, matronly expressions, but he notes Karin does not hesitate to thread their fingers together, to introduce herself as his wife when they finally settle down at an inn.

He looks on, but does not correct her.)

In a village like this one, however, there are other advantages to having a roommate. It has much of the scenery of Kiri with none of the tourist appeal—nearby, there are beaches to freshwater lakes that will, come wintertime, freeze with waves still in motion, spiderwebbed slabs of ice cracked and floating away from the shores in heavy blocks.

That time is, by his reckoning, only a month or two away, and after a quick investigation Itachi finds there is no heater in their room, and in a city that receives so little sunlight their window is nothing but a conduit for the chill. He closes the blinds, and they only partially fit over the glass.

Imagining Karin will have no desire to explore such a place but feeling the need to be somewhat productive until she arrives, he leaves his cloak in the room and walks through the village on his own and watches the crowds of women pass him by in layered skirts of grey and navy blue that billow in the wind, thick belts cinched at their waists. He finds he blends in rather easily.

He finds that Karin does not.

"The inn. Now," is how she greets him, commanding and curt. She comes upon him as he's walking down a line of small shops but immediately beings to tug him away by the elbow, confidently directing them both in the wrong direction. Several women stop and muffle laughs into the long sleeves of their dresses as she hustles him past but Karin doesn't pay them a single second of attention.

She does, however, stop suddenly after they've gone only half a block, turning back to him. Her eyes drop, and then she sighs. "Which way is the inn?"

It's a rather impolite greeting but he does not comment on it, instead offers her his arm (which she gleefully takes, winking up at him: Well, aren't you a gentleman today?) and leads her back in the opposite direction.

Karin tips forward to lean against him when he stops to unlock their door, her cheek pressed against the back of his shirt. "I'm cold," she whines while he rummages through his pockets, poking the tip of her nose against his spine. "I need you to warm me up."

Another patron could come across them at any moment but Karin isn't particularly mindful of it, hooking her finger around the top button of his pants but going no further, laughing into his shirt.

"I'm making you nervous," she teases when he finally pulls the key out of the lock, as if he did not already know. "Are you embarrassed?"

"You aren't particularly skillful when it comes to acting inconspicuous." Except, in a way, maybe she is: what kind of shinobi would allow themselves to be fondled in an open hallway?

Within seconds of his opening the door Karin has already locked it behind her, pushed him towards the bed, and tossed her glasses onto the nearby dresser.

She throws him a look, and it's bold and challenging enough that its meaning is unmistakable. "If being inconspicuous is such a big deal to you," she remarks, calm enough that he knows better, "I better not hear a goddamn peep out of you." She unzips her shirt in one harsh tug, letting it slide down her arms, baring everything to him—chest, scars, and heart, all at once.

The sheets are cold but Karin burns—her fingertips are hot and the wild brightness of her hair flickers in the few weak rays of sunlight that bear in through the single gap in their curtains.

"But you should know I want to hear you, too," she whispers, her hands already unbuttoning his pants, untucking his shirt. "Come help me get warm."

("We never actually have sex," she remarks once, her eyes carefully trained on him to gauge his reaction, and his mind works so quick to eliminate the thought that he cannot even fully consider the risks involved, to think that he might become a father, of all things, a parent, and the idea is so beyond his ability to comprehend that Karin does not mention it again.)

She refuses to speak of anything remotely connected to her work until long after she's relieved them both of their clothes and repositioned his arms around her waist. Every question of his is stopped by her mouth, the loud hitches in her breath, the friction as she grinds down against his thigh, and he struggles to keep to a consistent train of thought until she muffles a groan into his neck and finally stills, her cheek resting against his while her heart continues to race. She lingers there a moment, her breathing heavy and hot in his ear, and then slides out of his arms and rolls onto her stomach with an exaggerated sigh of contentment, murmuring unintelligibly as she makes herself comfortable again.

To participate when Karin is not specifically directing him to do so is a strange thing, and he rarely does so. It is easy to receive an order and to fulfill it but, when it's left to his own discretion, he can't help but think it's an exploration he ought to avoid. What is intimacy if not a pursuit of one's desires? What right has he, of all people, to pursue his own desires?

He sees no issue in Karin doing so, however, and it isn't something he particularly minds—his skin is tacky with both of their sweat, his thigh slick where she'd been pressed against him, but it's not obtrusively uncomfortable. They'll both need to shower, but he'd be hard-pressed to call it unpleasant. He watches Karin fidget next to him and finds unpleasant to be a difficult word to apply.

Months ago he would have pulled the sheet to cover them both, not only to spare her modesty but to cover the scars that wrap around her hip bones, that spread across her shoulders and neck like links in a chain.

They multiply—the few refuges of bare, unmarked skin on her body have slowly been eaten away throughout the years by white scar tissue. And yet, it only ever is scar tissue. He assumes Kabuto is involved, because while he regularly sees what seem to be fresh scars, he has yet to see open wounds or teeth marks that have not already healed.

Again he wonders, and still does not ask, what Orochimaru could possibly be doing to her.

The curtains in their room are still partially open but it's mainly artificial light that comes in through them now—this town, like some of the outskirt streets of Konoha, has no streetlamps but there's no shortage of neon signs here, loud advertisements to the few tourists who pass through. There are occasional footsteps above or below or just outside their door, other guests on their way to dinner at one of the few restaurants here.

In the cold of their unheated room, Karin's scars turn dark like bruises, purple-blue like the veins that stand out in her arms when she stretches and turns over onto her stomach, a streak of smoky green light from the window cutting over one shoulder blade.

He wonders if it wouldn't make more sense to pull her closer to him while they rest.

"You think so loud I can practically feel it," she mutters, voice muffled by her pillow. "Think about something sexier." He brushes this off as another one her nonsensical, flirtatious comments and says nothing. Even though her sensing range is abnormally large, it would be impossible for it to be so acute.

Karin closes her eyes and smiles, then rolls over onto him again, tucking her chin above his shoulder, wrapping one arm part-way around his back. "Maybe I could help with that."

There is more than enough room for the both of them, but Karin has never minded intruding into his bedspace—her naked legs curl into his, a stray, bony elbow comes to rest on his chest. Her hand reaches over to stroke his arm, and he turns to watch her finger trace over the ANBU insignia on his bicep.

It's an unfortunate relic, but there is no real way he might remove it—even if he knew a shinobi capable of removing chakra infused ink, he can't imagine placing such an inordinate amount of trust in one.

Karin's hand stills. "You don't like it when I touch that," she comments, unprompted. She seems to believe it without his confirming it, and her hand travels up his shoulder, her thumb moving along the lines of his collarbone. He tilts his head to let her continue, and rests his hands on her hips, not knowing where else he might put them. "You waited too long this time," she complains, although it's only barely been a month since he last saw her. "I missed you."

"Busy," is all he says, and she picks her head up only so he can see her roll her eyes.

Her lips are cold when she presses them to his neck, but when she runs her hand down his side, there's a warmth that again begins to build in his stomach. "You didn't miss me enough to make plans sooner?" It reeks of insecurity but, in an ironic sense, it seems to be only as a result of her growing confidence that she's able to ask it at all. Her hand lingers dangerously close to his groin, but he knows Karin will quickly lose interest in that if he doesn't reciprocate. "Should I give you more to miss?"

There's a novelty in it, if nothing else.

Even after she leaves, he knows the earthy-floral scent of her perfume on him will linger, that the trails of fire her fingers burned down his ribs will ache in the weeks to come.

(Sometimes he becomes curious, his mind unable to resist the temptation to think back, to try to piece together the strange and fraught affair his parents' marriage must have been but—but he does not think on it long. There is little utility in thinking so far into the past.)

Karin scoots further on top of him, propped up on her elbows, her hair falling down into his face. In the dark it's dulled, more purple than red, and yet something about it remains lively, fiery.

She shifts and he's acutely aware of the way their skin sticks together but he feels more skin than sweat, more of Karin than anything else. She grinds her hips down onto his, and he's unable to hold back a gasp he immediately regrets it when he sees her sneaky grin. "You liked that?"

He tips his head back and sighs, and she mimics it, exaggerated and mocking, before rocking against him again, though this time he at least expects it, and can hold her hips still.

She huffs and pouts at him. "It's a lot more fun when you let me get you off too, you know!"

Karin's mouth is - for lack of better words - absolutely filthy, but he's learned the best way to deal with this is not to threaten or chastise her and thus extend the conversation further, but to pay her no mind.

(At some point, he loses the desire to levy threats against her.)

She backs down with a huff, waving him off with one hand.

"Anyway," she says, flopping back down on the empty spot next to him, "Let me think of what Sasuke gossip I have for you this month, since you apparently can't wait to hear about him…"

She says it offhandedly, certainly more offended than anything, and yet Itachi is struck by the strange accuracy of it.

Kisame's words from days before, the implication that he and Karin have perhaps grown too close, ring in his mind and, disjointedly, he is able to recognize how gradually Karin has crept into his life. She begins to talk as if she hadn't noticed his reaction at all, and he does not interrupt her. "So anyway, I had to deal with him in the infirmary last week because he's a dumbass with no sense of self-preservation, and…" And he does not mean to, but he begins to tune her out.

She's certainly perceptive enough that she's learned more about him and his plans than he would have initially liked. But what does she truly know ?

He watches Karin speak and she's expressive as always, gesturing with her hands and genuinely seeming unbothered. As if she hadn't understood the potential weight of her comment.

To have revealed to her the depth of his devotion to Sasuke would have been unbearably dangerous, and so he has done nothing of the sort. Itachi has submitted to the unpredictable nature of Karin's reports and buried his curiosity whenever she mentions Sasuke. He does not pry but asks only those questions he believes someone who did not care for Sasuke would be motivated to ask.

Too often he cannot find that impartiality within himself, and he will ask nothing at all.

It will keep Sasuke safe, Itachi tells himself, and so he has done his best to feign an interest in whatever schemes of Orochimaru's Karin manages to uncover, if only to keep her distracted from his true intentions.

In a moment of abject horror, he realizes Karin has not reported on Orochimaru for several months, and not once has he objected.

Rather than alert her to anything amiss, he waits until she's meandered through several more anecdotes concerning Sasuke's training with Kabuto, whom she seems to particularly dislike.

At least, he assumes she dislikes him.

It's rather difficult to tell with Karin sometimes, and in the moment he finds it significantly more frustrating than it would typically be.

She finishes by calling Kabuto a rat-fucking bastard, and lets out a hot breath, then rolls to sit over the side of the bed to gather her clothes.

"And what of Orochimaru's plans?" he tries, turning over to watch her hunt for her lilac-colored shirt and shorts, the uniform she'd once been proud to show off to him. "You've said very little about him as of late."

Karin snorts and shrugs her shirt over her shoulders, zipping it up before turning around to flash a smirk at him. "So what, you're gonna pretend you actually care about what Orochimaru does now?"

He isn't entirely sure how to respond to that, but Karin laughs. It isn't a particularly kind laugh, and yet Karin seems more smug than anything. "What, like you thought you were being clever with that? I'm good at what I do." She shrugs, unbothered. "Sasuke's obviously a bigger threat than Orochimaru in the longer run; obviously I would have realized it too."

She says it airily, without too much weight, but he can't help but wonder what Karin believes he was trying to hide. She is still Karin, insecure and fighting for his attention, and so he tells himself it's a contest of sorts, that it is not a threat but something she is presenting to him for his approval. That she doesn't truly realize what she's uncovered.

Isn't she right, after all? Wouldn't Sasuke ultimately present a greater threat to him?

Karin quirks an eyebrow at him and inclines her head towards the door. "There's a ramen place a block away; there's barely a crowd there right now and I'm getting hungry."

He lays the matter to rest, and Karin goes back to telling him about Sasuke's most recent successes in his genjutsu training, another effort she understands is meant to help Sasuke bring about Itachi's death, and yet she does not seem particularly interested in or bothered by this conflict.

She does not seem particularly bothered by anything, and perhaps he should be more concerned about that than he is.

Karin stands to finish dressing, and he shelves the thought for another time and, even in the semi-darkness, averts his eyes out of respect.

Respect that Karin seems to find funny.

She laughs again, much lighter this time, and he hears her zip up her shorts. A second later the mattress dips under her weight and she leans over him, tapping the bottom of his chin until he tilts his head back, and she kisses him lightly. "Now's a good time to ask me to dinner," she whispers, before kissing him again.

.

.

.

Itachi only meets Karin once every month or so, but as the months go by he finds himself looking for more excuses to extend their meetings, to prolong their time together.

He tells himself it is because of Sasuke, that being near to Karin is the closest he can come to his brother until Sasuke is prepared to kill him, and without Karin there are very few ways of knowing how soon that will be.

She tells him of Kirin, a jutsu so powerful Orochimaru believes it might take another year for Sasuke to perfect it, and this tells Itachi that he and Karin will at least have that time together.

There is no rush, he thinks, because his fate is predetermined. No matter how long it takes Sasuke to come for him, he will come.

It is not incorrect to say the happiness he feels in Karin's company is happiness derivative of Sasuke, because everything in his life is derivative of Sasuke. Everything in his life ought to be derivative of Sasuke; he can imagine no other way of living.

There are ways, after all, in which Karin comes to remind him of Sasuke: his relationship to her will always necessarily be different, always subordinate, and yet while Karin could never occupy the same roles Sasuke once had, she comes close to almost filling them.

She is not his younger brother, and yet she seeks his approval before anything else, nonchalantly reporting her advancements under Orochimaru but, like Sasuke once had, turning to gauge his reaction when she believes he is not looking, hungry to impress him.

He is not her older brother, is far from it, and yet when she reports the presence of a shinobi she can only describe as cold and far too strong to overlook, she turns to him for guidance. Once upon a time it had been Sasuke dogging his steps through uncomfortable family gatherings, unfamiliar neighborhoods in their village, but now it is Karin, leaning in to update him on the shinobi's presence, her hand clutching the sleeve of his cloak.

Still, to say his only interest in Karin is her attachment to Sasuke is an incomplete telling, a picture lacking more than one color. There are intimacies they share where Sasuke has no place.

(He sustains a minor injury during a skirmish in Kiri that Karin insists on checking, clicking her tongue and calling him all manner of names as she none-too-gently pokes the edges of his bruise. He winces and she calls him a thick-headed moron, an absolute idiot and jabs him again in the ribs with one hand even as she digs through her pack for bandages with the other. It aches, and yet he finds there's a surprising lack of sting to it.)

There are things about Karin he simply cannot explain, an uncanny way that she understands his thoughts, enigmatic shrugs and knowing smiles he should find significantly more concerning than he does.

It is her love of mischief, he thinks, that paradoxically sets him at ease: Karin is too volatile, too wily to make a real threat of herself. She's too devoted to him to even consider it. She will not invite an ambiguity into their relationship that does not have a punchline at the end of it, her desire to impress him too great for her to keep too many secrets.

He refuses to consider any alternative explanations.

.

.

.

Itachi calls for her in Kumo and expects to be kept waiting for a week at the very least, doesn't send his crow to find her until he's already halfway to the city. It is not a quick journey: the way to Kumo is marked by poorly carved paths and increasingly high altitudes that steal his breath, bringing on dizzy spells that come so often he regularly needs to sit and rest on his journey there.

He assumes everyone experiences this, and months from then he will find out he is wrong.

He travels alone, and so he doesn't move with any particular haste, looking down the cliffside periodically to see ribbons of clouds spread below him, rocks that disappear into the sky when he kicks them away from the edge.

Again, he makes no great show of renting a single room with one bed he fully intends to share, and then he waits.

Karin shows within a few days, far ahead of schedule, with the crow he sent after her perched somewhat conspiratorially on her shoulder, bending down to preen when he looks to it for an explanation.

Itachi almost doesn't answer her knocking because it's too soon, too unlikely to be Karin and he isn't expecting anyone else. He has had several days to rest but he's still tired, still unusually lightheaded, and he would rather go back to sleep than confront an intruder.

Still, tired as he is, he is cautious enough to investigate.

If it were someone planning to kill him, he thinks, it seems very unlikely they'd be gagging in the hallway, breathing loud enough for him to hear it through the door.

"That… fuck… ing sucked," Karin gasps when he opens it, stumbling through the open doorway and tugging on his shirt, collapsing onto him to catch her breath. Miraculously, she manages to pull in enough air to continue talking. "Fuck that. Fuck doing that ever again. Never come back here again." She groans, and smothers her sweaty face into the front of his shirt. "Itachi…"

His crow squawks in protest, scrambling in a fit of feathers as it tries to keep its hold on the back of her shirt, and Itachi obliges by reversing the summons.

It seems to him Karin's exhaustion is her own fault, that there was no need for her to hurry when she should have known he'd remain there for a longer time than was typical for him. That he would have still waited for her even if she did not show within a week.

(Does she know that?)

"Well, maybe you would have, maybe you wouldn't," she says, letting out a choked laugh. "Happy fucking birthday. Next time give me more time to get here, you ass."

Itachi pays very little attention to time and dates but he considers it, recalling the day of the week, that the first of the month had been over a week ago… And he realizes she's likely correct.

It has been so long since he'd thought to even acknowledge his own birthday, and longer still that anyone else would have wanted to do so.

It's rather strange that Karin, of all people, would be the exception to that.

It's rather strange that Karin, of all people, would know of his birthday when he has not once mentioned it to her. When she should have no way of accessing that information.

She tugs on his shirt to get his attention and frowns up at him, her face still flushed from exertion. She's indicated before that she has very little combat training, and he doesn't doubt that, for her, making the journey here in such a short period of time would have been extraordinarily taxing. And yet, here she is.

"What, you aren't even going to act grateful? Do you have any idea how fast I had to run to get here?!"

It is mere mischief, he tells himself, knowing any other explanation would require him to think very carefully and weigh Karin's utility against the risks she might pose. That, should she fail, the easiest and quickest remedy would be disposing of her.

"I…" He is not entirely sure what an appropriate response would be. It was not something he asked of her, and yet she's done it for his sake. "I do appreciate it." Does he? The line between humoring Karin and indulging inappropriately has grown rather thin.

He braces himself for the creeping sense of guilt that should naturally follow, but Karin has never been patient enough to wait for him to order his thoughts.

She rolls her eyes but doesn't seem to be too bothered, and she starts herding him back further into the room, her hands sliding up his forearms, under his sleeves, and her touch is so warm, so familiar, that he can't help but shiver. She grins. "So we should talk about getting you a present, shouldn't we—"

Mischief, he tells himself. It is only mischief.

.

.

.

There come days where Karin has no news of Sasuke, no developments that are worth mentioning, and Itachi finds he does not mind.

.

.

.

It does nothing, however, to divert him from his course.

.

.

.

Vengeance trails slowly after Itachi, but death comes much faster.

What starts as an inconvenient series of aches and periodic bouts of exhaustion becomes a diagnosis, and the sparse time allotted to him by a rogue med-nin is quickly running out.

They meet again in the Land of Fire. Konoha is less than ten miles away but perhaps he's feeling a little reckless, maybe he's beyond the point of worrying about being found by Konoha shinobi. Maybe it's important that he make this pilgrimage one more time, to venture as close to the Uchiha clan's resting ground as he can manage.

He supposes it doesn't quite matter if he can't make it all the way there. His clansmen will be waiting for him no matter where he meets his demise, and he doesn't doubt that Sasuke plans to dispose of his body far, far away from the graveyard where the rest of their family remains.

This is, he believes, the last time he and Karin will see each other.

It is better for them both that she does not know that.

"You'll want to hear about this," Karin says when she slips into the room he's rented, tossing her backpack somewhere on the floor. He ignores it and instead watches her talk; her face is too difficult for him to make out completely but the outline of her is clear, her back straight, one hand resting on her hip while she gestures with the other. "The guards at the Northern Hideout have been talking about it nonstop. You know Naruto? The one Sasuke talks about sometimes? So he and some other—"

He has a good enough idea of where this is going, and so he holds up a hand to interrupt her. "We'll have time to talk about that later." It is a lie, because the time they have is quickly running out. It is a lie, and he doesn't particularly care. Sasuke is as close to him as the rot in his lungs, and whether or not he hears what Karin has to say, Sasuke heralds a death just as inevitable. "There are other things I'd like to see to first."

"Okay, but this is really something else, like, there…" Her thought trails off rather predictably when he stands from the bed and grabs the hem of his shirt, lifting both it and his mesh undershirt over his head at once. She blinks.

They've come full circle, he thinks, remembering the night nearly three years ago in another village not too far from there, where Karin had cried and clung to him, fought and demanded his attention. He had, back then, been fully prepared to walk out and leave her to her private terrors.

Karin deserves, if only this just now, to be the one pursued.

"Other things first," he repeats, folding his shirts and setting them over his backpack before glancing back at her. "If you wouldn't mind."

For once she's speechless, and in a way it's a little bit funny—that apparently all he's ever needed to do to quiet her is to disrobe.

Karin recovers quickly, however, and hurriedly begins to undress, her grin unstoppably proud as if - well, as if he were about to hand her everything she'd ever wanted from him. When she tugs down the zipper on her shirt, he places his hands over hers.

"May I?" he asks, and again she relents wordlessly, holding her breath when he slips her shirt from around her shoulders and onto the floor and lifts her chin, mouthing her jaw, her neck, her shoulders. Her brokenness shows in the way she moves; when he moves his lips and she twitches, when his teeth scrape against her collarbone and her entire body goes rigid.

When he palms her hips and, slowly, her body eases.

He guides her backwards until she's lying flat on the bed, wild red hair fanned out around her head and he crawls over top of her, fixing her hips between his knees. Finally he's able to lean in close enough to make out her expression, dazed and wide-eyed and unimaginably beautiful. He presses his lips against her shoulder, right over an imprint of teeth too large to be his, and she sighs, her body relaxing under his. Distantly, he's able to smell her perfume, sweet and soft and familiar in a visceral sense.

It's a scent he had gotten for her years ago, long enough that he shouldn't remember, that it should have no cosmic significance, but it's something he's done for her that he can cling to, something of him that will remain after his body has been burned or buried or disposed of in whatever way Sasuke sees fit.

His hands seek every inch of sensitive skin on her body; this is the end, his last opportunity to wrap his hands around her thin wrists, to bend her arms back over her head and watch her face flush after he kisses her, insistent as if one kiss were capable of apologizing for every boundary he'd forced her to overcome to get there. Karin writhes and gasps beneath him, tugging her hands out of his grip and tangling her fingers into his hair, tugging harshly at it when his hands reach the waistband of her shorts.

She laughs when he pauses and it sounds uncertain, almost nervous.

Karin is the driving force in whatever relationship they have; there is no sense in disputing it. Her hands run over his shoulders, coaxing him back up towards her. She's falling back into familiar patterns, used to taking the lead, and yet there are things he needs to communicate to her that he cannot put into words, that cannot be said except under his direction. He parts her legs, runs his hands down to her knees and back up to her hips, and her breath hitches.

"If you were of the same mind," he says, "I want to do this now."

Her hands still, and even without saying it explicitly, he knows she's understood his meaning.

"It isn't like you to be so cautious," he comments when she doesn't reply, bending down to place kisses between the bumps of her ribs.

"Yeah," she finally answers, her voice breathy, faraway. "It really isn't." His thumb brushes her navel and her body shudders as if he'd never touched her before. "Keep going," she says, firmer, and he has every intention of doing so.

"You look beautiful," he tells her when he pulls away, unable to truly see her except for a dim outline.

"You… you're ridiculous," Karin remarks, suddenly coming back to herself with a defensive snap. She turns her head, and—she was blushing now. He could see the redness spread from her cheeks to her neck.

Had he ever made her blush before?

"You are, though," he says, and he's only half-surprised when she begins to undo her own shorts, sliding them down her legs and kicking them off somewhere onto the floor.

"And you're still slow as ever."

He quickly follows suit and when he guides her legs around his waist her back arches to meet him, her hands fisted in the bed sheets beneath her, knuckles ash-white, her breaths almost too quiet to hear. His breaths come rough and ragged and his chest burns but he can't slow his pace for anything, can't walk back from this until he's seen it through.

He kisses her and after the hundreds of kisses they have shared it still feels new, as though he is still finding new ways to experience the waxy aftertaste of her lipstick, the drag of her tongue against his.

When he parts his lips, it is Karin's gasp that he hears.

(He recalls a poem he'd read once, long ago in the time when his eyes still could see well enough to read and he had the time to read, when he could divorce himself from his thoughts long enough to imagine, for even the shortest time, a reality beyond his own.

A man and a woman are one, it had read, and the novelty of it had never occurred to him until the exact moment when their bodies come together and he ceases to be alone, ceases, if only momentarily, to be separate from her. A man and a woman are one.

A man and a woman in a story of inescapable rhythms and barbaric glass, and he and Karin in a cheap inn room, fumbling in the dark towards some universal connection neither of them might ever experience again.)

Karin cries out and her entire body shakes when he moves inside her and he holds her closer still, cupping one of her thighs in his hand. When she drags her nails across his back there is no space for his thoughts to be anywhere but with her, nowhere he could escape where she couldn't follow.

He has bottled gentleness in his heart since he was thirteen, kept it sealed away like the most dangerous of weapons or poisons because, used against him, that is exactly what they might become and yet he feels it spilling out of him now, has no other opportunity to use it but here, coaxing Karin's body to move with his, to be a man and a woman and, if only this once, one.

"Ah, I—this. You." Anything else he might have said of it is muffled into his pillow when he climaxes, half-eaten words spilling from his mouth. It's too often been the opposite between them, that she has been the one to fill his emptiness, to pour her love into him. Her body tenses underneath him and she throws her head back gasping, hot and tight around him but he holds her tighter still, keeps them joined if only to suspend the moment.

It is a foolish game of chance he believes he might win, that he might lie with her, taking no precautions, and that nothing will come of it. That, even if they did manage to conceive a child, he will be long dead before he would know of it.

"I've always known the kind of man you were," she whispers to him later, when they separate and he returns from the washroom. He brings a wet washcloth to clean the stain of his seed from her thighs, if only so she can rest a while longer. She lays back and allows him, but her fingers weave around his, not to grasp them but to touch him, her nails circling his knuckles as he washes away the last traces of what they've done. "And that's why I love you."

For her to know his nature is impossible, and yet he doesn't doubt she's come close to some semblance of the truth. He nods, stares momentarily at their intertwined hands but, ultimately, can say nothing in response.

He backs away, and returns to the washroom alone.

At best, she'll find it callous of him, but ultimately she'll shrug it off. One day, perhaps, she will recall him as cold and distant and—and this will benefit both of them. It's the kindest gift he could give to her, that she will have the fortune to look back on their years together and to think of it only as two shinobi conducting business transactions. That, sex or no sex, he was ultimately using her as a means to an end.

In spite of this she is unusually calm in the aftermath, and while they lie together, clothed and still, she threads her fingers into his hair and allows a twilight silence to fall between them, sprawled out on the bed as the moon passes by the window by inches, lying against his shoulder and not, thankfully, against his chest. For once she has very little to say, but they've passed the point where words are sufficient or necessary.

Anything he might have needed to say to her has been said—said with his hands and body in a way his tongue along could never accomplish.

Itachi has asked too much of his body regardless and he sleeps restlessly now, unsure how much more he might ask of it before it will no longer comply. Some nights he doesn't sleep at all, and when he lies next to Karin he conceals it the best he can, enduring the building pressure in his chest and persistent ache behind his eyes as she rests beside him, slowly tapering off into sleep, her yawns muffled into his shoulder. She has always been a rather heavy sleeper but even in sleep she clings to him, her hands fisted tightly in his shirt or his hair.

Her breaths come slower and slower until he feels secure enough to untangle himself from her and leave the bed, looking for a more solitary place to rest if sleep will not come for him. Karin grumbles, but doesn't awake.

This is their end. It is impossible for them to become closer than they have just been and so he accepts the inevitability that every action they take going forward is a step away from each other, her into a greater, brighter future, and him towards his grave. He shuts the door behind him, and the boundary between them feels all the more tangible for it.

The cheap fluorescent lights in the washroom do nothing to help him see better, only aggravate his headache more, and so he leaves them off, feeling his way to the counter with little trouble.

For a few minutes he stands alone with the door locked and lets the sink run hot, steam rising. It's not much, but he's learned to appreciate small pockets of relief, however rare they are.

He leans forward, resting his bare forehead against the bathroom mirror, and tries to breathe.

Twenty-one years of life, and he supposes it's only fair he'll spend the last few months of it sleepless. Weeks, perhaps, if Sasuke is diligent. What sense is there now in concerning himself with the exact details of it? Sasuke will come, and Itachi will be waiting.

There is nothing he might do now but move forward, to continue slouching towards the death he had promised himself almost ten years prior, and to leave Karin behind. It is, he supposes, kinder that way.

When he cracks open the door Karin is still lying in bed, her back to him. He can't see her exactly but can make out the shades of her: crimson red that tells him he's looking at the back of her head, a smear of light blue he already knows is a shirt of his she wore to bed. She wears it, he knows, with nothing underneath, her legs bare under the bedsheets.

It is better, he tells himself, that she will not have the certainty of his words to think back on once he is gone. That Sasuke will be the one to write his ending, and Karin will have no choice but to eventually succumb to whatever legacy Itachi leaves.

It comes upon him almost accidentally that this is the closest they'll come to domesticity, that the only house they'll ever keep is a hotel room of takeout containers and empty drawers, half-emptied backpacks thrown on the floor.

Karin has asked no questions and has not pressed him about his growing disinterest in intimacy, has been unusually forgiving of his exhausted irritability that, he admits, has only gotten worse in light of his insomnia. Both he could manage to stave off for just this night, and yet part of him can't help but wonder if they're connected in such a way that she can sense the end is near, that these days they spend together will be their last.

He thinks, selfishly, that in another life there might have been more than this between them, more he might have offered to her, but he knows his own karma well enough to wish whole-heartedly that he and Karin will not meet again for several lifetimes over. That this will be, for as long as possible, the end between them.

He tries to step softly but in the dark, with his clouded vision, navigating the room is not as simple as it should be without Sharingan and on his way back to the bed he stumbles over her backpack, tossed rather absentmindedly near the edge of the bed.

Karin grumbles and he pauses, waiting to see what she might do.

"C'mere," she slurs, groaning and squeezing her pillow as if she meant to suffocate it. "S'cold."

Itachi sighs, and sits on the edge of the bed, a joint in his knee cracking when he lowers himself down.

Twenty-one years of life, and even the joints in his body are worn down.

Karin does not comment on it, and so he runs his hand over her back, feeling the knobby bumps of her spine. She murmurs something he cannot decipher and her body relaxes, though the rhythm of her breathing remains steady, awake. It's too late for either of them to be up, and he hears very little else, no other guests drunkenly stumbling through the hallways or snippets of conversations filtering in through the walls of their room.

Just him, and just Karin, breathing in, and breathing out.

For now it is only the two of them but one day, one very soon, this will come to an end. He is going to die. He has had almost a decade to come to terms with it but Karin does not know, will not know until after the fact, perhaps not until days or weeks or months after his death.

He is going to die because death is his only atonement, is the only way he might, perhaps, one day see Sasuke again and apologize.

There is no word in his vocabulary to describe exactly what it is he and Karin have become, what it is they do, but a conceited, selfish part of his mind tells him their relationship is as unique to her as it is to him, that there is no other man's shirt for her to sleep in. That, when he dies, there will be no other man waiting for her.

He's never thought to ask if there was, and he does not believe he has any right to do so, no right to place even the smallest expectation of exclusivity upon her when he has never treated what they do as a permanent kind of relationship.

For once, he is the one to break the silence.

"There is something I would like to know," and she again grumbles something unintelligible, burrowing further under the covers. "Orochimaru's three years are nearly at an end."

She snorts. "Yeah." Karin turns onto her back and yawns, stretching out her arms. Her voice is soft, a little hoarse, and he already regrets having this conversation at such an inopportune time. "We just fucked and you're thinking about Orochimaru?" She blinks up at him, and they're close enough that he can make out tired circles around her eyes. He wonders what, if anything, would be capable keeping Karin awake at night. "I think I'm the one who told you that, anyway. What about it?" She squints, her eyesight almost as poor as his when she does not have her glasses. "It's the middle of the night."

Itachi reaches forward and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, letting his hand linger over her cheeks, her red eyes only half-seeing him in the dark. Her lips perk up, and she leans against his hand.

"You're so sappy today…" She punctuates this with a stifled yawn, and she shakes her head. "Come be sappy under the covers instead."

It is perhaps better that Karin is not in the most coherent state of mind and that, should he say more than he ought to, it could easily be explained in the morning as a fault of her memory.

He's started this, however, and it makes more sense to see it through sooner, rather than later. "Suppose Sasuke manages to kill him," and his blood runs cold at the mere thought of any other outcome, the sheer inability of his mind to comprehend a future where he might outlive Sasuke. "What will you do?"

Karin hums thoughtfully, and reaches one hand up to lay her palm against his hand, hers a good deal softer. "Don't suppose the Akatsuki are trying to recruit me, are they?"

"No." But they very well may be soon, especially if it's someone with Karin's talents, her experience. After Itachi's death a position will certainly be open, and though their abilities are vastly different, Itachi imagines the other Akatsuki would be eager to add to their ranks a sensor as skilled as Karin when multiple jinchuuriki are still at large.

So long as Itachi stands between Karin and his colleagues, however, he is in a position to direct her attention away from them and towards a safer, more innocent way of living.

It seems like the least he can do.

(Almost ten years ago, he remembers—cousin Izumi crying, soft, barely concealed whimpers when he told her, emphatically, that she was not meant to be a shinobi.

She'd cried, and he'd been proud of it: proud that he might change her mind. He had truly believed he might save her.)

Perhaps, he thinks, this has been the only way he's ever been capable of expressing his love—through deceit and manipulation and an inability to put into firm, undeniable words what he believes with his entire being.

Perhaps it is why his end will be brought about by the person he has loved more than anything in the world.

Karin snorts and finally sits up, kicking the bedsheets off of her legs and wiggling into his arms to make herself comfortable, not bothering to ask his permission. Her body is pleasantly warm against his, though, warmer still when she wraps her naked thighs around his waist.

"You spend too much time thinking," she comments. She's so light her weight barely registers; even now, disease-eaten and half-dead, his shirts are large enough to droop off of her shoulders.

A half-delirious, insomniatic part of him wants to ask her about it, but it's such a poorly timed question that he bites it back, resolves to ask it ask it another time. Tomorrow, he supposes, because there won't be any other times.

For now, she's warm, and he can't help but pull her closer, letting Karin rest her head against his shoulder. She sighs, and her body sags against his, the way his father would sometimes fall back into an armchair after a long day of patrols. As if she had full confidence in his ability to support her.

She reaches forward and holds his hands against her hips with her own. "God, your hands are freezing." She presses his hands tighter, rubbing more warmth into them, apparently lost on some tangent of thought.

After a moment she stops, and moves her hands around his waist, her fingers tucking into the edges of his shirt. "I wonder how long you're planning to keep me around if Sasuke leaves." She hesitates, and then adds, "That's what this has always been about, isn't it?"

It has, but it's not something she has any business wondering.

"I've got nothing to sell now, so you've got nothing to buy?" Karin releases her grip on him and leans back on her arms, her legs dangling over his. She gives him a look he can't quite decipher, a conflicted slant to her eyebrows, a curious quirk to her mouth. "So this is really it?"

She must have already considered the possibility, because she does not seem too let down by it. Or, perhaps, enough time has passed that it's something she has outgrown. Rather than approach him with tears and beg him to remain with her, she only shrugs.

(Is he disappointed to see those days have passed?)

He squints slightly to get a better picture of her, having learned before that activating Sharingan unannounced was rather impolite when they were in bed together. Even so, Karin's expression is beyond his reckoning. She purses her lips, then asks, "Are you going to be worried about me?" her enunciation so clear he can practically hear whatever calculations underlie it, even if he does not fully understand them.

"It would be unlike you to not be prepared." He tries to speak diplomatically, indifferently, but his own hands to betray his thoughts. It's too dark for him to see, almost too far away even as close as they are, but he can feel tiny pockmarks under his hands when he runs them up and down her thighs, bitemarks and bruises and scars where they have no business being on her body.

Touching her has become near automatic for him, that he would seek to hold her, comfort her, whether or not she truly needs it. To apologize for leaving before he has even left. He has done so little good in his life that acts of atonement, great or small, are the only good left for him.

And yet, there is no exact black or white in what is good. Karin is by any metric a criminal, the servant of one nukenin, the lover of another, and yet under his hands she's pearly white, rows and rings of it that tells him she is much more than who she serves and who she loves and what she has done.

She may not be wholly good or even good by half but to hold her and comfort her is undeniably something good.

"Are you worried about me?" she repeats, watching his hands move. She bends towards his mouth as if she means to kiss him but pauses a few inches short, her eyes flickering down to his lips before returning to his eyes. "Poor me, all alone in the world?"

Itachi does not close the distance between them. He acknowledges, however, that the temptation is there, and that Karin is likely mindful of this. "I'm confident in your ability to adapt."

She shrugs, and is suddenly relaxed again, moving a couple inches back and humming in agreement. "I think Sasuke plans to ask me to go with him after Orochimaru's been dealt with. He's made a few comments about needing someone with my abilities for a future mission he's planning. Think it's a good opportunity?"

Karin is intentionally being vague, but he does not need her telling to know what mission Sasuke is plotting.

She must be aware of it as well, and so he wonders if there is a trick to this, or if it is merely an attempt to pit him against his brother. If it's Karin's way of taking out whatever frustrations she has against him. Or, perhaps, the closest she is willing to come to giving him a warning.

It is, however, the safest option for her. He has never wondered if Karin possesses the same capacity for cruelty as he does, if she could stand aside and watch Sasuke bring about whatever death he has imagined and say nothing. If she'd be able to act pleased by it.

(Would Sasuke?)

Karin hums, and her knee bumps his elbow. "You done thinking about it?"

It would be a rather unusual way of ending things, but Itachi supposes Karin's loyalties have never been exclusively his, and he has never asked her to reveal the fine details of whatever relationship she has with Sasuke. He assumes Sasuke would at the very least be capable of looking after her, and the thought is a balm to his nerves.

That being said, it would be rather odd from her perspective if he encouraged her to follow the man who will one day bring about his death. "You join him at your own peril."

"Do I?" Karin grins and bares her teeth at him and they're unnaturally bright in the darkness of their room, unusually predatory. "I've been thinking about that…" She hooks a finger into the collar of his shirt and pulls him in closer, cheek-to-cheek, her lips up against his ear. "He's coming after you after he finishes Orochimaru." It's not a question but a statement.

"That would be the logical next step for him."

"And then the two of you will fight." He has nothing to say to that, and her hand taps on his shoulder, not quite impatient, but contemplative. "And one you will die."

"It seems likely."

"You're definitely stronger than he is." Karin stops a moment, then adds, "But not if you're not planning to fight with killing intent."

"I'm not quite sure what you mean by that." He thinks of her comment earlier—I've always known the kind of person you were, and he frowns. Their faces are too close together for him to make out her expression, to gain a firmer handhold on her meaning.

What does Karin truly know?

She hums. "I've thought about it before, you know. Killing Sasuke myself. I could slip something into his drink, sneak into his room one night… I'm not the noble death type, but he trusts me." She pauses, and he can hear the proud smirk in her voice. "I wouldn't have to worry about you fighting him if I could just kill him first."

Karin releases his shirt and leans back again, almost as if she were admiring her own handiwork, her cocky smile as sharp as any knife that's been held against him.

There is a dire need for him to say something to that, to misdirect or contradict or, for heaven's sake get that idea out of her mind now —but how can he without exposing himself? "I—" he what? "I don't believe killing Sasuke outright is necessary for me to get what I want." It will not give her what she wants, either, but how can he say that? If Sasuke died, of course Itachi would hurry after him, of course he would never want to live a second longer than Sasuke but—

Sasuke's eyes, he needs to take Sasuke's eyes, and so she can't kill him. She has to know she can't kill Sasuke, he has to tell her—

Karin places a soft kiss against his bare forehead, her lips resting there long enough for his racing heart to beat several times before she backs away again. "You need to relax," she says airily, "I'm just kidding."

Itachi slowly releases the breath he's been holding, and the relief to his lungs almost sends him into a coughing fit.

Karin threads her fingers into his hair. "Do you honestly think I could kill Sasuke?" When he doesn't answer she kisses him once more, this time on the lips. She pulls back and kisses him again, slower this time, somehow full of passion he can't bring himself to reciprocate, her body becoming liquid against his, impossibly warm, inexplicably cruel. "I'm nobody, Itachi. Don't you know that?"

Karin is far too dangerous to be nobody.

His head throbs, either from a lack of sleep or from overthinking, a lifetime (twenty-one years) of parsing through every inconvenient thought that's crossed his mind.

If he must choose between Karin and Sasuke it is not even a choice, can be decided in an instant but it's too uncertain, her intentions are so unclear—what does she know? She's made an open threat. He can't ignore an open threat.

He knows he can do it. He has carved out his own heart so many times that there remains no boundary he has not crossed once before, no act so depraved that it is beyond his reach.

(So why doesn't he do it?)

Karin's arms wrap around his shoulders, coiling around him like a snake, and it is suddenly imperative that he does not forget where Karin has come from, who has taught her.

What he has given her, and what she intends to take. "Well, don't worry about it, then," she says, resting her head against his shoulder. She grumbles good-naturedly, as if his hands weren't inches from her throat, "You worry too much; it's bad for your health."

He can't do much more than nod in response. (What does she know?)

"Put your arms around me," she demands, though not harshly, and his mind is too overwhelmed by greater matters to not comply. "You've got nothing at all to worry about." She places another gentle kiss to his jaw, and Itachi is so, so tired of thinking, of trying to wrangle the uncertain threads of his future.

Karin finally slips out of his lap, tucking back the blankets on the bed. She coaxes him closer and he doesn't think to resist, allows her to pull him down onto the mattress beside her, resting his head against her chest.

"I think you need to sleep, Itachi," she says, and he does not disagree.

He sighs and his chest aches, his head aches, all of him aches and—Karin runs her hand down his back, moving it in circles he can't help but find soothing, calming in spite of the mess she has made, in spite of the blood he may have on his hands by morning.

(Through her chest he can feel her heartbeat.)

And again—a surfacing memory his will can't seem to hold down—

He is eight again, so sick he does not leave bed, is not able to eat anything but is made to sit up and take whatever is put into his hands and he has no choice but to comply, to linger half-asleep while his mother manipulates his body.

You need to drink something, she says, her palms cool when she places them over his cheeks. He can still remember the feel of her hands, how her wedding band had been ice cold, biting against his skin, but the details of her face are hazy, lost somewhere in the feverish, childhood memory.

Mother has been dead for nearly ten years but—perhaps it's because he is so close to seeing her again that this memory comes back.

There's a hand on the back of his neck. "Don't worry about it," Karin whispers. "I'm going to take care of you."

AN:

Title taken for WCW's The Ivy Crown:

"I love you
or I do not live
at all.

DAFFODIL TIME
is past. This is
summer, summer!
the heart says,
and not even the full of it.
No doubts
are permitted –
though they will come
and may
before our time
overwhelm us.
We are only mortal
but being mortal
can defy our fate.
We may
by an outside chance
even win! We do not
look to see
jonquils and violets
come again
but there are,
still,
the roses!"

I wasn't really thinking too hard about "The Ivy Crown" when I started writing this fic-I think, at the time, I just really wanted a title, and liked the aesthetic of this poem. I was surprised to see, in the end, how well the two came together in my thoughts. The other poem referenced in here is Wallace Stevens' "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." It... it just fit, and I couldn't stop thinking about it while I was writing. Felt weird not to include it.

My first draft of this entire fic was ~5000 words (shorter than this chapter!) and basically just a fun little exploration of a 'what if.' Maybe 5% of what's in this chapter was in that first draft. It got super out of hand but I'm really happy I was able to dig in further and make a hardier story out of one little idea. I kept the ending pretty open but, ah, I have my own thoughts about what would happen :)

As always thanks to everyone who read, commented, and favorite'd this fic. It means a whole lot to me, especially because this is a rarepair I love dearly but don't see represented much. This is also the first multichapter fic I've finished! How wild!