Fevre Dream
Naruto fan fiction

Genre: NCS, mindfuck
Pairing: Madara/Itachi
Rating: PG-13 (T), violence, NCS (no penetration)
Word Count: 1200 or so

Madara astounds himself with his kindness.

He even holds Itachi's hair back while he (a child, really) retches, dry heaving convulsions that shake and tense his entire body. He pulls and chafes against Madara like ship's mooring, and Madara the dockfront.

Madara runs coarse fingers across the contours of Itachi's burning eyes, wet wan skin and feather-barb lashes. They flutter and skitter beneath his touch, half-gone from fever

(and the other half is gone from guilt).

"That was very selfish of you, Itachi." Madara's timbre is crooning, maternal; he really is too kind. "Sparing little Sasuke." Madara removes his forearm from around Itachi's waist. Itachi crumples to the ground with a wet plop, and his limp doll form fades into the marshgrass like a dead thing.

What a mess.

Madara tries again. "Massacre is not difficult, Itachi. Your little display here is unbecoming."

But Madara is very impressed. Itachi killed them all. All, save the child Sasuke, and who knows how much of him is left after what Itachi's done. Look at what the poor fool's done to himself, after all. Because Itachi has

no

control.

(Which means Madara has everything.)

When Itachi doesn't rise, Madara twines his fingers through Itachi's hair (limp snake strings, slick with sweat, with marshdew) and pulls. Pulls, until Itachi's small face is even with his own. Itachi's lips smack something that resembles 'no.' No no o o o.

"No, no, I understand. I understand you completely. ...After all, I waited, too. With my little brother. Until his sharingan had matured somewhat. You'd hate to go through that again, wouldn't you. To relive that.

"You know what it takes. You gave him a little taste of it, before you came to me. Just a little taste, is all." Madara cradles Itachi as others would an infant, or burden similarly boneless. The action gives rise to quiet, parenthetical musings.

Did the silly lovely Mikoto ever hold him so? And more importantly, is Itachi presently alert enough to make such a connection?

Madara's gash of a grin splits his face in two.

He hopes so.

Then he sets him back down, and Itachi sinks only to his knees his time. Itachi's head is bowed; his hands clapped around his eyes, and Madara stands above him, listening to the ripped, staccato sound of his breathing.

"I am not to blame if you drown here. It's too much already that I am here. What would you do without me, hm?" What would you have done without me?

"Thendrownme," Itachi slurs, forcing the words out all in a single too-short exhalation.

...Ah, of course. Shisui. Dear cousin Shisui. Madara had forgotten. He crouches low behind his wretched slip of a student. He scoops a handful of the cool marsh mud, with which he replaces Itachi's hands across Itachi's eyes. Itachi sighs, shudders, and his head tips back and hangs against Madara's clavicle.

"Drown me."

I don't think so, Itachi. Madara's hands make their home at Itachi's hips, massaging first their bony protrusions before slipping down over his pelvis.

Itachi's breath cuts out entirely. No o o o flap his lips; fish out of water.

You're out of your element.

Madara need only hold his hands just so, and Itachi's squirming does the rest. He's a little fish caught in a net of fingers and he struggles until

his cock grows hard (simmering fever-warm) and the rest of him pulls taught and wiry, and Madara wonders where, exactly, Itachi supposes he is drawing attention. Madara's hands quest lower and outward, exploratory spiders in the marsh mud.

"Come quietly," Madara suggests-commands, voice susurrant. "You follow me, now." You no longer have a choice.

Not any more.

Itachi's hand whips itself across Madara's cheek, knuckles first. The sting rises hot in the cool air.

Madara will not deny--this was somewhat unexpected. His wide lips pucker away from their grin.

Itachi wheels around, motions comically retarded by the mud that entombs his legs, but that hand, knuckles turning as red as the cheek they struck, remains poised at the ready. The mud across his eyes sluices down his face, and for the first time Madara gets a good look at Itachi's open eyes, frenetic red on black.

"My, but you have damaged yourself tonight"--the sharingan spins, just as slowly as Itachi had--"Little bird."

Itachi's kodachi flies out, and Itachi staggers along behind it. The mud sucks at his sandaled feet and Madara moves to the side. He would comment--what a spectacle this was!--but Madara has seen a great many pathetic things in his life and he honestly cannot say this has not happened before.

(But these are Izuna's eyes. These--)

Then, something

fractures.

Madara wrests the sword from Itachi's grasp and throws it to the swamp. Let Konoha's ANBU retrieve it. Let them believe their prodigy has drowned himself here, tonight. Madara will return to the village himself, and bring damnable Sasuke. Let them drown together, let them--

Madara's arm jabs at Itachi's throat when Little Bird's momentum carries him flying forward, and his leg hooks behind Itachi's knees. They fall together gracelessly, into the quiet blackness of the swamp. With one hand, Madara aims to crush Itachi's lungs. With the other, Madara grabs the bulge of Itachi's still-hard cock. They are back where they started. They are back where they started, and Madara is feeling none too kind.

These are Izuna's eyes. They've seen

you

as no others have. They've seen

you

like this. Like this broken up thing struggling beneath you.

Itachi, supine in the swampgrass once more. His knees jab halfhearted death threats into Madara's abdomen.

That is why he died.

Madara pulls. Claws.

Itachi hisses.

His body arches, and his legs skim down the length of Madara's underbelly, pelvis. Itachi's foot (sandal gone) squirms fishlike against Madara's cock, as Itachi starts to drown drown drown in air.

--What Madara feels next is all too much like codependence, like filth. Teeth slash chapped lips to ribbons, and the taste trickles in with the marshmud. He draws away, saturates himself with the ease of this cool, cool night. It's over and forgotten in an instant.

He continues as though nothing has happened. (Nothing has.) "How... do you think this will end, Itachi?

"You, the victor? The best of your plans brilliantly executed... The world in the palm of your hands. Or at the very least, your piece of it, your reality." Madara's voice is obsidian sharpness, lilts like fractured water-under-moon-light-under-shadows. There is no kindness here; just steel.

"You spared little Sasuke to avoid pain." Imagine his blood spilt across the walk. Your own brother. "I will spare you now, because in the end, some things cannot be evaded."

The fever-fire in Itachi's eyes is lifting slowly. Madara ignites the fires in his; they grow out of the swamp, black flames from blackwater.

"You know nothing of power." Of control, of pain. "Truly, how do you think this is going to end?" Perhaps they'll fall gracelessly together, once more.

Perhaps they'll drown.

"Sasuke." A growl, a whine. Some strangled sound. "Will kill us both."

Madara laughs. Laughs--a bare, ungreased chuckle. "Sasuke is already dead." You have left nothing of him that can kill. "He breathes, surely, but..."

Just breathing is not living. "After all, look at you."

(Us.)

end.

12 June 2009