Title: sensus tactilis
Author: icefalcon
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Naruto
Pairing: Sasuke/Itachi.
Warnings: Incest-ish. Kisame POV. This is the obligatory Episode 85/Volume 17 fic that I promised myself I'd one day write.

Disclaimer: Not mine.

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Itachi didn't touch people.

Itachi was touching this kid. With his hands.

Itachi didn't touch people.

Yet here he was, beating the kid with his hands.

This was the most fun Kisame had had in months, because -

Itachi was touching the kid.

Itachi was torturing his physical body.

Oh, Itachi was cruel, but his cruelties lay within the Mangekyou. His tortures were mental, and Itachi was sparse with his physical movements. Always weapons providing distance - a kick, here and there, very occasionally an elbow jab to get them away. Never anything with the hands, if he could avoid it.

Itachi just didn't touch people.

The language of his fists was the most intimate one he would - could - ever speak.

Itachi rarely took the time to draw blood, draw physical pain from a person like that.

Kisame said once that Itachi must have had his fill of blood the night of the Uchiha massacre. When he woke up a week later, he learned not to suggest things like that again – to Itachi's face, anyway.

Who was this kid, this kid who was looking at Itachi like nothing else in the world existed, with eyes so similar to Itachi's?

Kisame hadn't been partnered with Itachi in the beginning, but he had heard that on his first few missions Itachi had precisely arranged his time in order to wipe out whatever traces of the Uchiha that had not been in Konoha that night.

Itachi would hardly have missed his own brother, so why was he alive?

Itachi had withdrawn so far into quiet and coiled blankness that Kisame knew he was enjoying this, and - Itachi was still touching the kid.

Nothing Kisame had seen had ever affected Itachi like that, and it was vastly amusing.

In fact, this was Itachi's version of being all over someone. Touching the kid with his hands. Forcing him up against a wall. Kisame was fairly sure that was the closest Itachi had been to sex, because -

He'd never seen Itachi move that close to anyone by choice. He was indifferent to the Akatsuki, indifferent to their prey, indifferent to Kisame.

Yet something, some feeling, was driving Itachi into responding to that kid.

What could he be to Itachi?

Kisame shouldn't be finding this as interesting as he did, but the idea of anyone having an influence over Itachi amused him. It was a good thing that Itachi's attention was directed elsewhere as his delight at the entertainment would have been obvious.

He wasn't even sure what was more entertaining: the poor kid, having Itachi fixated on him, or Itachi, for having fixated the poor kid on him in return. Delicious. Itachi's brand of mind fuck was the reason that Kisame was Itachi's partner - no one else could relish it, or even put up with it like he did.

The kid screamed. That was something familiar, but it told Kisame more that he would ever get out of Itachi. Itachi only made them scream when he thought they were – not worthy, but worth the time.

The screaming also spoke of a mental strength that he wouldn't expect of a kid that age. Most fell comatose instantaneously, unable to retain enough of themselves even to scream.

Then again, whoever he was, he was related to Itachi, so perhaps it was a given. Diverting, though, to see a face so like Itachi's overcome with emotion, a voice so like Itachi's filled with passion.

Interesting – the kid was still screaming, which meant that Itachi must be using Tsukiyomi and not one of the other nasty tricks he had up his sleeve. A waste of resources, and the first real step out of line he had seen Itachi make. Using Tsukiyomi in a situation they would most likely have to fight their way out of was a dangerous draining of his chakra.

He must be really enjoying this, to disregard that – and who was Kisame to stop Itachi's pursuits, when Itachi was so generous in letting him indulge in his own?

Itachi still held the boy pinned to the wall.

The screaming stopped, but Itachi kept the boy where he was. Kisame narrowed his eyes - Itachi's face would be entertaining to see, but he was sure that Itachi had his back to him deliberately -

- and the kyuubi kid didn't understand how to savor this moment, charging off instead of studying the weakness of one of the greatest living ninjas, instead of reveling in the sight of Itachi in less than complete control.

The Toad Sannin didn't seem to understand either, and pulled one of Kisame's greatest moments of special fun away from Itachi with a wall of offensive meat, swallowing the kid in a slow movement.

Itachi did not try to keep him.

Kisame had time to spare a glare at the boring Sannin and his boring meat - meat that smelled wrong, meat he couldn't even eat - before he fled after Itachi.

Fleeing instead of eliminating their prey – most unlike Itachi. These Leaf-nin had a somewhat unsettling, but mostly amusing effect on Itachi.

That kid in particular.

He opened his mouth to point this out to Itachi, but the black fury of Amatersu closed it, tearing a hole through the nasty meat.

Amatersu. Itachi was deeply unsettled. This was hilarious.

Still, he kept his mouth shut as they raced north. Itachi was barely human after using Amatersu, and one dead Akatsuki member's corpse had told Kisame not to press Itachi until Itachi was ready.

Kisame kept the laughter inside - Itachi's recovery from where Amatersu took him would last longer than normal, if he was any judge.

So, Uchiha Sasuke, was it? In the Akatsuki, this kind of knowledge, this kind of hold over one's partner, was highly coveted.

Sasuke. He wondered if Itachi had noticed the flash of one of Orochimaru's seals on his shoulder. Kisame had always presumed that Itachi would be the jealous type, if he ever cared about anything enough to be possessive over.

Another observation he kept to himself.

He hoped he'd get to see more of this Sasuke. His effect on Itachi was well worth the punishment they'd get for not completing their retrieval.

'We'll head straight back to headquarters.' Itachi, abruptly. The idea of punishment must have weighed in somewhere in his mind as well.

'Why must we retreat? You could have -' continued the source of my amusement. Finished the mission, if it came to that.

'There's no need to hurry with Naruto at his current level.'

Itachi's cold control had almost finished reasserting itself. Only the weariness that often accompanied the use of his higher level doujutsu was showing.

Kisame let his own face mimic Itachi's impassive mask, hiding his slight irritation, and larger amusement.

'Also, I must rest myself somewhere for a while.'

'Tsukiyomi and Amatersu often exhaust you – a shame that Amatersu was necessary.'

'Don't make it necessary twice in one day, Kisame.'

Kisame did not bother to respond with more than a grunt.

After a pause, he asked in a different, lazier voice: 'Do you want me to go back for the boy?'

'We know where he is, there's no need to hurry -'

'The other kid.'

Itachi was silent, and for a moment the amusement vanished as Kisame became suddenly and uncomfortably aware of just how small Itachi was, and just how young.

The moment passed, and they did not stop.