This was written in August and hasn't been edited since because I'm too lazy to work on it. I apologize for typos you might find in advance. Feels somewhat unfinished, but I posted it here because I published it on the Ita/Shi Advent Calendar on the LJ community bitter_nakano anyway.

The sounds of silence

Shisui suspects him. Of course. He always knew when something was bothering Itachi, when he was hiding something.

"Are you really in this, Itachi?" he asks gravely. Itachi can see him fidgeting, growing more and more nervous with every second that passes.

He didn't know silence could be so loud. Every second without talking is screaming the answer at him, an answer Shisui doesn't want to, no, cannot accept.

They used to be good at that. Being silent together.

But those times are long gone.

When the silence finally becomes too loud, too painful for him to bear, Shisui adds "You wouldn't turn on your family, right, Itachi?" His voice trembles slightly and cracks in the end, because he is afraid of the answer, but there is also hope in it. Shisui has always been an optimist, always going through life with a smile, and this time is not different. He wants to believe in Itachi, to trust him like he used to, and his question is nothing but a desperate plea for Itachi not to crush his trust in him.

Itachi cannot stand to see his friend hurting, and the knowledge that he is the reason for Shisui's pain makes it even worse. It's like a knife cutting into his flesh and so he answers. "How could I turn on my own family, Shisui?"

Indeed, how could he?

Itachi feels a wave of nausea rolling over him, twisting his insides and crushing him mercilessly. He wants to scream at the top of his lungs until he has no air left, he wants to cry until he has no more tears left to shed, but most of all he wants to hide in some dark place far, far away, rolling himself together into a tiny ball and wait until it is all over and wish it had never come this far.

Luckily not one of these emotions show on his face – he is a better liar than he thought he was. Or maybe it's just that Shisui doesn't want to see the almost nasty twitch of his lips before giving his answer-yet-not-answer, nor hear the edgy sound to his voice, the bitterness threatening to drip out of his mouth and poison everything they have. It makes Itachi realise they are only kids – Shisui in the way he pretends that everything is alright when it clearly isn't, and Itachi in the way he wishes he could hide.

But, although two years his minor, Itachi has already passed Shisui in terms of growing up. He, too, wants to pretend. But unlike Shisui, he knows he can't.

There are two ways of being blind. One involuntary the other selective. Shisui is counted among the latter.

Shisui smiles and relaxes, making the knife in Itachi's heart twist once more, boring deeper and deeper, tearing open a wound that will never heal.

His eyes. His smile. His trust.

His love.

All lost. All sinking down into the depth of the dark waters of the Nakano.

And Shisui doesn't know yet.

Madara already awaits him when the sun rises that day, drowning the world in a feeble and sickly light yellow, like the colours on the face of an ill man too weak to get up. "We cannot wait any longer," he says, cool and unfazed as he observes the fear and the horror washing over the younger's face.

Itachi crumbles and falls into pieces, sinking to the ground as tears streamed down his face in endless rivers. He could have drowned a person with his tears alone. "I can't, I can't, I can't." He repeats these words again and again, a never ending mantra he clings to as if his life depended on it. And in reality, it does, because he does this, if he takes is final step, he will never be Itachi anymore.

But Madara does not know of mercy, and neither do the elders of the village. "You must," he says sternly, and in the silence that follows you can hear the last piece of hope shattering like glass as it is crushed by the weight of the words. "There is no way back."

Itachi longs for some comfort, for a tiny piece of solace, for someone telling him it will be okay, that he must not feel like a monster for even considering this, but he knows Madara is not the person who can give him that. So he stands up, shakily, his body swaying like grass in the wind, and makes his way to the Nakano where he knows Shisui will await him.

"Shisui," he greets his best friend coolly, Sharingan already spinning into action.

When Shisui turns around Itachi finds himself face to face with a mirror of his feelings, like a reflection of him only an hour ago, as his carefully composed mask broke down in front of Madara.

Shisui understands. But that doesn't mean it doesn't shatter him.

"Itachi, please," he breathes, cries, begs. "Please don't. Don't. We can find another way. We will find another way."

"There is no other way," Itachi repeats the words of his mentor, because if he holds on to them, if he believes in them, he might be able to do it.

"There must be!" Shisui insists, his face twisting in agony. "Let's just run away, somewhere far away from here, were they will never find us. Just you and I, Itachi, please. Please, Itachi!" Shisui stares at him with wide eyes, his entire body trembling, and then he whispers the words that kill Itachi. "I love you."

Unlike the rest of his speech, those three words are not rushed and stumbling as they come out of his mouth but calm and sincere and fragile. They sound as if Shisui had wanted to speak them out loud for a long time, and it feels just right.

In this moment Itachi knows he will not be able to do it. Again, he falls apart, falls into Shisui, into the source of comfort and happiness. He can taste the salt of Shisui's tears on his lips and the sweetness of his warm breath on his tongue as they melt into each other, losing themselves.

The moment doesn't last long enough.

Madara is there, faster than lightning, and his hand yields the sword Itachi could not take. Sharp steel slashes through soft flesh, and the last memory Itachi has of Shisui before everything turns black is the horrified look on his cousin's face and the blood splattered all over the ground.

When he comes to a few hours later, Madara has already healed Shisui's wounds, copied his handwriting to write a last note to the clan that will buy them some time, cleaned up the blood and thrown the corpse into the Nakano River. "You have two days," Madara states before he leaves, disapproval clear in his voice. "The next time, I won't do it for you."

The silence he leaves behind this time, the silence Shisui leaves behind, has no sound. There is nothing but emptiness and loss, and Itachi finds that it kills him even more.

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