[FIC] T.O.D

[nisacharakj]

Title: T.O.D (Time of Death)
Author: nisacharakj 
Type and Genre: Implied Yaoi; Hurt/Comfort/Character death
Rating: T
Characters: Uchiha Shisui, Uchiha Itachi
Summary: Itachi's days are numbered and the family awaits the inevitable
Warnings: Character death


Every day heard Shisui’s laughter ringing through the otherwise listless atmosphere that pervaded the house in the wake of the other’s passing—one that came by all too slowly, and yet too soon. For Itachi was only nineteen and Shisui was just making it to twenty one; there was still so much to do and still so much to try. They had hopes and dreams and a perfect future that, according to Shisui, would solve all the world’s problems—but time. Time seemed to have an agenda of its own, and all too soon they were left wondering how to make things come around, how to fit between the narrow lines, how to go on.

And tonight it seemed as though the flames burned dimmer and the shadows grew longer. It was cold and dull and barren outside as the wind picked up through the leafless branches and the soft snow tumbled in dunes and covered footsteps that had once walked in them. Mikoto stood in the kitchen cleaning the dishes free of syrup the boys had eaten with their dango. She almost stopped halfway, fingernail smudging the sticky substance that clung to the plates; this would have been his last supper. Would she want to remember it forever? She knew that wasn’t a choice. She was his mother. She would remember, forever. Turning, she would catch a glimpse of Fugaku’s tall shadow passing the bedroom as he quietly walks past, sparing only a moment to stop and listen to the quiet conversation inside, secretly thankful for the words that filled the stale air, even if he could barely make them out.

At just about a half past ten that night, Shisui leans up to brush stray strands of hair away from Itachi’s face, tucking them behind the other’s ear. Itachi stirs, tired eyes glancing down at the mop of curly hair and that ever present smile.

“Wow, what’re you doing up so late?” Shisui says, hiding the truth behind a playful smile.

Itachi manages to chuckle. Fingers thinner than they used to be reach out to grip Shisui by the upper arm, tugging with all the strength they had. Shisui follows, his legs uncrossing and knees pushing up from the cold hard floor he had been sitting on for days, to sit in the mocking comfort of the bed.

“We’ve stayed up longer,” Itachi whispers, smiling still.

….And Shisui knows.

That mop of curly hair leans forward, shadows mingling as lips touch each other’s for one last time.

Sasuke stares out the window at the clouds he passes by. Two hours till landing, they say, and he doesn’t know what he wants to see when he gets home. But in those moments between sleep and waking he can see the clouds morph into a memory—one of brothers, one of carelessness and carefree days and filled with childish laughter with promises to last forever. When he closes his eyes, head tilted against the cold round window, the memories never end.

At a little past two, Mikoto gathers her firstborn’s head to her bosom and the river held back by the dam of propriety floods open, soaking raven black hair that lay entwined in Shisui’s fingers. A father’s hands touch ankles and knees that he remembers soothing and bandaging when Itachi scraped them at five. Sasuke searches for a hand to hold but finds that it is already holding someone else’s—that the gaps between those fingers have already been filled.

In the moments that had passed, they had forgotten Shisui.

“Why…?” Mikoto asks, the first one to acknowledge his presence as she reaches out and combs back those soft curls.

“…I have never seen it happen before,” the doctor murmurs, letting Shisui’s eyes close after inspection.

So they concluded that the one was taken by the cancer and the other of a broken heart.