[That's the problem, here — instinct instead of reason — but they've had the discussion before about Guanshan's impulsive tendencies. He's not going to let himself get reeled into something else.
[ a chat window that sits empty for a few days, unused but not forgotten. he promised Itachi a clear head, and for half of the week, Marilla's party scene has its claws in him; he needs time to make mistakes and then breathe in the aftermath, reset some kind of equilibrium that, however fleeting on a pendulum's swing, craves the drinks and the drugs and the whole dissociative bender. ]
[ a full day of recovery and he texts in the evening, incidentally on the cusp of the sun going down. ]
[He'd thought Guanshan might have forgotten, or at least abandoned the cause, so he is somewhat surprised to see the message flash across his screen.]
Have you thought about the fact that I could hurt you, and possibly kill you? That is what these eyes are for. Are you going to explain why you would still trust me not to?
[He could certainly make Guanshan regret it. A part of him wants to, like teaching a child a necessary lesson — don't put your hand on a hot stovetop — but the thought is more easily corralled when he realizes it isn't personal to Guanshan himself. Rather, he's reacting to the gullible recklessness as one might want to smooth out a folded page. A need to correct, to fix. As two very different men once taught him.]
[ sneakers carry him across every terrain between his apartment and that beach, eating up cement and asphalt and shifty, soft sands in his wide gait. moonlight has turned the beach silver and black and pretty, the only warmth found radiating out from the fire like its own little sun, Itachi a dark heavenly body hovering in its orbit. he'd be difficult to spot in pallor, but his isolation and perfect posture announce him as an outsider on a backdrop of biodegradable alcohol containers strewn across the shore like popped confetti. funny, if Guanshan's sense of humor was anything less than mischievous bordering on sadistic. ]
[ even in the night, Guanshan's colors stay saturated — blustery sunburn darkening his freckles, red hair, a windbreaking jacket with reflective cuts, modernistic and sharp on orange, skull-motif'd. sharp-shinned beneath a familiar (clean, now) pair of loose black shorts. red cheeks make the mottled purpling under his eyes that much sharper. to little sleep, too many punches? has he rotted inside so far that his blood's gone mauve? ]
[ selfish is as selfish does, and Guanshan goes to greet him with a kiss — sharp-toothed and wet, lascivious. ]
[Itachi stands a black pillar cut out by restless firelight, bare-footed, long clinging fabric of pants and a loose sleeveless top—all the same monochrome color to carve out the severity of his appearance. Hair remains up in a bundle off his neck, messy with humidity, slippery strands falling around the fine bones of his face. He's waiting; not watching, a preternatural awareness capable of monitoring his surroundings without a direct eye. So the approach is anticipated, head angled in Guanshan's direction even before he has stepped into the identity of light.
The bonfire is his own doing—abandoned by partiers long moved on, cold piled ash and burnt wood leftover—and it had taken some work in the revival, his hands now black with soot and lips chalky from a burst of katon. Guanshan will taste it in the kiss, charred and inhumanly scalding, palm leaving a gray-shaded print on one shiny jacket sleeve when he reaches for a lean arm. There's no resistance, only a passive melting heat of mouths sealed together for an enduring moment. And then the sharp tug of his other hand in Guanshan's short red hair to yank his head back and meet their eyes, red on gold.]
[ his mouth is tender and rouged when Itachi breaks them apart, slacked to breathe in the new taste and take it down to his lungs. he knows the hit of more kinds of smoke better than most men, the flavor and effects of each drug he's taken — but he doesn't know this one, can only place it on the tastebuds as something closer to burning logs or a charcoal grill, the ozone of a lightning strike. nothing chemical yet still, somehow, perfectly clean. ]
[ the show of shiny teeth has a very cat got the canary sort of smugness to it that narrows his eyes charmingly, amusement dancing with the reflection of flame. ]
You looked lonely, [ is all he says in his own defense — for once, not making a bid to press for something deeper. there are times he'll fight Itachi for every last drop of affection he can squeeze out of him, but now isn't that time. now... well, there's a hesitance about the other man that clues him in that he needs to hand over control. ]
[ Itachi could change his mind at any moment, and would, Guanshan knows, upon a whim. best not to give him one, instead simply standing there and watching him with expectant patience. ]
[The obedience is noticeable, noted. Upon the withdrawal, his eyes center on red lips and he considers the current validity of a reward—whether there is justification to forgo promises and take that mouth with his own again, its pinched line so often loured by defiance, imprinted by some other darkness long before they had ever reached each other. The moment hangs on a fragile stem, and then he looks into Guanshan's face, into irises burnt copper in the bonfire light, and he severs reality. That last image lingers in photo negative: two vivid crimson points with lazily wheeling tomoe like the methodical tick of a clock.
It feels like nothing at first. A world unchanged and undisturbed: fire hot beside them, a solid wall of heat blazing across any bare inch of skin vulnerable to its impression. Warmth in reassurance, at first, before it begins to build and blister, to become distracting, and when Guanshan turns his head he will find that the bonfire has grown in monstrous, uncontrollable size—a beast of its own with the wide hanging maw of a black open mouth. Guanshan is swallowed by it in one hungry cavernous bite. The heat is real and scalding as it closes over him in an incalescent cage, flesh bubbling off bones as though submerged in oily hot soup, flaking to sudden and impossible ash, a tide of temperature beyond mortal range. He will have the briefest sights of his own skeletal, white-raw hands in front of him—starved fire roaring in both ears like a rush of blood to the head—before that too is gone.
A space of more nothing, of blackness, until that splits and forms structure, substance, transformed into the crash of a wave over head. Guanshan in the shallow waters of the ocean, midnight ruling dark dominion and granting no light to this place, yet stinging saltwater is made a relief after the torture of burning alive. His body is utterly unharmed; no scars to remember.
Looking up, the familiar silhouette of a lover towers there, a daemon carved out of the shadow, smirk jagged and wild, voice a rasping drawl,] Hey, beansprout. [And he pushes Guanshan’s head down into the ocean.
The act of drowning is somehow quieter, yet no less an agony—the struggle, the fits, the weakness of limbs and swallowed mouthfuls of water, lungs full and saturated, body made heavy stone. When death threatens to eclipse the world, Guanshan is dragged up and out of waves by the roots of short ginger hair in one slender, fine-boned hand, painted nails gleaming. This time Itachi takes the kiss without permission (a reward for survival and obedience both, for misplaced trust) and seals their mouths as though sucking those last slivers of life out of him, tongue scraping every contour and pocket of air that remains, teeth sharp and hard on a lower lip, tearing flesh. His own blood is the only thing he will taste.]
[It ends suddenly, an abrupt clipped-out finale of blankness. Reality returns with earth tilted horizontal beneath Guanshan’s feet; he will come to find himself laying on his back in the sand, faced with the limitless bowl of the sky. To the right, Itachi remains standing by the bonfire, as though he has not moved this entire time. And he hasn’t.
[ each eye as big and spinning as a catherine wheel, incandescent and phantasmal between them, he wants to take all of that time to admire every furrow and crypt of the kaleidoscopic pattern around the weapon's edges of black; it isn't until the fire is a roar that he looks, devoured by liquid flame, boiling his flesh and viscera. he feels the bubbling acid in his stomach leak out to other organs, fire giving chase down his esophagus to eat up the oxygen remaining in his lungs as he attempts to scream, watches the bones of his splayed-out fingers blacken just before his sclera drips from his lashless lids like waxy tears. ]
[ there's a blink that isn't his own and the waves rush over his recomposed body like relief; he sighs out through every chattering tooth he finds still wet with his own saliva, moonlight drowned out by the man for which his no-longer-charred heart still burns. there's something known to which he can compare this image: every one of Rokurou's gleaming teeth, the pattern of his blight, the thread of his hakama buoyant in the waves — he can't find a single flaw with it. is that a credit to his imagination, or Itachi's powers of perception? he doesn't know. ]
[ plunged into the drink, Guanshan doesn't fight to save his own life. not like he had with the flame, how he sweat and shook, trying to shiver the pain off of him... no, this he embraces like a comfort, a sweet dream come to revisit him, anguish he welcomes because of who dishes it and the lightning-quick reasons his mind fill in for why it's happening. fingers lay over fingers like apology or gratitude, a sentiment not meant for another's observation. ready to gulp it down, his eyes open again to Itachi's mouth on his — and he molds into it with no less enthusiasm than he'd have if he hadn't just experienced his own death twice over. the fact that there is no Synchrony is the only thing that tells him it isn't real, and he wonders when it became such an ingrained part of his reality that to feel its absence is more alarming. ]
[ back in his own body, recumbent on soft sand, the first thing he does is lick his lips to chase the flavor of copper. he sits up slow, disoriented with the dream so clear that every synapse is firing danger, tingling through his whole nervous system, down his brainstem and threading through his spine. he smells ocean breeze and feels the granularity of sand in his fingertips before looking back up at Itachi, unmoved. ]
[ he doesn't avoid his eyes. ]
...Started spicy, ended sweet. [ a dose of the bad humor Itachi will know doubt come to know of him, mouth quirking in solitary amusement. it fades fast, a wild and visible shudder running through him, beyond his control — all human, all normal. all weak. there's a beat as he further processes exactly what he's seen; of everything possible, Itachi has shown him death and love, intentional or otherwise. perhaps the first was needed for him to grasp why the Sharingan exists as it is and its applications to a shinobi in a world that's no doubt rife with war (because which world isn't, especially those so flush with power?) ]
[ but the latter — ]
Did you feel it? [ that kiss. ] Can you show me anything?
[ anything the victim doesn't want to see... but what about something they do? ]
[The pillar of expectation melts away, useless, when Guanshan does not immediately move. Even that reaction is pale imitation of what he had built in his mind—imagining screams rent out of a chest, horror in the warped shape of an expression, disbelief and fear close cousins. Instead there is only a brief flash of humor and irises struck golden by reflective firelight. Not wholly conscious of it, Itachi finds himself frowning, mouth formed over the sharp shape at both questions in equal measure.]
I can show you whatever I wish, yes. But the contents of your own mind play an integral part. [Peeling back those layers, digging fingers into the meat of a brain—it is far more effective to manipulate what already exists there than to create some new, unknown, untried nightmare.] It must be convincing, and in some cases, may even influence your actions in the real world.
[Brainwashing. He holds those bright, electric eyes a moment longer; then, uncharacteristically, he is the one to snap gazes apart with a glance down onto the sand. Chaotic shadow plays across the gritty, uneven surface.]
I don't feel it as you do. I only watch. [An audience, or a conductor, someone with all of the manipulative strings wound around their guiding hands.] May I ask you a question now?
[ a plot readies itself behind his eyes, gaze and mouth pre-loaded with the next question — some request, some favor that he feels comfortable enough to ask. Itachi interrupts the proceedings with his mouth still ajar and it closes, gaze levied at the other man's face. he's still doing this — but it's fine. Guanshan was the one who set precedents; it's his responsibility to convey he's moved past them. ]
You don't gotta ask me that. Just tell me what you wanna know.
[ now, comfortable where he's sitting on the cool sand and to have his shins warmed by a far that isn't sentient enough to see his a meal, he waits, admiring the streaky silver of moonlight reflecting on Itachi's hair. ]
[Just tell me—and what Guanshan will not know inherently about him is that, under usual circumstances, he would. Permission to question isn't sought with deliberate formality; if he's seeking an answer, he can demand it. He can get it through force if necessary. Civility and personal autonomy are concepts left behind, to a different man in a different life.
So the fact he's asking now isn't indicative of distance or polite decorum, but for another nebulous reason—a specialness. A step outside regular behavior. Irrational, human.]
When we spoke before, you said you couldn't explain at that time why you trusted me. [He circles around the fire, heels leaving only faint impressions in sand like little half-circle moons, coming to stand above Guanshan.] ... I considered asking you to explain now, but I don't think that would satisfy me.
Instead, I want to know something else. What do you believe in? [Kneeling with a graceful movement, red eyes on the chaotic firelight painting a handsome, freckled face.] What do you value most in the world?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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I see.
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[But it does make him reconsider some of the more serious things they've discussed, in light of that.]
Do you often message people impulsively while you drink?
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i wont be drunk when we do it !
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Enjoy your night, Guanshan.
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but FINE if it makes U feel better
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There's no reply.]
3 DAYS LATER;
[ a full day of recovery and he texts in the evening, incidentally on the cusp of the sun going down. ]
i want my demonstration
[ hi baby. ]
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Have you thought about the fact that I could hurt you, and possibly kill you? That is what these eyes are for. Are you going to explain why you would still trust me not to?
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weve already talked about me gettin hurt n if u kill me that just means i made a miscalculation
trust is a choice
i choose to give it
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no
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[ sneakers carry him across every terrain between his apartment and that beach, eating up cement and asphalt and shifty, soft sands in his wide gait. moonlight has turned the beach silver and black and pretty, the only warmth found radiating out from the fire like its own little sun, Itachi a dark heavenly body hovering in its orbit. he'd be difficult to spot in pallor, but his isolation and perfect posture announce him as an outsider on a backdrop of biodegradable alcohol containers strewn across the shore like popped confetti. funny, if Guanshan's sense of humor was anything less than mischievous bordering on sadistic. ]
[ even in the night, Guanshan's colors stay saturated — blustery sunburn darkening his freckles, red hair, a windbreaking jacket with reflective cuts, modernistic and sharp on orange, skull-motif'd. sharp-shinned beneath a familiar (clean, now) pair of loose black shorts. red cheeks make the mottled purpling under his eyes that much sharper. to little sleep, too many punches? has he rotted inside so far that his blood's gone mauve? ]
[ selfish is as selfish does, and Guanshan goes to greet him with a kiss — sharp-toothed and wet, lascivious. ]
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The bonfire is his own doing—abandoned by partiers long moved on, cold piled ash and burnt wood leftover—and it had taken some work in the revival, his hands now black with soot and lips chalky from a burst of katon. Guanshan will taste it in the kiss, charred and inhumanly scalding, palm leaving a gray-shaded print on one shiny jacket sleeve when he reaches for a lean arm. There's no resistance, only a passive melting heat of mouths sealed together for an enduring moment. And then the sharp tug of his other hand in Guanshan's short red hair to yank his head back and meet their eyes, red on gold.]
Is this how you intend to greet me from now on?
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[ the show of shiny teeth has a very cat got the canary sort of smugness to it that narrows his eyes charmingly, amusement dancing with the reflection of flame. ]
You looked lonely, [ is all he says in his own defense — for once, not making a bid to press for something deeper. there are times he'll fight Itachi for every last drop of affection he can squeeze out of him, but now isn't that time. now... well, there's a hesitance about the other man that clues him in that he needs to hand over control. ]
[ Itachi could change his mind at any moment, and would, Guanshan knows, upon a whim. best not to give him one, instead simply standing there and watching him with expectant patience. ]
cw body horror, drowning
It feels like nothing at first. A world unchanged and undisturbed: fire hot beside them, a solid wall of heat blazing across any bare inch of skin vulnerable to its impression. Warmth in reassurance, at first, before it begins to build and blister, to become distracting, and when Guanshan turns his head he will find that the bonfire has grown in monstrous, uncontrollable size—a beast of its own with the wide hanging maw of a black open mouth. Guanshan is swallowed by it in one hungry cavernous bite. The heat is real and scalding as it closes over him in an incalescent cage, flesh bubbling off bones as though submerged in oily hot soup, flaking to sudden and impossible ash, a tide of temperature beyond mortal range. He will have the briefest sights of his own skeletal, white-raw hands in front of him—starved fire roaring in both ears like a rush of blood to the head—before that too is gone.
A space of more nothing, of blackness, until that splits and forms structure, substance, transformed into the crash of a wave over head. Guanshan in the shallow waters of the ocean, midnight ruling dark dominion and granting no light to this place, yet stinging saltwater is made a relief after the torture of burning alive. His body is utterly unharmed; no scars to remember.
Looking up, the familiar silhouette of a lover towers there, a daemon carved out of the shadow, smirk jagged and wild, voice a rasping drawl,] Hey, beansprout. [And he pushes Guanshan’s head down into the ocean.
The act of drowning is somehow quieter, yet no less an agony—the struggle, the fits, the weakness of limbs and swallowed mouthfuls of water, lungs full and saturated, body made heavy stone. When death threatens to eclipse the world, Guanshan is dragged up and out of waves by the roots of short ginger hair in one slender, fine-boned hand, painted nails gleaming. This time Itachi takes the kiss without permission (a reward for survival and obedience both, for misplaced trust) and seals their mouths as though sucking those last slivers of life out of him, tongue scraping every contour and pocket of air that remains, teeth sharp and hard on a lower lip, tearing flesh. His own blood is the only thing he will taste.]
2/2 oops
Mildly,]
… Perhaps that was too much.
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[ there's a blink that isn't his own and the waves rush over his recomposed body like relief; he sighs out through every chattering tooth he finds still wet with his own saliva, moonlight drowned out by the man for which his no-longer-charred heart still burns. there's something known to which he can compare this image: every one of Rokurou's gleaming teeth, the pattern of his blight, the thread of his hakama buoyant in the waves — he can't find a single flaw with it. is that a credit to his imagination, or Itachi's powers of perception? he doesn't know. ]
[ plunged into the drink, Guanshan doesn't fight to save his own life. not like he had with the flame, how he sweat and shook, trying to shiver the pain off of him... no, this he embraces like a comfort, a sweet dream come to revisit him, anguish he welcomes because of who dishes it and the lightning-quick reasons his mind fill in for why it's happening. fingers lay over fingers like apology or gratitude, a sentiment not meant for another's observation. ready to gulp it down, his eyes open again to Itachi's mouth on his — and he molds into it with no less enthusiasm than he'd have if he hadn't just experienced his own death twice over. the fact that there is no Synchrony is the only thing that tells him it isn't real, and he wonders when it became such an ingrained part of his reality that to feel its absence is more alarming. ]
[ back in his own body, recumbent on soft sand, the first thing he does is lick his lips to chase the flavor of copper. he sits up slow, disoriented with the dream so clear that every synapse is firing danger, tingling through his whole nervous system, down his brainstem and threading through his spine. he smells ocean breeze and feels the granularity of sand in his fingertips before looking back up at Itachi, unmoved. ]
[ he doesn't avoid his eyes. ]
...Started spicy, ended sweet. [ a dose of the bad humor Itachi will know doubt come to know of him, mouth quirking in solitary amusement. it fades fast, a wild and visible shudder running through him, beyond his control — all human, all normal. all weak. there's a beat as he further processes exactly what he's seen; of everything possible, Itachi has shown him death and love, intentional or otherwise. perhaps the first was needed for him to grasp why the Sharingan exists as it is and its applications to a shinobi in a world that's no doubt rife with war (because which world isn't, especially those so flush with power?) ]
[ but the latter — ]
Did you feel it? [ that kiss. ] Can you show me anything?
[ anything the victim doesn't want to see... but what about something they do? ]
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I can show you whatever I wish, yes. But the contents of your own mind play an integral part. [Peeling back those layers, digging fingers into the meat of a brain—it is far more effective to manipulate what already exists there than to create some new, unknown, untried nightmare.] It must be convincing, and in some cases, may even influence your actions in the real world.
[Brainwashing. He holds those bright, electric eyes a moment longer; then, uncharacteristically, he is the one to snap gazes apart with a glance down onto the sand. Chaotic shadow plays across the gritty, uneven surface.]
I don't feel it as you do. I only watch. [An audience, or a conductor, someone with all of the manipulative strings wound around their guiding hands.] May I ask you a question now?
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You don't gotta ask me that. Just tell me what you wanna know.
[ now, comfortable where he's sitting on the cool sand and to have his shins warmed by a far that isn't sentient enough to see his a meal, he waits, admiring the streaky silver of moonlight reflecting on Itachi's hair. ]
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So the fact he's asking now isn't indicative of distance or polite decorum, but for another nebulous reason—a specialness. A step outside regular behavior. Irrational, human.]
When we spoke before, you said you couldn't explain at that time why you trusted me. [He circles around the fire, heels leaving only faint impressions in sand like little half-circle moons, coming to stand above Guanshan.] ... I considered asking you to explain now, but I don't think that would satisfy me.
Instead, I want to know something else. What do you believe in? [Kneeling with a graceful movement, red eyes on the chaotic firelight painting a handsome, freckled face.] What do you value most in the world?
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cw blood/weapon play
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itachi running away, the life and story