[ 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?
[ eyes tracing Itachi's trajectory, he sits up again when he comes close, cutting him off from the heat of the flame and into his own cool shadow. this is how it feels when he's touching him, but he isn't right now; even this amount of proximity and shadow makes him itch for it, fingers twitching and shifting forward — until they find his shoelaces to start tugging and pulling on them absently. ]
[ it's fair. he's not sure he can explain how trust works for him to anyone's satisfaction; it's a concept that has to be experienced. lived. he can say he trusts Itachi until he's blue in the face — until there's blood shed and secrets kept between them, he can't know its authenticity. ]
My family. [ for all of the weight the shinobi implies, however, he finds it so easy to answer. the first does not apply here, where he's forcibly estranged. vivisected from that part of his identity, the next answer is as follows: ] And feelin' understood.
[ seen completely, accepted, and safe. he remains reticent, eyes asking the question his mouth doesn't. why now? ]
[The first he could have possibly guessed; the second lingers, less known, less sure. Feeling understood is like a trip of rope at the ankles, not the same as being understood in the way he has come to treat the puppetry of enemies on the battleground. Swept into still silence for a moment, he considers leaving. He has done what he promised: a demonstration, delivering the threat even if it does go foolishly unheeded.
The temptation passes as a cool cloud overhead, and then he's sinking down near those long legs, knees folded in the sand, posture straight, just beyond reach without a strain. Guanshan is half in shadow, half in light at this spot—from this angle—like an eerie, alluring hallucination of his own, one watched closely.]
I've observed your behavior for some time now. [Adrenaline-hunting, impulsive, desirous, stubborn, risky behavior though it may be. But observation is one measure. Perhaps it would help him predict and kill an opponent; Guanshan isn't that category currently.] What does it take for you to feel understood?
[ half-shadow splits his tones evenly into something brown and bluish, cold, eyes of earth, and the firelight crackle into saturation, summer warmth in that cheek, hair violent auburn, eyes glittering orange like an ember that refuses to stop burning. meanwhile, Itachi is backlit and looking colder for it; he mourns the distance a little longer before he settles on the irony of what has been said to him and what has been asked. ]
Bein' observed, [ he comments with no sarcasm at all. whether he attracts those who have an obsessive component to their personality or they attract him because he likes feeling seen is a riddle he's never set about solving; some things are just synchronicity and he can accept them for that because the results have worked out in his favor more times than they haven't. Guanshan is nothing if not a young man shaped by his experiences, moreso than some others. ]
[ the list goes on: ]
And intimacy. Sometimes intimacy is violent, and sometimes it ain't. I like both. I want both. One or the other ain't enough.
[Features blend into seamless shadow with fire a hot wall at his back, warming a sharp silhouette that loses detail and nuance of expression—eyes two bright, cherry-red slits that lower onto the sand between them, mouth bent down. A creature in the dark; he could vanish inside of it. He appreciates the concealment now while laboring over the dichotomy of those two ideas.
Violence without intimacy: cold, ruthless, impersonal as a blade wedged into a stranger's back. It's what he knows, far better than intimacy—that raw and searing sore vulnerable to infection.
He doesn't move, but his gaze tracks sideways to stare at Guanshan's hands in the distorted radiant light, watching the spindly shape of fingers and a soft hidden palm and remembering what it felt like to hold. Physical touch is intimacy. Physical touch is also violence. Where had he begun to learn the divide, exactly? What would happen if he said right now the reason Guanshan should never trust him, should never pursue his company, should never seek him out—what if he said it all and torched every potential future to a burnt, black root? Anything else is deception in the face of open honesty. Yet that has been his nature for so many years now that to act otherwise is jarring and wrong, like stones underfoot. He deserves to be dead—not whatever this is.
Itachi stands abruptly, but even that sudden movement is silent and liquid as shadow.] That was all I had to show you tonight. [No more illusions and no more questions. An unknown partygoer comes into view far down the beach, near the street, figure lit beneath luminescent blue lamps before vanishing again, headed away. Itachi's eyes follow their trajectory and then snap back, irises now dormant black.] If there's nothing else, you should return.
[ the exchange has a businesslike conclusion that leaves a sour taste in his mouth, slowly overriding the stale char on his tongue from their burst of Synchrony fizzled out. unsatisfied. it's what has him reaching for Itachi's hand, stretching over that gap between them with long limbs and a deceptively gentle grip on his wrist. it pulls — not forcefully, but guiding. ]
Stay a little longer.
[ less confidence to those words than he'd like. his encouragement is a plain one, to sit back down where he once was, spare a little more of his time. he could tell him he'd make it worth his while, but he should be understood enough by now that no amount of calm and quiet inaction could ever hold his attention for too long; for better or worse, the electric storm inside of him always finds an outlet with the right polarity. ]
[ and as Guanshan looks up at him, the cold luminance of the moon strikes his eyes silver and emotive, imploring. ]
[A year ago, that raw plea would not have been enough to tether him back down to earth, would have done nothing but swept him out to sea like ashy smoke, eager to flee, to separate, to be alone in his own mind again. Now, he cannot summon any resistance to the hand that snags his own and tugs. Not strength enough to keep him; that alone a reassurance, like a wild animal that cannot be leashed but instead must be persuaded to obey.
He sinks down again, almost a graceless collapse of defeat, heels digging divots into cold nighttime sand.]
I don't have anything else for you.
[An interaction without purpose, without some goal... his limited social skills flounder when left to improvisation. He looks at Guanshan almost cautiously.]
Edited (found a typo late.....) 2021-06-29 00:09 (UTC)
[ perhaps the caution is warranted; when Guanshan is given an inch, he inevitably takes a mile. no sooner than Itachi finds his seat again is he crawling into it too, up and forward, a spread of knees that bracket his hips and a weight that sinks onto his lap. drawn close, his arms loop his shoulders to cage him in fully, lashes low as it tilts their height difference even further in his direction. over Itachi's head, the light of the fire hits him in its entirety — gold-faced and silver-backed. ]
[ Synchrony is fuzzy and distant, as if muffled by clothing. skin doesn't touch skin. it's still impossible to mistake the sunburnt heat of him from the fever of something else, unrepentant and constant desire — not all of it sexual in nature. ]
You're disappointed 'cuz you tried to do it from a distance. [ as if providing the answer to a question he has not been asked but knows it remains all the same. he's too much for people like Itachi, like Rokurou... and yet they seek him out for that same intensity. he'll have to learn one way or another that the only way to be satisfied is to embrace it, sooner or later. ] You got a weapon on you, right?
[ and he means that in the most traditional sense. ]
[Struck immobile with astonishment, his body does not resist that encroachment on space, only a slight lean-away of shoulders borne more of an instinctive twitch like some handshy horse than anything deliberate. Above him, Guanshan is carved out of the fire—sharp figure set goldly aflame against the backdrop of black. A towering statue, attractive and alien, sculpted by someone else’s artistry.
Against the heat of proximity both emotional and physical, Itachi is a shadow slithering through it, cool, daring to be caught. Dark eyes narrow in an angular face.]
Yes. [Of course. Always. Similar answers, but too emphatic for a man like him.] ... Distance is advantageous on the battlefield.
[Yet his slender hand produces a kunai like a magic trick, its sudden appearance reflecting a band of firelight in one quick, brilliant blink, then held in deft fingertips expertly.]
[ a blink and it's there, mystifying, and yet it doesn't surprise him. a paltry trick in comparison to just being eaten by a monster of flame. Guanshan hedges it from him with appropriate respect, meeting his eyes for a brief moment, as if willing the wild beast he's trying to tame into accepting him. ]
Assumin' the other guy knows you're tryna kill him. [ his words have an uncharacteristic fullness. weapon passed off, the loop winds up around one knuckle and the threading lays across long fingers, sleek and pretty. Guanshan rocks it back and forth in admiration (or maybe calculation), gaze tracking grooves of its last whetting for telltale signs of recent use, all those nicks and burrs the human body causes on metal. it moves then: helicoptered around his palm, swift and blurred motions, caught to run parallel to his ulna, and rolled across knuckles like his own little magic trick. ]
[ weight of him minutely shifting on Itachi's lap as he moves, it comes to a stop when he tosses it up and catches it on the tip of a finger by the point. blood bleeds readily, but he doesn't let it fall; blades are, after all, his partner's weapon of choice, and Guanshan has touched more knives in his life — in and out of the kitchen — for this to be his preference. for it to be the way in which he chose to kill a man for the first time. ]
Do I make you feel like you're on a battlefield? [ it's asked as he tosses the weapon to the opposite hand and offers it back handle-first... before his gaze tracks to the same stretch of beach Itachi had witnessed a straggler, pointed. when he looks back, that bleeding tip of his finger moves across Itachi's lips — answering his dare. ] Or have you jes' spent too long keepin' everyone that far away?
[ and with Itachi barely older than himself. it's been a long journey, but Guanshan's been exposed to so many different worlds that he's met men who were killers before they hit double digits. is it intrusive speculation, or a coy way of pointing out just how different their interactions are? different, and important. ]
It was the first assumption those of my world would have made, seeing me.
[A quiet murmur expecting no response, his attention soon beholden to the display of familiarity with the blade. Use shows on looped handle and silver edges, a weapon that has met its purpose over and over again, sharpened to a gleaming triangular point. Guanshan's manipulation is like a performance—dark eyes never stray far, body becoming more aware of the weight sitting across it, the slight shifts of necessary movement. Hands eventually clamp down onto that narrow waist beneath the lip of the shiny jacket he wears.
Blood shines like oil in the fire's glare, slick and black; low-lidded eyes crack wider when the fingertip is brought to his mouth and smeared in a gory lipstick. Unconsciously, a red tongue licks to clear it, tasting Guanshan's metallic flavor, taking that essence into his own system, catching the callused pad of a finger.
... A strange intimacy forced upon him, for a moment he does not react. Guanshan does make him feel as though he's on the battlefield—adrenaline spiking, anticipation thickening, that alert short-term mindset where every action takes on great significance, where physical language screams loudest. His hands constrict on Guanshan's waist, a bruising suggestion of strength in them. Arousal is a violent beacon in his awareness then, an attraction he didn't realize sat deep within himself yet undiscovered, something about what Guanshan has done—the hot taste of his blood, perhaps, or the bright blade misused now—dredging it all up.
Instead of an answer, he shoves Guanshan out of his lap with sudden force that sends him sprawling into sand. His expression is almost identical to that day in the park, except cut across now by shadow, disguising most of its haunted, hungry effect. He doesn't move again.]
[ quicker than he even has time to assess the situation does he find himself flung back onto the sands, long legs in a gangly sprawl and palms behind himself to keep from sliding back further. well. it isn't surprising — the look he takes in during a momentary bewildered stare connects to the image of him upside down above as he'd moaned his name while strung out by vines, only so quick and visceral a connection because of how he'd ruminated on it enough nights after. his guts clench with heat, expression slacking again as he realizes; he didn't need Synchrony to tell him this time, not like when he was still half a beast hunting in the woods. ]
[ despite his genius with anything else, here Itachi is a slow study. Guanshan doesn't mind. ]
You can't touch me yourself... [ he starts, slow and cautious, aware of the shinobi's penchant for disappearing. maybe if he chooses the right words, he won't — but that's a big ask of someone like Guanshan, who has very little mastery over language. ] So do it with that instead.
[ his chin jerks forward, gesturing at the weapon returned to Itachi's care. hands leave the shore, go to the zipper on a half-closed jacket and pull it down with a noise that's entirely too loud for the quiet between them, just breath and the crackle of fire. he shrugs out of it, leaving it in a pool around his seat; his shirt comes off overhead next, ruffling spikes of auburn only for them to return to their original chaotic disarray. moonlight rims his edges even paler. the emerald at one side of his ribs, the vicious bitemark scar at the other, the myriad of other dings marking him as little more than a civilian with a rough sense of play and taste for violence — violence he's as hungry to share with Itachi as he is his bed. ]
No Synchrony. I won't reach out for you. [ Rokurou had told him touching him was... too intense, sometimes; he has no doubts it must be the same for Itachi, although not quite for the same reasons. ] Just stay close'n keep your eyes on me.
[With that, indicating the silver weapon returned to his hand, balanced in fingers and palm like an extension of body. He understands the attempt for compromise. No Synchrony means no risk for crossed wires, for him to be brought into the violent undertow of lustful emotion, buoyed by an intimacy still so at odds with his whole identity. Itachi's eyes narrow to slits, the film of Sharingan a red glaze over sight; he hadn't even noticed its reactivation in the powerful wake of his own response to the taste of blood. As though keeping eyes on Guanshan was ever in question.
The jacket is shed and cast aside, shimmering like a pale wing as it lands in the sand, shirt soon shucked off to follow it. The landscape of Guanshan's torso is wild territory marked by past encounters, stories laid out by scars and impressions that he can't know with a glance. That lack of knowing is the worst part. So, too, is a sudden sense of insignificance; anything he commits here will become another meager trophy of flesh, unoriginal, another notch on the post. One of many—if it is even permanent at all.
Perhaps that is better, lending equanimity as it subtracts some burden of weight in the action. He leans forward on bent knees and works off the light of fire from behind, kunai a shadow across Guanshan's skin before it ever touches, other hand lifted to seize the back of a nape until it shies and hovers instead. Any more physical contact than this is a danger. Whatever the deeper meaning, Itachi cannot diminish the intensity of his own concentration—his mind slides into another persona altogether, the one put together to take enemies apart. The blade lands low on Guanshan's belly, near the defined jut of a hip, blood blooming to the surface in a slivered ribbon of red, not deep enough to scar but no less magnetizing for the sight of split flesh. Another one follows, then another, until three shallow lines like perfectly straight claws have dragged across his left hip barely shy of bone.
He takes a breath that shudders in, then back out, and looks at Guanshan's face. The kunai rests against the flat plain just beneath his navel. There it sits without the pressure to cut, yet, as though seeking some reaction first.]
[ the expression of it is immediate and strong; the hiss of breath he sucks in makes skin all the way down his core swell with its necessary room. it bleeds more red that drips steady to the elastic seam of his boxers, pooling light fabric with crimson all the way down to the line of his shorts slung even lower. a hiss between clenched teeth shivers out of him, his fingers curling in the sand and toes curling in his sneakers. the heat of it isn't unlike a brand, wrenching his eyebrows together and quickening his pulse, sting of it pulsing in time with the throb of interest heading south. ]
[ he swallows hard and wrenches his eyes from the seeping wounds and silver assailant to Itachi when he sees movement, expression open and laid bare. pain thrusts him into honesty as much as pleasure does, the wires between them so crossed that he begins to harden from the stimulation of it alone. it's the fact that it's Itachi — his gaze and his interest and his hovering presence — that has him tail-spinning towards a full erection so readily, swelling against an inner thigh and curving the drape of his loose shorts between his legs. ]
[ a beat of that intense eye contact and he swallows, nodding, the bead of sweat at the corner of his jaw running down onto his throat. legs widen ever so slightly, knees turning out, giving Itachi a wide berth between them. as promised, he doesn't reach out to him, allowing the space and patience needed for Itachi to explore as he pleases without the Synchrony's interference. all of these, quiet little acts of encouragement, with a bullet of a question already loaded in the chamber: do you like this too? ]
[ he doesn't need to convey his body's response any more than the needy lid of his eyes or how his top row of teeth seek his thin bottom lip to bite and drag, vulnerable and uncomfortable in his own need. perhaps that's something Itachi can find kindred, among all the things he can't. ]
[Eyes devour all of it: every bodily flinch, hissed intake of air, throat working through swallows, fingers curling, legs spreading, cock stiffening. He can see all of this as evidence of Guanshan's affected state. He wonders why, and would he react the same beneath someone else's pointed blade? Blood lures most of his focus; he cannot look at much else for long, not like he watches those red, trickling ribbons drip down flesh like veins of rain over glass. He recalls the flavor of it on his tongue—bright, hot, vital copper tang. The act of consumption as intimate as their kiss days ago, shared breath and tongue swallowing the same stale spit.
He had expected to remain aloof and impersonal even in this act. It's how he has felt every time he's turned a weapon on another: detached, outside himself, clinically removed through rote habit and training. It isn't the case now, seeing Guanshan's lip bitten to a swell and outline of his cock a thick shape within fabric confines. What does he look like, beneath all of that? What does he taste like? A sympathetic throb of arousal settles in his own gut; and although easy to ignore in the moment, Itachi can tell when his own dick has grown hard and stiff between rigid, folded legs.
Alleviating lust is secondary to a different desire. Almost preemptive of thought, his free hand comes up to hold Guanshan's slender throat at the base. No applied pressure yet. The kunai is led up higher as if changing its mind to nick the sharp bones of Guanshan's collar. Blood dripples from the cut, and as Itachi pulls down on that leashed hold of a throat, his mouth latches across the shallow wound, tongue lashing hot. The force of movement drags Guanshan solidly down into his lap. A line he crosses on his own, although Sychrony remains sealed out—one last barrier of necessary restraint.]
[ unmatched by Guanshan's eagerness, who is settling into Itachi's lap and moaning his appreciation with that inherent unstifled honesty, laboring breaths fanning against silky black fly-aways. he wants to hold him, wrap his arms around his head and pull him in, encourage the viciousness of his drink — but he made a promise he wouldn't reciprocate, wouldn't seek him in return... and so instead he leans back, core a delicious arc against Itachi's curving body, and rests his hands on the shinobi's knees. needy fingers twist the knit of his slacks, insistent on remaining still. ]
[ likewise, what little of his own Synchrony he can control, he does. it isn't much — enough for the channel to be that of a ripped-open, frayed wire still pumping with electricity, sparking and crackling in the rage of missing its other parts. sex is a bond, a connection, no matter how much in his past he tried only to make it a transaction; with Itachi more than most, he burns for the reciprocity of it. ]
Y... you're driving me fuckin' crazy...
[ an emphatic whisper, rough like a breath of the campfire smoke over his head. that roiling lust leaves him restless, the heat of Itachi's mouth blister-stinging on the wound, his every squirm a rub of friction where his cock protrudes perhaps a little too proudly low against the other man's belly. swollen lips are lapped again as he fishes for something to return, his seat intentionally rolling down in an attempt to uncover Itachi's own fledgling hard-on — given an inch, he takes a mile. ]
Take more. Use your teeth.
[ the only thing better than guiding a weapon to hurt someone is doing it yourself. ]
[Heady with reins of control, lording power over this moment and taking what he wants of Guanshan's body with no threat that it will be reciprocated—as if drunk on the blood that coats his tongue—Itachi does not immediately respond. There is no praise or commendation offered for that resiliency, even suspecting how difficult it is for someone who speaks the physical language of attraction with such fluidity. There is no command for silence, either, despite those needy instructions.
Hands find knees a still and solid support. As Guanshan rolls down, ass fitted neatly across evidence of arousal in the hard, clothed shape of an erection at the center of his lap, Itachi's unoccupied hand drops from the collared throat to a sharp hip bone in sudden descent. There, fingers dig in with bruising pressure, denting flesh. Stay still.]
Even forbidden from it, you lack the self-control to completely cut yourself off. [Mild, gritty words in a throat thick with the taste of blood. He can feel the raw electricity of Guanshan's presence in his awareness, Synchrony's channel unmet and unsatisfied.] It was the same when we first met as well. You did not even need to try.
[Guanshan bleeds emotions from every tender pore; he'd needed to be told how to intentionally connect through Synchrony, but even that had been second nature in the end, in the blue backwash of that alley.]
It is... [his mouth hovers over the same nicked wound, breath fanning hot and damp,] ...puzzling to me.
[And there he latches on again, prying at the seam of flesh with the jab of a tongue, teeth sinking to take better hold in a circular bite.]
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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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[ it's fair. he's not sure he can explain how trust works for him to anyone's satisfaction; it's a concept that has to be experienced. lived. he can say he trusts Itachi until he's blue in the face — until there's blood shed and secrets kept between them, he can't know its authenticity. ]
My family. [ for all of the weight the shinobi implies, however, he finds it so easy to answer. the first does not apply here, where he's forcibly estranged. vivisected from that part of his identity, the next answer is as follows: ] And feelin' understood.
[ seen completely, accepted, and safe. he remains reticent, eyes asking the question his mouth doesn't. why now? ]
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The temptation passes as a cool cloud overhead, and then he's sinking down near those long legs, knees folded in the sand, posture straight, just beyond reach without a strain. Guanshan is half in shadow, half in light at this spot—from this angle—like an eerie, alluring hallucination of his own, one watched closely.]
I've observed your behavior for some time now. [Adrenaline-hunting, impulsive, desirous, stubborn, risky behavior though it may be. But observation is one measure. Perhaps it would help him predict and kill an opponent; Guanshan isn't that category currently.] What does it take for you to feel understood?
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Bein' observed, [ he comments with no sarcasm at all. whether he attracts those who have an obsessive component to their personality or they attract him because he likes feeling seen is a riddle he's never set about solving; some things are just synchronicity and he can accept them for that because the results have worked out in his favor more times than they haven't. Guanshan is nothing if not a young man shaped by his experiences, moreso than some others. ]
[ the list goes on: ]
And intimacy. Sometimes intimacy is violent, and sometimes it ain't. I like both. I want both. One or the other ain't enough.
[ of his few demands, these are principle. ]
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Violence without intimacy: cold, ruthless, impersonal as a blade wedged into a stranger's back. It's what he knows, far better than intimacy—that raw and searing sore vulnerable to infection.
He doesn't move, but his gaze tracks sideways to stare at Guanshan's hands in the distorted radiant light, watching the spindly shape of fingers and a soft hidden palm and remembering what it felt like to hold. Physical touch is intimacy. Physical touch is also violence. Where had he begun to learn the divide, exactly? What would happen if he said right now the reason Guanshan should never trust him, should never pursue his company, should never seek him out—what if he said it all and torched every potential future to a burnt, black root? Anything else is deception in the face of open honesty. Yet that has been his nature for so many years now that to act otherwise is jarring and wrong, like stones underfoot. He deserves to be dead—not whatever this is.
Itachi stands abruptly, but even that sudden movement is silent and liquid as shadow.] That was all I had to show you tonight. [No more illusions and no more questions. An unknown partygoer comes into view far down the beach, near the street, figure lit beneath luminescent blue lamps before vanishing again, headed away. Itachi's eyes follow their trajectory and then snap back, irises now dormant black.] If there's nothing else, you should return.
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Stay a little longer.
[ less confidence to those words than he'd like. his encouragement is a plain one, to sit back down where he once was, spare a little more of his time. he could tell him he'd make it worth his while, but he should be understood enough by now that no amount of calm and quiet inaction could ever hold his attention for too long; for better or worse, the electric storm inside of him always finds an outlet with the right polarity. ]
[ and as Guanshan looks up at him, the cold luminance of the moon strikes his eyes silver and emotive, imploring. ]
Please?
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He sinks down again, almost a graceless collapse of defeat, heels digging divots into cold nighttime sand.]
I don't have anything else for you.
[An interaction without purpose, without some goal... his limited social skills flounder when left to improvisation. He looks at Guanshan almost cautiously.]
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[ perhaps the caution is warranted; when Guanshan is given an inch, he inevitably takes a mile. no sooner than Itachi finds his seat again is he crawling into it too, up and forward, a spread of knees that bracket his hips and a weight that sinks onto his lap. drawn close, his arms loop his shoulders to cage him in fully, lashes low as it tilts their height difference even further in his direction. over Itachi's head, the light of the fire hits him in its entirety — gold-faced and silver-backed. ]
[ Synchrony is fuzzy and distant, as if muffled by clothing. skin doesn't touch skin. it's still impossible to mistake the sunburnt heat of him from the fever of something else, unrepentant and constant desire — not all of it sexual in nature. ]
You're disappointed 'cuz you tried to do it from a distance. [ as if providing the answer to a question he has not been asked but knows it remains all the same. he's too much for people like Itachi, like Rokurou... and yet they seek him out for that same intensity. he'll have to learn one way or another that the only way to be satisfied is to embrace it, sooner or later. ] You got a weapon on you, right?
[ and he means that in the most traditional sense. ]
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Against the heat of proximity both emotional and physical, Itachi is a shadow slithering through it, cool, daring to be caught. Dark eyes narrow in an angular face.]
Yes. [Of course. Always. Similar answers, but too emphatic for a man like him.] ... Distance is advantageous on the battlefield.
[Yet his slender hand produces a kunai like a magic trick, its sudden appearance reflecting a band of firelight in one quick, brilliant blink, then held in deft fingertips expertly.]
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Assumin' the other guy knows you're tryna kill him. [ his words have an uncharacteristic fullness. weapon passed off, the loop winds up around one knuckle and the threading lays across long fingers, sleek and pretty. Guanshan rocks it back and forth in admiration (or maybe calculation), gaze tracking grooves of its last whetting for telltale signs of recent use, all those nicks and burrs the human body causes on metal. it moves then: helicoptered around his palm, swift and blurred motions, caught to run parallel to his ulna, and rolled across knuckles like his own little magic trick. ]
[ weight of him minutely shifting on Itachi's lap as he moves, it comes to a stop when he tosses it up and catches it on the tip of a finger by the point. blood bleeds readily, but he doesn't let it fall; blades are, after all, his partner's weapon of choice, and Guanshan has touched more knives in his life — in and out of the kitchen — for this to be his preference. for it to be the way in which he chose to kill a man for the first time. ]
Do I make you feel like you're on a battlefield? [ it's asked as he tosses the weapon to the opposite hand and offers it back handle-first... before his gaze tracks to the same stretch of beach Itachi had witnessed a straggler, pointed. when he looks back, that bleeding tip of his finger moves across Itachi's lips — answering his dare. ] Or have you jes' spent too long keepin' everyone that far away?
[ and with Itachi barely older than himself. it's been a long journey, but Guanshan's been exposed to so many different worlds that he's met men who were killers before they hit double digits. is it intrusive speculation, or a coy way of pointing out just how different their interactions are? different, and important. ]
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[A quiet murmur expecting no response, his attention soon beholden to the display of familiarity with the blade. Use shows on looped handle and silver edges, a weapon that has met its purpose over and over again, sharpened to a gleaming triangular point. Guanshan's manipulation is like a performance—dark eyes never stray far, body becoming more aware of the weight sitting across it, the slight shifts of necessary movement. Hands eventually clamp down onto that narrow waist beneath the lip of the shiny jacket he wears.
Blood shines like oil in the fire's glare, slick and black; low-lidded eyes crack wider when the fingertip is brought to his mouth and smeared in a gory lipstick. Unconsciously, a red tongue licks to clear it, tasting Guanshan's metallic flavor, taking that essence into his own system, catching the callused pad of a finger.
... A strange intimacy forced upon him, for a moment he does not react. Guanshan does make him feel as though he's on the battlefield—adrenaline spiking, anticipation thickening, that alert short-term mindset where every action takes on great significance, where physical language screams loudest. His hands constrict on Guanshan's waist, a bruising suggestion of strength in them. Arousal is a violent beacon in his awareness then, an attraction he didn't realize sat deep within himself yet undiscovered, something about what Guanshan has done—the hot taste of his blood, perhaps, or the bright blade misused now—dredging it all up.
Instead of an answer, he shoves Guanshan out of his lap with sudden force that sends him sprawling into sand. His expression is almost identical to that day in the park, except cut across now by shadow, disguising most of its haunted, hungry effect. He doesn't move again.]
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[ despite his genius with anything else, here Itachi is a slow study. Guanshan doesn't mind. ]
You can't touch me yourself... [ he starts, slow and cautious, aware of the shinobi's penchant for disappearing. maybe if he chooses the right words, he won't — but that's a big ask of someone like Guanshan, who has very little mastery over language. ] So do it with that instead.
[ his chin jerks forward, gesturing at the weapon returned to Itachi's care. hands leave the shore, go to the zipper on a half-closed jacket and pull it down with a noise that's entirely too loud for the quiet between them, just breath and the crackle of fire. he shrugs out of it, leaving it in a pool around his seat; his shirt comes off overhead next, ruffling spikes of auburn only for them to return to their original chaotic disarray. moonlight rims his edges even paler. the emerald at one side of his ribs, the vicious bitemark scar at the other, the myriad of other dings marking him as little more than a civilian with a rough sense of play and taste for violence — violence he's as hungry to share with Itachi as he is his bed. ]
No Synchrony. I won't reach out for you. [ Rokurou had told him touching him was... too intense, sometimes; he has no doubts it must be the same for Itachi, although not quite for the same reasons. ] Just stay close'n keep your eyes on me.
[ to him, it sounds like compromise. ]
cw blood/weapon play
The jacket is shed and cast aside, shimmering like a pale wing as it lands in the sand, shirt soon shucked off to follow it. The landscape of Guanshan's torso is wild territory marked by past encounters, stories laid out by scars and impressions that he can't know with a glance. That lack of knowing is the worst part. So, too, is a sudden sense of insignificance; anything he commits here will become another meager trophy of flesh, unoriginal, another notch on the post. One of many—if it is even permanent at all.
Perhaps that is better, lending equanimity as it subtracts some burden of weight in the action. He leans forward on bent knees and works off the light of fire from behind, kunai a shadow across Guanshan's skin before it ever touches, other hand lifted to seize the back of a nape until it shies and hovers instead. Any more physical contact than this is a danger. Whatever the deeper meaning, Itachi cannot diminish the intensity of his own concentration—his mind slides into another persona altogether, the one put together to take enemies apart. The blade lands low on Guanshan's belly, near the defined jut of a hip, blood blooming to the surface in a slivered ribbon of red, not deep enough to scar but no less magnetizing for the sight of split flesh. Another one follows, then another, until three shallow lines like perfectly straight claws have dragged across his left hip barely shy of bone.
He takes a breath that shudders in, then back out, and looks at Guanshan's face. The kunai rests against the flat plain just beneath his navel. There it sits without the pressure to cut, yet, as though seeking some reaction first.]
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[ he swallows hard and wrenches his eyes from the seeping wounds and silver assailant to Itachi when he sees movement, expression open and laid bare. pain thrusts him into honesty as much as pleasure does, the wires between them so crossed that he begins to harden from the stimulation of it alone. it's the fact that it's Itachi — his gaze and his interest and his hovering presence — that has him tail-spinning towards a full erection so readily, swelling against an inner thigh and curving the drape of his loose shorts between his legs. ]
[ a beat of that intense eye contact and he swallows, nodding, the bead of sweat at the corner of his jaw running down onto his throat. legs widen ever so slightly, knees turning out, giving Itachi a wide berth between them. as promised, he doesn't reach out to him, allowing the space and patience needed for Itachi to explore as he pleases without the Synchrony's interference. all of these, quiet little acts of encouragement, with a bullet of a question already loaded in the chamber: do you like this too? ]
[ he doesn't need to convey his body's response any more than the needy lid of his eyes or how his top row of teeth seek his thin bottom lip to bite and drag, vulnerable and uncomfortable in his own need. perhaps that's something Itachi can find kindred, among all the things he can't. ]
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He had expected to remain aloof and impersonal even in this act. It's how he has felt every time he's turned a weapon on another: detached, outside himself, clinically removed through rote habit and training. It isn't the case now, seeing Guanshan's lip bitten to a swell and outline of his cock a thick shape within fabric confines. What does he look like, beneath all of that? What does he taste like? A sympathetic throb of arousal settles in his own gut; and although easy to ignore in the moment, Itachi can tell when his own dick has grown hard and stiff between rigid, folded legs.
Alleviating lust is secondary to a different desire. Almost preemptive of thought, his free hand comes up to hold Guanshan's slender throat at the base. No applied pressure yet. The kunai is led up higher as if changing its mind to nick the sharp bones of Guanshan's collar. Blood dripples from the cut, and as Itachi pulls down on that leashed hold of a throat, his mouth latches across the shallow wound, tongue lashing hot. The force of movement drags Guanshan solidly down into his lap. A line he crosses on his own, although Sychrony remains sealed out—one last barrier of necessary restraint.]
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[ likewise, what little of his own Synchrony he can control, he does. it isn't much — enough for the channel to be that of a ripped-open, frayed wire still pumping with electricity, sparking and crackling in the rage of missing its other parts. sex is a bond, a connection, no matter how much in his past he tried only to make it a transaction; with Itachi more than most, he burns for the reciprocity of it. ]
Y... you're driving me fuckin' crazy...
[ an emphatic whisper, rough like a breath of the campfire smoke over his head. that roiling lust leaves him restless, the heat of Itachi's mouth blister-stinging on the wound, his every squirm a rub of friction where his cock protrudes perhaps a little too proudly low against the other man's belly. swollen lips are lapped again as he fishes for something to return, his seat intentionally rolling down in an attempt to uncover Itachi's own fledgling hard-on — given an inch, he takes a mile. ]
Take more. Use your teeth.
[ the only thing better than guiding a weapon to hurt someone is doing it yourself. ]
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Hands find knees a still and solid support. As Guanshan rolls down, ass fitted neatly across evidence of arousal in the hard, clothed shape of an erection at the center of his lap, Itachi's unoccupied hand drops from the collared throat to a sharp hip bone in sudden descent. There, fingers dig in with bruising pressure, denting flesh. Stay still.]
Even forbidden from it, you lack the self-control to completely cut yourself off. [Mild, gritty words in a throat thick with the taste of blood. He can feel the raw electricity of Guanshan's presence in his awareness, Synchrony's channel unmet and unsatisfied.] It was the same when we first met as well. You did not even need to try.
[Guanshan bleeds emotions from every tender pore; he'd needed to be told how to intentionally connect through Synchrony, but even that had been second nature in the end, in the blue backwash of that alley.]
It is... [his mouth hovers over the same nicked wound, breath fanning hot and damp,] ...puzzling to me.
[And there he latches on again, prying at the seam of flesh with the jab of a tongue, teeth sinking to take better hold in a circular bite.]
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itachi running away, the life and story