A cold breeze whispered over the tall grass. The world seemed opaque, with the sky hanging unsettlingly low and heavy over the land. Line cutting a divide between Earth and sky stretched longer to the infinity than usually. No tree or house was to be seen. The broadness of the space made something formidable stir low in Itachi's chest. If he were alone, he'd take a deep breath to stretch the tightness out of his breast, but he was sitting back to back with another man in high grass. And he tried not to let is guard down on principle.
So instead, Itachi's eyes strained to look as far as he could into the horizon to try and shake away the agitation, scarlet sharingan whirling into life, turning his view into a tunnel one. His mind buzzed with colors and shapes which only made the stuffy, panicky feeling inside of him worse. He saw a sudden flash of lighting far, far away in the distance and suddenly grew tired of looking, closing the lids before even deactivating his power. His breathing did not change but his heart rate flew up as the darkness of his eyelids was suddenly resembling the black sky over a familiar street.
“You getting lost again?” A low rumble got to Itachi from the other side of his back.
Itachi wanted to say yes but found his throat to be tightly shut, so he opted for lowering his head, the bells hanged over his straw hat making a little pang sound as a result of movement.
“It's time to get going then.” Said Kisame getting up on his feet and picking up his ridiculous sword. Itachi was trying to find the usual way to turn off his sharingan, but his brain synapses disobeyed, as he was drowning in flashes of disturbing images. With a sudden feeling of losing the support of Kisame's wide frame, his eyes snapped open.
He was still sitting down, frozen, muscles taut and skin clammy with cold sweat, as Kisame went round him and crouched in front of him. One careful hand took his hat off his head slowly, and put it aside, bells twanging softly. Two calloused hands touched on his cheeks on both sides and gently brought his head up for a careful inspection.
“Shit, it got dark already. “ Kisame said, twitching a bit as his eyes were met straight up by two bloody mangekyou sharingan. “Itachi, you need to stop it, or else you'll be out of it for a full day, again. “ Itachi did not see his colleague at all, even as he felt Kisame's breath on his face due to the proximity.
“Come on. You're not there. You're here, with me. What you are seeing is not happening right now. We're alone. “
Itachi's body started to release slowly, and gradually, a light round spot appearing in the middle of the dark vision, teasingly letting more and more daylight seep into his view. A worried, bluish face floated ghastly in front of him.
Kisame relaxed a bit and moved farther away from Itachi's face as the reddens dissolved to the usual obsidian. He worriedly puckered his lips and frowned in a grimace that would be funny if it wasn't for his unsettling shark-like features. “Are you finally losing it, Itachi?” His voice sounded pitched.
To be honest, Kisame disliked Itachi at first. He was intimidated by Itachi's spine-chilling infamy and wanted to flex his own depravity against it, as if to see who the bigger, badder wolf is. But Itachi's subtle mannerisms put him to his place fairly quickly into their partnership. Kisame couldn't draw a disgusted reaction out of Itachi no matter how much he boasted about his own wrongdoings. The stoic expression would never change and to Kisame it seemed as if Itachi was never surprised, shocked or appalled by his recalling of gory past crimes. So he concluded that Itachi must have had seen worse.
And even though Itachi seemed cool and collected all the time, Kisame awaited for an opportunity to establish dominance in their relationship. The first time Kisame had his chance was when the first panic attack happened. It was the first time Kisame had seen Itachi completely lose control, too.
They were approaching an inn in a town in the middle of nowhere, when suddenly he felt a surge of chakra releasing from the man next to him. Kisame remembered his first thought had been that his usually unbelievably professional partner in crime sensed some kind of danger and was quick to react. Kisame went to clutch Samehada, but even before he managed to grab her, Itachi was off. Gone in a haze of Akatsuki cloak, latching to a closest civilian, slitting throat with a flash of a blade and a gushing black spritz of blood.
Kisame was soon cowering behind cover for what seemed to be hours and hours, as the sky got deep dark crimson and screams prolonged into eternity. Samehada laid forgotten, twitching pitifully in the dust next to him. The worst moment came with the realization that all of the screams have ceased, and laden silence came about. He felt ice cold dread as a bloodthirsty monster crept behind his back and he cried out shamelessly, becoming the very last target.
Then, a switch was turned on him, and he was washed over by sudden empty feeling. Itachi's hand was lowered over his shoulder, and with that light touch he woke up, tears streaming down his face furiously, in a street full of lively, unharmed civilians. Sky cleared as he followed Itachi to the inn, hiding his wet face under the shadow of the straw hat while Itachi got them a room. Long silence stretched between them.
Kisame felt violated, but also as if he somehow invaded his partner’s privacy, sensing he accidentally witnessed something deeply private.
Itachi apologised afterwards, saying that he couldn't have controlled the genjutsu he'd cast. He explained that sometimes his memories would flow unexpectedly trough his sharingan after being triggered by random visuals similar to his past. Kisame believed him, as he too suffered from PTSD. It was just that Itachi’s sharingan made it that much more complicated.
The only surprising thing was that, as Kisame finally found the one weakness he could use to attack Itachi, one crack in the hard armor of stone eyes and sealed lips, he was too scared to take advantage of it.
After that, Kisame started to help Itachi with his panic attacks. It seemed to Kisame that Itachi's eyes went a bit softer in return.
“Sorry.” Answered Itachi politely but not at all remorseful, as the full, sharp image of Kisame crouching over him in the tall, yellow grass came into his view.
Kisame sighed. “I need you stayin' sharp. We're just a day away from the border now.”
“Resting makes me anxious.” Itachi accepted an arm Kisame extended to help pull him up. He was painfully aware of dark blotches that were clouding his vision from when his sharingan was active just a minute ago. He was feeling the cancer creeping up on him from the ends of his chakra vessels. He felt as in an endless, sickening loop. When used, his sharingan would put him to excruciating pain, and he'd need to rest. While resting, his mental illness would trick him into overusing the sharingan again, out of panic, and he would go back to feeling pain accordingly, no relief whatsoever.
“You just need to move your body to shake it off. Let's go.” Kisame took his pet sword and started to move on. Itachi found a weird comfort in this simple approach and calmed down focusing on his partner’s back as he followed.
I just need to wait for all of this to pass.
He thought to himself, using his mantra to suppress the inner pain of having an existence wasted by the circumstances of his life-time.
I just need to wait for Sasuke.
I just need to last until then.
It will all pass then.