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It started small.
Itachi was barely even cognizant he had done it, when he sealed the ruined scraps of Kisame’s shirt into a storage scroll. The other man had already replaced the garment, pulling a new one from his bag and tossing the remains of his old one into the motel trash can. When Itachi finds it later, tucked among his blades and rations, he was bewildered, but unable to discard the shredded rag. There was an uncomfortable pull in his gut when he thought about it, and he spirited it away, back into his supplies after a moment of hesitation.
He tried not to think about it. It was meaningless. It was harmless, really, a tiny acquiescence to the omega nature he so strictly repressed and resolutely ignored.
Kisame’s scent isn’t even particularly potent on the rag. The thing smells more like burnt fabric than it does his partner, but Itachi still tucks it away furtively.
He’s not sure why he does it. Its not particularly soft, and the smoky, charred fabric has transferred a smear of ash onto his spare under things. Itachi brushes at it ineffectually, staring at the worn scrap of fabric. Out of instinct he brings it to his nose.
Both he and Kisame are on the potent suppressants favored by the shinobi nation’s ANBU corps, muting his pheromones to faint notes for Itachi to occasionally catch on the breeze. But captured in the fabric, worn by his partner for who knows how long, there is more. Under the acrid layer of charred cloth, is Kisame, raw and undiluted. Like sea salt, sandalwood, salt and something spicy that is unique to his partner. It’s faint, but Itachi inhales it. The effect is instantaneous and disturbing. Itachi can feel tension in his body loosen, just the tiniest bit. The muscles in his face relax.
“Itachi-san?” Kisame’s voice calls from the beside the campfire. Immediately, Itachi shoves the piece of fabric into his sealing scroll, trying hard not to look like a guilty teenager. His heart is pounding, and his mind races to come up with an explanation that would satiate Kisame’s curiosity.
Stone faced, Itachi turns to face his partner, flashing the violet nail polish in his hand. Kisame makes an ‘aah’ sound of comprehension, and turns back to the pot suspended over the coals.
Itachi makes up his mind to dispose of the scrap as soon as he can. It was an embarrassing impulse, to keep it, even if Kisame’s scent had such an impact on him. This is the reason Itachi has such a tight hold over the insticts of his biology. Itachi studiously ignored what that meant about their relationship. He had promised himself he would leave no trace when he exited Kisame’s life, when Sasuke inevitably enacted his revenge, even as everyday the pair grew closer. Even as Itachi’s heart pounded at the older man’s pheromones. Even though Kisame smelled like his.
____
Itachi did not throw away the scraps Kisame’s ruined, dirty shirt.
Instead, without meaning to, he ended up collecting more of Kisame’s clothing.
Itachi was grateful they were so mobile, otherwise Kisame would have a bigger wardrobe, and Itachi more opportunities for theft. As it was, both had only a single set of spare clothes, and they switched between the set they had on their bodies and the other. Kisame had complained jokingly to him once that they did a lot of laundry because of this system, but neither had ever stopped.
They ended up alternated days for laundry, and Itachi tried hard not to think about how domestic it was, despite their situation, wringing out his extra shirt over a stream. Itachi spent a lot of time not examining his relationship with Kisame, purposely and resolutely ignoring the way his chest aches around the other man and the way they fall into step together like breathing. He keeps himself focused on more important things, and doesn’t linger on the meaning of a brush of a hand or the faintest violet blush on ears. Itachi squeezes the shirt harder.
Kisame’s things were instantly recognizable because of how much larger they were than Itachi’s. Itachi grabbed one of Kisame’s arm warmers, pausing before lowering it into the water. His gaze was fixed on them, unseeing. They covered the scent glands on Kisame’s wrists. Even muted by suppressants and scent neutral soap, his pheromones would linger stronger there. It was not a good idea for Itachi to hold them to his face, to inhale the pheromones into his lungs. There was no benefit to him, in further bending to this biological whim. Itachi had long been ignoring his omega urges, and there was no reason now for him to fold to this invasion of Kisame’s privacy, no matter how strongly his hormones were insisting he do so.
Kisame’s pheromones were stronger on the arm bands, like he thought they’d be. When Itachi turned them inside out, involuntarily nuzzling into the soft fabric that had been covering his partner’s wrists, an involuntary, pleased, chuff of air escaped him. Like this, Itachi could pick it apart, savor every aspect of Kisame. His sea salt and spice scent, though now he could detect moss and amber, sandalwood and the sweat of his skin. He let the fragrance flood his lungs, washing over him like a warm bath.
It was so much more nuanced and fresh than the little scrap he had been sneaking furtive sniffs of, feeling perverted and pathetic. It was a genuine miracle Kisame hadn’t noticed, but Itachi had been an ANBU member at 12. Sneaking around was his first language.
__
Itachi let his forehead crease slightly in faux consternation. Their clothes were folded neatly into two piles, one of his and one of Kisame’s, dried by a convenient, well controlled fire jutsu. He slipped his own extra clothes into the sealing scroll with his other things.
His partner was holding a single arm warmer up off the pile, a furrow in his sharp brow.
“You only gave me the one.” Itachi hated how easy it was for him to lie. It came as second nature, and by this point, Kisame never thought to question him. There was no reason for Kisame to doubt Itachi, and besides, why would Itachi have taken the other arm warmer?
Why indeed, Itachi wondered.
Kisame frowned. He glanced around their little camp, but of course his arm warmer was nowhere to be found. Distractedly, he patted down his cloak for it, and peeked into his pack. His frown deepened. Itachi didn’t feel guilty at all. Guilt was an emotion for big things, like killing your clan and ruining the life of your precious brother. A transgression this small was not even a disturbance on Itachi’s moral compass.
Kisame let out a ‘huh’ of confusion, beginning to spread out the contents of his bag. Itachi ignored it, reaching for one of the sweet potatoes roasting on the coals, his ill gotten gains safely hidden.
___
Itachi stared at the crumpled fabric. Kisame’s discarded yukata, generously provided by the ryokan, was heaped outside the bathroom door. He could hear Kisame shuffling around inside, shaving and redressing in his street clothes. The yukata, dark blue and green, laid innocently in the doorway, incapable of understanding how its presence taunted Itachi.
Discipline was one of Itachi’s defining traits. It had taken a strong willpower to complete the Academy early, countless hours of extracurricular practice and study. Itachi’s entire childhood had been committed to the betterment of himself as a shinobi, no matter how much he wanted to mess around with Shisui and Izumi, or help Sasuke. ANBU black ops missions had been a tremendous test of his discipline, culminating in the ultimate crucible- Itachi’s slaughter of his family and abandonment of Sasuke. He had done it all.
His heart broke, to be the end of his people, to be the scourge of the Uchiha. He’d cried, agonized by what he’d known to be the only way forward. Grief had consumed Itachi as he’d showed his brother the murder of their parents, choking back his tears. His instincts had howled and raged as he destroyed his pack, nose filled with their distress and anger, but it had not stopped Itachi at all. So why now was he indulging them?
__
“Smooth as I’ll ever be.” Kisame grinned, patting his face as he emerged from the bathroom. “Ready to head out?” They’d finally gotten another assignment from the leader, something that would require their combined strength. Itachi nodded and swung his pack onto his back. Kisame moved to follow him, glancing around the room for anything they might have forgotten.
“Oh, did they already come for the linens?” He asked as they slid the door shut behind them, nodding at the stripped beds. Itachi nodded, not allowing his deception to show on his face. He lead the way down the narrow hall of the upscale ryokan, their socked feet padding on the gleaming wood. A maid bows to them as they pass, and Itachi doesn’t notice as Kisame’s dark eyes linger thoughtfully on her cart of laundry.
___
He gets caught.
Of course he does. Kisame is not inobservant, he’s an S class criminal after all, and Itachi hadn’t been as furtive as he could haven been. The whole affair is a maelstrom of bad luck and inevitability, a mix between happenstance and the natural consequences of their actions and biology.
The pair had been skirting around something for a long time. Both men refused to allow it to be named or acknowledged, but sometimes, when the firelight would catch a the fierce angles of Kisame’s face, painting him dark and handsome in the moonlight, Itachi’s heart softened nearly enough to allow himself to admit, at least in the secrecy of his own mind, that he cared for the other man. He granted since the arm band theft that he was attracted to his partner, vowing never to act on those feelings. That there might have been something deeper there was too much for Itachi to initially allow himself.
What tipped it over the edge for them had been an unhappy series of events for both men.
The chemist they procured their extra strength suppressants from had substituted some of the compounds for a cheaper alternative, and it ended up being less effective than the usual dose. Itachi breathed an internal sigh of relief when he’d found out, giving himself a pass for the unusually omega-like urges that he’d been indulging recently.
So that had been the reason for the clothing theft. Why the glands in his neck had been sore and aching, and his head foggier than usual. It explained why he’d been so much more sensitive to the pheromones of others recently. A grain of tension leaked from Itachi. He’d been worried he was losing his mind, acting so irrationally.
He didn’t let it show on his face when he found out, nodding his assent to his partner to let Kisame and Samehada shred the man.
Kisame had been his usual kind of agitated from an unsatisfying fight that evening, as he often did when the fight had not been enough to allow him to stretch his muscles properly. It took a truly impressive opponent for Kisame to be challenged, but usually he could be satisfied by an interesting jutsus or raw physical strength. The black market chemist had neither.
What he did have was a considerable bounty, which Kisame consoled himself with as they checked into a particularly nice ryokan that evening. Samehada was still squirming and growling under its bandages, and Kisame’s body was nearly vibrating from pent up energy as Itachi counted out coins for the girl behind the counter.
Itachi wondered idly as he took their room key if it was the suppressants failing him too, some alpha hormones pumping through his blood and riling him up. Kisame did love a good fight though. He seemed unusually amped up this evening, and Itachi wondered as they made their way through the narrow, well lit halls, if he’d ask Itachi to spar as he sometimes did to burn through some extra energy. He tried not to let himself dwell on the idea too much, to fantasize about their bodies colliding. Itachi could hold his own, even in their no-ninjutsu spars, but even the most skilled taijutsu specialist would have their work cut out for him against Kisame, and it wasn’t unusual for Itachi end up pinned to the ground, Kisame’s considerable weight pressing down on him, a thick bicep around his neck, or better yet a strong hand...
Itachi swallowed hard, even as his face remained stony. He nodded shortly to the concierge, the man’s crisp bow beside to a polished door end of their journey to their room startling him out of the fantasy. It made so much sense that his suppressants were acting up. Itachi would never entertain such lurid thoughts otherwise.
Kisame sighed loudly as they entered the suite, dropping their bags and Samehada to the floor with a dull thunk. Itachi set to work setting out his usual seals, one for cloaking and noise suppression and one to check for traps. Kisame stripped out of his Akatsuki cloak and tossed onto one of the voluminous folded futons. He stretched, his substantial muscle moving under his skin like a jungle cat. Itachi did not let his eyes linger.
“I think I’m going to go for a run before I check out the Onsen, Itachi-san, that weakling got me all riled up for nothing. Do you want anything while I’m out?”
Itachi shook his head shortly, wordlessly handing over the room key. He listened to the other man’s quiet footsteps exit the room, and then retreat down the hallway. He surveyed the hotel room, simple and elegant in a way that screamed expensive. His eyes landed on Kisame’s discarded coat, and lingered.
Hesitating a moment, Itachi glanced around the empty room before grabbing the garment and burying his face in it. He breathed in a lungful of Kisame, letting his pheromones soothe him. The now familiar notes of moss and cumin, wet, dark earth and the brine of the sea filled his mouth and nose, tension leaking from every pore with every inhale. Itachi let out a quiet sigh of pleasure, and rubbed his face on the fabric, uncaring of how dirty the garment probably was. It was fresh and well worn, musky with the exertion of Kisame’s most recent fight.
Itachi let his own cloak fall to the ground in a pile and pulled on the much larger garment, letting the fabric swallow him. Pleasure instantly bloomed forth. A sweet, indescribable sensation flooded his body. He breathed deep, contented breathes of the pheromones, in and out, letting Kisame’s scent wash over him in hazy, calming waves. It surrounded subsumed him, overwhelming his senses with irrational, primal emotion, more feeling than thought, the kind of things that Itachi would usually have an unshakeable hold over.
Safe, alpha, mine.
Itachi blew out a shaky breath, unable to shake his bone deep discomfort with these feelings. Desperately, he tried to console himself, suppressants were malfunctioning, so it was alright. It was ok for him to be like this, to be so soft and weak and omega for some alpha’s scent, for Kisame’s scent. He couldn’t control it, so there was no helping it. Another sigh rose, soft as smoke, from his chest. He passed the familiar material through his fingers, reveling in the texture of fabric.
There had never been a time where he’d been allowed to embrace his secondary sex. After an achy and uncomfortable initial presentation, Itachi had been put on the strict suppressants he’d been on ever since. A scent dampening seal was subtly inked on his skin, and he’d never experienced another heat. His discipline over his biology had been utterly unshakeable, even as he loosened his grip over other aspect of his life. As he weakened.
Haltingly, Itachi rooted through his pack for the storage scroll with his other pilfered garments. Emerging with his furtive treasures, he padded over to one of the clouds of futon and dropped the scraps on it. Itachi stared at the fabric, both embarassed and feeling foolish. How was this done? He can’t remember ever seeing or making one. Having it all together in one place felt right, scratching an itch in his brain. Tentatively, he stripped the blankets from the futon. He glanced at the other one. His gut was telling him he needed both, and all the linens he could find in this unfamiliar setting, but Itachi knew Kisame would be able to smell him on the wrinkled coverlet and withheld himself.
The oversized sleeves of Kisame’s coat hung over his hands as he drew apart the sheets and blanket and twisted them, tucking and weaving, following no particular pattern but what felt right. There was still an absurdity lingering in him, like someone would catch him in the act and laugh at his pathetic attempt. Like Kisame would see it and know Itachi was a poor quality mate. Itachi quashed the thought viciously. Kisame would not see the nest. It was for him alone, because his suppressants had failed. It did not matter what kind of omega Itachi was. This was meant to be... cathartic. Constructing this nest would relieve the pressure of his biological symptoms on his mind, and nothing more.
He tucked the flat pillows into the lopsided nest, and then carefully placed in the tattered fabric of the ruined shirt in it, then the arm warmer. Itachi carefully stepped into it. Nearly instantly, he relaxed. Satiating this impulse was like a voice, continually speaking, had been silenced in his brain, replaced with a soft happy purr. Like a stretch after holding an uncomfortable position, or the release of steam from a pressure valve. Something clicked into place in Itachi’s psyche that he hadn’t even known had been malfunctioning. He had been functioning at a state of hormonal dysregulation and suppression for so long that he no longer quite understood what it meant for him to be an omega, but now, here he was, building a nest and feeling at peace for the first time in years.
Smothered in Kisame’s soothing, comfortable scent, Itachi’s tired eyes fluttered involuntarily closed. He was acutely aware now that this need had been fulfilled, of a bone deep, persistent weariness in his body. His muscles felt distorted, like a string pulled taut for so long that when it was relaxed, the pattern of the fibers have warped and the string becomes loose. Itachi curled into himself, surrounding his body with the starchy- soft sheets and the pheromones of his companion. Without meaning to, Itachi drifted into an warm and easy sleep.
___
When Itachi wakes, the sun is streaming in golden from the window, much lower in the sky from when they had arrived at the ryokan. The quiet slide of the door had stirred him from his slumber.
“Itachi-san,” Kisame panted, a note of surprise coloring his voice. Sedated from sleep and the comforting nest around him, it takes Itachi’s gut only a split second to go cold.
He shoots up in the messy tangle of blankets, but there is no hiding the evidence of what he’s done. A blush like a drop of ink in water spreads across his face. Kisame’s expression melts from one of polite surprise to one of genuine amazement. His jaw drops open.
It is only then that Itachi takes in the state his partner is in. A violet flush and beads of sweat still decorate his visage from his run. Perspiration has soaked through his shirt, outline his broad form temptingly, and his arm warmers cling limply to his damp skin.
Even despite the incriminating position he’s been discovered it, and humiliation rages hot through him like a katon, Itachi can sense that these items would be excellent acquisitions for his nest. His sad, embarrassing little nest, with his garbage he’d stolen from Kisame. Itachi’s head was swimming, nearly dizzy with shame. Any hormonal benefit he’d reaped from the indulgence of his omega instincts had been utterly nullified. Swallowing down nausea, floored by his foolish whim, body numb, Itachi moves to extract himself from the snarl of bedding. He wanted to crumble into nothingness, to disappear. He felt like a child.
Kisame holds up both hands, his chest still heaving from exertion, darting eyes studying the pool of fabric Itachi had woodenly been removing himself from. The younger man freezes, his cheeks still alight with his shame. Kisame gave a toothy smile reassuringly.
“I didn’t mean to intrude on your nest, Itachi,” His tone as gentle as Itachi has ever heard it, which only makes Itachi flush a deeper shade of crimson, averting his eyes and hastening his own untangling. It feels so frivolous and unnatural coming from him. Itachi’s mortification practically emanating from him, beacon like.
“My suppressants are faulty,” He says coldly, and Kisame nods in understanding. His expression is careful, but there is still that (cute) violet blush painting his sharp cheekbones.
Itachi manages an escape from the bedding with maximum dignity, which is promptly shattered by the realization that he is still clad in Kisame’s oversized cloak. The arm band fell damningly from it. Itachi froze, unmoving. Both of their eyes tracked it.
“Ah,” Kisame said lightly, “I was wondering where that went.” A tiny smile quirks up the corner of his lips, and Itachi’s icy, flustered rage flared. He turned sharply from his partner, shrugging out of the cloak without a word. “No, wait Itachi, I didn’t-” Kisame let out a frustrated growl. Mechanically, Itachi folded the garment into a neat square, nearly shoving it at Kisame in his attempt to escape. He ignored the dejected wail of his omega instincts at it’s relinquishment.
“I mean, I will need it back eventually,” Kisame says, but he doesn’t take the cloak from him, grabbing Itachi’s wrist. “But you can have it for now.” Itachi’s heart pounded. He didn’t take the cloak back, but a tiny hopeful spot of joy flickered to life in his gut. Kisame ran a hand through his sweaty hair. This close, Itachi could smell it on him, and his mouth watered, his biological omega raising its interested head, even as Itachi tried to suppress it.
“Could I... enter it?” Kisame asks, unsteady as Itachi has ever seen him, and it takes a moment for him to process Kisame’s request. He nearly rears back in shock, his face red and heart pounding. Though he has always kept himself outside of the realm of secondary sex, of courting and mating, he recognizes this as an important step in the process of courting one’s mate. It wasn’t the first step by any means. But their bond, such as it was, is unconventional. And this feels like the right step.
Itachi did not insult Kisame by asking if he was sure. Kisame would not ask if he was not sure. Both of them glance, unsure, at the messy tangle of blankets and scraps of dirty laundry. Itachi looks up at Kisame, fighting his own lingering mortification.
“No,” He says decisively, and Kisame steps back a second, abashed and on the retreat. “But, you can help me build a new one.”