voice test

[stagnantflicker]

I know you're nervous, but it's time to run an stop wondering how hard you'll fall!

Besides, a challenge is always fun. If you fail spectacularly, at least you'll do better next time you try, and you know you like the challenge. That's why we'd be a good fit.

Also, do you really think my baby cousin should be allowed to run loose like that? Someone needs to at least make an attempt to keep him in better shape.

Comments

jksafh a shisui!

[aloof]

You always were a motivational speaker, Shisui.

( will not comment on the 'baby cousin', no thank youuuu... )

[stagnantflicker]

A motivational speaker? That sounds very boring and dull, Itachi. Couldn't you have used something more dynamic? Like an enabler?

You know-- that moment when you're trawling through d_m posts? >>

[counterintel]

Did you help rise to the challenge?

[stagnantflicker]

I did. When have I ever not?

[counterintel]

Of course.

[Ah... Shisui. He's missed you.]

It's been a success then?

[stagnantflicker]

For a while, yes. It ended up being best to make a strategic withdrawal.

[A wry little grin]

But I had my fun and kept a certain weasel from being too stupid about things.

[counterintel]

Is that so?

[He sees that grin, and damnit - no, it's not infectious. No smile for you.

... especially not now.]

What things?

[stagnantflicker]

[Still smiles, and wide ones now.]

Oh, you know, mostly guilting himself to death about what a terrible person he was, how he didn't deserve to be happy, and making us both miserable by trying to pretend he was a big bad evil guy.

[A wider grin.]

Nothing you'd know anything about I'm sure.

[counterintel]

[He hates you sometimes.]

Not yet.

[Even if he knows there's nothing he can do that will change his future, no matter how much he's been told.]

I'm glad you find it so amusing.

[stagnantflicker]

Good. You're really too cute and clueless to pull off evil really well. What kind of villain has eyelashes like yours?

[Huge smile, because there is nothing more fun than needling his favorite person in the world.]

Evidently I'm fated to die tragically and very young, so I should pack my remaining life with as many things that I love as I can.

[counterintel]

... Shisui. [HE REFUSES TO BLUSH.]

I'm not going to disagree with you.

[Nope, because even when you do turn up in these 'games' it seems only to be brief.]

It's good to see you.

[stagnantflicker]

The sad truth is they only get more ridiculous the older you get.

[Shisui's chuckling, absolutely delighted from the soles of his feet to the tips of his curly head. It's Itachi. How else should he feel?]

It's nice to know you still love me.

[Understatements, Shisui often reads deeply into Itachi's.]

Is there one of me where you are now?

[counterintel]

[Sigh.]

So I've heard. I prefer not to give it too much thought.

[Ah-- Love. Damn you. There will never be a time when Shisui won't manage to derail him.]

You're not there. Sasuke is. He's eighteen.

[Can you believe it? It's certainly weird.]

[stagnantflicker]

Eighteen? That brat's eighteen now?

[Shisui looks a little shocked, then he smirks.]

Is he taller than you?

[counterintel]

He's from a time much later than our own.

[Aaah, your contagious smirk. He'll just duck his head so you can't see his smile.]

Of course. I'm still thirteen.

[stagnantflicker]

figured that much, but it's so strange when people who are younger go and get taller than you...

[It must be even worse for Itachi, since this is Sasuke. Shisui blinks, then he grins, excited. He knows he got a smile from Itachi. Knows it.]

Aaaaw, you're little!

[Almost the proper age, and just the right size for physically manhandling when too smart for his own good.]

[counterintel]

It makes things interesting.

[Which was an understatement, actually. He's not sure how to manage him, and it's odd-- not being able to train with him like they used to, and knowing what's happened since back then.

Stop grinning, Shisui.]

It's really been that long spending time with a me that's older for you?

[Because really, Shisui-- the you he knows will never know him to be older than 13.]

[stagnantflicker]

Hopefully you can still make him behave. Just because he's older, doesn't mean he's any smarter than you.

[Shisui nods solemnly, because baby brothers and cousins will always be such and should always be treated as such.]

Well, it was a while, and you...well, you know how it is with Sasuke. You were twenty-one. And kind of...uh...dead. And you--he tried to be pretty mean at the beginning. It took a lot of work to make him stop being stupid.

[Shisui sighs.]

Thirteen is a more manageable age than twenty-one.

[counterintel]

He's quite calm.

[Which is no small miracle he knows. He doesn't need to hear what Shisui's saying. Dead at 21. He knew that, and he knew the rest too.]

Sasuke has been nothing but a brother to me, here.

[He's not sure how he feels about it. It makes everything he knows difficult to work through, truth be told.]

I was dead? Or dying?

[stagnantflicker]

Tell the kid thanks for that, then. You need it.

[Because Itachi's life has been rough, thanks in part to Shisui himself.

Shisui winces, realizing he's being horribly insensitive about death. Of course Itachi didn't need to know that.

I think he'd died, yeah, but someone had brought him back...I'm sorry, Itachi. Maybe things will be different for you.

[He's thirteen. He shouldn't have to know his life was going to be so short.]

[counterintel]

If I could I would.

[It's the fate of an Uchiha. All the things they did together, for the good of Konoha.]

I get-- brought back to life?

[Well. He's just going to ignore the pang of hope that Shisui somehow does the same.

Not sure why you're wittering about his life. Look at yours.]

[stagnantflicker]

I was still trying to figure out what all happened when you were thirteen--other than I got a bad blow to the head and went stupid somewhere in there...

[Asking Itachi to kill him--what kind of painfully moronic move would that have been? Asking his best friend--best everything really to kill him? Evidently Shisui hit senile early.]

I think it was a jutsu that brought you back.

[counterintel]

[Aaah, he feels incredibly strongly about your death, Shi. If only because it's the only way he doesn't make himself crazy with regret.]

You were doing what you thought was best for the clan. If they weren't so--

[Damnit. Composure, Itachi. You'd do to remember you have plenty of it.]

They would have used you.

[It hurts, but he's not going to show it. Oh look, topic chan-- great.]

It couldn't be anything else.

[There are no angels or miracles.]

[stagnantflicker]

Fuck the clan. I should have found something better for you.

[The sad thing is, Shisui's worried if faced with that choice, he'd make the same one. Save the most people possible, not the best or the most important to you. Still, he regrets his future self's decision and he doesn't understand it.]

So I killed myself and let them use you. I don't want to think that was my only option. Hell, Itachi, we were--are--whatever verb you want, we were geniuses. We were something special.

Why couldn't we find a happier ending?

[And he thinks he knows why. They couldn't see it, but it makes him mad to think that they couldn't change anything about their fates and how things ended up. He doesn't understand it still. There had to be a better way.]

[counterintel]

[That shouldn't take him back-- but he'd schooled himself into believing that what they had done was for the best. That there were no other options, so hearing it from the very person whose idea the whole thing was.]

Madara's will was too deeply rooted in the clan.

Don't think I haven't wondered if there were other ways to make the tension ease. What's done is done. We... have to live with the consequences.