Believe me, I said I'm a gooner

The light of late afternoon pierces past the edges of old, broken stone slabs of a civilization made and ruined long before the priests of death could arrive to claim their souls. That might sound like a shame, but they’ve made the most of it, and others before on the trail atoned for that sin in their stead. Rays of this light streak past the gray, asymmetrical rock and fall onto what is at its feet: a large pool of water, surely deeper than it looks. That’s how water always is, she knows, and it makes her skin crawl.

Far beyond abnormal to hear ninja complain of their homeland, but none do it more than those of the Suna. “It’s too dry!” some say. “It’s too hot," say others. But ever since the first time Erika stepped out into the big, beautiful world, she knew:

She knew there’s a reason Suna-nin complained to hell and back but always came back home.

God fucking damn it.

Now she’s stuck here, her mentor stripping and his turned-away gaze to her like a loaded weapon, as surely he will judge. Erika only got so far as to take off her clothes before she felt the tell-tale signs, those itching feelings where her growths would pop out.

Pop.

Pop.

Pop.

Jashin’s apprentice is such a silly girl. 

Nudity is a weird thing between these two. In each other’s perspectives, one is the handsomest man she’d ever laid eyes on, and the other is the most buxom, sexy little thing Jashin’s put in his path. This is true, and it’s made for some awkward moments, and yet this moment…has nothing to do with that. Oh, Erika wishes it was about a more civilian kind of indecency. Anything over the indecency of a shinobi's skill.

Erika holds herself under her breasts as she stands at the edge of the calm, clean pond with her skin warming in the sunshine, and it’s like the cat in her has come out to bathe, enjoy the heat. That’s a literal analogy, to be quite honest. Black ears twitch comfortably and the tail at the base flicks. No, she’s uncomfortable for a different reason as she stands on the edge of the stone slab, almost blaspheming the purpose of prayer by praying she was anywhere else.

Oh, why can’t she just stay in the sunshine?!

“Ahhh…!”

Muscular shoulders roll backwards at the joints, visible as the reaper's cloak is thrown haphazardly behind him, landing on Erika’s head and tented by her cat ears. With a small, muted hiss and a quick shake of her head, she is unblinded, and she sees how utterly relaxed Hidan seems. Why wouldn't he be? she reminds herself. He knows how to swim.

“This is JUST what I fuckin’ needed!” the man exclaims, slipping off his pants and shoes before doing more stretches. “Wash the blood off, do some more prayers, and we’re all done for the night! Right, dollface?”

…He gives a short “eh?” at said dollface, seeing her expression is steeled. He soon recovers, however.

“I get it,” he cocks his head with a blink. “You’re just a little weak still! Don’t worry, we’ll toughen you up. Then you can take any battle without catchin’ yer breath.”

And with that, she is forgotten; he hops into the water, and she briefly holds herself around the waist.

The handsome head of silver hair soon breaks the surface and tilts up with a deep, refreshed breath. He notices she seems…less than enthusiastic. Wide-eyed? He blinks.

…And then, asshole Hidan is, flicks some excess water from his fingertips right to her face. You would have thought it was a kunai.

“HISS!”

He chuckles at first– it’s funny to see someone react like an animal, obviously! …But then his expression drops. She is NEVER scared. It's like you dropped a kitty cat into a bucket of bathwater. Catlike Erika may be, but freaked out? Not on your life. Hell, Hidan's had to work to even make her smile let alone jump like that! As such, he purses his lip and thinks.

“...What?” And it's less of a judgment and more of a way to put his foot in the door, get her to come out and say whatever is wrong. She doesn't hear it that way, though. Her sharp teeth are gritted; Erika's not saying a damn thing.

“You’re not actually like a cat with water, are you?” he asks in flat disbelief. And just because he can, he adds with a smirk: "What, you lick your asshole too when I'm not lookin'?"

The tone of her response is a little closer to the normal he expects, flat in turn and mellow-toned. “N-no. It’s not that.” Still can't shake a bit of a stutter though… Regardless, Hidan gives benefit of the doubt, his attention easily swayed.

“Oh.” Pause. “Well. Are you comin’?”

Dumbass. She can't help but think it. Dumbass! She's never been more vulnerable, even without clothes on. He's willing to overlook at this and she's just STANDING THERE!

…

He's waiting. Oh, Jashin, he's waiting. Her lips part…and close. Part…bite their teeth. One last try…and she manages to say it, her awful flaw and greatest weakness plain under the scrutiny of her teacher.

“I…can’t. Swim.”

…

…

You can see the lightbulb go over his head.

“Well," he answers simply, not a hint of malice or mockery in his voice. "Time to learn, I guess.”

Erika knows Hidan reflexively at this point, and her reflexes tell her he's a man of action. She immediately takes a step back. “Not interested." Come on, lady, be strong. Roll your shoulders back, tilt your chin up. Look in charge of at least one thing. Hidan being your superior doesn't mean you're a child. "I’ve made it this long. I can keep going.”

A painfully simple answer cuts her in half: “You call yourself an S-rank?”

She pouts– or at least gets as close as she can to that, turning her gaze away and fumbling her fingers stiffly against her sides. That, turns out, means she’s let her guard down too much. Hidan sees an opportunity, and he’s not about to let it slide.

“W-what are you–?”

A feminine shriek rings through the ruins, and it is quickly followed by a deep, bellowing SPLASH! The screaming continues as soon as they break the surface and she’s gotten a big gulp of air. Hidan, somehow, is surprised by how much she flails; even more stupidly, he's stumped how she doesn't stop even when he wraps himself around her.

“HEY! Calm down!” he insists, holding her squirming body close. Swipe! “OW! Stop CLAWING!”

Splash, splash, the pathetic writhing doesn’t stop. 

“I’m not letting go until you stop!”

“FUCKER!” 

Oh, so she’s PISSED pissed.

Hidan, however, holds true to his word. A good half minute later is what it takes for her to be out of breath and still in his arms. 

“Okay, so now you’re calmed the hell down…” he drawls, head on her shoulder. “Let’s teach you.”

And oh, does she hate it at first. The scratches he got from her claws a second ago aren’t the last. But, but…she doesn’t leave. He half expected her to. Maybe she does trust him. Or maybe she just trusts in Jashin. Time flies by like keeping your hand like a hot stove, and yet it's too soon, somehow, when mid kicking and thrashing, making her way towards him comes with the realization that he's taking her back to shore.

"Let's…take a break."

They release themselves from the pull of the water, wetness staining the stones lining the pond. Her pointed ears are flattened, and her black and white tail is puffing as if it might help the hairs dry. "God you look miserable," Hidan mutters, and any woman less strong than Erika would spit back something about him having the balls to point out his own creation. But…she knows him better. So all he gets is a forlorn side-eye and then a glance to her bare feet.

"…Erika-chan," he pries, blinking magenta trying to peer past the slick, long strands of hair that he brushes off her face, ends tugging over her round bosom. "Alright," he decides with her silence. "I'm just gonna ask questions until you talk." He cocks his head. "Whattaya got against learning how to swim? Damn sure that it's gotta have come across yer mind before."

Read like a book, Erika's face tinges pink underneath her tired eyes. "I…don't like it."

"Eh—?"

"I don't like…that I need to," her soft voice explains before Hidan can fully interrupt. Her legs curl up to her chest and she holds them, locks of hair down her back like a towel. "I don't like that there's something I…need to fix."

"And you thought ignoring it helped?"

"Sounds so stupid when you put it like that."

"…"

Hidan's more capable of being quiet than people realize. Something in the air told him to shut up, look ahead at their reflections in the pond and let her words sink to the bottom like stones. Maybe it's the fact she's accepted, finally, that there was a problem.

Maybe it's something else.

…

They slip into the water and return to work again. Her claws will dig, but only instinctively. Her mouth will hiss, but only in effort. Her eyes will burn, but only to try to see under the water. And, most importantly, Hidan never stops once being himself.

"If you wanted to peel my skin a little, all you had to do was ask!"

"Aww, baby, you sound like a kitten!"

"Don't shed any fuckin' tears, girlie! Crybabies get double the lessons!"

The sun has set by the time he helps her set her head onto the rippling water, Erika on her back and finally learning how to do the most important thing of all: float. He’s quiet by this point, looking over her body. She’s a pretty lady, yeah, and it’s not exactly like they haven’t made it known they find each other hot as hell…

But something about this…is different.

The way her hair, bi-colored and long, streams behind her is like moonlight itself, strands of indigo and black reflecting stars in the sky just like the water does. Said water laps— ever so barely it laps— the edge of her pale, nearly white face. He traces with his eyes the shape of her jaw and the ridge of her nose, perfect and doll-like. And then her eyes. Oh, her eyes. Bloody, bloody red, like drops from Jashin's own veins pooled behind rounded glass.

Those crimson irises roll gradually to look back at Hidan. His finger thread through her hair, green nails massaging her scalp.

She doesn't have to say it; he can see it in her gaze. Erika never expected, perhaps never even hoped, that he could be so gentle. But for the same reason he was so tough in today's lesson is why he's delicate with her now.

Hidan, when he puts his mind to it, will take whatever he starts to completion. He's not about to halfass a prayer he found on the back of his tongue, even if the way she looks at him flutters his stomach sick.

"Jashin-sama…" he begins aloud; she sees his brow pinch as he tries to put to words what he feels. What a blessing and a curse it is, to feel so much about the world but be no good talking about it. But Hidan persists anyways, hands cupping her cheeks.

"Thank you, Jashin-sama…for crossing our paths." He's prayed as much before, but this time feels…different. The butterflies in his stomach begin to twirl into her chest. "We pray for…for…—"

…

"Fuck it," he murmurs, and he levels his face with hers. He locks their lips and begs Jashin to accept the ritual of touch in lieu of more traditional means.

Maybe water isn't so bad after all, Erika thinks.

Especially if it makes her lose her breath in more ways than one.

She closes her eyes, and his naked flesh presses against hers. Between that and sinking into the depths of the pond, she can't tell the difference between them. The night ends with her on her back once more, on the stone, the wetness of skin slapping as he thrusts between her thighs and holds her hands in his.

Trust.

Trust.

“What the HELL were you thinking?!”

You’ve never seen him this mad before. He holds his neck, bleeding, but his eyes are sharply on you. He doesn’t care about what happens to him. He’s immortal.

You, however…

“I could ask you the same thing!” you argue defiantly. You grab his face, both to get him to focus on you and to wipe the horrible red off the underneath of his eyes, but you gasp as he takes your wrists. 

“No you fucking CAN’T!” he shouts. Releasing his neck to hold you, however, makes him wince. You stare at the wound, a deep cut. 

“Hidan, y-you’re bleeding–!”

“So what?!”

And though his expression is a snarl, he doesn’t stop you from reaching forward and pressing your palm over the etch invading his precious, pale flesh. So panicked in this moment– all the adrenaline from the encounter just minutes ago– makes it so easy for you to sink into different extreme emotions. You begin to tear up.

“You’re lucky they didn’t nick your arteries,” you whisper like a prayer.

“You keep saying shit I should be,” Hidan hisses under his breath, and you can’t tell if he’s trembling for physical or emotional reasons. “Why? Why aren’t you watching your own neck?! You could have died!”

“So could y–”

…You don’t need to finish that sentence. The glare in his gaze and the dead silence in the air say how wrong you are.

“I…” you stammer, having dumbfounded yourself. “I…”

Hidan feels your arms go limp, no longer straining against his grasp, and he allows them to fall to your sides. “Ah shit,” he observes. “You’re crying…?!” The obvious answer is that you shouldn’t be, and it just wracks you even more with this…feeling. Is it guilt? Maybe. But it’s more than just that.

“Hold on.”

It aches you both for him to turn his back on you for even a second, but he does.

Rip.

The end of the curtain is torn into a length, and you try not to think about how dusty it could be as he wraps it around and around until he’s got a makeshift bandage. God, that would have killed anyone else if he didn’t seem made of steel. He returns, bringing that special kind of silence he occasionally has; his eyes are hooded and his cheeks dimple with a frown. A hand goes on your shoulder and issues a command alongside his voice:

“Sit.”

You do. 

Hidan settles down in the chair across the old bed in this abandoned, unlit shack, dust motes dancing in the blue twilight as he groans and rubs his temples, leaning over his own lap. You stare; you can’t help it, not with him lounging like that and displaying his body and flesh so openly with his cloak thrown off before. All his scars…they’re so numerous. Way too many for how young he is. The idea of him getting more–!

“Stop.”

…You do. He successfully interrupts your spiraling, something you do so easily for the likes of him. That is where the question for him lies, however.

“Why?”

You blink. His magenta eyes still look so sharp, the silhouette of his lowering hand lining just underneath them like a mask. He repeats himself:

“Why do you care? Why’d you run out like that? You fucking know those assholes were out of your league! I said leave it to me and you didn’t!”

…He catches himself getting angry again, and he hums from the back of his throat before resting his chin on his palm. 

“...You’re just stupid,” he says eventually. “Real fuckin’ stupid.”

But you aren’t.

He knows you’re not.

You’re something worse. Something much more dangerous to be. 

He growls under his breath again, eyes tightening shut and teeth bared on one side of his mouth. 

“I…” you finally find the words to say, “I did it for you.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have!” the Jashinist is quick to rebut. “Look at me, baby!” In a second, he’s sitting straight up, and he slaps his bare chest as if it proves he’s real and tangible to you after all. “I’m immortal! Cut me, maim me, hell– do anything that would KILL a motherfucker and I’ll be fine! Don’t you know this shit?!” he begs, because surely it makes more sense that you somehow just didn’t get the memo of how his lord’s highest priest managed to be recruited by elites such as the Akatsuki. 

“I…I know,” you answer instead, however.

“Then WHY?!”

Oh, how terrible it is to see him. His blood is drying, a horrible dark burgundy crusting over his skin. But those eyes… 

Those eyes!

They’re the balloon tied to your heart, threatening to lift logic and self-preservation off of the ground, never to be found again. While purple-pink trembles, your colors continue to gloss, the hooding of your lids pushing the residual tears even closer to the edge. You try not to let them fall, though. Not yet. Not when you have to explain yourself and be taken seriously.

“Hidan…” you begin softly. “Even if you’re immortal…I’d do it over again.” You ignore him muttering ‘huh?’, though you do treasure every minutia of his shifting body language. Angry, surprised, happy…you love it all. “I don’t like seeing you suffer. I know pain is important but…I see the way you wince. And every time you pray, you complain afterwards. You don’t like pain. And…I don’t want you hurt unless you need to be.”

Now it’s his turn to blink; he does so twice with a furrow in his brow. “So?” he asks.

“So what?”

“So what does that have to do with you riskin’ your life when I don’t need to with mine?”

“Well…just because it isn’t your life on the line doesn’t mean it’s not precious.” 

Hidan opens his mouth…but grimaces once more, abruptly reaching up to press the cloth he tied closer to his wound. Shit…that’s your fault! You didn’t do enough! You got him hurt after all! You–!

Stop, you tell yourself, as he cannot. He needs you right now.

You stand up and gingerly reach towards his neck. He flinches on reflex, but he then makes himself stay still as you tug on the red-stained fabric to make for a better, perhaps more comfortable bandage. It’s easier to talk when you don’t have to look him in those precious, cutting eyes, anyways.

“Ever since the first time I saw you hurt in battle,” you murmur, and perhaps only now does he see the way evening glows onto the watery shapes over her eyeballs. “...I haven’t been able to stand seeing you that way without your choosing. It puts a pit in my stomach. I don’t know when, but at some point I began to promise myself to do whatever I could to help. To prevent needless, prayerless pain. You aren’t disposable, Hidan. And I don’t just mean that because you can’t die–”

Your voice hiccups as he grasps you, his palm now taking its turn holding underneath your chin instead of his own. His fingers press ever so slightly into your cheeks, and you’ve never felt so wide-eyed and vulnerable.

Oddly enough, Hidan feels the same way.

“...You can’t do that anymore,” he says instead of ‘I love you’. “If Jashin wants me hurt, I’ll get hurt.”

He lets go, and you unconsciously rub your face on the side where he held his thumb. Despite it all, Hidan chuckles, and a bit of his life returns to his expression, and it’s what you live for.

“...You look real damn cute when you look dumb,” he compliments more than chides. He allows himself another snicker before his serious demeanor sinks in again for one last word on the matter. “Don’t do it again.”

He stands up and turns his back. Only now, however, is when he can admit something weak:

“...The sentiment is…appreciated,” he admits. He rolls his shoulders back. “I’ll let you help so long as you aren’t so stupid about it. Today was a shitshow and you know it,” he adds, glancing behind him.

“Come on, pick already, un!”

“Dumbass, stop looking like you’re about to shit yourself and go!”

“I suggest everyone stop lest our little friend here loses their tongue!”

Deidara, Hidan, and Kisame all sit closest to you in this affair, but everyone else is in attendance, too. It’s hard not to be after so long being snowed in the base, no where to go and distract yourself. Even Kakuzu’s books only last so long. Sasori claims that they are just here to see the mess, but even that in itself is a social reason to attend such a childish occasion. 

There’s only two kinds of people who pull a Seven Minutes in Heaven, and that’s either children or really, really drunk, bored adults. 

“Enough,” Pain says to all three, although technically agreeing with Kisame’s plea to lay it easy on you. “If we’re to play this game, let it be civil.” And then his voice lowers. “...At least until the selected are in the room alone.”

Something about how your leader says that makes you swallow hard. He then speaks your name.

“...This is your idea, so it’s only fair you demonstrate, yes?” He gestures to the bag, palm up; geez, somehow he manages to make even this seem so tense and important. “Select your prize, and we’ll arrange the meeting.”

The black hole of the small burlap sack leaves you unable to even cheat. With a steadying breath, you reach in and pull out…

INSTRUCTIONS: 

Select your object and go to the linked page!

An empty spool

A feather

Something thin and metallic

A rock…?

Ok this is just someone’s Akatsuki ring

A torn bandage

Something that stings

A tiny sphere

WHY IS IT WET

Something you can’t describe

“I’ve never played this game before,” you tell him innocently. Always the gentleman, refusing to let you walk alone to the closet even if it’s against the point of the game, he closes the door behind him and sighs, barely fitting under the lower ceiling. 

“Why’d you pick it then?” he asks, smirking. He always seems to smirk, though; is he happy or stressed? Regardless, his tone is amused, at least.

“I just…heard it’s a game that adults play when they’re all alone.”

Kisame snorts. “You talk like a kid sometimes,” he notes. You shrug, unable to argue with that point. What a sheltered little thing you are. How did you manage to join the ranks of the Akatsuki like this? Tobi in the very least, Kisame wagers, has his persona largely due to a combination of insanity and (nonliteral) masking, but you? You’re a funnier case, and not the kind with a punchline. No, nothing that easy.

Not knowing what to say to that, you just pull a lock of hair behind your ear and look away. He sighs, sitting down himself–

…You blink, confused. “Why are you over there?”

He grunts in confusion back, chin tilting up alongside his pitch. All of a sudden the distance between you two seems so long. Kisame wants it that way, but the same motivation to do so, he keeps his mouth shut as you get up from the opposite end of the little room and plop down next to him, giving him your lovely smile while bumping into his side. This is far from abnormal between you guys; no one could guess it meeting him alone without your company, but the shark really is warm-blooded. That goes for both his personality and his willingness to be touched. 

He almost flinches at you, though. Why is that?

Your brow curls, though the smile stays unwavering. “What’s wrong…?”

He exhales lightly, glancing to you with his small eyes before turning forward, staring at his wrists as they lay on his bent knees. Where does he begin? This is already weird enough. “...I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” he says eventually. 

“Why would I be that…?” Oh, how naive you are in his eyes. Another soft exhale, and he turns his head away.

“It’s this game. The purpose of it…” Is he shrinking? That’s not something he does… Something is wrong. “I hate to think what those fools think we’re doing.”

You’re so cute to him in how you tilt your head, trying to get a glance of his face. Normally he’d bump you away with his elbow or the like, getting so close in his space, over his lap…but he just scoots aside, further towards the corner. This is concerning. 

“But…who cares what they think?” you offer, knowing that Kisame is more sensitive than he lets on. You can only get so used to being the odd one out in your life, you know? You share sympathies in that ordeal.

“This is different, kid.”

“I’m not a kid.”

You state it so firmly it makes his head whip up, and you look back so certainly, a fervent blaze in your unflinching stare. 

…

…

“Heh.” Kisame caves in. “I suppose that’s right.” A smirk…and it falls away. “Just don’t be mad at me for your idea, alright?”

“Promise!”

There’s the silly person he knows. The smile comes back, still unreadable besides betraying that he is amused. “Alright, I warned you. Seven minutes in heaven…is a game where people are expected to be…sexual.”

He braces himself for your surprise; it comes, but not as anticipated. 

“...That’s it?”

And for a second time he turns his head to you, and it’s his turn to blink. 

“What do you mean ‘that’s it’?”

“I mean is that it!” you repeat, one eyebrow raised and mouth lopsided in its smile. “I thought it was like…I don’t know. Something bad.”

…

You laugh in the awkward silence, holding your feet and rocking ever so slightly. He just stares.

“...Huh. I thought you’d be disgusted.”

“Why would I be like that?”

“...”

Realization dawns upon you. Your rocking stops and your cheeks get hot. “...Oh.”

And now you both sit in silence, looking at your own feet. Due to his size, however, it’s inevitable you catch a glimpse of his own in that direction, too, and you can never stay still for long when you see Kisame. Your foot reaches forward…and nudges his.

“Well, we can do something if you’d like,” you offer. Kisame, to his shock, only recoils with his tone of voice and not by throwing his body into the other wall.

“You… Really?!” he responds. In the dim light you see the space under his gills darkening; you giggle yet again.

“Kisame-kun, you’re blushing!”

“Well, can you blame me?!” … “You…understand this game? And you still want to do it?”

“Well, I’m not sure if we have time for much now,” you reason, and how sweet you look curling your legs into yourself, resting your head so you can look at his face with those dreamy eyes of yours. “But maybe we do for a kiss.”

“You…wouldn’t mind a kiss?”

And you shake your head.

“Well…”

He swallows, reaching his hand towards your cheek. It’s cupped, and he huffs. “You sure you aren’t running a fever…?” he jokes about your own warmth, but you just stay quiet, just keep staring with those hooded eyes.

Oh, you’re so coy. That’s his favorite thing about you.

“Alright,” he says, and whether it’s to warn you or himself…hell knows. He leans in…

In…

Closes his eyes…

And presses his lips onto yours. 

A piece of him still expects you to leave. Expects you to shove him. To regret. To hate. Why? 

You don’t know, but you can feel the tension. You’re going to do your best to make him forget. A moan enters his mouth, a longing prayer, and Kisame knows now that even you, too, can hide things under the surface.