[log] Comforting the Inconsolable Who: Itachi and Balfour When: November 13th Where: Balfour’s room What: Itachi comes to Balfour’s room covered in blood. Balfour tries to comfort him and fails. Hard. Warnings: Blood Open or Closed: Closed Observable: Nope!
Itachi felt like death. He fallen asleep in the tree--cried himself to sleep like a child. His eyes hurt. His left eye had started bleeding at some point, which happened when he relived Shisui’s death too intensely. That left it red and gummy, also slightly blurred. His other eye was normally red from crying. Itachi had splashed himself mostly clean in the pond, leaving him damp at the edges and more smeared than anything else. He felt grubby. His side hurt. His head hurt. His nose hurt. Everything hurt.
Itachi sniffed and rubbed at his nose. He still felt miserably weepy. If he went back to his room, Shisui might be there. Itachi half wanted to go (with a lurch that hurt), but he also didn’t. He wasn’t ready. It wouldn’t make him feel better. Itachi sniffed and rubbed at his eyes. He should go get some tea and take a hot bath. Maybe Balfour would let him Itachi use his tub. Hot chocolate might be better. More soothing for a raw throat.
Itachi hugged himself and kept walking.
Instead of going inside, Itachi sent a crow to the window ledge. Itachi then translocated to the crow’s perch on the window ledge, then inside the room, feeling dizzy as his head spun.
Balfour had been on his bed, reading, when suddenly a crow landed on his window ledge, and then a girl showed up. He glanced up, smiled softly, then frowned.
“They got you too, Itachi?” he asked, sounding a little bit bitter. As glad as he was to have his proper package back and no breasts in his way anymore, he hadn’t wanted to pass his girl-ness on to anyone else.
He didn’t mention anything about Itachi coming in the window. He figured it would happen again one day, which was why the thing was always unlocked. Not that it would stop him if it weren’t, obviously.
Itachi glanced down, remembering he was still a girl. He hadn’t really thought about that in the last few hours. He’d been busy. His shirt was bloody (but it couldn’t be seen well through the black) and smeared with lichen and dirt. “I guess so.” Itachi cleared his throat.
“Can I borrow your bathroom?” Itachi asked, voice hoarse and hoping he looked a little better than he felt.
Balfour put the book on the side table and stood, nodding a little as he stepped forward, putting a hand on Itachi’s shoulder. He looked rough.
“Of course. Are you okay?” he asked softly.
Itachi sniffed. “No.” He didn’t think Balfour could do anything to make it better, though. Itachi shrugged out from under the hand and stepped away. “Could...could I borrow a shirt to?”
Pathetic, to come begging to someone like Balfour. The nasty thought almost hurt, and Itachi felt his mood drop again. He was terrible, because it was true, he should be more self sufficient than this (couldn’t even keep Shisui alive in a place where he couldn’t die). He shouldn’t rely on strangers.
Frowning, Balfour nodded. What could he do for Itachi, anyway? The only thing he could think to do was just nod to his question.
“Sure, help yourself. They’re in the right side of the wardrobe,” he said. “Would you like some tea or anything? And my brownies are in the top right drawer of my desk. You can have some of those, too, if you want.”
Itachi’s stomach felt too tight to eat, but he nodded. “Tea...if you don’t mind.” Itachi pulled his hands from around his middle and slunk over to the wardrobe to poke through for a shirt that would be big enough. Itachi sniffed and swiped his nose on his sleeve.
“Alright, I’ll be back in a few. I don’t have a teapot up here right now. Help yourself to whatever you need,” Balfour said softly, touching Itachi’s shoulder again before slipping out the door, leaving him some space to do what he wanted to do.
Sure, he was setting himself up to be stolen from, but Balfour was sure that Itachi didn’t really want anything of his. He trusted him, too.
Itachi finally settled on a soft blue shirt and scurried the the bathroom. He kicked the door closed and stripped, already used to the changes of his body. Itachi kicked his dirty clothes aside and set Balfour’s shirt down with more care. Itachi looked at the cut on his side. It had scabbed, but it still only ached lightly. He’d clean it in the shower.
A quick check of Balfour’s soaps proved Itachi’s hair might not fall out if he used them, and he stepped into the shower. Itachi cranked the water to as hot as he could stand and stood under the blast for a few minutes before he even moved.
Itachi washed slowly, scrubbing at his skin deliberately to make sure he got every trace of dirt and blood off. When he was certain he’d gotten every bit of blood off, Itachi scraped out the wound in his side. It bled again. Hurt, but in a good way. In a wound way, not in an emotional way that couldn’t be cured. When he finished with this, Itachi slid down and sat in the bottom of the shower, letting the hot water beat down on him. In increments, it lessened the ache in his head.
It took Balfour about twenty minutes to get the tea and boil it before transferring the hot water to another pot that wouldn’t cause discoloration on his desk. He also grabbed two cups and one type of black tea, the same as before with the name he couldn’t pronounce if he tried. Then, remembering something Itachi had said before, he grabbed a container of sugar.
Nodding at his tray-ful, he went ahead and headed back to his room, setting up the tea stuff on his desk and pulling the brownie drawer open, an invitation if Itachi wanted any. And then he went back to his book. Itachi would come out soon, probably, and if he didn’t, he would knock.
Wrinkled as a prune, Itachi crawled out of the shower and dried himself off with the towel. He patted the cut dry and left a smear of bright blood. Itachi scowled at this, but ignored it. He dug around in Balfour’s cabinets until he found bandages. Itachi taped gauze over the cut.
Next, Itachi took Balfour’s shirt and pulled it over his head. To his dismay, Balfour wasn’t that much bigger than Itachi. The shirt only covered half of Itachi’s backside. Itachi frowned at himself in the mirror. He dug his underwear out of the pile of his clothes and pulled them on. Gala had called them boy shorts. They were black with a bow in the front, but the shirt covered the boy.
Now decently clad, Itachi poked his head out of the bathroom. He saw the tea and went for it. Itachi poured himself a cup of hot water and stuck the tea bag in. Itachi grabbed the sugar and took it with him to sit on the bed and wait for the tea to brew.
Balfour looked up when Itachi came out, getting up from his seat and going to his wardrobe. That shirt was a little too short, so he grabbed a pair of sweatpants with a drawstring and handed them to Itachi without a word.
“I...remembered that you like sugar in your tea,” he muttered about the container of sugar, shrugging a bit and settling among his pillows, digging out a fluffy, furry, cuddly one to put next to Itachi. His favorite pillow.
Itachi didn’t think the pants were necessary. It meant he had to set his tea on the floor and pull on the pants. The didn’t fit that badly, but they fit oddly. As he pulled them up, Itachi eyed Balfour. “You’re going to make me self conscious.”
His voice came out very softly. It sounded tired and strained. Pathetic. Itachi pushed that thought down and sat back on the bed, fully clothed as he picked his tea back up, just to hold the warm mug in his hands.
“I don’t mean to. I just figured since the shirt didn’t quite work, you would want some pants,” he said softly. Not to mention he didn’t exactly want Itachi running around pantsless. It wasn’t exactly proper for anyone.
“You...want to tell me what happened?” He blinked a bit at Itachi. It was a foolish question, and he knew it. Obviously, the answer would be some version of ‘no, mind your own business’. But Itachi was here in his room, and looked like shit. Something had happened.
Balfour just hoped it didn’t have to do with Shisui.
“The shirt worked.” How did a shirt not work. Itachi wallowed down into the bed, leaning on the pillow Balfour had placed beside him as he gazed into the darkening depths of his tea. “I was stupid.”
Itachi swirled the tea. “And I’ll cry all over again if I talk about it.” Balfour wouldn’t push, and maybe that was why Itachi had come here. Balfour was fluff and sugar. Hardly real. No one like him had existed in Itachi’s world.
“Shisui?” he asked, the question simple, quiet, just a yes-or-no answer.
Itachi nodded and fished the tea bag from his tea cup. He stood up and carried it to the tray.
Balfour sighed, frowning deeply, the pain there in his gaze, in his face. He didn’t know what had happened, what could possibly have Itachi in such a state, other than Shisui dying. Maybe. But he didn’t have the heart or the courage to ask if that was the case. He didn’t want to make Itachi cry, after all.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, the only words he could think of that weren’t curses or pressing for more information. If it was what he thought, then Balfour knew almost how Itachi felt. To lose someone so close to you... It was horrible.
He didn’t say anything else about the subject, just reached over for a sketch, all straight lines and angles as it was revealed, and handed it to Itachi. It was a doodle of his dragon, large and majestic beside a shadow of a man.
“I...figured I’d try to draw her. I know I mentioned her, Anastasia. She was...pretty cool. You would have liked riding on her, at least.”
A clumsy change in subject, but he hoped it would be better than lingering on what might or might not have happened to Shisui, what the other male might or might not have done.
Itachi nodded and took the paper as he sat back down. He had sugar in his tea, and he was ready for a nap or something. Itachi spread out the paper in his lap and looked at the Dragon. He looked up at Balfour.
“She’s a machine.” Itachi had thought Balfour’s dragon would be something of flesh and blood.
"Yes, she was. Another reason people were inherently a little more intimidating on top of her. She was hard to kill."
He sighed, shifting on the bed, and ended up with a pillow in his lap. He played with the fringe.
"She was very much alive, though. She had her likes and dislikes and her own way of speaking. She flirted with anyone who payed her attention. She was very funny."
Itachi nodded. He sipped his tea and wondered if Izumo, with his flirting and quick tongue, reminded Balfour at all of his dragon. Itachi knew he should say something about it. He should push and let Balfour babble and feel better. He should drag Balfour down. Instead, Itachi curled into the pillow, carefully holding his tea so it wouldn’t spill.
“I’m sorry.”
“She was very bad at flirting,” he said softly, chuckling a little at the memory. Then again, getting flirted with by a large metal dragon didn’t really help the pucker factor of being talked to by a big metal dragon. It was sort of hard to flirt back if you were busy shitting yourself, as was often the case with the stable boys.
When Itachi curled down into the pillow, Balfour fell silent, his fingers going to his friend’s hair, hoping to comfort him.
“Don’t be.”
Itachi tensed all over at the touch, muscles locking down tight at the simply touch. He didn’t let people touch his hair easily. It was his. Something vain a prideful because he was good enough to have a tail that no one could touch or snatch. Normally, only Shisui touched it. Shisui and Sasuke.
Slowly, Itachi relaxed and took a sip of his tea, pressing his face more into the pillow.
Balfour moved his hand when Itachi tensed, taking that hint pretty easily. Instead, he touched his shoulder, then his back, rubbing gently before removing his hand completely and looking out the window.
Itachi set his half finished cup of tea down and closed his eyes. He tuned in to Balfour’s breathing. Deep and even. Unconcerned. Even Balfour would react if something dangerous came into the room. There would be some kind of reaction.
Itachi curled up around the pillow pulled a loosely fisted hand under his chin.
Good. Itachi was going to try to sleep. Balfour nodded his approval at that and reached for a small, folded blanket, draping it over the younger male before getting back on the bed and shifting to the most comfortable spot. Itachi had his favorite pillow, so the whole pile felt a little off, but it didn’t matter much. Balfour had a book, after all.
Itachi only opened his eyes a fraction as Balfour put the blanket around him. Itachi relaxed further into the pillow, ducking his face half under the pillow and closing his eyes again. he still ached, emotionally drained from everything that had happened. He wanted to sleep.
Surrounded by the plush and fluff of Balfour’s room, he did. This time, he had no nightmares.