Booze from a Teapot Who:Uchiha Shisui, Gin Charlie Itachi’s SOUL When: May 15th Where: Gin Charlie’s office What: Shisui starts counting time, then finds out Itachi’s dead. He’s not very happy. Gin Charlie’s patient, if violent. Warnings: Mild swearing, alcohol to minors, some violence and blood. Open or Closed: Closed Observable: No
*
Twelve hours didn’t worry him. Through their fight (If it was that; ‘go to hell’ and being ignored for a few days, along with a few times of Itachi freaking out and Shisui yelling) and it was all a huge mess over a stupid sentence and three pointless words, holy fishbits, Shisui had kept an eye out for Itachi, even if he had avoided his cousin. Made sure he was okay, and had seen Itachi going for the elevator; a game. So it didn’t worry him.
Twenty-four hours would have made Shisui worried if he weren’t so put off with his cousin.
Twenty-four hours and a quarter had Shisui checking Itachi’s room. First knocking, then flickering in. Nothing.
Twenty-four and a half hours had him looking for crows from Itachi’s window. Twenty-five hours had him roaming the halls sporadically, aimlessly, looking for any sign of Itachi.
Twenty-six hours and ten minutes had him checking the infirmary. Twenty-six hours and twenty-three minutes, Shisui was searching quickly, checking through every floor. Twenty-seven hours and forty-two minutes, he was flickering down the halls, searching frantically and asking people if they’d seen one Uchiha Itachi. If they didn’t answer quickly enough, he left in a snap-twist-click of chakra.
Twenty-eight hours and two minutes had him outside of Gin Charlie’s door, knocking sharply. Shisui was a blur of movement, hands going from being wrung to rubbing the cloth of his shirt seam to going through his hair, all the while shifting his weight, as if he were uncomfortable with the very idea of sitting still.
At twenty-eight hours, two minutes and fifty-seven seconds, Shisui had no idea that his sharingan was whirring sharply as he studied the door, as he waited for an answer.
Gin Charlie came out of the elevator, broadsword at his belt, shirtless and collarless, and herding a drone along carefully. It shuffled away and Gin Charlie moved towards his office at an unhurried saunter, carrying a small porcelain teapot in the crook of one arm.
“No loitering, fucker. What do you want?” he asked, as he got closer.
“Then hurry the fuck up,” Shisui told him as he heard the words, turning and glaring. Fuck that bullshit. “Where the hell is Itachi--Uchiha Itachi. Long game?” The words were a little too clipped, and Shisui didn’t move out of the way so he could get to the room. He just wanted that answer, and then he would leave.
“Hold this. And don’t fuckin’ drop it,” Gin Charlie instructed, and handed the teapot off to Shisui. It had red designs on it. He opened his office door and walked in. It was not locked because it was never locked...but nobody stole anything out of it. He rummaged in a box and pulled out a bottle of gin.
Shisui set his teeth as Gin Charlie shoved past him, and watched as the man got his booze. “Whatever. Is Itachi Uchiha in a long game?” He followed after the older man, and put the teapot on the table, precariously close to the edge. It wouldn’t toddle off on its own, but the wrong shove on the table would make it fall. Fine, then.
“Uchiha Itachi is dead and recovering. And you put him too close to the damn edge, move him,” Gin Charlie instructed, and took another swig of his gin.
Shisui did all of three things. Stared for a duration of two point six-seven seconds, flickered directly in front of Gin Charlie, and attempted to set his head on fire with a jutsu. If he hadn’t been so preoccupied, he would've screamed. Or maybe he would have asked Gin Charlie why the pot was male. Or what the hell ‘recovering’ meant. The dead didn’t recover.
But none of that counted, because Shisui was currently spitting a ball of fire at Gin Charlie’s face.
Gin Charlie ducked and promptly broke his gin bottle over Shisui’s right kneecap. Then he lunged aside in a move far more agile than his frame suggested, and neatly caught the teapot before it hit the ground. He tucked it safely into the crook of his arm again. “Hell, I was going to let you watch him, being his cousin and all, but I think I will now.”
Shisui got the hit fully to the kneecap, and he rolled before he let himself think about it, landing in a slight crouch behind a large box. He stared from behind the box, and when he spoke, his voice was too flat. “What.” His throat choked up, and he knew that if he tried to speak, it would break or he would scream or something.
Shisui spoke anyway, voice lapsing heavily into the fast Mist accent. “The fuck do you mean by recovering; he--” He tried to shove chakra into it, get Gin Charlie to fucking talk, but his voice frayed all over, into a million bits as it broke. He stared, glared, tried to shove back panic, tried to ignore the fact that he was bleeding all over the floor (to his eyes) and that his knee fucking hurt. But everything was thrown into sharp perception now; the details seemed to confuse him.
It took Shisui eight point thirty-one seconds to do all of that.
“They’re regrowing all his pertinent parts, mostly the lungs, and he’ll be back in a week,” Gin Charlie retorted. “In the meantime, I’m in charge of his soul.” He crossed the room to stand behind his desk and rummaged in a black box for another bottle of gin, keeping the teapot safely in the crook of his arm.
Seconds ticked. Shisui watched Gin Charlie. Something twisted inside of him, and he knew why Itachi had freaked so much when he’d seemingly--no, when he had come from the dead. “So the soul’s in the teapot.” Flat again, like an out-of-tune guitar. He lifted his knee off the ground, and felt like it was burning like he’d tried to burn Gin Charlie.
“And you’re not going to let me have the teapot.” Monotone. Shisui wasn’t sure how he felt about it. He didn’t want to think.
“I might not.” Gin Charlie eyed him, and took a long pull of his gin. “Done yet?”
There was a glass shard embedded in his knee. Shisui wanted to look away, but he felt like the man would try to attack him again. Even if it didn’t make sense. He put a hand over one eye, and took comfort from the pressure of that. He didn’t want to break down in front of Gin Charlie... Though he could do with trying to kill him again. “Not really.” His voice was hoarse. He really wanted to cry.
Itachi was coming back. It was okay. People here did things like that. Shisui himself had come back from the dead, somewhat. So why did that seem even worse, the fact that Itachi was coming back? That people here did that. Maybe it was because his grief seemed absolutely pointless. He murmured something that could have been an apology for bleeding all over Gin Charlie’s floor, but could have also been cursing him. It depended on what words you caught. Shisui tucked his knee up--bent, ow--and tried to brush away some of the glass, not looking directly at Gin Charlie.
“Not at all.” Shisui decided as he got a little fleck of glass out of one gash. He felt done. He wanted to crawl under a bed or in a bomb shelter and regress to when things like this didn’t matter. Weren’t real.
“Well, then, get done,” Gin Charlie suggested, not unkindly, though gruffly.
A flash of his middle finger, but Shisui didn’t exaggerate it. After a moment, he wobbled up and bent his leg up, bracing his hand against the desk and looking in Gin Charlie’s direction. Not quite at him. He was biting the inside of his cheek hard enough to bleed. Then he just shut up and waited for Gin Charlie to say something.
He didn’t want the pot. What if he broke it, if he held it too hard, what if something bad happened?
Gin Charlie drank his gin quietly, calmly, and waited, with the teapot cradled in his arm. He was quite used to taking care of inanimate objects housing souls. In fact, he usually had a small collection of them at any given time.
Shisui finally spoke after a few minutes, shifting slightly. “That’s one of the best and worst things I’ve ever heard,” Was his only comment, and then he shook his head. “Keep i--” his voice broke, and he coughed into his shirt sleeve. “Keep the teapot.” Even drunk, he would take care of it. Right? He had dove to catch it; was faster than him at that moment. And if he was the master of the dorms, he would know how to deal with it. Right?
A little bit of skin came off in his mouth. Shisui swallowed it, wanted to gag, and tested his leg down. Not bad, just messy. The knee stung. He turned to leave without another word.
“Alright.” Gin Charlie instead handed him the half-full bottle of gin. “Ice that knee.”
Shisui looked at the bottle for a few seconds, before taking it. “Thanks. You’ll make a drunk outa me yet,” The last part of the sentence was murmured, and Shisui turned away. “Will do.”
He got four steps down the hall before his shoulder thunked into the wall, his head, and he pulled a sharp breath. Then came a swig of the gin.
Zaku could have the room to himself. He probably figured that Shisui had moved out. He would be sleeping in Itachi’s room, because things there smelled safe.