When the Rains Come, part 2: Kaleidoscope dreams

[chibirisuchan]

(pant wheeze) Did it. Been Naruto-wrestling (and Sasuke-wrestling) for the past hour and a half trying to fight my way through to where I could legitimately cut the scene. (Don't be surprised if you see two spots that look like they could have cut a scene. Trust me. They couldn't. You'll see why.)
(I'm so evil..)
When the Rains Come, part 2: Kaleidoscope dreams
Continued from part 1
Warnings: You need to have read both part 1 and TheNinjaKitty's Self-Reliance first.

When Sasuke gasped in a futile moment's struggle and then slumped against the sofa, limp and unconscious in the grip of the Mangekyou, his kitten made a curious little noise, sleepy ears pricking toward its person's face.

Itachi watched as the tiny creature jumped almost onto the sofa, back legs scrabbling for purchase in the fabric until it could scramble its way up beside Sasuke's sleeping face. It cocked its head this way and that, bent to snuffle at Sasuke's nose to be sure he was breathing, batted at his nose with a paw, and waited for a reaction. When none was forthcoming, it batted at his cheek and waited, and then shoved its face against his, and then stood on his face, both forepaws balanced on his cheek, to shove its nose into his ear and snuffle around.

Apparently, the little thing was accustomed to deep sleepers who wouldn't swat it away by reflex; still, Itachi picked the kitten up and smoothed its fur until it stopped struggling in his hands and settled in to sniff at the new person. It licked at Itachi's thumb, then tried a tentative nibble, careful of its teeth; Itachi suspected that the Kyuubi-bearer likely kitten-wrestled with the tiny thing, but his brother likely wouldn't, and so it was testing the new person's wrestle-inclinations. Itachi simply held it in Iruka's tanned hands, and rubbed between tiny fragile shoulderblades until it gave up its halfhearted gestures toward gnawing and yawned hugely. Then he settled it on the sofa next to the curve of his younger brother's cheek, and held it still for a moment.

"Stay," he told it, "and be polite. If you can."

The kitten blinked enormous blue eyes up at him, and Itachi thought that they must have chosen the kitten for its resemblance to the Kyuubi-bearer: wide shining sky-bright eyes, a sweetly mischievous disposition, and far too many trouble-instincts for its size.

It reached over and patted at Sasuke's face again, clearly upset by its person's unresponsiveness; and Itachi sighed a bit and set a fingertip beneath its chin, crouching on his heels to meet its innocent stare with the power in his own gaze.

"Sleep, then," he murmured, "and dream of milk, and catnip."

The sudden volume of the kitten's purr actually startled him for a moment as the kitten yawned and licked its chops and snuggled against Sasuke's tousled hair, all but vibrating with happy rumbles.

Itachi watched them rest for a moment, then straightened the blanket over his brother's unconscious form, smoothing it against the shape of his body, tucking it about his shoulders; he left a lingering palm to rest against the curve of that heavy round belly for a moment. One of the children stirred beneath his hand, and Itachi sighed, unwillingly amused despite himself.

"You are your parents' children, after all," he said with a wry quirk tugging at his lips. "Too stubborn by half, and unwilling to simply rest and accept anything when you could be squabbling about it. It is unfortunate that I cannot grant you rest as well; but at the least you shall not disturb him now."

He stood, and made his way silently toward the kitchen and the groceries that the children had carried to increase the plausibility of his borrowed facade's visit. Much as Sasuke had guessed, one of the bags held healthy food, and the rest held instant ramen -- well, and there was also a package of dango in there, because he would have some time to spend before anyone with the power to break his hold on the boy realized what was going on. First, though, he busied himself with putting away the groceries; it was a simple, mundane thing for this body to do, allowing him to spare the concentration to turn his focus inward, to where his brother still struggled uselessly in the snare of his mind.

---

At first, there was nothing, in a world carved of shadow and crimson flame, not even sound; Sasuke could feel himself trying to scream, trying to see, trying to move, and yet there was nothing, until there was Itachi beside him with a face sculpted of midnight and hair like a shred of silk torn from a bloody moon.

"Impatient," Itachi said, blood-filled eyes burning like coals. "Always so impatient, always so eager to bite off more than you can chew, until you choke on it--" He reached a cold iron-black hand up to trace a kanji that burned upon Sasuke's forehead, and whispered, "Deeper."

---

There was something that was supposed to be wrong, Sasuke remembered that, but it was hazy and distant, as though he was looking up from the bottom of some dark, still pond at the glimmer of moonlight so far overhead, so far out of reach, and nothing mattered, not even air really, because the underwater world was so cool and calm and still. He was somehow surprised to realize that he could breathe without choking, but moving was beyond him; even opening his eyes was too much effort, and so he floated in the dark and listened to the sound of his brother's voice.

There was something he was supposed to remember about his brother...

...it slipped out of his grasp, like some swift silent fish, a mere flicker and then gone.

"All of space," his brother murmured to him, "all of time, all of matter -- beneath the blood moon of Tsukuyomi, all rests within my grasp."

He felt his brother's hand upon his shoulder, and then remembered that he had a shoulder.

"Each breath you take, each beat of your heart, all that you are and all that you feel -- all of this is subject to my control. Do you understand?"

Sasuke was nothing but a leaf floating deep in the silent water, with no will to reply; Itachi sighed, and touched his cheek, and he remembered that he had a face, and so he nodded in the water, pliant and unresisting.

Itachi simply gazed at him for a moment, and then put an arm about his shoulders, and they floated together toward the surface again, where there was light and air waiting, and as they drifted upward Sasuke could feel his body again: hands, and fingers, and his feet were cold, and breath in his lungs, and weight pulling at his lower back -- so much weight, why so much? He looked down, and remembered: oh, that's right, I was-- I am--

---

Sasuke gasped for breath, and pushed himself up on one elbow, and shook his head as though expecting water to splatter from drenched-flat hair; he was oddly surprised when it simply ruffled, dry and wild as ever.

There was a fire crackling in the firepit of an old-fashioned, oddly familiar room, and an old wooden horigotatsu-style table with a dark-haired figure seated beside it. Long, black hair, gathered at the nape of his neck, blood-red eyes--

Sasuke lunged to his feet and overbalanced wildly; he clutched at one of the roof-posts and stared down at himself. He was too light, his clothing hung loose on his body -- too loose, far too loose--

"What did you do to them?"

Itachi sighed. "Sit," he said, and Sasuke found his knees folding despite himself. He opened his mouth to shout, and suddenly the fear and the panic had drained out of him too, leaving nothing to fill the hollow but a faint bewilderment.

With the last bit of self-control left to him, Sasuke whispered, "What are you doing to them...?"

Itachi gestured toward a futon spread on the floor on the other side of the table; three wriggling little bundles all swaddled in white were nestled into each other. Sasuke couldn't see their faces, but he could feel the horrible lightness of his own body, and he would have been sick and furious if that much control had been left to him. The resentment was just as faint as the bewilderment had been. "Why...?"

"You let your emotions control you too much for your well-being, or for theirs," Itachi said calmly, slowly, as though explaining to a dim child. "The adrenaline of panic, of anger and rage and fear -- you would not be able to control your emotions through this discussion; you've already proven that. And so I keep your consciousness at a distance from your body's functions, both for your sake and for theirs. They seem to be in a playful mood, and you can concentrate more clearly when you are not distracted by the discomfort of too-strong movements within. I do expect you to concentrate; this is a lesson you've never been willing to accept from any of your teachers, myself included, and I have never been a patient man."

"...they're going to be all right?"

"Certainly," Itachi said, bending to tend the fire. "Far better than they would have been had we held this conversation with you driving yourself mad over your fury and pain and guilt, unable to simply think and listen."

After a long minute's struggle with the haze in his mind that separated him from anything resembling emotion, Sasuke asked, "May I touch them?"

Itachi didn't respond aloud; but this time when Sasuke tried to move, his body responded, and so he crept over to where his children lay half-drowsing in a puppylike tangle of wriggling arms and feet. They were warm, and so terrifyingly tiny, and when he reached a hesitant finger toward one little hand, the tiny fingers curled about his.

If he'd been able to feel his heart, it might have broken just then. "Tell me," Sasuke said, oddly light-headed at the lack of the fear and protective fury he should have been feeling. "Tell me what I have to do so that you'll return them to me safely."

Itachi sighed again, and took the old iron teapot that had been hanging over the fire, and poured two cups of tea. "You're not listening," he chided, weary-voiced. "You never have listened."

"Then use small words," Sasuke said, proud of the hint of a growl in a voice that had been almost smoothed flat by the haze. "Talk to me like I'm Naruto."

Itachi seemed to consider it for a moment, and then he stood and stretched and blurred, his body broadening, his ash-pale skin warming with a touch of gold and tan, and then familiar dark eyes blinked down at Sasuke from a scarred and friendly face.

"Damn it, not like that!" Sasuke snapped, shuddering. "What did you do to Iruka-sensei?"

'Iruka' gave a much more exprssive sigh than Itachi had. "Contrary to popular opinion," his teacher's mild voice said, "I find no challenge in slaughtering those significantly weaker than myself. One would expect that the evidence would tend to support my claim. If I did make a habit of such things, you would not be here to argue with me, after all."

"What did you do--"

"The last I saw of them, your academy teacher and the copy-nin were in his apartment watching some horrible barely-plotted pornographic movie with ridiculously insinuating music and even worse effects. --To be accurate, the copy-nin was drooling over the movie and your teacher was struggling not to spontaneously combust from humiliation. The only threat to their evening would be if the teacher bursts a blood vessel, and it will be none of my doing; I am not so great a fool as to confront both Copy-nin Kakashi and his excessively protective and loud-voiced young lover in the very center of Konoha." Itachi met his gaze squarely from behind Iruka's face. "Now will you believe me? I am not naive enough to ask for your trust, but I do expect a reasonable amount of suspension of disbelief."

"...Fine," Sasuke muttered, trying to get his glare back if nothing else. "Just -- get the hell out from behind Iruka-sensei's face. It's just wrong."

Iruka shrugged a bit, and crumpled inwards, dwindling back into Itachi's own slight, pale, deceptively fragile-looking body. "Is there another teacher whose voice you would accept more than you accept mine?"

"Just tell me what I have to do!"

"I've tried," Itachi said, with a thread of frustration in his normally too-calm voice. "You simply need to listen and think. I have done all I can to answer you, and yet you never listen..."

"How can you expect me to want to listen to you?" Sasuke whispered. "You know what you've done, you know what I've sworn--"

"That would be why I've taken these precautions."

They stared at each other for a long, silent moment, caught at an impasse.

Itachi lifted one of the cups of tea from the low table, and offered it. Sasuke struggled with himself for a moment, then moved to sit at the table and took the cup from his brother's hands.

"I'm listening," he said.

"We'll see," Itachi replied, weary-voiced, and reached across the table to trace another mark upon his brow.

---

This time when Sasuke came to himself, he was in the old Uchiha training grounds in a grove on their lands, with faded and crumbling straw targets still tied to the trees from years before. He spun on his heel at the sound of footsteps, grateful for the first time that the children were safely elsewhere in this mad nightmare world of his brother's, so that he could face whatever challenge Itachi planned for him without fear of his own inability to fight.

And then he clutched at the nearest tree for support, because the person who came crunching happily through the trees was his six-year-old self, dragging a too-young Itachi along with him.

The older Itachi put a steadying hand on his shoulder; Sasuke shrugged it off, still unable to summon as much anger as he needed, but his brother faded back into the shadows and left him to watch their younger selves.

The truth was, he hadn't been very good, and Itachi hadn't been all that patient with his six-year-old fumblings. Sasuke remembered his own awe at his big brother's talents, and even from the vantage point of a dozen years, the child Itachi had been was still impressive -- not yet flawless, but absolutely driven, and unwilling to accept distraction. Eventually, the child Sasuke had been gave up on earning his brother's attention, and simply watched until he fell asleep. He woke briefly when Itachi lifted him onto his back to carry him home, and giggled a little sheepishly.

"I'm sorry I fell asleep, nii-san..."

Itachi didn't reply, simply adjusting his brother's weight and balance on his back before picking up his nin-pack and his brother's.

"I'm going to be strong someday too," Sasuke confided, "and make you and Father proud of me."

"Are you now," Itachi replied, almost smiling. "What is your strength, then?"

"I'm your little brother!" Sasuke said proudly. "I'm going to grow up and be just like you!"

Itachi reached over his shoulder and flicked his little brother's forehead lightly, and set off into the woods.

When Sasuke moved to follow them, the older Itachi stopped him again. "Have you learned where you were mistaken?" he asked, holding out a shuriken.

Sasuke took it from him, and stared at it, and then at the target, and he said bitterly, "Yes. I didn't cut your throat when I had the chance."

He threw the shuriken, and the world spun madly beneath him, and then his own shuriken landed in his shoulder; the haze over the world kept it from hurting the way it should have, but he looked at the blood trickling down his arm in morbid fascination.

"Try again," Itachi said, and handed him another shuriken. "What was your strength, back then?"

"I had no strength," Sasuke whispered, and this time he threw the shuriken at Itachi's throat. Itachi simply inclined his head; the shuriken passed close enough to sever a few long dark strands of his hair.

"Wrong again," Itachi replied, and pulled the shuriken out of the tree it had stuck to, and tossed it lightly back to Sasuke. "Have you ever understood the source of your own strength?"

"My strength is my hatred for you," Sasuke spat, and threw the shuriken at him again, harder.

It cracked the chalkboard of the academy classroom, and his classmates turned to stare and giggle; Iruka looked up from his lesson book with one brow twitching dangerously, and for the first time in years Sasuke found himself stammering an apology as he sank into a seat that was too short for his lanky teenager's build. Next to him, Naruto pulled down an eyelid and stuck out his tongue; his rude gesture of response was pure reflex, and on his other side, Itachi made a sound of amusement.

"The course of love was a rock-strewn and badly-paved road, it seems?"

"Shut up," Sasuke snarled, and realized he could snarl again.

"Sakura-kun," Iruka said from the front of the room, "why do you want to become a ninja?"

"So I can impress Sasuke-kun!" she said, with a giggle.

"And has that wish made her stronger, Sasuke-kun?" Iruka asked.

The old preteen impulse to blush and sink lower in his chair was hard to fight off. "...Not that I know of."

Sakura sniffled, watery green eyes and a blubbering lower lip threatening tears at any minute. "But... but... I really want to impress Sasuke-kun...!"

"There is a world of difference between this trembling little girl and the Godaime Hokage's earth-shattering apprentice," Iruka said, but his eyes were blood-red again. "What made that difference in her possible? What gave her the strength to both ask for her training and to flourish under it?"

"...Determination?"

"She was determined to marry you," Itachi said from the front of the class, dry-voiced, and yet none of Sasuke's fellow students seemed to have seen the difference. "If determination were all it took, she would be your wife, I would be dead at your hand, and the nose-picking, rude young Kyuubi-bearer at your side would have been the first thirteen-year-old Hokage of Konohagakure no Sato."

Then he spoke in Iruka's voice again, the clear strong voice and teacher's practiced enunciation at odds with the secrets held in Itachi's bloody gaze. "Naruto, come down here."

Sasuke reached to stop him reflexively, but Naruto had already bounded out of his seat and climbed over the heads of several classmates to hurry to where 'Iruka' called him. He flung his arms around his teacher's waist and said, "Hey, hey, if I get this one right, will you treat me to ramen?"

"All the ramen you want," Iruka's voice promised him, as Itachi's pale hand smoothed that untamable thatch of spiky straw-gold hair. "What makes you strong, Naruto?"

"Ramen! And wanting to be Hokage!"

"Is he right?" Itachi asked Sasuke.

"Of course not," Sasuke muttered, glaring from behind his hands; it was getting easier with practice.

"Then what is the source of his strength?"

"The Kyuubi," Sasuke said.

"Wrong again," Itachi said, and the walls of the academy fell away as though they'd been peeled apart.

Sasuke was lying on the ground in the forest, with Iruka on his hands and knees above him, coughing blood with Mizuki's huge shuriken in his spine. He couldn't move; there was nothing he could do but stare in horror as Mizuki readied a second weapon for the final strike.

"Did... did Naruto ever tell you... how he graduated?" Iruka coughed, wiping blood from his lips with the back of his hand. "Did you know... I would die for him...?"

"The man is not strong," Itachi said calmly, sitting on his heels beside them, "but he is extraordinary for what he is. His strength is a fool's strength, self-sacrificing, but it is his own, and he pours it out at the feet of his students as though his blood were water. It is his curse and his tragedy that so few have the courage to accept his gift, or even to understand it, when it will kill him one day."

"DO something, you asshole!" Sasuke screamed at his brother.

Itachi stabbed a kunai into the ground, and the world burst open and poured away, leaving Sasuke sprawled on hands and heels staring up at Zabuza's blade caught on the back of Kakashi's steel-plated glove.

"I am broken," Kakashi said cheerfully, his visible eye smiling as though he were simply standing there reading porn. "I had to be broken before I could even begin to understand what strength was. I have been broken so many times I no longer remember what it felt like, when I thought I was whole; but I'm stronger than I was when I was a child, and unscarred, and a fool. Some people only learn through pain. I wish you weren't one of them, Sasuke-kun; you're more like me than I'd ever wish on either of us..."

"You don't let your comrades die, right?" Sasuke challenged him furiously. "You're strong -- Obito was your friend, Obito was my cousin; why did you let him kill my family?"

"It's not that easy," Kakashi said, and pulled a little orange book out of his pocket. "None of us knew. None of us expected it. And if we had -- I told you, I've been broken and remended so many times I've lost count, and each time has left me stronger. I'm fairly sure I'll die of it someday, of course; but until then I grow through being broken, and healing to something more than what I was before. But, Sasuke-kun-- your brother never needed to break to find his strength. If I'd fought him, back then, with what little I understood, I would have died. As surely as you would die fighting him now."

Kakashi flipped a couple of pages with his thumb, still holding back Zabuza's blade with the other hand, and added brightly, "I don't know about you, but I've always found the power of bad porn to be inspirational! Maybe you should start your quest for self-knowledge by studying Icha Icha P--"

From somewhere in the distance, two horribly familiar voices shouted, "LIAR!" An eraser bounced off the top of his shaggy silver head, and Kakashi poofed into nothingness in the resulting cloud of eraser dust; and, now unchecked, Zabuza's sword came down.

There was nothing Sasuke could do but close his eyes and tell himself, It's a lie. It's all his lies, it's all in his mind, all his sick, psychotic fantasy world--

In the darkness behind his closed eyelids, the scarlet clouds on Itachi's Akatsuki cloak glowed like banked embers, like the crimson fire in his eyes.

"You're not listening again," Itachi said, and flicked his forehead with a fingertip. Sasuke felt himself falling backwards, and opened his eyes in a panic, landing on his rump in the middle of the training fields.

"What do you want from me?" Sasuke shouted at the tall shadow standing among the trees.

"Comprehension."

"Like hell!" There were tears burning in his eyes, and Sasuke scrubbed at them with a mud-streaked fist, because he'd be damned if he let his brother see him cry again. "You killed them! You killed them all! How in the hell am I ever supposed to understand that?"

"Not comprehension of me," Itachi murmured, and moved to sit on his heels beside him. "Comprehension of yourself. Because you've spent your entire life fighting your own nature, and you have nothing to show for it now but self-inflicted pain."

"Self-inflicted?! You bastard-- you -- I've done every damned thing you've ever asked! I've hated you and hated you and I almost killed my best friend, my lover, because of you, because you wanted me to hate, you wanted me stronger, and it's not enough, it's never enough, I can never even scratch you--"

"I know," Itachi said, softly, and gathered him into his arms, and held him still. "I asked more than you were able to endure, more than you were able to become. I do regret that my misestimation of your ability has led you through such pain. But... how were you able to remember the words so clearly, without ever understanding the meaning?"

"You told me to hate you," Sasuke choked, pain burning in his throat as though he'd swallowed fire. "I did that. I hated you so much..."

"You never understood hate, either," Itachi murmured, resting his cheek against the crown of his brother's head. "Hate is cold, and calculating, and uncaring of any consequence. You never hated me, little brother. You were furious with me, and in pain, and lost in denial of everything -- denial of love, denial of courage, denial of passion, denial of your own humanity -- and yet you never learned to hate anyone but yourself. I never meant for that to be the lesson you learned from me."

The regret in his voice was as hushed as any of Itachi's muted emotions, but it was unnervingly sincere, and it made Sasuke's stomach turn to think about it. "Aniki--"

"Have you ever had any glimpse of what it is that gives you your own strength?" Itachi asked. "Or have you simply spent your entire life grasping at my shadow, at the Copy-nin's Chidori, at the thieving snake's cursed seal, at anything and everything that could be a quick and dirty substitute for the need to discover and master your own power..."

"...Bastard!" He couldn't even lift his hands to beat at his brother's shoulder; he spat at him instead. "I did what you told me to! I lived like filth, like worse than filth, I clutched at whatever scraps of power I could claw into my hands, and I hated you -- don't ever tell me I didn't hate you enough--"

"Foolish child," Itachi murmured, still holding him close, effortlessly. "Hatred was only ever to be your first step. You should have outgrown the need for hatred -- or for the anger and pain you call hatred -- long ago, at the time when you should have begun to understand yourself."

He couldn't fight; he couldn't scream; all he had left was a sick, cracked half-laugh. "And you understand me, do you, you sick psychotic freak? What is my strength? What would have made me strong enough to kill you?"

"Those are two different questions," Itachi said, "and you would not believe me when I answer either of them for you."

"Try me. What have you got to lose? You pull all the strings here." The venom in his voice was somehow not as satisfying as he'd wanted it to be.

"What I have to lose," Itachi told him, "is your ability ever to accept the truth. These are truths you must realize on your own, learned through understanding your own mind and heart -- and I am both willing and able to keep you here for however long it takes. Both time and space are irrelevant here beneath the illumination of my dark moon."

Itachi sighed just a bit, and added under his breath, "And waiting for you to come to realize anything emotionally or spiritually significant can take a very, very long time, little brother."

Sasuke really wished he could have punched his brother in the face and broken that aristocratic nose for him. He got as far as twitching a fingertip.

"You're closing down again," Itachi said. "Whenever you face anything you don't wish to hear, you turn to denial or to flight. All right. Rest a bit. There is a small nuisance whom I should keep from attempting to disturb you... again." The faintest flicker of irritation crossed his face as he added, "Is there any rational reason why your cat enjoys walking on your head as you sleep?"

"She's hungry," Sasuke said, warily.

"And this has approximately what to do with sitting on your face and pawing at various sensory organs?"

"I'd imagine Naruto and I wake up a lot faster with a paw in the ear. --Under normal circumstances, that is."

"...Ah. I should feed her for you, then. I believe the kitten food is still in the lower cabinet next to the cooking oil?"

"Yes. Thank you," Sasuke said, rather blankly, since the whole conversation was rapidly becoming too surreal for him even in a 'day' filled with banana-peel-open academy classrooms and eraser-banishings of perverted jounin.

Oh, God. I'm sitting here trapped in my homicidal psychopath brother's doujutsu and talking about where the cat food is... I can't let him get to me, I can't let him get me to agree to what he asks-- I don't know what he wants or why he wants it, this could end up with a trigger left in my mind -- something he could use to make me capture Naruto for him, to give him the children, to give him whatever the hell it is he wants this time--

"I told you to rest," Itachi said, reproving. "You always were terrible at accepting advice." He brushed Sasuke's bangs back from his forehead, and kissed his brow lightly, as their mother had done years and years earlier.

Sasuke struggled blindly, trapped by rage and grief and furious rejection -- "You have no right!" he gasped, shaking all over. "You sick, psychotic sadist-- you have no right--"

"Whoa, calm down," a far too familiar voice said next to his ear, still holding him close, holding him still. "Last time I checked I was your dead-last imbecile, not a sadist. Sasuke-bastard, wake up already..."

He tried desperately to turn, to see if it could be real this time, and the moment he took a breath he felt it: the reassuring, solid bulk that filled his body, the children that made it so awkward to move or walk or even breathe. The bedside light flicked on, and Naruto's eyes were as wide and bewildered as the kitten's.

"Must have been one hell of a nightmare," he said softly.

All of the pent-up panic and terror and revulsion and fury that he hadn't been able to feel in the grip of Itachi's control rushed over him in a wave, and Sasuke scrambled out of bed and staggered into the bathroom to be violently sick.

Naruto had followed him every step of the way, all but hovering, and crouched at his side with a wet washcloth, like an anxious puppy not sure if it was about to be cuddled or kicked. "Bastard, you -- aw, hell, obviously you're not okay -- what happened...?"

Sasuke clutched at Naruto's hand as though it were his last lifeline, struggling to keep from retching again at the thought of his brother's effortless invasion of their life, of his mind, of everything that had ever mattered.

"Itachi," he whispered, leaning hard on the wall, trying to force his heart to slow and his breathing to steady before he set off another round of emotionally-induced contractions, because he would die before he allowed his brother to take these children from him -- even through his own fear. "Oh, God, Naruto, he was here. He was Iruka-sensei, nobody ever questions Iruka-sensei, not when he comes to visit the two of us-- he--" Sasuke stopped short, and swallowed hard again. "When did you get home...? If he'd still been here-- he still wants you, he-- oh, God..."

"Slow down," Naruto said, cuddling him close and smoothing his hair, as much for his own comfort as for Sasuke's. "You're sure it wasn't a nightmare?"

"It was a nightmare," Sasuke agreed with a short, sharp laugh, "but it was worse than that. Listen to me, Naruto. We have to think of something to do about genjutsu -- I can't keep Sharingan in place to check every person who walks by on the sidewalk, Kakashi-sensei can't be here all the time -- Itachi -- he said it himself, he should never have been allowed to just walk in the door even if he was Iruka-sensei -- except he wasn't-- oh, God--" Sasuke gulped back another wave of panic by sheer force, and shook his head sharply. "When did you come home? How far could he have gone before you came home? --why the hell did I wake up so easily...?"

Naruto's brow was furrowed. "I'm not saying I don't believe you," he said cautiously. "Whatever the hell happened, whether it was Itachi or just a really nasty dream, you're scared enough to make yourself sick over it, and that's so not good right now. So we're gonna fix it. I'll get the guards to scan everybody from now on, okay? Sharingan or no Sharingan, just about anybody can dispel henge. But... are you really, totally sure you didn't just drowse off on the sofa? You were so sound asleep you didn't even notice when I carried you to bed..."

Sasuke dragged both hands down his face, still struggling to keep his breathing even and to bring his heart back under control. "It was Itachi," he said flatly. "I've had too many nightmares of him for too many years not to know the difference. My nightmares let me wake up."

Naruto wrapped an arm around him and squeezed gently, chewing his bottom lip. "Come on, walrus boy, let's roll you back to bed. Linoleum floor isn't exactly the world's most ursapedic sitting-spot for hugely pregnant people; let's get you some pillows and some back-rubbing so you don't tie yourself completely in sick-knots while we figure this thing out..."

The insane normality of it was enough to send Sasuke shaking with reaction again. "'Ursapedic?' ...'walrus boy?'"

"Isn't it ursapedic? Where they make things that fit the way your back wants to go?" He lifted Sasuke to his feet and more than half carried him back to the bed, settling him in a bundle of blankets and pillows and tucking and fluffing things at random.

"Ursapedic would be 'bears' feet,'" Sasuke growled. "And you're saying I look like a walrus?"

"Well, yeah," Naruto said with a grin. "Sakura-chan says any women on the jury would give you a sympathy acquittal if I called you a cow or a hippo or made oinking noises or anything and you went and murdered me in my sleep. I figured walruses were safer than cows. Different number of legs and stuff, right? And you kinda move like a walrus, all waddling side to side hauling that belly around. It's hilarious. I wish you could see yourself."

"You-- you-- insensitive asshole--!"

Sasuke ground the heel of a palm into his eye, fighting to keep from surrendering to tears -- not from Naruto's teasing; from the sheer overwhelming relief that Naruto was here, teasing him, that the kits were safe, that Itachi had set him free for whatever lunatic purpose he pursued. But Naruto didn't seem to recognize that; his eyes were huge with panic.

"Aw shit, bastard, don't cry on me! Don't tell me -- this is that hormonal shit again, right? Sakura-chan's gonna kill me if I make you cry again. If you don't kill me first. --Are walruses that bad? I thought they were kinda cute, how they waddle and stuff..."

Unable to speak around the knot in his throat, Sasuke dredged up his best glare despite the wetness in his eyes, and grabbed Naruto by the collar and shook him a good one, and then he flung both arms around Naruto's ribcage and clung tighter and tighter until Naruto squeaked like one of the kitten's chew toys.

He was still shaking. That was... unacceptable. The whole damn day was completely unacceptable. For right now, though, it was enough just to hide his face in Naruto's excessively orange shoulder and wait until he was certain the world had stopped heaving him around like a rag in a tempest.

"Air," Naruto wheezed. "Need... air... breathe... grk..."

"Moron," Sasuke whispered into his throat, and loosened his hold a little. Just a little, because Naruto was warm and solid and orange and comfortably infuriating; Naruto made him shake with outrage in a way he was accustomed to, a way that didn't involve blood and pain and torment and old, old grief like ashes thick in his throat. So he held on tight instead of saying what he wanted to say, because even after Itachi had walked through his mind and left scrawls of shame as easily as defacing a child's picture book, Sasuke still couldn't say to Konoha's leader and the Rokudaime Hokage, don't leave me alone; I don't care what it takes, I don't care how many boring council meetings I have to sit through or who stares at me in the Tower or what I interrupt -- don't ever leave me alone again, because I'm too weak to fight now and I know it, and I'm scared. He was still Uchiha Sasuke, and he still clung to the tattered remnants of what had once been worth calling pride.

Naruto was patting him, awkwardly, because his elbows were pinned to his sides by the force of Sasuke's desperate hold; he shifted a little, wriggled and stretched until he could turn the awkward pets into something more solid and soothing, his fingertips rubbing a pattern up and down the small of Sasuke's back, where the strain of the weight gathered. "It's okay," he murmured, "it's all okay now. You're fine, the kits are fine. Nobody's going to hurt you. --Unless you count me saying something stupid, but I'm always doing that. It's gonna be okay. Come on, cuddle-buns, just relax and let me give you a good backrub..."

"...cuddle-buns?"

"What's the matter now? You don't like walruses," Naruto grumped, his fingertips finding the knots of tension in Sasuke's lower back and kneading at them lightly. "I mean it. Let me get my hands free so I can work on you better. You're all tensed up."

"No shit," Sasuke muttered, both hands fisting in the fabric of Naruto's shirt to keep himself from cracking and pouring it all out: I’m scared, I'm so scared, I've never been this weak, never cared this much for anyone so vulnerable, they're so vulnerable, I'M so vulnerable, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it but trust you and the ANBU, and I'm never going to trust the ANBU again, not after today, so please, don't ever leave me alone again, not ever, I can't stand it anymore...

He swallowed back the tangle of horror and sick panic, and bit his lip hard, and shifted his hold so that he was clinging to Naruto around the ribs instead of around the forearms. It was as much as he could do; even his own furious, injured pride couldn't get him to stop clinging, or to stop shaking.

Naruto was rubbing his head against Sasuke's cheek almost like the kitten did, both hands busy kneading at the tension in his back, bringing their bodies closer so that Sasuke's bulge was warmly cradled against his stomach and hips. Naruto seemed to be doing his level best to manage a full-body hug, and murmuring reassurances under his breath almost like a purr -- or a growl.

"Come on, head against my shoulder, just let yourself go limp -- let it all go, let me hold you together. I'm right here holding you, I'll keep you safe -- it's going to be fine. Nobody's going to get through me. Nobody. So you can let go now... just relax, just let me hold you..." He gathered up a bundle of blankets and wrapped them willy-nilly around them both, then started kneading again. "Don't go all tense again, but do you want to talk...? Stupid question, I know, but one of these days the world's going to flip over like a pancake and you're gonna say yes..."

With his face buried against the warm crook between Naruto's throat and shoulder, Sasuke mumbled, "What is there to talk about? My psychotic brother walked into our house without so much as a nod from the ANBU, and if he'd wanted to kill me I'd be dead right now. What is talking going to do to change that?"

Naruto rubbed quietly for a long moment, and then offered, "Assuming it wasn't all a really, really nasty dream -- if he'd raised killing-levels of chakra, surely they would have sensed that. And he'd have known they'd sense that, too. So... was this like the psychopath version of a baby shower or something? 'Cause you're fine, other than being panicky -- don't get me wrong, I totally understand you being panicky, it's just that I'm a lot more used to thinking of Sasuke's-psycho-big-brother-equals-blood-everywhere types of events, and unless the kitten went and scratched you when I wasn't looking... anyway, I think I'm saying since he didn't want you dead, what did he want?"

"What does he ever want?" Sasuke whispered, eyes shut tight. "To preach about strength, to mock me for a weak failure who still hasn't learned enough hatred..."

"Now see, I've got one hell of a bone to pick with the bastard there," Naruto growled. "That whole true-strength-is-hatred thing is a total load of bullshit, and I want to kick his ass up between his ears for screwing your head up like that for so damn much of your life already! --Even aside from the multitude of other reasons for kicking his ass up between his ears, which is saying something!"

Sasuke heard himself make a noise that could have been a chuckle if it hadn't been half muffled in Naruto's shoulder.

"The whole problem is that he's always been right," Sasuke murmured. "I'm still shaking. If I can't even control my own emotions enough to keep my hands steady the next time I see his face -- how am I ever going to kill him when I can't even stand straight and look him in the eyes, because I'm half blind with the pain and the fear and the memories? I can't defeat him until I can defeat myself, until I can truly drive out every emotion when I need to fight..."

Naruto made an extremely rude noise that sounded like it had the word "bullshit" stuffed in the middle of it. Sasuke lifted his head a little, blinking.

"Look at me, bastard. I'm strong," Naruto told him fiercely, "and you know I've never been all Zen rock garden calm like that in my life."

Sasuke snorted. "You don't need to control your temper when you've got a demon in your gut to back you up as you start tearing chunks out of the landscape. We don't all have that kind of firepower to draw on, so intellect has to make up for brute force for some of us."

"What makes me strong has got nothing to do with Kyuubi," Naruto said, still kneading Sasuke's lower back. "If Kyuubi was all there was to it, there'd be no difference between me and the way Gaara used to be. And I get creeped out when I think about you and somebody like old-style-Gaara. The two of you would so have brain-icicled each other to death it's not even funny."

"...'brain-icicled'?"

"You know. That 'I'm-more-badass-than-thou' silent-glare-eye-stabbity-hmph thing you and Gaara and Neji do at everybody." Naruto squeezed his eyes mostly shut and curled his lip in a comically bad attempt at looking forbidding; it mostly looked constipated, and Sasuke clamped a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing aloud at him.

"You should have seen me getting slept on by the little nuisance earlier," he admitted, because with Naruto he could admit these things sometimes. ...Mostly because Naruto laughed at him whether or not he admitted anything, so it wasn't like trying to keep a secret would spare him from getting laughed at. "Nobody can look aloof and imposing when they're being slept on by a snore-purring kitten. Poor Iruka-sensei looked so..."

Then Sasuke stopped, and swallowed hard again.

"You're all right," Naruto reminded him, rubbing his shoulders. "The kits are all right. He didn't hurt you."

Sasuke sighed deeply, and reached past Naruto toward the curtains. The rain was pattering against the glass again, without sounding like it intended to let up.

"Hey, stop squirming--" Naruto tried to pin his hand; he dropped a shoulder and twisted by reflex, and his fingertips touched the drapes.

Sasuke's blood turned to ice in his veins.

Beneath the bloody not-light of the Tsukuyomi moon, Naruto's hair was dyed the color of hellflame.

"Aw, shit. You were calming down and everything," the not-boy said, with half his face painted in a bloody mask by the unlight. "Well, he said you were impatient. Don't suppose I can convince you to just close the curtains...?"

Sasuke's hands laced around the thing's throat, and he slammed its head against the window so hard it was a shock that the glass didn't splinter -- but then, this was still his brother's sick warped world. He couldn't see for the tears burning in his eyes, and he couldn't speak around the knot of rage and agony and sick betrayal in his throat, but his hands knew the shape of Naruto's throat, warm and fragile, life pulsing beneath his fingertips, and he squeezed.

"S-s-sasu--"

"Don't say that!" Sasuke snarled. "Don't say my name in his voice -- you --"

"Stop that," Itachi said from the doorway. "It was challenging to come up with a construct that tapped into enough of your memories of him for you to believe it."

Sasuke let go of the thing's throat and twisted about and threw himself blind at his brother. But the thing caught him around the waist -- gently, terrifyingly gently -- and then Sasuke was flat on his back in the bed, and the not-Naruto was standing between Itachi and his brother.

And it had claws.

"I told him nobody was going to hurt him. I told him if they tried they were going through me," it rumbled. "I don't go back on my word."

"You are not Naruto," Itachi said, nonplussed.

"I'm damn well close enough," the thing said, with a fox-fanged grin. "You made me that way yourself, remember?"

Itachi's mouth flattened, and then with a sharp flick of a hand the room melted away. The not-Naruto thing cried out and reached for Sasuke in the moment before the orange and gold bled away into the fire of the old room where Itachi sat at the table and the kits drowsed in a bundle of blankets.

"You bastard," Sasuke choked, hollow-bodied and numb again, his ability to feel bleeding out of him like an open wound. "You bastard-- you-- killed him, killed it, you--"

"You were going to break its neck with your bare hands a minute ago," Itachi reminded him, unimpressed.

"That's different, that's-- you--"

"This is becoming tedious," Itachi said, and reached over and touched a fingertip to Sasuke's brow. "Sleep."

He couldn't even rage as the world bled away into nothing.