Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any characters therein.
On Nightmares
.
The night Shisui dies is the night it first happens.
Itachi never has nightmares anymore; perhaps it's because he's outgrown them. More likely it's because his reality has finally surpassed any horror his subconscious could possibly create.
Either way, the fact stands: Uchiha Itachi has not had a nightmare since he was six or seven years old.
Until tonight.
Shisui comes to him in a dream, completely whole and smiling serenely. That smile should have been the first scarlet flag, because Itachi knows-knew-his cousin inside and out, and Shisui never smiled like that unless he was about to play some sort of prank. But Itachi's dreamself is oblivious. They are sitting together on the banks of the Nakano, and perhaps this is going to be a good dream because the sun is setting, red rays dappling over the clear water and making it sparkle, and Shisui is alive and Itachi's dreamself has no clue that it has ever been otherwise.
Then the sky turns black and when Itachi next sees Shisui the older boy is covered in blood, which is ridiculous because Shisui did not die of a stabbing or anything else that would involve so much blood-he drowned, and after that nothing makes much sense anymore.
When Itachi wakes up, his cheeks are wet. A hand, brought to his skin and then pulled away for inspection, shows that the liquid is blood.
He shivers, scrubs it from his face and goes back to bed. But not to sleep.
.
It's a year before Itachi dreams again. His parent's ghosts never plagued him in his sleep; perhaps that is his mind's way of protecting him from relieving images that will drive him mad if seen one time too many.
Shisui, for whatever reason, is another matter entirely.
He returns to haunt his friend's mind with a vengeance that was never part of his character when he was alive. It's the same setup, that same cursed riverbank, same foolish dreamself with no inkling of what has happened or what is to come. And what pains him about this dream is the fact that it actually takes him a full second to recognize the face of the curly-haired boy with the unmarred hitayate.
In days long past, he could have been blind and it wouldn't have mattered at all.
But he is older now, while his friend and sacrifice remains ageless and preserved inside the worlds of memory and dreams.
Nightmares.
Suddenly Shisui is drenched in blood again, his expressive black eyes hollow. He watches Itachi in silence, waves of accusation rolling from his still form. He mouths something that makes Itachi shudder violently.
Pale, red-stained fingers reach for a suddenly terrified face. But before Itachi can feel that touch (for the first time in so long), he awakens and sits bolt upright.
He doesn't sleep again for a week. He knows what will happen if he does.
.
And yet, sleep is unavoidable, and even hailed prodigies and brilliant shinobi must succumb to it eventually.
Itachi had expectations of what would happen once he allowed himself to rest again. They were not disappointed.
The dreams become frequent-several nights a week, at first. As times passes the rate grows to five times a week, followed by the occasional six, before finally Itachi is seeing his dead friend every single night.
The overall nightmare remains the same, though the details shift and change. Some nights there is nothing but silent stares emanating from dead eyes. Some nights Shisui reaches for him with those cold fingers, and a few nights out of those they make contact, leaving streaks of red on Itachi's cold (imaginary) skin. Sometimes Shisui stays as far away as possible; other times he comes so close that the stench of blood fills Itachi's nostrils.
Every nightmare ends the same, however. With those exact same words, mouthed and never said, but always felt.
I
loved
you
.
Itachi has no inkling of why Shisui chooses to haunt him in place of his parents. He has no inkling of whether or not Shisui is even haunting him at all, whether or not the whole thing is his mind playing tricks on him.
But regardless of anything, the nightmares remain. And the realism of them does, once, prompt Itachi to respond when Shisui does not speak.
I know.
.
It gets to a point where things become more difficult to differentiate. Reality and unconscious imaginings, that is. Oh, Itachi is perfectly aware of when he is awake and when he dreams, no mistaking that.
But there are brief moments (like after Itachi responded, that one time, and Shisui's blank eyes flickered with understanding) when he wonders which-dream or reality-is the true nightmare.
.
Fin