I do not own Naruto!

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Dream: a succession of images, sounds or emotions that the mind experiences during sleep. It takes sensory memory and provides feedback senses, resulting in hallucinations inside the mind. It can use feelings as stimulation, sometimes positive feelings, and sometimes negative feelings, which can cause nightmares.

Shisui had dreamt before. He could recall that strange numb feeling you had while dreaming, that you only noticed you had felt after you had woken up. He was feeling numb at the moment, but he couldn't tell if it was the same dreamy state. Maybe he would know if he woke up.

He had dreamt of ridiculous things, like rock climbing the hokage monument while reciting kana tables, or running about the Uchiha compound, catching loose flamingos. He had attempted lucid dreaming a few times, interested with the idea, but never could seem to get it and decided casting a genjutsu on yourself would be easier.

He had had his fair share of nightmares, too, but that came with being a shinobi. He had redreamt missions he would rather never go on again, he had dreamt different, more gruesome outcomes if he had messed up on an important mission. He had dreamt of all the lives he could have screwed up if he failed to keep someone alive or kill another.

But now, Shisui couldn't tell if he was dreaming or not.

It must have been a dream, because even though Fugaku acted like a bastard in front of everyone, he loved his family. He would never do anything like this, he would never kill Sasuke. Or leave Itachi alone.

There wouldn't be three bodies, three slit throats. Fugaku wouldn't have done that to his family. The man was convinced it was a horrible way to die, to feel your skin, jugular, and throat sliced open. To desperately gulp for air and breathe in the blood that's slowly leaving your body, feeling your limbs run cold as the blood pours and you eventually drown in it. Some people thought it was a quick way to die, but when you were dying, everything was slower. It was like your body was acknowledging the fact that you're leaving the world, and took in everything slower, just to experience it for the last time. Fugaku always hated finding comrade's bodies that had this done to them.

If this was a real, there wouldn't be the cliche rain falling and darkening the already somber mood, even though it was sunny earlier. There wouldn't be a pie cooling in the window, sitting innocently as if it was made just an hour ago. Now it was soaked with the sudden storm, rain water pooling in the plate it was resting on. Shisui wouldn't be smelling it from where he was, even though it was definetely ruined. Maybe it was his imagination, but he couldn't help but inhale the apple and cinnamon. Mikoto always made it when Itachi came back from a gruesome Anbu mission, to try and lighten his mood. It was his favorite, even though he never said it, but she knew. She called it her 'Mother's intuition'.

And Itachi.

He wouldn't have showed up just as they were bringing out the body of his dead little brother, both siblings covered in blood. He wouldn't have stood there, staring, as they zipped up the corpse in a body bag. He would have run over and saved his little brother, by any means possible, even if it meant using a forbidden jutsu to bring him back to life. He would have killed the bastards for even thinking about acting as if his brother was dead.

He wouldn't have that panic and helplessness and confusion and fucking pure agony completely filling his eyes. He wouldn't be shaking, as if his legs were about to give out, he wouldn't be pale as a sheet even though the blood's contrast with his skin made him look pale anyways.

And he certainly wouldn't have completely swept his face of all emotion, so much that it was different from his normal mask of indifference. He wouldn't have turned around and started walking towards the clan's training grounds as if he hadn't seen what was happening at his house in the first place.

If this was real, Shisui wouldn't have just stood there and watched his baby cousin walk away without trying to consol him in any way.

But even so, as he watched Itachi trudge up the road, with Mikoto's and Sasuke's and Fugaku's body behind him, he knew he had just seen Itachi die as well.

If only he were dreaming.

Moonlight and dew-drenched blossom, and the scent

Of summer gardens; these can bring you all

Those dreams that in the starlit silence fall:

Sweet songs are full of odours.

While I went

Last night in drizzling dusk along a lane,

I passed a squalid farm; from byre and midden

Came the rank smell that brought me once again

A dream of war that in the past was hidden.

~ Siegfried Sassoon

Itachi was in the training grounds like Shisui expected.

He was currently practicing taijutsu on a dead tree, which was already worn down from years of abuse. The younger Uchiha showed no sign he sensed the other's presence, only continued on battering the defensless trunk. Shisui didn't say anything when he arrived, he just sat down against a tree off to the side, letting Itachi continue. Itachi went on as if he wasn't even there, going through different forms in different fighting styles, and then going through nearly every jutsu he knew, even ones he perfected, until his fingers were bruised from making so many different handsigns repeatedly. When he had gone over everything twice, he went back on to attacking the tree, until his legs were heavily bruised and scratched from kicking and his knuckles were bleeding from punching. His eyes were devoid of the Sharingan, dull, emotionless. Shisui wondered what was going through the teens mind, having killed god knows how many people on an S-rank mission and then coming home to all of his immediate family dead. But he couldn't tell, because Itachi was still silent, beating up his own body more than the tree now with every strike, not even wincing when a new wound formed on his skin. Shisui needed to stop this.

He stood up, quickly walking towards Itachi and catching a punch that was aimed at the tree. His hand moved backwards slightly, and he wasn't surprised Itachi's hands were bleeding from how much force he was putting behind his punches.

Itachi looked up at him, his face still emotionless, his eyes still dead. Shisui winced.

"Stop," he pleaded. Itachi made no move to get his hand back, nor did he show any emotion, but his gaze traveled to the tree. Shisui's eyes narrowed slightly. God, was this going to finally break him? Shisui knew from experience that hiding your feelings could be counterproductive. He found himself completely destroying the very ground they were standing in one of his fits of pent up rage, and had, multiple times, been on the recieving end of Itachi's own breakdowns. It's why they were so close; they knew the pressures of being a genius and shinobi of a clan that was already known for being perfect.

"They were killed this morning," Shisui told him. Itachi's expression didn't change, but he flinched slightly. The older Uchiha didn't know whether to go on or not. The rain was coming down harder, and Itachi had taken his Anbu armor off, which was most likely making him colder since he was now only wearing a short sleeved thin shirt made for summer wear and thin pants made for flexibility. He was shivering.

He wasn't going to walk away from this unscathed.

So now the question going through Shisui's mind was; would it be better for someone to tear down the dam and let the water drain, so that other people could keep them from sinking? Or keep up the walls and drown?

"Fugaku slit their throats."

Itachi flinched so hard it was like he almost cowered away from Shisui, and he angled his face so that it was hidden. The lack of noise coming from Itachi unnerved him, pressing him to go on further. If Itachi wouldn't do it, Shisui would tear down the walls himself. Even though it had pained him, he had the police officers there relay anything they knew to him. He didn't want them to tell Itachi in that dull and ruthless voice that said it didn't really matter, they lived in a world where people dealt with this everyday. And it made Shisui want to scream, since he was doing the exact same thing he tried to keep his cousin away from.

"He stabbed himself with his father's katana afterwards-"

"Shut up!"

The sudden exclaimation halted Shisui's words, and he stared at Itachi as the ragged pants from the younger became louder, and the slight trembling Shisui confused with being cold earlier escalated into violent shaking.

"This is a nightmare..." The whisper was so quiet that Shisui had to strain his ears to hear. But then it was repeated, and Shisui felt his heart sink. He wished it was.

"They're dead, Itachi," Shisui whispered almost as quietly. "You saw them."

The older Uchiha didn't know what happened, time moved so fast to him, but suddenly Itachi was kneeling on the ground, face turned down into his knees, clawing at the hand still holding his wrist. He looked younger than he usually acted, curled in on himself like that. So much younger. He looked his age. Shisui blinked in surprise, his brain still registering what was happening. Why couldn't his mind keep up? He looked down at his broken cousin, and remembered the emotions swirling around in his eyes when he saw his family's bodies. All of that was still bottled up inside that small thirteen year old boy, and Shisui wasn't doing a damn thing.

He kneeled down beside him, and Itachi's hand shifted so that he was holding onto Shisui's hand as if he would shatter if he let go. Shisui stared at him still, seeing how his forehead was pressed against his knees and how his eyes were squeezed shut as he tried to even out his breathing through clenched teeth. Holding on to Shisui like this was Itachi's reminder that someone was watching him, so he couldn't break down. He had to be perfect.

Shisui leaned forward and wrapped his free arm around Itachi's shoulder, pulling the younger one closer to him.

But it was getting so damn hard to.

Shisui shifted their positions so that the rain wasn't beating down directly on Itachi, and noticed how his shaking decreased slightly. The hand wrapped around the younger's shoulder rubbed against his arm, trying to warm him in some way.

"You can let it out, you know," he told him, leaning down so he could hear him over the roar of the downpour. "I won't think any less of you, 'Tachi."

There was a moment's pause, as if Itachi were actually thinking about it, before the grip on Shisui's hand tightened even more if possible and Itachi pressed the side of his face into Shisui's shirt, even though both were completely sopping wet from the rain. The warmth from Shisui was welcome in the freezing temperatures and the arm around his shoulder comforted him in such a way that he knew he wasn't going to shatter, even as his shoulders were heaving with the sobs he tried his best to keep quiet.

Was this misery? Was this agony, lonliness? He couldn't put a name to some of these emotions, he had kept so many concealed for such a long time. He couldn't describe it in any ways other than it felt like his chest would cave in, like his stomach was trying to jump out of his mouth, and he thought he would be happy to die right then and there. At first he thought it still might have been some cruel joke- Kami, his body wouldn't stop fucking shaking. There's no way his father would do any of that stuff. But then he felt the slight trembling coming from the body he was pressed against, and glanced up to find Shisui taking measured breaths, his eyes closed tightly as droplets the younger knew weren't rain ran down his face. And then he knew this wasn't a joke, because Shisui would never cry in front of others. He would just smile and try to cheer people up. It wasn't in his nature to cry, not when he recieved a near fatal and painful wound that had other men begging for death, not when his own bottled up emotions got the better of him. Not even when his brother's team brought him a hitae ite in place of their missing teammate during the war. He didn't cry then. He just clutched the worn down leaf symbol to his chest and tried to calm his mother down with a carefully blank face. He didn't cry at the funeral a week later for Obito and his mother, who had died the day before from blood loss and slit wrists.

He never cried in front of someone. So why was he crying now? The answer left a throbbing sharp pain in his chest. They really were dead.

Kami, he was never going to see them again. He was never going to train with his father again, something he enjoyed even though he hated at the same time. There wasn't denying that fact that he had actually had fun, even though he knew he was just being pushed to kill faster. He noticed that proud and exhilerated look in his father's eyes as they sparred. He was never going to hug his mother again, even though it was her who always initiated the hugs, while he secretly enjoyed them. He was never going to play with Sasuke again.

Oh Kami, he was never going to see Sasuke again. The death of his parents was something he would have been able to deal with, but now that Sasuke's gone...Ever since that night he came home from a mission with bloodstained hands, which Sasuke saw but still hugged him, he had subconsciously made it a goal to try and keep that innocent light in his face as long as possible. Itachi had seen what life really was like far too soon. He was almost surprised that Sasuke had made it so far as to eight without seeing a dead body when was living in a compound full of lethal shinobi, in a world where people were paid to kill others daily. Itachi had thought that maybe he was just paranoid, that it was maybe even post traumatic stress from the war.

He had almost tried to be the best at some point, so his father would look at him instead of Sasuke and push him instead to kill and kill and kill. But then he would see how Sasuke would feel neglected, and the guilt it brought on would hamper his ability to accomplish everything and anything. He didn't know what to do at one point. He knew Sasuke would be subjected to killing one day or another, but God, he didn't want Sasuke to be like him.

But now it didn't matter. Sasuke was dead.

Shisui kept his arm around Itachi for a while longer, but how Itachi was still shivering and how he was on the verge of being too cold convinced him they needed to leave. Itachi was more composed now, but his eyes still had that frighteningly blank look in them. Crying never really was Itachi's thing, even when he was miserable.

"We'll get sick," Shisui told him. The rain was still coming down, but not as hard as before. Without a word, Itachi pulled away and stood, waiting for Shisui to stand as well. He didn't meet Shisui's eyes. It was almost as if he was ashamed by his display of emotion.

Shisui stood up as Itachi retrieved his Anbu armor and dumped out the water that had pooled in the chest plate. He was already shivering again, though obviously trying not to, and Shisui rubbed his own arms.

"I got dango at my house," the older of the two offered. He knew that the police were still investigating the crime scene at Itachi's house, and going home to that was one of the last things Shisui thought would be healthy for his cousin.

Itachi gave a small nod, and paused for a second until Shisui had reached him before walking alongside him in the direction of Shisui's house, walking closer to him than he usually would. Shisui noticed, of course, but acted like he didn't for the sake of Itachi's pride, which he knew was already damaged from the earlier breakdown.

Shisui decided that he was going to make sure Itachi made it through this, even if he was put through hell because of it. After a long, hot shower and comfort food, of course.

xXXXx

Mmm, I thought it would kinda longer... Oh well.

YES, this is a yaoi. YES, this is my first one, so please don't hate too much T.T Constructive criticism is appreciated! :D And if there are spelling mistakes, please excuse them T.T I don't have a beta and don't normally notice my mistakes until someone points them out.

TBC!