Night Terrors, a naruto fanfic

Title: Night Terrors
Author: desbutterfly
Pairing: ItaSasu
Genre: angst/horror
Rating: R for violence
Summary: Sasuke dreams of Itachi in several different ways, none of them healthy.

When Sasuke dreams of Itachi, it's only in one of three ways.

The first dream is one that Sasuke began having even before he was old enough to know what it meant.

It starts in the field next to the Uchiha compound.

He is seven years old and perfectly capable of walking, except Itachi is carrying him again—his hands tight around Sasuke's legs, arms pushing up under his knees with his spread fingers gently supporting Sasuke's ankles. Sasuke is pressed close against Itachi's back, arms twined fast around his neck. It's sunny and warm, and the jet black fall of hair trailing in one gathered rope hanging down Itachi's spine is tickling Sasuke's nose.

When he breathes in all he can smell is metal and ash. All he can smell is Itachi.

Itachi always smells like the weapons he excels in using; the blade of the katana and the concentrated explosion of a katon jutsu. It's not a scary smell. It reminds Sasuke of time spent watching Itachi train with father, and even more time spent curled in the small closet used to store Itachi's weapons, easing shuriken out of their braces and holding them up in the dusty air just to see if he would look exactly like his brother when he sent them spinning into the hard wooden posts.

Sasuke clings to Itachi's back and rests his cheek there, breathing and digging his small hands into Itachi's shirt so that the Uchiha mon sewn onto the back crumples and distorts between his fingers. When Itachi turns his head to say something, he is smiling.

Sasuke reaches up to press his fingers against Itachi's chin as his brother's lips come closer and closer, until they are pressed tight and dry against Sasuke's mouth and all he can do is open and smile back as Itachi slips inside.

These days, Sasuke always wakes from this dream with the taste of his own blood in his mouth, and a wound on his tongue where he's bitten clean through.

It wasn't until after Itachi had killed everyone he loved that Sasuke started feeling ashamed of this dream.

It wasn't until after Orochimaru pried the contents of this dream from his memories that awful day in the forest that Sasuke understood exactly what it is he feels so ashamed about.

The second dream is more current.

Sasuke stands smirking coldly as Itachi falls to his knees before him, the length of Sasuke's blade sliding cleanly into his chest and pulsing with the chakra of the chidori, ripping the rib cage into a broken jumble of bone and flesh.

The ground is wet and slippery with blood. Sasuke can feel it pool warmly around his feet, the bright slickness of it between his toes, the tang of it in his nostrils. For a moment, Sasuke wonders what it would be like to taste blood that isn't his own. He reaches out with his tongue to lick the red droplets from Itachi's trembling cheek and smiles.

Itachi tastes like metal and ashes.

Itachi's mouth is open, his eyes wide in a Tsukiyomi that is no longer effective on Sasuke, and those black-painted nails scrabble frantically at the hilt Sasuke is holding in place. Itachi shudders and convulses around the sword, and Sasuke knows that all his brother's attention is on him now, that Itachi sees him and acknowledges him. That Itachi knows he is dying at the hands of his younger brother.

The sword slides in a bit further until the tip can be seen poking out the other side of Itachi's back. He coughs and Sasuke notes the blood trickling out of Itachi's mouth and down his chin with a muted laugh.

"Foolish little brother," Itachi gasps between blood spatter, "I see you have enough hatred now."

"Enough to kill you," Sasuke agrees, twisting the hilt to the right in one sharp movement.

As the Sharingan in Itachi's eyes fade to darkness, Sasuke can't help but remember how his father looked as Itachi's blade sliced through his neck. That same look of infinite resignation…

"Enough to take my place," Itachi whispers as he dies, and Sasuke's heart slams painfully against his ribs. He drops kusenagi with a startled cry and presses his palms into his eyes as they start to burn.

When Sasuke wakes from this dream, he spends the next few minutes searching frantically for a mirror so he can see for himself the small whirling marks of the Sharingan and his own smooth, unscarred cheeks.

He isn't like Itachi, and he never will be.

And his brother certainly isn't his closest friend.

Somehow, the absurdity of the dream is not enough to keep it from coming back over and over again. Sasuke lives with it, just like he lives with everything else.

The third dream is one Sasuke's only had a handful of times.

It starts off like a memory—a younger Sasuke walking slowly through the dark, deserted streets of the Uchiha compound, the reddened moon hanging sickly above. He stumbles across the bodies of his neighbors, his relatives, their bloodied gaping faces staring wide-eyed at him from the ground.

Sasuke runs home, habit making him pull the sandals from his feet and drop his book bag in the front hallway before he hurries to his parent's room. His hands curl around the handle of the door, pulling it open on the sight of his mother and father, their mangled bodies twined together in a sick parody of affection.

Sasuke screams and his fingers fumble for the kunai strapped to his leg. Itachi steps out of the darkness and somehow he's a stranger, a monster, someone Sasuke's never even met before. He charges, kunai held tight in his hand.

There is a clean swipe of the sword, and a few seconds where Sasuke feels only a brush of air against his cheek and a slow burning down his right arm and chest. The kunai drops uselessly to the floor, and so does Sasuke.

As his world fades, Sasuke stretches his fingers out, catching hold of a few strands of his mother's hair before the darkness overcomes him.

He's so certain he can hear her voice calling him that he awakens still reaching for her hand.

Sasuke doesn't know what to make of the fact that the dreams in which he dies are the ones that disturb him the least.

fin.