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Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Done. (Success?)
Exalt
Mikoto takes a sip of tea and almost chokes on it in the next moment when she feels two arms fall over her shoulders. It is only because of this fact— and the fact she recognizes those tiny, tiny limbs— that she keeps from immediately rounding on her would-be attacker, Sharingan blazing after years of underuse.
It is night— deep and dark and deeper into the night than is healthy— and she is sipping tea because she cannot sleep. Mikoto feels the weight of her youngest son acutely as he leans into her, can feel his heartbeat steadily slowing until it matches the steady pace of her own. She lets Sasuke nuzzle into the crook of her neck for as long as is needed.
But she doesn't move. Not yet.
She waits until the tightness of muscles fades. She waits until she can no longer feel the minuscule tremors that occasionally wrack his body. When that stops, Mikoto waits longer. A breath, and then a breath longer and still she does not speak.
In these four years she has been raising Sasuke, she has learned so much.
Sasuke, she has learned, takes to the quiet far better than most children his age. Whenever he is in a particular mood, he finds her. He doesn't ask for help or speak about what bothers him. He waits and eventually is better for it.
He revels in her presence simply because Mikoto is his mother and that sort of unconditional love is simply beautiful.
(She does not want to say she is relieved that he doesn't require consoling because a part of her yearns to know his heart.)
But this time is different. In the four years she's raised her baby boy, he has rarely sought physical comfort. He has never come to her trembling, has never clung to her so desperately.
So Mikoto waits until he stills completely before she reaches around and drags him into her lap. He sits in silence only momentarily but he answers her question before she can ask it.
"I had a nightmare, okaa-san."
Mikoto hums in lieu of responding and runs her right hand through Sasuke's hair. She waits because she knows there is a bit more to it than that.
"Everyone was dead, okaa-san."
The statement is delivered with the same matter-of-fact tone as the first but Mikoto does not stop running her fingers through his hair. Somehow— somehow— she gleans that he does not mean everybody but rather the clan.
Their clan. Their family.
She does not ask him what brought this dream about because she can tell he is confused and such questions only serve to muddle the waters further. She only continues to run her slender fingers through his hair and he lets her, his fingers running through her own inky black tresses.
She offers him the last of her tea, cold though it is, and he accepts it. He drinks it quickly and soon they are absorbed in each other once again.
(She knows that the youngest of her sons won't bother Itachi or Fugaku about this. And she also knows that— though they do care— they will not ask. Because Sasuke will never ask for more than he is given and they will never give what is not requested. Even this momentary wasei-eigo is more than her precious son would ask of anyone.)
They remain this way until the sun rises and when it does Mikoto finds that she is not particularly excited to face this day. She looks down at Sasuke finds that he looks exceptionally tired— and she certainly feels the same way— and lifts him easily.
It is only when Mikoto carries Sasuke to his bed and lays him down that she realizes they are alone in their home, Itachi on another mission and Fugaku simply busy— always busy but it is a thing to which she is accustomed.
Later, she will say that she had fallen to her exhaustion at that moment but the truth of the instant is that she sees her son looking lonelier is his sleep than she has ever seen him and—
(She had spent all night holding her son so she feels she is forgiven for desiring some rest.)
— she simply falls into bed next to him. She takes him into her arms easily and she feels less... idle.
The silence lasts only another second before Sasuke speaks up, noting a desire to grow his hair as her hair is. She pulls him closer in this brief second and a smile blooms slowly on her lips.
"Of course, Sasu-chan."
When Fugaku returns later that day, the sun moving just past noon, his wife and second son have only just awoken and he watches as they drag their feet lazily across the tatami mats.
wasei-eigo is a term that translates to something along the lines of skinship, coined to describe the closeness between mother and child.