The house was so much colder that night than it had been in weeks, maybe even a month. His footsteps echoed and reverberated in his head as he walked around, restless in the night, wandering like a desolate ghost, a meaningless poltergheist with nothing to bother and nobody to trouble. He could swear his breath was visible in slight crystalline forms, hitting the ground and breaking like glass to cut open his feet that wouldn't stop moving for anything. The blanket pulled over his shoulders did almost nothing to alleviate the burning cold. He felt purposeless, utterly useless, like he did when he served a banaustic purpose for his father; a filthy whore and a bragging right of sorts. Utterly useless, in Itachi's opinion.

The echoing began to hurt him, almost, as he felt his heart began to weaken suddenly, wind blowing his hair wildly. Wind? He was indoors! Itachi opened his eyes against the strong gust to see if a window was open, but the only windows in the hallway were never open, and still so. Fear welled in his chest as heat leaked into his abdomen, his knees suddenly going weak as he tasted iron, smelled it, stronger than ever before. Iron and sulfur. A scream. A gunshot. Itachi collapsed. He didn't know who screamed, who was shot, who was bleeding. Who was bleeding? A horrible pain split his forehead as he felt something drip down his face. Dragging himself up the wall, he reached for the bathroom doorknob, pushing it opening it with a shove of his shoulder. He quickly gathered himself, looking into the mirror to see a gapingly obscene bullet wound in his forehead, where Shisui would characteristically poke him if he felt Itachi becoming too cute for his ability to stand it without jumping the feminine teen. Blood dripped from it steadily, making his stomach lurch. Reaching up, Itachi found he could feel nothing but heat radiating from the spot, no blood or upturned skin, no bullet nor wound. He shut his eyes.

"Not real. Not real. Not real. It's not real, Itachi, get a fucking grip. It's not real. It's not!" Itachi looked up, blinking quickly. His eyes began to ache as the facade of a wound began to disappate almost.

"Figure it out yet?" a disembodied voice carried with the gentle breeze past his ears, the indoor zephyr not quite as disturbing as the fact that Itachi had just seen himself shot through the face in the reflection in the mirror, the imaginary bullet traveling through his forehead and hitting the mirror, disappearing behind that too. The splatter wasn't red, however, he noticed. For some reason, the resonance of the bullet was silver and white, with a twinge of violet mixed in the swirling colors. It reminded him of something he painted long ago. He reached out at the transient swirl of colors, perfect to mix together to make a delicate violet, shade a smile, darken sketched eyes. It was solid and liquid against his fingers, and Itachi saw it remain on his fingertips as he began to paint on the mirror, the purple weaving in and out among the white silver. He closed his eyes, wishing he had red as he began to improvise, finding it much more beautiful to bleed purple than red. Crude, sexual, seductive red against calming, quiet, yet proud and impressive violet? Give Itachi the latter any day. The former...he had seen far too much in his short lifetime.

The painting turned out perfectly, as if Itachi had dreamt the process and opened his eyes to its creation. A violent scream resonated in the bathroom and Itachi smirked a satisfied smirk. "Naturally, hm, Mama?" he smiled at the painting of his beautiful mother, violet blood dripping down across the bridge of her delicate nose, blending in with her purple smile, her eyes kind and warm, skin shimmering with silver. Fugaku growled, and the paint melted into black.

"Bleed," he commanded, and Itachi coughed, horrible, crude, sexual red splattering into the sink.

With a satisfied smile, Fugaku turned, walking away through the wall. A burning sensation made itself known in Itachi's throat as he gasped. He looked at the mirror, his mother's face now splattered with blood and a horrified look on her delicate features shocked him. He blinked, shaking his head and narrowing his eyes, practically feeling them spin in their sockets. "It's. Not. Real," he stated, staring until it melted away. He looked into the mirror, commanding, "Stop bleeding!"

Nothing.

The burning continued to go on and Itachi finally realized. He and Shisui had a slight BDSM relationship, naturally. He rushed back into his room he shared with his lover, shaking him awake.

"Nhn...heh...what, 'tachi...?"

"Look me dead in the eyes and command me to stop bleeding!"

"A...are you high?" Shisui snorted slightly in laughter, rubbing his eye.

"Do it! Please, master!"

Shisui was shocked at the use of such a word, but looked his Itamichi in the eye, muttering, "Stop bleeding."

"Mean it!"

"Stop...bleeding?"

"Shisui!"

Shisui suddenly felt his eyes burn, sitting up. "Stop bleeding, Itachi."

The burning feeling alleviated, Itachi grasped his throat in relief, panting thank you's as he hugged Shisui tightly. Shisui only returned the hug, confused and dazed with sleep, falling back into it as Itachi laid him down, going to clean up the sink, confident against Fugaku's abilities now that he knew his failproof fallback. Of course it would be Shisui to save his life yet again. Eternally grateful, Itachi mumbled a quiet "Thank you," as he cleaned away the blood. About to return to his room, he felt the wind again, saying aloud, "You can't hurt me." It was carried away, only to have a hand grip Itachi's elbow suddenly. He turned with a gasp to see Madara, a slash wound on his cheek marring his bloodless skin, a terrified look in his eyes.

"Itachi," he said carefully, "Tell me what happened to Fugaku and Mikoto."

-o-

"Good God..." Madara rubbed his temples soothingly. "And Mikoto-"

"I never meant to do it."

"You were a bit hystarical..."

Itachi nodded silently. "I couldn't...rationalize..."

"People with your disease-"

"Disease?"

"Well, you were diagnosed with-"

"Who gives a fuck what I was diagnosed with? Diagnosis is often times wrong. Sasuke was 'Diagnosed' with manic-depression. He's a perfectly normal child. There's no need for him to take medicine, especially at his age."

"Some need it."

"He doesn't. I don't."

"Itachi, please, be rational. You just said you do tend to get hystarical-"

"No. I was seven years old when Father had me on Ritalin. That's where it started. It just escalated from there. Soon, I took medicine to couteract the effects of other medicines. Madara, none of that is right. I am perfectly fine. Normal. Sane."

"You killed your parents."

"I had every reason to," Itachi stated simply.

"Even your mother?"

"She wanted to die."

"...I...Itachi."

"No. Haven't you seen her wrists? If her body was whole, I would dig it up and show it to you. But Mama always wanted to be cremated," a dark flash of remorse and adoration flashed in Itachi's eyes as he swallowed. "I saw the scars. The pills she swallowed. The sadness and darkness even behind her brilliant smile. I think I knew her better than you, Uncle Madara, since you decided to go absentee on your family."

"You knew where to find me."

"Ever since Hashirama broke your heart you distanced yourself from us. We didn't want to find you because you were too far gone. This chance to return you to our lives seems to be dwindling, honestly. I killed him. And her. You wanna call me insane, lock me in an asylum, go ahead. But don't touch Sasuke. And don't touch Shisui."

A protective look made itself known in Itachi's eyes as he stared down at his great uncle. Madara only sighed. "Itachi, I wouldn't dream of turning you in for anything. If anything, I do understand. But you understand that when you were medicated, you could think rationally? You were always calm, never as wild as you are now."

"Wild! Fuck you! I was a fucking zombie! That deadness I felt? All medicine-induced. Do you think I wanted to be put on 800 milligrams so I couldn't smile? Sure, I was what everyone else wanted, but what about me? I didn't want that anymore. I don't want it! I want to be me. I want to have a personality, and not just be considered the perfect little Uchiha heir. I want to be Itachi! Not Uchiha Itachi! I want to feel impassioned and angry and upset and happy and loving and hateful and spiteful and sad! Not a monotonous plane of grey. I want to see colors beyond the visible spectrum. I wanna live. I want to live."

Madara watched as Itachi stalked off to bed. He blinked slowly, taking in everything Itachi had said tediously, remembering every word. "Monotonous...?"

-o-

A Celexa in hand, Madara sat perched on the bed, remembering Itachi's words. He placed the pill back in the bottle and relaxed into the pillows, pulling the covers over his head.

"Hashirama...what the Hell am I doing?" he whispered helplessly as he missed his first dosage in twenty-five years.

-o-

Each little pluck drew out another strand of the suture as Madara undid the stitches to Sasuke's healed arm. The scar was nasty, but not as bad as it could have been. Madara smiled at the clean line, disposing of the suture and turning to Sasuke. "It's fine now. It shouldn't hurt. If it does, just take half of one of the capsules, okay?"

Sasuke nodded, hugging his relative gratefully. "I thought I was gonna lose my arm!"

Madara laughed. "I wouldn't let that happen."

"Do you really have to leave tomorrow?" Sasuke asked sadly.

"Yes. Unfortunatly, Akaboshi won't make it much longer unless I get home. That cat is lonlier than I am, I swear."

Sasuke smiled slightly.

"However, I would love to have you up at the estate sometime. You'd love it, Sasuke. A huge lake, lots of land. Much better than this depressing place you call home," Madara teased, glancing up at Itachi, who only rolled his eyes with a barely-concealed smirk.

"It's not depressing. Depressing things have medicine. Home is perfect, 'cause 'tachi-nii and Shisui-nii are here. It isn't depressing."

Madara smiled calmly. "There really is no place like home, is there?"

Sasuke shook his head.

-o-

Madara leaned against the wall outside, smoking a cigarette langorously, not liking the occasional habit he had taken up but tolerating it, smoking less than a pack a week as he saw no need to. He noticed, however, his youngest nephew sitting at the crooked Bonzai-like tree in the front yard with a book of kana tables in his lap, squinting at the rough bark curiously. Madara ventured over, kneeling beside Sasuke as he pointed and searched.

"You won't figure out what it means that way," he stated simply.

"What's it mean, Uncle Madara?" Sasuke looked up to the long-haired doctor as he blew smoke from his mouth.

"It says 'Hashirama and Madara.' That means forever."

"Oh! It's Kanji right there, and then that's-wait! Your name?"

Madara only nodded and Sasuke couldn't help himself. "Why?"

"Hashirama was my husband for twenty years."

Sasuke gaped. "That's, like, forever! What happened?"

"He broke my fuckin' heart, Sasuke," Madara stated through a haze of smoke. "Left me. For some redhead with an ugly hairstyle and tradition carved in her wretched face. Said he wanted kids. I did too, but he didn't want a surrogate. Adoption, either. Went and died some odd years later," Madara flicked his ashes into the lawn, glancing back to the tree coldly.

"But..." Sasuke silently counted on his fingers. "You have to be at least fourty, then, Uncle Madara!"

Madara conceded with a nod, a distant look in his obsidian eyes. "Do you still love him?"

Pulling the cigarette away from his mouth, he blew smoke silently. After a while he said quietly, "Yes."

"..." Sasuke looked up at Madara with Honesty. "How old are you, Uncle Madara?"

"...Old as dirt," he mumbled, aloof.

-o-

"What happened to you and Uncle Hashirama, Uncle Madara?"

Madara paused slightly, a bitter taste in his mouth. He looked down to Sasuke, who's head lay in his lap as he curled up in a fleece blanket as he gazed up at him with raw curiosity burning in the shining black irises of his youngest nephew.

Shisui looked over his shoulder from the recliner near the fire, Itachi pausing in his reading as he glanced up, curled up neatly in the armchair close to the mantle.

"After we got married, we moved here. We lived here for all twenty years of our lives together. When she was thirteen, your mother came to live with us because her father had died and her mother went a bit crazy. She went to the asylum and Mikoto came to live with us. It made Hashirama want a child of his own. I claimed that Mikoto was our child now, but he got a bit selfish. He left with Mito, or whatever the fuck her name was," Sasuke noted the spite in his voice as he flicked ashes into the tray on the side table, "And as soon as Mikoto was engaged to Fugaku, I gave them the house as a marriage gift. I walked her down the isle, saw her a few more times after you and Itachi were born, and that was it."

"Do you regret not being able to carry children, Madara?" Shisui asked curiously.

"All the time. I think things would have been so much different if I was female. But it doesn't matter. Life isn't for regrets. You only live once."

"In your case, you practically live forever, so you have all the room for mistakes that you want, Madara," Itachi pointed out smartly, drawing a few laughs around the room as Ichabod hopped up beside Madara, nudging his hand for attention.

"True. Very true. That's why I guess I never let it go."

After a few minutes of relaxing silence, Sasuke spoke up. "Uncle Madara, you don't even look thirty. How old are you?"

Uncle Madara gave him a curious glance, blinking slowly. "Old."

-o-

Dropping the small pill back into the bottle, Madara relaxed comfortably into the matress, almost surprised at the small smile he drifted away with as the naturality of sleep washed over him, his head clear and his chest light for the first time in fourty-five years.

-o-

A full bottle in his suitcase, Madara noted on the train ride home that the grass was so much greener, for once, on his side as he smiled langorously, watching the countryside roll by, broken promises stored away beneath that tree that he was leaving behind for a second time, this time with no regrets.

-o-

A/N: Let me just say real quick that I have no qualms against anyone who does take prescription drugs for any sort of thing. Been there, done that. When I was twelve I was diagnosed with childhood schizophrenia, insomnia, and bipolar disorder, and subsequently put on Geodon. Shortly after, I got tired of my mom watching me like a hawk every time I had to take my medicine, tired of waking up and not being able to open my eyes from the drowsiness that it caused (Which made my mother yell at me to "wake up" in the morning on the way to school. BTW, your fault "MOMMY"), tired of the feelings of a flat plane of absolute grey, absolute nothingness when I desired, more than anything, to reach a distant color that I wasn't allowed to reach.

I began to skip dosages and feel so happy, airy and light and utterly weightless, like the "highs" of manic-depression multiplied, feel as if I was loved and cared for and began to disregard what everyone in the world thought of me and become my own person.

One day, I simply declared to my mother that I was not going to take Geodon anymore. That I didn't need it. That I was a person, not a statistic and not a goldmine for a corrupted medical field that I had once desired to be a part of. Now I'm an aspiring artist (Disregard the crap that I make on Deviantart, I can do a lot better, I swear.), singer, video game designer, and author. Of course, I may just choose the first and last two and begin a manga on the side, but I don't know yet what I'll do. The possibilities are endless when you aren't weight down by chemicals telling you you aren't alright.

You don't need medicine for "Mental issues", people. You need willpower and strength, backed with a few good friends, an outlet, and a desire to succeed. Trust me, most of the time, you're better off without it.

Love you all~

From Guardian, who is now over four years off of those horrible chemicals~

Grasp your freedom, all I'm saying.