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Steam curled around Itachi’s face in what he thought looked like little ANBU symbols. He relaxed with a heavy exhale, sliding down into the hot water of the bathtub, immersing his entire body for a moment. Tiny bubbles gurgled upward to the surface as he breathed the air out of his lungs once more and then emerged from the precious hot water, long black hair slicked back against his head. Thick lashes clung together with dripping water and he blinked, squeezing the water from his eyes.
He opened them and flinched with surprise at the small person who standing beside the bathtub, watching him curiously. “Otouto. What are you doing?” Itachi murmured as he wiped more of the water from his eyes and smiled a bit uneasily at his younger sibling.
It was a rhetorical question because he could see that Sasuke was shimmying off his clothes, which looked decidedly filthy. “Okasan said for me to get into the bath tub. She said she was going to spank me if I was disobedient...” Sasuke’s lips pursed in a fitful pout.
“Does she know I’m taking a bath?” Itachi’s words were laced with slight disbelief.
“I don’t think so.”
“Do you want to tell her?”
“No.”
Itachi studied his baby brother’s precious features. He was too cute for his own good and Itachi knew that he wouldn’t always be small like this. He watched him get undressed, having to stifle his laughter as Sasuke tugged on his sandal, with his little pink tongue poking out of his mouth in concentration.
“How did you get so dirty?” Itachi inquired as he rested his chin on the edge of the porcelain bathtub watching the small boy with interest.
“Fighting...” he answered curtly as he stripped himself of his underwear and the final article of clothing standing between him and complete nudity.
“Who were you fighting with?”
“Naruto...”
Itachi rolled his eyes as he helped Sasuke into the bathtub, trying his best to keep his gaze chaste but realizing that it was nearly impossible. So much perfect baby-soft skin... he had to force himself to look away. He knew it was wrong, but he loved everything about Sasuke. There was nothing about the younger Uchiha that didn’t captivate him. Nothing that wasn’t pleasing to him in some way.
Sasuke was finally safely submersed in the water, Itachi continued his line of questioning.
“You shouldn’t fight with him so much,” Itachi warned as he took the washcloth dripping with water and squeezed it over Sasuke’s head, enjoying how cute Sasuke looked as the water ran into his eyes and he blinked then opened them wide trying to see his brother’s expression.
“He’s very annoying,” was Sasuke’s answer.
“Diplomacy is an important skill,” Itachi continued, always the caring and concerned older brother.
Sasuke shook his head and slapped at the water playfully, which was quite out of character for the normally stoic young one. “He deserves to get beat up.”
Itachi laughed softly. “Someday you’ll think differently, otouto.”
Itachi soaped up his baby brother’s hair, scrubbing his scalp carefully and he couldn’t help but notice the little goosebumps that rose up on his flesh as he did so. “Does it feel good?” he asked casually.
Sasuke’s cheeks turned a deep shade of pink and Itachi couldn’t help but realize how completely adorable the young boy looked right then. “It feels...” Sasuke paused and Itachi continued to massage his brother’s head of hair, slowly pressing his thumbs in little circles behind Sasuke’s ears watching the way that Sasuke’s eyes slid closed, his mouth hanging open in what Itachi was almost certain was pure pleasure. “... better than good...”
Itachi smiled as he took his hands away, satisfied that he had helped his brother get his hair very clean and he began to prepare to rinse the soap from the short midnight locks.
Sasuke opened his eyes and watched Itachi for a long moment. “Nii-san? Can I ask you something? You have to promise you won’t tell Mother and Father...”
Itachi stopped what he was doing, his eyes flashed crimson for a moment and he steadied himself. Somehow he knew this wouldn’t be one of Sasuke’s usual questions about how jutsus were formed or who decided who the Hokage was. And he was right.
“Okay...” Sasuke hesitated. “The last two mornings when I woke up, my sheets were wet. And I was afraid I peed in the bed... at first...” Sasuke’s cheeks turned redder.
“At first?”
“Yes,” he turned his gaze downward and toyed with the water making little ripples with his fingers on the surface.
Itachi assumed he was going to have to drag it out of Sasuke, but he already had a pretty good indication of what his adorable baby brother was getting at.
“Are you trying to tell me that you had a wet dream, otouto?” Itachi asked him point blank.
The soapy head nodded and still ebony eyes refused to make eye contact with the elder sibling.
“...because if it is... well... it’s perfectly normal, Sasuke... it’s nothing to be ashamed of...”
The younger boy cleared his throat softly before looking right into Itachi’s eyes with a look of sheer mortification.
“What if my dream was about you?”
END