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There are places Madara doesn’t like to visit, and the foremost of these are Natsume’s dreams.
Natsume’s nightmares are always shadows of the past, ones that have to creep into his nights because love and friends have slowly driven them away from Natsume’s days. There are some evenings when Natsume dreams of nothing, and Madara is undisturbed. But there are others, nights that follow days that have been triggered by some careless comment or particularly vengeful youkai, and those are the ones where Madara lives the life of someone else.
Natsume doesn’t dream like normal children, who see monsters with painted faces and evils with booming voices. Natsume barely dreams in colour or sound at all, lost deep within the soul of moments instead of merely being forced into recreating them. A scattered kaleidoscope of hurts and isolation make up the inside of Natsume’s sleep, casting shades of grey into already dark corners.
When Madara is sucked in, it is never as an invited guest into Natsume’s private, closed off world. Madara is simply another invasion, surely destructive and far too powerful to mean anything positive. Natsume’s mind rebels instantly against his presence, trying to fight him off as anti-bodies do a foreign threat.
But Natsume consists of so much more than the words that others have tried to carve him from. Unnatural child. Stupid child. Insane and dangerous child. They all have their own power (toxic and corrupt), but so does Natsume. When Madara comes, a vice-like grip that would surely destroy weaker youkai latches onto him warmth. Desperation and need can be just as potent as fear and pain.
And so, Madara stays.
He doesn’t experience Natsume’s dreams in in the linear fashion Natsume does, instead catching fragments that are out of order and chaotic, but which all come hued with the same, quiet hurt. Time is different here, all squished and mountainous. With each blink of his eyes, the Natsume in this shiny, strange landscape changes, one minute a 13 year old school boy with downcast eyes-
A so small Natsume, clad in tattered pyjamas and his hair too long. A tired piece of rope ties his wrist to the broken radiator, and he sits there silently for hours. Dull eyes no longer see the youkai that float across the windowsill, they barely see anything at all. He has been a very bad boy -
There is a long, white corridor peppered with demonically cheerful pictures. Clowns and balloons, flowers and sunsets. Happy, smiley faces with plastic expressions. There are other children here, all with the same glazed eyes and haunted by their own ghosts. The adults wear white coats and stern little smiles, and they hand Natsume a handful of pills that bring a different kind of demons to those he is used to -
Black drips of life lived out in the past tense drip from the branches, clumping in Natsume’s hair and streaking down his face. Wide eyes look on as horror as the thing - ghostly frail and screeching in silent, unholy pain – evaporates suddenly, long teeth that spark silver in the moonlight slicing through the thin, once-upon-a-time neck. Natsume tumbles backwards, shaking his head numbly as he scrambles on his hands and knees, the stench of death and assassination clinging to his clothes, his clothes and his clothes and his clothes and everything else-
The hard, echoing sound of a slap, and Natsume – barely 7 – drops his head in apologetic shame. His shoulders shake, traitorous and exposed, and he can’t make them stop. There are day-old bruises on his arms to match the new, glowing mark across his cheek. If he doesn’t stay still, if he doesn’t do as he is told, then there are only going to be more. A drunken insult is hurled at him, and Natsume shrinks deeper into himself, tries to stop existing altogether -
“Please!“ the cry tears from Natsume’s lips, his mouth twisted and contorted. Panicked eyes fly open, hands clawing into the thick bedding and Natsume’s heavy, uneven breaths flooding the room. Natsume tosses violently, his legs kicking outwards and his elbows locking, hard.
Madara snorts loudly, ducking in under the edge of the blankets and padding lazily up onto Natsume’s chest. It’s warm there, although Natsume’s heart is beating too erratically and Madara is almost thrown off when Natsume briefly lashes outwards.
Nyanko, Nyanko-sensei?” Natsume murmurs quietly once he registers the foreign weight, his throat chocked up with ghosts and demons.
“It’s too cold, and you’re hogging all the blankets,” Madara mutters back, agitated and rude.
Trembling fingers sink down into his fur, clutching a little too tight. Madara can feel the vibrations right through to his bones. Even awake, Natsume’s dreams linger in the air.
Madara wishes they were as easy to dispose of as the ones that come after the Book of Friends. Those youkai he can chase away with sharp claws and sheer strength.
These demons feed off of Natsume’s strengths as well as weaknesses, twisting them into something rotten and decayed. Any bright light Natsume casts only gives the shadows more depth.
Still, Madara hasn’t gotten to where he is through relying on such uncreative tactics as violence alone. There are other ways to beat nightmares, even if those ways move slower than a glacier.
“I said I was cold,” Madara says meaningfully, pawing downwards expectantly. Like a father extending his finger to a new-born, there is really only one, automated response.
Natsume pulls him in closer against his chest, his gaze blankly on the ceiling above. Sleep is still a long way off, however his breathing evens into something less jagged. Madara bites back the last of his pride, and does something ridiculously, embarrassingly cat-like.
He purrs.
The sound vibrates down through Natsume’s chest, and cloudy eyes drop to him in surprise. Something closer to warmth slips into them, and Natsume loses that unnatural sense of emptiness that only the vaguest of youkai possess.
The glacier retreats an inch.
Madara pretends not to see the tears.