Author's note: Here I am, posting my very first Naruto story from my phone. Why? Because when I sent this thing to my Beta RLnera for correction she called me in a panic asking me what sort of state of mid I had to be in to write this, if I was okay and if I needed to talk to someone.
So if there are any mistakes I missed I'm sorry, it'll get better once I calm my Beta down.
WARNINGS: PTSP,, underage sex( not graphic but heavily insinuated) survivor's guilt, and mind fuckery but in an attempt to help. If any of this bothers you like my Beta better turn around now.
The first time Kakashi had seen the cracks in his students they were but Genin with big eyes and even bigger dreams. He thought he had them figured out in the first ten minutes:
Naruto was so starved of love and attention that he would resort to any means of getting either. His smiles and his laughs and his blaringly orange clothes screamed for the latter and belayed the boy's hopes of getting the former in any capacity.
Sasuke was broken and traumatized by the death of his clan and was desperately trying to fix the hole in his chest Itachi had left him with, thinking that if he killed his brother, the cause of the wound, it would finally stop hurting.
Sakura was a girl so insecure in herself that she wanted Sasuke merely because she would then have confirmation that she wasn't lacking in what she was always told was a woman's most important attribute.
He would have never guessed that it would be this fractured team of a Jinchuriki, an Uchiha and a fan girl that would pass his test.
And yet they did.
He was still dubious of their success, and had even been willing to pass it off as Sasuke figuring out what the whole point of the test was and giving Naruto his lunch simply because he didn't want to go back to the academy. But when, during their first C rank mission, he had risked his life to protect his teammate from Haku's needles, Kakashi's doubts disappeared in a puff of smoke.
There was hope for them yet.
But Kakashi had realized he had spoken too soon at the Chuunin exams. No, it was when he had tried to counter Sasuke's cursed seal and Orochimaru said he didn't need to go after Sasuke, because the boy would come to him on his own. He had underestimated just how far Sasuke was willing to go for his revenge, how large that wound in his chest was.
On that outcropping, training Sasuke into the ground for his final match against Gaara, Kakashi finally confronted him.
"Why do you seek power Sasuke?" He had asked quietly, when he finally allowed his student to sit down and catch his breath.
"So I could kill that man." Came a prompt reply. "For revenge."
"And why do you believe you will stop hurting if you avenge them?"
That had startled the boy. Usually people assumed it was to avenge his clan's honor, that he was doing it for them. No one had ever insinuated that he was simply being selfish. That he was doing just so he could find some semblance of peace for himself.
But what startled Sasuke was that his mentor was right.
His startled silence lasted long enough for Kakashi to get up and sit next to him. "You feel like they left a hole in your chest when they left, and it hurts, hurts so much you can just feel yourself going mad and if killing Itachi would make that pain stop then you think that whatever sacrifice you have to make to kill him is worth it."
"Stop it…!" Sasuke choked out.
"After all, you have lost everything you ever held dear right before your eyes. At this point giving up even your own body for that cause doesn't seem like such a high price, does it?"
"Shut up!" Now he stood on his shaking, tired legs, Sharingan spinning in his eyes.
"But what happens when you have had your revenge? What will you have left then, if you bartered everything worth having for the sake of power you will no longer have any use for?"
"SHUT UP!" The punch he threw at Kakashi was laced with sparks, but with his chakra so drained his mentor could barely feel any electricity as he caught the boy's fist in his own, then pulled so Sasuke's momentum sent him flying onto his lap and pinned his arms at his sides.
It took Sasuke full two seconds to realize he had been rendered immobile.
"Just because I'm saying exactly what you don't want to hear doesn't mean you shouldn't hear it." Kakashi said with such infuriating calm in his voice Sasuke doubled his struggles to get free. But his exhausted child body was no match for his mentor's adult one. "But it doesn't hurt all the time, does it?"
The struggles faltered. Kakashi continued.
"Perhaps you have felt it at Ichiraku's ramen, when Naruto is being obnoxiously competitive and Sakura is offering you her tomatoes? Or perhaps in battle, when you feel secure that you have someone to watch your back, and yet all the more determined to defeat your foe so they would no longer be in danger?"
The struggling stopped. Kakashi almost smiled. It seemed he had gotten somewhere after all.
"Take it from someone who knows a thing or two about revenge and loss." Kakashi softened his voice, more hugging Sasuke now than detaining him. "It will not abate the pain. It will only leave you hollow, wondering if there is any point left to your life now that your only reason for living is gone, and you will have nothing to go back to if you sacrifice your friends and anyone you may come to care about in the future on the altar of vengeance."
Sasuke's form slumped and his shoulders started shaking almost imperceptively. Almost. "No, I have to! Itachi- He said…" Then his struggling returned twofold. "You're lying! There is no forgiveness for the likes of me! An avenger doesn't need friend because all he has is himself and his power!"
Kakashi was so taken aback that Sasuke actually managed to squirm free for a second. But Kakashi caught him around the waist and spun him around to face him. He noticed that the boy's eyes were misty but not tearful.
"Is that truly how far his brainwashing went?" Kakashi murmured. "Is that what he told you that night?"
Sasuke tried to punch him again. Kakashi leaned to the side to avoid it then once again pinned Sasuke's arms at his sides. "It is, isn't it? You believe that there is nothing and nobody but yourself that could help you and that any little crack in that armor you built around yourself would simply be another way for your heart to get broken."
"No!" Sasuke screamed at his face. "It's my responsibility! Nobody helps those who cannot help themselves! I'm the only one left."
And Kakashi understood. He had seen such mindset before, in men trice Sasuke's age, and unfortunately he had gone drinking with those men, asked them how could they could live with the survivor's guilt like that, and the Uchiha might be too young for the answer. Nevertheless, with the threat of Orochimaru hanging over his head Kakashi was willing to risk it. If he was wrong he would probably push Sasuke to seek out Orochimaru sooner, in the process adding himself to the list of people he wanted dead. But if he was right…
"Such burden to bear… Wouldn't you like me to take it off your shoulders for a while?" Slowly, deliberately, not taking his eyes off Sasuke's face, Kakashi lowered his hands to Sasuke's hips and dug his thumbs in his hipbones. The boy's eyes widened and Kakashi could almost hear his heart speed up. But he didn't pull away.
Knowing he was right, but still with a heavy heart, Kakashi lowered Sasuke's hitai-ate over his eyes.
Kakashi hadn't so much as taken his gloves off the entire time, but he stripped Sasuke of every last stitch of clothing, except for his makeshift blindfold. His hands had fisted in the front of Kakashi's uniform and didn't let go the entire time. When his mentor's skilled hands brought him to completion he screamed for nobody to hear and buried his face in Kakashi's shoulder, panting wildly. Spent but taunt as a wire, Sasuke shuddered on the Jounin's lap as big and comforting hands stroked along his back, and he was quietly shushed into some semblance of calm.
Kakashi dressed him wordlessly, batting away Sasuke's hands when he tried to do it himself. Even when he could no longer feel Kakashi's hands on him Sasuke made no move to remove the Hitai-ate from obscuring his vision. Kakashi untied it himself, almost surprised to find Sasuke's eyes dry.
"No one will know." Kakashi's words, spoken bluntly, managed to ease the last of the tension in Sasuke's shoulders.
They went to the arena, where Sasuke was to face Gaara, without a single word spoken.
Kakashi knew it wasn't enough, but the seed had been planted. But it was given barely two days to grow its roots before Itachi came to Konoha. Then Itachi managed to beat them both into a coma, and that was not even taking into account how much damage his words and the fact that he had come looking for Naruto had done to Sasuke.
And a week later, after Naruto had used his unpredictability skills to drag Tsunade from her drinking and gambling ways back to Konoha to heal his friend (and to become Hokage, but Naruto's priorities were stacked rather differently), Sasuke woke to Sakura hugging him and Naruto telling him what and idiot he was and that he wasn't allowed to die before the blond had beaten him at the peak of his strength.
Sasuke looked at them, truly looked at them perhaps for the first time, and remembered Kakashi's words. But they were overshadowed by the feelings of inferiority. Sasuke had spent his entire life feeling inferior to Itachi, and now that Jiraya had fixed Naruto's seal the blond was improving at a far faster rate than him.
He needed to prove, at least to himself, that he wasn't inferior.
He was so blindsided by that need that he and Naruto had almost killed Sakura right on the roof of the hospital. Had Kakashi not thrown them at the water tanks she wouldn't have survived.
He had gone to sulk on the branch of a nearby tree when he was suddenly wrapped in wires. He had struggled, both against his bindings and the memories of a similar occurrence.
"Past experience suggests you aren't exactly the type to listen quietly while I preach, and I can't have you running away now can I?" Kakashi admonished mildly. Sasuke just glared venomously at him.
"Sasuke," The scarecrow knelt in front of his prey and looked him long and hard in the eye, "remember what I told you back then?" Sasuke didn't answer but the look in his eyes confirmed it. He exploded.
"Don't preach to me about loss! How would you feel if I were to kill everyone you love?" Kakashi was quiet. Sasuke, thinking it was because he had struck a nerve, continued. "How far would you stray from your preachings then?"
"That would work, I admit. However, I don't have any people I love." Sasuke glared at him with absolute hatred. Kakashi elaborated. "Because they have all been killed already."
Sasuke fell quiet.
"I've lived in a long and hard era, and I understand the pain of loss just as well as you do." He took hold of the boy's chin and lifted his face to look him in the eye again. "But while we aren't lucky by any stretch of the imagination, we aren't the worst ones off. After all, we have both found people to care for again, have we not?"
Sakura's and Naruto's faces flashed before Sasuke's eyes. From that hospital bed, how Sakura's eyes shone with blatant worry and relief that he had woken and Naruto's badly hidden attempts to hide his own relief.
The wires fell away. Kakashi held out his hand. "Has the weight on your shoulders become too much again?"
Sasuke started and looked hesitantly at Kakashi's hand. The older man made no move to pressure him to take the offer, just patiently held it out, waiting for the Genin to choose.
Sasuke took it. Kakashi pulled him up and whisked him away to his apartment before Orochimaru's lackeys could snap him up.
They never got the chance.
AN: Righty-O, any questions? This story will have four chapters, which will come sooner or later depending on how busy I am.