Title: No Llores
Author:creepycrawly
Fandom/Pairing: Naruto; SasuNejiSasu
Rating: Um...PG-13?
Disclaimer/Notes/Whatever: Naruto and all related characters are property of Kishimoto-sensei.
Summary: The last of Konoha's great clans is finally falling, and it's bringing the last of her geniuses with it. All that's left is a whisper-turned-cold.

Kakashi has always hated visiting the Uchiha clan house. Even when the family was still alive, it was oddly silent. It seems to him that sound was afraid to set foot upon the holy ground of sight. Kurenai agrees with this opinion. According to her, the Hyuuga clan house is exactly the same—silent, strange, and unfriendly. Neither of them has asked Gai what he thinks, but Kakashi heard Sakura telling Ino that Tenten had said that the Hyuuga clan house is eerily quiet, especially when Neji is there.

The Uchiha clan house is twice as silent today. Kakashi only stops there for a moment, checking to prove that his assumptions are correct. Then he continues on down the street, past the other clan territories. The Inuzuka home is oddly subdued, with the whining of broken-hearted dogs occasionally audible. The walkway in front of the Aburame territory is full of bugs, all trekking in to find out why the world feels so disturbed. It bothers Kakashi a little, but he ignores it and keeps walking.

At the gate of the Hyuuga clan lands, a young man bows and starts to hand him a mask. Then, seeing the mask on the man's face, he hesitates. Kakashi nods and walks on, leaving the boy staring after him. There are very few people who willingly walk onto the Hyuuga land these days, after all.

Kurenai sees him from a window, and by the time Kakashi reaches the door, she's got it open. She smiles under the mask, tears still brimming in her eyes. Kakashi squeezes her hand gently, and she points down the hallway.

"He's down there. Room three-nine."

He nods and walks slowly to the room, making sure that he lets his sandals slap on the floor, his kunai clink against one another, the fabric of his pants' legs brush against one another. It would not do to startle these two particular ninja. All shinobi are high-strung and often attack first and ask questions later, but these two put most nin to shame in the startle-response arena.

The dark-haired boy on the floor looks up as Kakashi enters the room. He nods to his teacher before turning back to the other, one pale hand sweeping easily along sweaty, pale skin. Kakashi takes his acceptance for what it is and enters the room, sitting next to the boy.

"You're not wearing a mask, Sasuke-kun," he says lightly. "That's dangerous."

Sasuke turns back to him for a moment, hand still on the other's chest. Then, silent, he turns back around and his hands resume their motion. "It's pointless," he murmurs, so quietly Kakashi almost misses it. "It won't do any good anymore."

"You mean…" Kakashi lets the question ask itself, praying inwardly that he is wrong.

But Sasuke nods. "Yes."

"How long?" Kakashi asks.

"I just got confirmation yesterday. According to Hanabi, though, I've most likely had it for over a week."

"The outlook?" he asks. He fears the answer, but he knows he must get it.

Sasuke merely shakes his head, never meeting Kakashi's eye.

"I—I see," Kakashi whispers, shifting slightly. He's nervous. He wants to do something to cover up those awful, awful sounds in the background. The Hyuuga clan house isn't quiet today, not by a long shot.

Sasuke keeps gently stroking the long hair, caressing the pale face.

In the background, the rough sound of saws on wood can be heard. Every once in a while, a dog can be heard, barking softly. Kakashi almost wishes they'd be louder. Then, maybe, the sound of their barking could drown out the sound of hammers; steadily pounding as if though they are taking up the rhythms of the hearts.

Sasuke's almost perfectly still, and Kakashi wonders how he can be this calm. Somewhere out there, some member of the Inuzuka clan is building his fiancé's coffin. Somewhere out there is a pine box, measured and trimmed to meet those perfect measurements, taken earlier in the week. He wonders how he can be this calm when he can hear the sounds of the entire clan preparing for his fiancé's death.

The Hyuuga have stopped pretending that they will survive this. They stopped pretending the day Hyuuga Yuuni (beautiful, beautiful Yuuni) finally died. Kakashi was one of the ones who helped to cremate the woman, as was her final wish. She'd been beautiful when they were younger, and she'd stayed beautiful for the first month of her illness. Then her husband had caught it, and Yuuni had given up. The following month had sapped her strength, her life, and her beauty from her.

She wasn't the last, either. The beauty that is a characteristic of anyone related to the Hyuuga is being sapped away, slowly and painfully.

The disease crept in, quiet and devious as any nin. Before anyone knew it, half the clan was infected.

Then the symptoms started showing. Coughing, wheezing, difficulty breathing. Reduced appetite, increased metabolism. Lack of clotting when wounded, watery blood, racing heart. Rising temperatures, rapidly falling temperatures. Massive headaches. Temporary deafness. Spontaneous bruising. Respiratory seizure. Rupturing of blood vessels, particularly in the eyes (no one knows if that's common, or if it's just because the Hyuuga are a group of doujutsu users). Temporary blindness. Exhaustion. Fits of unconsciousness. Seizures. Coma. Death.

The disease doesn't always run the same course. It depends on the strength, age, and gender of its victim, as well as other factors. Still, after someone stops clotting properly after being injured, there is little hope for his or her survival. After he or she goes deaf for the first time, measurements are taken for his or her coffin. No one who reaches that stage survives. And the coma that precedes death is always preceded by a huge grand mal seizure.

Kakashi can remember that hellish day Sasuke first came to grips with the fact that his fiancé wasn't going to survive. It involved much crying into the man's shoulder that night, and Kakashi has sworn never to tell anyone that even perfect-warrior Sasuke needs a break occasionally.

That memory is eclipsed by the day they received word that the worst had happened. After hearing that his fiancé—his beautiful, beautiful fiancé—had collapsed in the middle of breakfast and had a seizure, Sasuke had collapsed. Kakashi can remember gathering up his twitching limbs and holding the shivering boy to him, whispering for him to breathe, to calm down.

He's not sure he'll be able to survive it when Sasuke collapses. He knows he shouldn't, but he finds himself liking Sasuke more than either Sakura or Naruto. The Uchiha is so much like he was at that age—angry, scared, and more than a little lonely. Too, he is as brilliant as Kakashi, and genius calls to genius. Maybe it's the Sharingan. Maybe it's the world-weariness. Maybe it's how jaded he's become. Maybe it's the brilliance, the strength, the sheer inability to give up. Whatever the reason, though, Kakashi finds himself favoring Sasuke over his other students.

"Are you okay, Sasuke?" he asks tentatively.

Sasuke looks up at him, blinking. "Yeah," he breathes. "Yeah, I'll be fine."

But he won't. Kakashi knows he won't. Sasuke has been on the edge of breaking all year. It's only gotten worse since he's started spending his days wiping sweaty hair off of his lover's delicate face. Kakashi can remember being called out of his warm bed at midnight three years ago when ANBU brought Sasuke in, kicking, struggling, and completely lost. As far as dramatic breaks go, Sasuke's a king.

Then again, he's always been a bit of a drama queen.

The jounin still has a hard time believing that his Sasuke—his beautiful genius Sasuke—is crazy. Then again, it's a good thing Tsunade believed him to be crazy, and managed to convince everyone else that he was crazy. Otherwise, Sasuke would most likely be dead right now. Traitors aren't looked upon kindly, but nin of revered clans who snap and lose themselves are regarded more kindly.

Still, even though it was finally decided that it wasn't true Sasuke who'd gone to Orochimaru, he got a permanent guard. Most of the time, Kakashi had served that purpose. Whenever he couldn't, however, said task was often taken by a Hyuuga—one of the few people capable of restraining an ex-S-class missing nin. It had minorly shocked Kakashi to see the Hyuuga risking their heir on Sasuke, but he eventually got used to it.

Still, if it has led to his student's happiness, he can't complain too much. Even if said happiness looks like it will be ending soon, leaving Sasuke all alone. He's already dreadfully pale, paler than normal. He's lost a lot of weight, and Kakashi wonders if it's because of the disease or because he just hasn't been eating. He's got these huge, dark circles under his eyes, too, and Kakashi thinks they make him look tragic and hopeful at the same time.

It's probably awful of him to be thinking of his student in these terms, but he cannot help it. Sasuke is gorgeous, stunningly so. He's pale as the new-fallen snow, and though he is much less innocent than such an analogy paints, he looks that pure right now. He's thin and rake-like, and oddly, it doesn't detract from his otherworldly beauty in the slightest. He looks like an exhausted boy waiting up for his ailing lover to wake and be okay; at the same time, he looks like an exhausted boy afraid to sleep lest his dying lover slip away while he's not there.

Sasuke looks like he's about to burst into tears. This makes Kakashi uncomfortable. He longs to look away, but he knows he can't. There is a tragic passion play winding to its conclusion in front of him, a work of art so breathtakingly gorgeous that it scares him. But to look away would hurt worse, he knows. To look away might mean missing the ending of a story that is as beautiful as it is painful. Even though he knows he probably does not want to know the conclusion of this story, he also knows he must watch.

He must watch every stuttering breath that his student draws catch in his throat, then escape carrying a wish and a prayer. He must watch every tear that slides down that long, elegant nose at midnight, a silent dream slowly escaping. He must watch the panic in those gorgeous eyes as his gorgeous student is dragged away from the one person he loves more than life itself. Someday, he knows, he will have to watch all those stuttering breaths dissolve into hiccoughing sobs, when those single tears that fall at midnight will fall all night, and all day, too, when the panic is slowly exchanged for horror, disbelief, shock, acceptance, anger and an undeniable grief.

He's afraid that someday he'll have to keep this death watch, calloused hands sweeping over a smooth, pale brow. Someday, he fears, he will be whispering soft words to ears that cannot hear them, murmuring prayers of healing and entreaties to get better. He's afraid that someday, someday all too soon, he will be here praying for a miracle that will not occur, a miracle he does not believe in, a miracle that he wants more than anything else.

There's a small scream from the bed, and Kakashi is yanked roughly out of his contemplations. Sasuke is sitting hunched over the futon, hands on either side of that pale face. His own face shows terrible, dreadful excitement and hope, but there's a hint of fear and reluctance.

"Sasuke?" he asks quietly, wondering what his student is up to now.

"Awake," the boy babbles, never lifting his eyes from the pale face. "He's awake, Kakashi. He opened his eyes; he's awake."

Kakashi stands up, immediately making his way closer to the room's other two occupants. One of Sasuke's hands now drifts to an equally pale, fine-boned hand and gently catches the long fingers with his own. He squeezes it gently, watching that beautiful face expectantly.

"Sasuke, are you sure—" Kakashi begins, preparing to ask his student if he maybe dreamt it. He wouldn't be the first of the vigil-keepers to have gone so long without sleep that they begin to see things that never happened, their dreams creeping into the painful plane of reality.

"I'm sure I didn't imagine it!" Sasuke says roughly, caressing that delicate face. "Come on, Liebchen," he whispers. "Wake up, querido."

Kakashi can feel his heart squeezing painfully in his chest. Gorgeous Sasuke—brilliant Sasuke! By age twelve, the boy was already fluently speaking five languages. By the time he came back from his dissociative state, his body knew how to speak twelve more. It had been a short step between discovering that his guard was also an avid lover of languages and making said guard a physical lover, too, in Sasuke's mind. It had followed a logical progression, and soon the two had been emotional lovers as well.

Not long after that, Konoha had been surrounded by whispered words of love between a couple no one could actively name or place, always whispered in a language foreign to the village.

Looking back, Kakashi can tell why Tsunade chose to place those two together. Genius calls to genius, after all, and lovers of languages seem to make very passionate lovers of each other. The jounin can't even begin to count the number of times he has seen either one of them blush after a whispered comment by the other, a delicate language sliding like silk or a harsher one caressing like the hands of a nin.

"Open your eyes, please, meli," Sasuke begs. "Please, meli, bello mio, mon petite chou, open your eyes. Open them for me, mon beau."

And shock of all shocks, they do open. Slowly, almost painfully, the beautiful Hyuuga on the futon forces his eyes open, a small smile creeping across his face.

"Bello mio!" Sasuke gasps, squeezing his hand. "Oh, mon dieu, meli!" Gently, he leans in and kisses the man's soft cheek, being sure not to disturb the canula.

"Sa-sssuke?" the man breathes weakly. "Baby doll?"

"It's me, sweetheart, it's me," Sasuke says excitedly, squeezing his hand. "Oh, Liebchen! I've been so scared…so, so, so, so scared."

"Sssorry," he breathes, hissing slightly on the 's'.

"Oh, not your fault, love, never your fault," Sasuke murmurs, pushing the apology aside. "Te amo, sweet one. Aishiteru. Ich liebe dich, baby, ich liebe dich. Je t'aime." He punctuates each phrase with a delicate kiss pressed to sweaty skin, excitement shining in his eyes.

"Love you, too," comes the whispered answer.

Kakashi blushes as he begins to stand, feeling like an invader in this touching reunion. Besides, someone really should go find someone who knows what to do.

"I'm ssso tired," the man on the futon whispers.

"Then go to sleep, love," Sasuke answers. "Go to sleep, baby. I'll be here when you wake up, okay?"

For whatever reason, this sends a sharp shock down Kakashi's spine. He ignores it, shakes it off, and continues out into the hallway. He should probably tell someone that one of the ill just awoke from his coma.

He's about halfway down the stairway when two things happen at all once. First, he nearly walks headfirst into the Hokage's abundant cleavage. Secondly, there is a sharp, unbroken screaming coming from the room upstairs.

Whirling about on his heel, he races back up the stairs and up along the hallway. Behind him, he can hear Tsunade running, closely followed by someone else. In front of him, he can hear people opening doors, trying to find out what's going on.

He throws the door to the room open, only to find his worst fears come to light. Sasuke sits on the floor, legs tucked delicately to the side as he screams in one pure, unbroken note. He's still tightly clutching one pale, fine-boned hand in his own, the other stopped halfway through a caress to a soft cheek. Tears are streaming down his face, eyes wide and red in horror, mouth gaping open as he continues to scream.

They watch from the doorway, four of them, too captivated by the scene before them to do anything. It's as dreadful as Kakashi knew it would be, as beautiful as he feared it would be.

The sound emerging from Sasuke's throat begins to grow ragged, and the Uchiha falls forward across his fiancé's chest, now sobbing roughly in thick, harsh, broken sounds. Tsunade lifts a hand to her mouth, catching a cry before it can escape. Shizune's bangles jingle as she places a shaking hand on her friend's arm. Behind them, a soft wail escapes Hiashi.

"Beautiful—my beautiful—!" he gasps.

Sasuke looks up for a moment, pain glowing in his eyes as they instinctively seek out Kakashi. He tries uselessly to mouth something, finally giving up and collapsing in further sobs against his lover's body.

This breaks the four watchers out of their still tableau. Kakashi rushes forward, arms instantly enveloping his sobbing student as Tsunade turns to Shizune with a hushed order to bring the strong sedatives, and in mass amounts. Hiashi stumbles over to the futon, seizing the hand that Sasuke isn't clutching.

Still sobbing disconsolately against his fiancé's chest, Sasuke lets out a fresh wail as he feels Kakashi begin to draw him away. He screams out in an endless stream of words, all of them hooked together and interlaced until they say nothing at all except that he has been driven to the limits of his endurance and sanity.

Somehow, Kakashi fails to be surprised.

"No-please-no-he-can't-be-can't-can't-can't-be-no-no-no-no-no-please-please-wake-up-wake-up-I-love-you-don't-do-this-to-me-please-I'm-begging-you-don't-do-this-to-me-I-love-you-don't-leave-me-you-promised-me-you-promised-you'd-never-leave-you-promised-oh-please-oh-please-just-open-your-eyes-baby-just-open-your-eyes-I-love-you-so-much-just-wake-up-please-you-promised-you-wouldn't-leave-me-how-can-you-do-this-to-me-I-love-you-don't-go-don't-go-please-please—!"

"Shh, shh, shh," Kakashi coos, rocking him slightly as he wraps his arms around him. "Shh, shh, shh."

"Don't leave me," Sasuke sobs, tears pouring down his face. "Please, please, baby, don't leave me."

Gently, Kakashi presses Sasuke's body against his own, holding the boy's arms in such a way that Tsunade can get to him. He sees the brief flash of needle, and then Sasuke's screaming again, this time in shock from the sudden pain. Kakashi clings tightly as Sasuke thrashes briefly before collapsing against his body.

"No—no," he's still sobbing. "Please, no…"

Kakashi shoots a panicked look at Tsunade. She shrugs; he should be unconscious by now. To their left, Shizune is picking up an unconscious Hyuuga Hiashi, preparing to carry him out of the room. Maybe it's because Sasuke, like all ninja, has had training to be drug-resistant. Nevertheless, it would be stupid and dangerous to give him more now. They'll just have to wait for it to take effect. As little sleep as Sasuke has had in the last few weeks, and as little as he's eaten, and the shock on his system—all of these should help him be unconscious soon.

Kakashi's not one-hundred percent sure that it's the best idea to force Sasuke to sleep. After all, the boy generally responds well to these kind of situations, now that he's been going to therapy to help him actually feel his emotions. Of course, having his fiancé…one of the only two people he feels he can actually talk to—die so suddenly may have set him back a few steps.

As Sasuke's eyes start to fall shut in false sleep, a few last words escape him.

"Lo-love you, meli…"

Kakashi squeezes Sasuke's hand tightly, wishing comfort to him with the simple touch.

The teen looks up at him gratefully as they walk towards his apartment. In a language only the three of them truly ever understood (the two of them because they were gifted beyond belief, Kakashi because it's the language his mother spoke at home when he was young) he whispers what's led to this look on his face.

"The solicitor…he said that he changed his will about a week before the coma."

"What did it say?"

Sasuke smiles softly, bittersweetly. "No llores, mi querido."

Kakashi thinks for a moment. "Don't cry, my love?"

Sasuke nods, kicking at a stone in his path. "It's his last wish, and I'm not sure I can follow it."

"Unfortunately," Kakashi says wisely, "last wishes generally are the hardest to grant."

The bittersweet smile returns as Sasuke's eyes go back to the paper in his hands.

'I, Hyuuga Neji, being of sound body and mind on this September 6th, do hereby declare…'

Scrawled at the very bottom, beneath the solicitor's fine kanji, is a sample of Neji's surprisingly messy handwriting. The letters are not native to Konoha, and the sounds they make are strange to most people living there.

A mi Sasuke: te amo. No llores, mi querido.