Date: January 13, 2010

Pairing: Kakashi/Sasuke

Kakashi plays favorites. Team 7 was not now, nor had it ever been, an equal opportunity employer, and nobody of reasonable intelligence would try to tell you it was.

He thinks Sasuke reminded him of himself, at least a little. They all know far too much about death for children, but all in different ways. Naruto knows death like loneliness; the child of dead parents would better than anyone. Sakura, well, she knows death as something that's always there in front of her, but has never hit her quite so hard. And Sasuke knows death in the worst possible way; the way where you get to see everything great the world has to offer, only to have it all ripped away. (Boy, does Kakashi know the feeling.)

The sympathy may have become more than sympathy. Kakashi has never played fair; he plays to win, and he certainly won't go down without a fight. Without someone to love, you've got nothing, and Kakashi won't die alone.