Not So Broken Anymore
Naruto didn't know what it felt like to have friends who were just as good as family growing up. He didn't even know what it felt like to have family. He didn't know what it felt like to grow up so close to people, spend so much time together, love each other, share everything. There were no brothers, no sisters, no mother or father in his life. No love or loved ones.
He also didn't know what it felt like to lose all that, to be the only one left to hold dear all those memories, to pay tribute to all that time.
But he did understand the loneliness. He understood the gut-wrenching pain that came with being the only one. With being completely alone. With having no one to lean on when things got so bad they tore you apart from the inside. When it just all hurt too much.
He understood how bad it felt going home to an empty building that wasn't a home at all, only ever cooking for one to the point you just couldn't cook anymore. He understood how it felt to miss all the things true loneliness took from you.
That he did understand.
.O.O.O.
Hatake Kakashi was known as a laid back, lazy, carefree porn-loving pervert. That was the mask he presented to the world, not that anyone realised it, because no one had bothered to try to see underneath the underneath for years. What he was was a soul wracked with guilt and regret over lost friends and a past of could have beens that never would.
Right now, he was sitting, slumped against a tree trunk, stretched along a branch lest someone see the great, porn reading perv Kakashi break. He had wandered, aimlessly for some time before coming to this tree, and was now quiet, head tilted towards the stars, seemingly for an answer he knew would never come, both eyes closed, mind lost between the past and the present and the questions that would probably never be answered.
.O.O.O.
Naruto didn't recall why he walked through the forest on a regular basis. He thought perhaps originally it was to get away from the villager's and their scornful wrath, but he could never be sure. He just knew he'd been doing so for years, as long as he could remember.
Tonight was the first time he'd detected another presence that wasn't an animal or and ANBU member (though, technically, with names like Usagi and Tora, they were animals).
Well, he heard them before he saw them. Scanning his surroundings, he discarded the thought of them being on the ground- from experience, he knew it to be useless when hiding, and, judging from the sounds this person was at least avoiding people. So, he looked up.
He may have been Konoha's number one unpredictable ninja, but what, nay, who he came across threw even him for a loop.
Hatake Kakashi, number one perv and HIS Jounin Sensei, Mister Cool himself was... was...
Crying.
Not the loud sobbing most people did when they were upset, hurt or grieving, but the quiet, painful gasps of someone trying to keep it all together. And failing.
So Naruto did what he was known for, and acted without thought.
He jumped up next to his sensei on the thick branch of the old, old tree and hugged him.
Fiercely.
.O.O.O.
Kakashi wasn't sure what had happened that day that made him so... unhinged? unstable? upset? Whatever you want to call it. But he was.
By all means, nothing extraordinary had happened- he'd trained with his team- after his standard lateness and lame excuse, lectured Naruto on being reckless, thoughtless and tactless and dealt with Mr. Broody and his psycho fan girl, also known as Sasuke and Sakura.
But, at day's end, going back to his apartment. His empty apartment, it just made him realise, seeing those photos on his desk, side by side.
It had been years since they'd all died. Obito, Rin, the Fourth. His team then, echoes of the past resonating in the future, his team now. Sasuke- the last loyal Uchiha and sworn avenger. Sakura- the female kunoichi- smart and strong. And Naruto- officially Konoha's Number One knuckle-headed, most unpredictable ninja, and King of Pranks himself. The container of Kyuubi.
So different, but the same.
Looking at those pictures, reminders of what was, could have been and is, he felt his mask, his perfect mask, slip.
And fall.
And finally, after so many years of pretending, for the first time.
Break.
Shatter.
And crumble.
.O.O.O.
When a pair of arms first wrapped themselves around the jounin in the tree, his first instinct was to flip said pair of arms (and their owner) onto the ground below and dispose of him. But his reactions and trained instincts were slowed by pain and despair, and his mind had its chance to analyse them.
Thankfully, he knew the owner of these arms, and didn't attack. It didn't mean he wasn't surprised though.
"N- Naruto?" Damnit, he stuttered. He was supposed to be the cool teacher. Keep it together, Kakashi.
"Hai" came the unexpectedly soft reply, the arms squeezing a little bit more. How did he even fit his arms behind him like that? He didn't turn his head to see his student's face; he didn't want to see pity there.
Trying to resurrect his faithful (until now) mask, he gathered more strength and asked in a slightly firmer voice, "What are you doing out here? You should go home"
Surprisingly, the normally talkative ninja said nothing, just sighed and sat there, arms curled tightly around the older man, firm and solid. Real.
It stunned Kakashi a little that he found it comforting.
.O.O.O.
The pair sat in that same position for hours, in, what was for Kakashi, comforting and for Naruto, companionable, silence.
They'd moved after a while, so that Naruto's slight frame was sitting almost neatly across Kakashi's much taller frame (he had refused to release his hold of the older man, and now he no longer felt the need to deny it) and Kakashi found himself looking down at the sleeping face of his student.
'He looks so much younger when he's asleep' the Jounin thought, realising it for the first time. He'd paid so much attention to Sasuke and Sakura, he'd not noticed enough about Naruto. Like how, even though his electric blue eyes shone brightly almost all the time, they held a depth of knowledge that betrayed his young age, and told of a hard life, as did the restless way he refused to stop moving, always darting around like a rabbit, watching out for prey.
They hadn't shared a conversation but they'd talked all the same, without words. Somehow, with ungainly insight, or perhaps simple understanding, Naruto knew what Kakashi needed, and the older man had once again found himself in awe of the blonde. Most unpredictable indeed. Of all the people to turn out so kind, giving and loving, it was this boy, Uzumaki Naruto, the target of all the scorn and hatred of the villagers, who was the most real, true person Kakashi knew. The target of all that hate, and yet he still managed a smile, still managed to care about everyone, to love life.
It was this boy who gave a broken man the strength to fight for his partner, and it was this boy who made Kakashi realise that all was not lost.
The proof was right there in his arms.
Genuinely smiling for the first time that day, Kakashi softly gathered the boy in his arms, and using all the skill of an ex-ANBU captain, leapt from purchase to purchase until he finally arrived at his apartment.
He lay the (surprisingly) still asleep Naruto down on his huge bed, pulled the blankets from underneath and took of the boy's sandals, jacket and hitai-ate, placing them on the bedside table and tucked him in, wondering if perhaps this was the first time someone had done this for him, and if maybe, this was what being a father felt like.
He had a feeling if he could hold onto this moment; his mask wouldn't be so broken anymore.
Finite.
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