TW: Suicidal ideation
Hatake Kakashi is not scared of many things, but he is scared of Uchiha Sasuke, because Uchiha Sasuke is twelve years old.
Twelve years of life stuffed into that little, spiky head of his, dipped down behind the bruised buttercups of his bandaid kneecaps, studying Kakashi as if the red flags can actually be seen. Trying to figure out this cruel world and its cruel inhabitants—if only they would reveal themselves sooner.
Seven years of devotion sent spiraling down a bloody bathroom drain over a span of twenty minutes, leaving only a lipstick smear of gore behind—only a fraction of what was shed to bring a monster into this world.
Five years of ruminating hidden behind a canvas of pale flesh and dark eyes. Eyes that still go wide at the sight of atrocity despite witnessing that same beast years ago, as if the heart must further suffer for holding out this long—for not breaking when it had the chance—
Hatake Kakashi is not scared of many things, but he is scared of Uchiha Sasuke, because Uchiha Sasuke does not wear a mask.
He tears his mouth free from the fabric.
Cold wind hits his bare face.
Sasuke lies dead beneath him in a soaking heap.
The cannibalistic apparatus that is Konohagakure's council is no mystery to him. He's witnessed this beast before. Plenty of times.
It's the same one that buried Naruto's parents—buried sensei's ashes in the woods like the humane creature that it is; planted two redwoods in their honor so that 'one day, he'll have something to look up to, and feel love'.
Except Naruto will probably be dead before they even reach his knees, let alone stand as anything but testaments to how easily Konoha thinks people can be replaced with symbols.
The same one that allowed Sasuke to visit the aftermath of his clan's burial gulch, pay his respects to the family he'd lost only hours before—there were simply too many bodies and too little time, and 'the Uchiha burn their dead anyways, right?'
Except cremation doesn't mean the same thing to Uchiha that it does to everyone else, and Sasuke shattered the moment he laid eyes on the scorched trench that was now everyone who had ever loved him. Shattered the same way Kakashi did: in complete silence.
Sasuke hugged his middle like everything inside him may spill out down the slope to join the rest of his clan. Cade lamb with his knees buckling, stranded in a desolated heft without a clue of what to do. Bellwether with his funereal pealing, watching him unravel, Kakashi had thought of nothing to comfort him with.
Let it sink in, kid.
"What's been the hardest part for you so far?" Asuma asks. They're sitting in a circle with a light overhead that casts all of their faces in stygian, interrogative yellow.
"I think I'm picking favorites," says Kakashi, "but that's no surprise." The other jounin chuckle. Somehow, he manages to swallow a sigh. It's a good thing they can't see how often he grimaces.
"Your team is supposed to be your favorite, Kakashi." Gai's hand squeezes his shoulder from where he's sitting on his left. "There's no shame in that!"
He doesn't bother explaining.
Kakashi does his due diligence to stay as far away from genin as possible. He constructs obstacles between him and children however he can: with humor, with silence, with pornographic books that leave people uncomfortable and at a distance. Displaced. If one can make another feel displaced in any given situation, they will find their own way out. Kakashi knows this. It's one of the more mundane ways of dealing with unwanted attention.
Sasuke, however, is not easily displaced.
Sasuke is, actually, overwhelmingly committed once he's put his mind to something—which should come as no shock, but still does.
Kakashi realizes this when he lowers his book enough to spot two black eyes peering at him over the top, having secluded himself away from the clearing where his genin are sparring.
Best they not discover just how long it's been since he's even picked up a kunai, let alone thrown one.
"Stop reading your book and teach them how to fight," Sasuke orders. Kakashi admonishes his arm warmers with a wordless stare; Uchiha were always so impervious to temperature changes. Obito never sweated a day of his short life. How hot is it this summer? A small foot kicks the bottom of his sandal—hard enough to have Kakashi's molars champing at the bit before he remembers the culprit is Sasuke. "Come on."
"Just got to a good part. Five minutes."
Sasuke towers over him, barely emoting, impassive as ever. "I don't care," he asserts. "Do your job."
Kakashi meets his broiling glare over a stretch of silence—a silence he knows Sasuke can't translate. "Alright." He abruptly snaps his book shut. "Alright. I can do that." Once standing, it surprises him how small Sasuke becomes, him having to tilt his head back in order to follow Kakashi's eye—a fact he stubbornly plays off as choice. Kakashi simply stares. From up above, Sasuke looks more like the child he should be, and not a disgusting bundle of hard-to-look-at.
Makes sense why nobody looked at him, either.
Sasuke harrumphs and jerks his head back at Naruto and Sakura. "They're useless to me if you're not guiding them," he explains. An unnecessary remark. If Kakashi weren't careful, he'd almost think Sasuke was trying to talk to him—perhaps even seeking his agreement. Something inside the thicket of thorns he calls a ribcage softens with recognition: It's difficult to beat the hope out of children.
"Maa," hums Kakashi with a hand at Sasuke's back. "That'll change." The boy twitches away from his touch the second it's realized. Dropping his hand, Kakashi acts as if he never reached out to begin with; two can play at that game. "They're still learning. Be patient with them, Sasuke."
Be patient with me, too.
But he'll never say that out loud.
There are white-dead roots reaching up from his left hand—the wrong hand.
The hand he isn't supposed to use.
A rule he wasn't supposed to break.
"Haven't seen you around," says Anko. "S'gettin' worried."
"You're welcome to stop by whenever." The gas stove fwooms to life at his fingertips. Kakashi leans a flat hip against the bar top. "Only two flights away."
Anko sprawls catlike across his couch, staring up at the ceiling as if there were something there to be found. "Two? Thought it was three."
Kakashi blows a mirthless snort. "Nope."
"I'm angry at you."
"I'm feeding you."
There's a stifled snicker from behind the bar, drifting out of his living room. "Like you can help it, sensei."
She spits the word like it's poison.
Suicide was a point of discussion for much longer than Kakashi deemed necessary.
Everyone assumed Sasuke would kill himself the second anyone looked away for too long; a herd of sheep circling a slink, none dared take their eyes off him.
Kakashi, at first, thought it absurd, but soon the others' fretting wormed its way into his head, broke through the skin of his heels with each step until his body was a writhing sack. Though he'd been unceremoniously cast out of ANBU—for reasons everyone but him refused to acknowledge—Kakashi found himself dedicating to the mission before he'd ever been assigned to it: Assure Uchiha Sasuke's survival through any means necessary. His willingness to take over surprised no one. It's why they involved him in the first place.
Remember that time Anko talked you down from the Fourth's head? Crazy shit. Good thing we sealed it off, or we'd probably be cleaning up a splat right now.
Kakashi is a lot of things, but he isn't naïve. It would've been too on the nose had they brought up dad, so they deserve some credit. There'd been no reason not to, beyond his own feelings—everyone knows those don't matter.
So, he agreed. Because, out of everyone, including himself, Kakashi begrudgingly figured he was still the best fit.
Their first attempts were foiled with very little effort on Sasuke's part.
Kakashi realized soon after that Sasuke, meeting everyone's expectations of him, was a very difficult mark to keep track of.
His apartment was dressed in boobytraps the second Sasuke caught wind of their meddling. Most nights, Kakashi found himself washing spoiled milk from his hair and picking pillow feathers off his ninken's honey-glazed coats, flushed out of Sasuke's home by the likes of Naruto-level brat-ery that quickly and violently escalated. Kakashi still remembers the time he met Sasuke face to face one early morning, halfway off his balcony with a leg thrown over the guardrail, lone eye half-lidded as they stared at each other.
Then Sasuke, in all his eight-year-old might, belched a fireball as big as the Fourth's ballsack right into his face—sent him clear back to earth—and Kakashi decided right then that this kid didn't need anyone babying him. He had it all figured out.
"If he wanted to kill himself, he would've done it already," was all he bothered to say the next time Sasuke's name cropped up. "He's got it figured out."
Just like he had it figured out the first morning he made breakfast without father there to turn on the stove. Just like he had it figured out the first time his ninken got into a fight, with him caught in the middle. Just like he had it figured out the first night the dam broke and all the pain came tumbling out.
If Sasuke were anything like him, he had everything—all of this—under complete control.
Anko's chakra thrums tight as a drum behind him, far enough away that Kakashi knows she's keeping distance.
"How long have you been up here?" The wind almost carries her voice away.
Kakashi stares out over the village with sensei's head under his heels, body burning hot—the distant draw of his ninken attempting to forcibly summon him. "Konoha looks ugly at night."
Anko doesn't answer immediately. "Then why torture yourself by looking at it?"
He's crashing his mouth down over Sasuke's, exhaling into his lungs, forcing the life back into him.
Breathe.
Please. Just breathe.
If anyone had told him three years ago that one day he'd be panicking over the lives of three children, Kakashi would've expected himself to have had at least one girlfriend by now.
This family, however, is motherless. The four of them make due with whatever Kakashi supplies, and only one of them is truly aware of what a parent brings to the table; an assumption no one bothers to verify.
But Sakura is still just a kid, and Naruto is still just a kid, and Sasuke is still just a kid—and shit, he still feels like one, too.
Not right now, though.
Right now, he is furious and frightened and sharp, staring with Obito's eye and thinking, Oh god, oh god, please don't fucking kill them.
Sakura has her face stretched wide, red-rimmed eyes swollen with tears, hands balled up and held to her chest. Doesn't know what to do with them, apparently. That's his fault. He hasn't even taught her ANBU signals, or how best to delegate targets, or how to properly fucking retreat—one of the most critical decisions to be made throughout a shinobi's entire standing career. One of the few options that can raise life expectancy to a wistful unlikely instead of a sobering unviable.
Naruto looks exactly his age, which is horrific and gut-wrenching all on its own, because genin are not children, and he should not look like that. Aren't you inside? Where the hell are you? Then it hits him: Naruto knows ANBU signals. Kakashi taught him only a few years ago, albeit briefly. Had he forgotten? Why is he panicking? What's the fucking point of the Academy if the finished product is still a child? The only thing Naruto's hands are doing is layering his middle and forefinger, the only signal in ANBU used in both field and homestead: Give. And it's fucking worthless. Doesn't even make sense. He'd forgotten them—that's Kakashi's fault, too.
Sasuke is shaking like he hasn't seen in years, shaking as hard as he was when they found him collapsed among the bodies; another tiny person lost to a red tide. Kakashi wants to reach out and touch him, because he knows exactly what it feels like to be scared.
What it felt like when he was four-foot-tall and the whole, wide world had its teeth on him—on helpless, little Kakashi.
Helpless, little Kakashi, who for so long had been preoccupied by the notion that someone out there, above all of this, was holding the score and writing everything down.
There was no one out there tallying the bodies Itachi piled up.
There was no one out there defending the children Orochimaru dismantled.
There was no one out there to remind his father:
Aren't you forgetting someone?
"They send green fields to stop me?" Zabuza all but salivates, basking in the horrified awe of his genin; a lion among lambs. And they don't even move. Because they don't stand a chance. They're going to die with all of their baby teeth. Well done, good and faithful shinobi. "Is the Leaf too proud to kill herself? You give me your own babies to butcher." His sword heavy as it cuts air, Kakashi watches Zabuza aim the tip at Sasuke's shivering, skinny body; the guillotine's blade begins to rise, and the glint off its edge panics him completely blind. "And this one's just left its mother's teat. Look at him shake. Poor thing."
With the ferociousness of a killer, his little genin looks up and hisses, "I'm shaking with excitement."
And there, right then—in that very moment, Kakashi remembers that Sasuke has this all figured out.
He hasn't been this close to him since the massacre.
Sasuke's stripped naked and settled on the futon, a pile of senbon forming to his left. Kakashi sits cross-legged to his right: gloves off; sharingan out; heart on his sleeve—burden as heavy as the fans on Sasuke's shirts.
"Breathe out."
Sasuke obeys, slow and ragged, his voice catching when metal drags through his windpipe. Kakashi sees his eyes fog over and his tendons lift, and he stops immediately.
"Can you breathe?"
Sasuke sucks in through clenched teeth.
"Good. Try to relax. I won't touch until—"
A pale hand shoots out to fist the fabric of his pants, Sasuke gripping him over the knee. Arms up, surrendering whatever his genin happened to be reaching for, Kakashi stares down at his thigh. Sasuke's hand looks smaller than usual, littered in bruising puncture wounds, white as the sheets beneath them. He's not even trying to hide it; Sasuke's shaking.
Both of them are, in a sense.
Kakashi lowers his arms. "You're alright," he tries soothing. "Doing great." And because it suddenly dawns on him: "You really surprised us back there."
It's the first time Sasuke has looked at him since they started this whole process, a collar of senbon stabbed through his throat. Thin brows are coming together, pupils constricting, limbs dappled in holes and welts and freezeburns. Kakashi grins when red seeps into his eyes, Sasuke's newborn sharingan bleeding into existence, but the joy is fleeting.
"I know you don't need it. But Sasuke, I'm proud of you."
He's not sure why he says it, but he does.
Sasuke stares at him with his mouth shut so tight his nostrils are flaring, the skin around his eyes drawn feral, looking pain stricken and on the verge of shattering. Kakashi's stomach flips at how naked he is right now—in every disgusting way. He shouldn't have to see this. He doesn't want to see this.
Did he forget a don't-say? It's been so long. Had they even bothered to discuss Fugaku's—
Sasuke bows his head, takes a deep breath, and begins to cry.
Come on.
Hang in there.
You've got so much left to accomplish.
"I'm not the person you should be asking this kind of stuff, really." Anko sucks a drag off her cigarette, night air stealing smoke from her nostrils. "I'll never be a sensei."
"You could be," Kakashi posits after some thought. "I don't understand Hiruzen."
"Nothing worth understanding. But I know what you mean. I appreciate it." Orange lights up her inner kneecaps, Anko absentmindedly scraping the lighter on and off. "It doesn't bug me anymore." She offers him her cigarette with a limp wrist. "I won't look."
Kakashi stares at it, then mumbles, "Thanks," and accepts. Slipping his mask down so it rests beneath his lower lip, Kakashi savors the flavor on his tongue before exhaling.
"Feelin' for any of 'em yet?" asks Anko after a lapse of silence, folding her arms around her legs and staring off into the dark distance.
Kakashi slips his mask back up and nudges her with a knuckle. "Yeah," he laughs—a bitter, resigned noise. Brown eyes find him and latch on curiously.
"Oh really?" Anko takes the cigarette back, flashing her teeth with an impish grin. "That soon, huh?"
"I guess."
Hatake Kakashi is scared of Uchiha Sasuke because there is no inch of skin attempting to remain hidden. There is no flinch at the corner of his lips when out in the open. Sasuke does nothing to mask his expressions whatsoever on the outside; it's all about the in.
Kakashi has hid his face ever since he can remember, a decision now more habitual than understood. At one time, there had been a reason, but even reason can't last forever. There are, oftentimes, more pressing matters than reason, he soon found.
Ever since someone stopped him with a hand on his shoulder to utter a soft, You will be missed, one night when he was contemplating things, contemplating the very outcome he has now tasked himself with preventing—the same outcome six-year-old him smelled for the first time in his whole life when—
Pakkun gives a whiny yawn, and his hand moves to rub his chin.
Sasuke is on the floor of his apartment with Kakashi's scrolls laid out, crouched on his shins while he glosses through them. He's got his arm warmers off and his headband folded on the bar, sandals meticulously placed by the door; once the son of a clanhead, always the son of a clanhead.
It's a very intimate thing, Kakashi knows, to be able to see Sasuke's forehead.
And it's an intimate thing for him to allow Sasuke in his home at all, despite Sasuke giving that fact little acknowledgment.
"What's with the mask?"
"Hm?" A question he has come to dread. It was only a matter of time. "Am I wearing one?"
Sasuke tilts his head back with an unamused grimace. "Don't be childish. Tell me." It's a striking experience, speaking with the youngest Uchiha; his cadence belongs to someone much older, sometimes. It's unusual being talked down to from below. He should be thankful one of his genin is acting the way they should be, but Kakashi notices he isn't. "Are you scarred?"
Pakkun gives a low rumble, amused. Kakashi stops scratching his chest as punishment.
"Why the sudden interest? Don't tell me you've actually been paying attention to me these days, Sasuke."
The boy snorts and tosses his head, eyes closed. "I see you every day. I don't have much choice." He's quiet, as if something he said needs room to settle, then Sasuke opens his eyes. Hands gripping his knees, elbows locked out straight, Sasuke leans forward and peers up at him. "Naruto and Sakura won't shut up about it." It's grumbled so low in his throat the words can barely be parsed.
"I have a feeling you were part of those discussions more often than you'd like to admit."
Sasuke's face goes sour. "So?"
Kakashi chuckles, closing his book and resting it on his chest. No matter how much he tries, Sasuke's still just a kid.
A kid with a trauma streak one ocean wide and two parents deep that looks and smells like a dead person, but still just a kid.
"Honestly? I don't remember anymore. Habit, I guess."
Sasuke blinks at his confession, looking a bit disappointed. "Hm," he hums. He returns his attention to the scrolls on the floor. "Makes sense."
Opening his book back up, Kakashi ignores how Pakkun watches him from the corners of his eyes.
Please.
He's pumping his chest so hard—too hard.
Please. Come back.
Nobody looks at him when he wanders through the store alone, pushing a shopping cart that's deeper than he is tall, purveying vegetables and fruits as if he knows what he's doing.
Pretending to be his own father; pretending to be his own child; pretending to be himself; all at the same time.
He doesn't know what he's supposed to do.
Got'ta be your own pops now, squirt.
Kakashi asks what that means.
Hell if I know. Never had one.
He wrestles with that for a long, long time.
"Why does he act like that?"
Kakashi rests his elbows on his knees, tilting his head enough to show he's listening. "Hm?"
"Why does he act that way?"
From where they're seated, Kakashi can see Naruto and Sakura arguing a few yards away, Sakura continuously jabbing her finger down at the stretch of mulch between them. From the looks of it, Naruto must have planted something wrong, and Kakashi should probably go over and manage the situation, but he isn't. Sakura will set him straight without being too critical. Already parentifying her? Kakashi criticizes himself.
"Why does he act like what?" he asks, turning instead to look at Sasuke. His genin pulls a tart expression and knits his brows, eventually acknowledging Kakashi's stare with his own.
"He's always trying to get everyone's attention," Sasuke grunts. "It's annoying."
"Is that what's going on?" Kakashi asks further, prompting Sasuke to take another hard look at his teammates. He seems hesitant to answer, eyes narrowing.
"Yeah?" Sasuke shrugs. "It's all he's ever doing."
Kakashi pauses, stomach churning. He shouldn't be this excited to parent of all things—pick favorites, more like—but for some reason. . .
"Maa," he drones and scratches his temple. "Why not ask him yourself, Sasuke? I certainly don't know." The face he receives is priceless, his little genin lighting up red as a rooster. Uchiha Fire is a real thing, it seems; at least, it's real for the three he's known. Blood in their face at the drop of a hat. Can't hide a damn thing they're feeling when they're feeling it too much. "I'm sure he'd be happy to tell you."
"I'm not doing that," argues Sasuke in a small voice—the shyest he's ever seen him. "He's annoying."
"Well, then." Kakashi rocks back to his feet with some difficulty. Still balled up and brooding on the porch steps, Sasuke perks, a glint of panic passing behind his eyes. "Guess you'll never know."
It takes about a week for Sasuke to get his nerves up, but the second the deed is done he's banging on Kakashi's door.
"Bastard punched me in the mouth," Sasuke seethes when he's let in, slinking past Kakashi with his bangs in his eyes. Kakashi chokes back a laugh when he reveals his busted, swollen lip to him. Struggling to form a respectable scowl, Sasuke's expression darkens. "Shut up. This is your fault."
"No, no, Sasuke." Kakashi tuts, digging through his first aid kit and shaking his head. "You figured it out."
"I don't know why," Kakashi admits. "If I knew why, I'd stop."
"That's not always true," says Anko, forever burdened with explaining. The only one out of them with the right words to say. The only one out of them that remembers to ask Kakashi how he's handling everything. The only one out of them that carries her scars like they should be carried—and everyone abandoned her for it. She's been communicating through thirty miles of murky water over the past three decades without a single peep, probably due to the depth she's at. Kakashi can barely hear her half the time, but half the time he isn't really here.
"It's wrong. I shouldn't be doing this. It's Hiruzen's fault." He's looking straight at her, demanding confrontation the only way he knows how.
Everyone's always avoiding everything. It's frustrating.
"If I knew why, I'd stop."
Anko holds his stare with preternatural ease. "It's good you wanna be fair." Kakashi looks away when her sympathy becomes too apparent. "But you're giving it all away. We can still save some for you, right? That sounds fair to me."
You can't make people confront something they don't want to, Kakashi.
He looks out over a sea of slumbering rooftops. "Lost cause," Kakashi mutters. The pain birthed from saying it is an experience in itself. "I don't need any."
"You say that now," Anko muses to herself. Kakashi feels himself withdrawing at the slightest hint of condescension—even though this is Anko, and Anko would never.
Knowing that doesn't make it any easier, he realizes.
After a moment of tense silence, Anko shrugs, turning to look away. "Just something to think about," she offers in a soft voice.
Sasuke splutters back to life.
"Itachi?" is the first name he garbles out.
And it kills him.
The room feels similar to the one they'd crowded five years ago after the massacre, except this time Kakashi is tall enough to see over everyone's heads. Though Hiruzen's visage has departed, his presence remains; Tsunade, instead, has her hands folded on the desk, amber eyes flickering back and forth through a protracted silence.
"So, he dejected," she mumbles with a hand to her face. The shinobi in the room say nothing, including Kakashi. He's thankful to be wearing a mask right now. Taking a deep breath, Tsunade sits up and looks over those gathered. Pink lips quirk up at the corner, anger momentarily warping her face before being replaced with smug contempt. "That was fast."
Stray snorts reach Kakashi's ears. It's enough to have his chakra pooling into his palms. Anko is staring at him from the corner, tucked away in the back—where all the other forgotten brokens live out the rest of their lives in the Third's shadow. Kakashi might find himself standing there with her at the next meeting, all things considered.
"Did he say anything to you about this yesterday, Kakashi?" Tsunade asks him. A question he does not want to answer, but without an excuse, he must.
"I spoke with him some." The act of speaking alone is exhausting, admission more like a punch to the ribs. "Thought we'd made some progress. . ." His throat closes. Kakashi straightens his shoulders and decides that is enough.
"What did he say?" Tsunade repeats, more sternly this time.
"Nothing about leaving." Not exactly.
Elbows coming down on the desk, Tsunade leans forward toward him. "I'll remind you that withholding information concerning known nukenin is a violation of conduct, Hatake." Her expression softens, if only slightly. Just enough for him to notice. "Dangerously close to treason, might I add."
"Of course, Hokage-sama." Kakashi doesn't fight it. He's witnessed this beast before. "He asked about my life. I told him. That's all." The pressure on his shoulders makes shrugging impossible. "I was under the impression he'd listened to me." Kakashi looks down. "I guess I was wrong." His mouth drags against the fabric of his mask, falling in a grimace.
"It's Orochimaru's fault," Anko blurts, Kakashi perking up and looking at her. There's a fire in her eyes he hasn't seen in months. "We didn't have enough time to figure out his curse seal while he was here, but we—"
"That information isn't suited to this level of discussion," Tsunade cuts in. "If the Uchiha's abandonment causes this much distress, then you will be excused."
Kakashi sees Anko's brow furrow, but she obeys, chin lowering submissively. "Yes, Lady Tsunade. I understand." A battle best not fought; she makes the only decision there is, really. Just like Kakashi does: grin and bear it. Sakura would be livid if she were here, but she isn't. She's still young. She'll figure it out, eventually. Or maybe she won't; with the sensei she's stuck with, it's a miracle Sakura still has the chance.
She's crying when he finds her that evening outside his apartment, the same place Sasuke used to wait for him. "I'm so sorry," she weeps into her hands, saving Kakashi from having to witness her tears. Hands at his sides, slumped forward, he wades through the sob-riddled pause that follows. "I'm so sorry."
She's devastated. Kakashi sees it in the way her cheeks bunch up red under her eyes. With a hand at her back, he guides her into his apartment, voicing a soft, "Maa, maa, Sakura. You did everything you could."
He dives beneath the surface the second he's close enough to throw himself in, the crowd settled on their knees at the lip of the lake scattering to give him passage; everyone knows what a father looks like.
Kakashi feels the crown of his head breach the water before the sensation rolls over him like living fire. It's so cold. His skin burns on contact. It robs the breath straight out his chest.
Through the murk of the tempest, resting on the lakebed, Sasuke's body sprawls out and open, the whole world pressing down on him. A shockwave erupts over the water's face and earthquakes south, carrying through the current, howling vibrations through his dilated blood vessels.
I'm right here.
Kakashi reaches out into the nothingness.
Just hang in there.
Lying on his back, limbs outstretched, Sasuke reminds him of Pakkun when they'd bounce him on fresh laundry—except his mouth isn't smiling, and his voice doesn't reach, and there's no air to revive his twelve-year-old lungs. Clawing down into darkness within which no breath can be taken, Kakashi burrows to where his genin's body lies.
Burrows down to where he's been living the past twenty years.
Down into the vast emptiness where all the dead bodies go, until death fills them back up.
Look, I'm right here.
Sasuke has never looked so at peace.
Every fiber of Kakashi's being wants to dig his fingertips into his hairline and peel his face clean off.
I'm right here, Sasuke.
And he is—he's right here.
And Sasuke doesn't even open his eyes.