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Kakashi knew without examining the cut that it wasn’t fatal. He knew the boy would be fine. It was to be expected after a mission like that one, to have a few nicks and bruises, but he also knew neither he nor his other squad mate had any wounds nearly as bad. He was sure Itachi would handle it though, and he knew the kid didn’t like being helped too much. Kakashi was similar at that age too, so he was sympathetic to a degree. He glanced over as the boy was shifting out of his armor, a slightly pained look shadowing his features. As their eyes met however any emotion- including pain drained down the boys face, leaving a blank expression. He quickly looked down. The boy was odd, but if there was one thing he understood, it was the desire to keep one’s pain private. So Kakashi’s eyes flitted to his other squad mate- Tenzo.
He was sprawled out, one arm out of his sleeping bag and his head falling back in an uncomfortable angle, somehow sound asleep. He had fallen asleep almost immediately after Kakashi had said they could relax for the rest of the evening, and take care of whatever they needed to do personally. There was dried blood on his chin. He’d have to remind him to wash up tomorrow. “He should have done that before going to bed” Kakashi thought, annoyed. Yamato was only two and half years his junior, but sometimes it felt like that gap between them was much larger. Simple common sense things, easily got away from him, and when Kakashi scolded him— “You haven’t washed that blanket in weeks. It’s disgusting. Take it to the river.” Tenzo would bitch and moan and drag his feet. He’d also be quick to remind him he never learned how to do such things, so it wasn’t easy for him to remember. Kakashi frowned and watched the teen shift, muttering and slapping the air. He could be annoying. Very annoying. He was in some ways, a lot like…..no. No point thinking about him, not right now. When he got back he would go to the stone and let himself hurt, but not now. He had to take care of his living comrades.
Kakashi turned his head to the child on the other side of their makeshift camp. He was never any trouble on the other hand. Never needed to be reminded of anything. He already had the makings of a captain, despite only being part of the Anbu for a few months, and about 8 years his junior. Well. At least he had all the makings on paper, anyway. Kakashi had his own private feelings about that. Little hang ups and doubts- the way the boys hands still shook when he went for a kill, the strangely intimate relationship him and Danzo shared, how he whimpered and cried in his sleep. The child was trying to clean the wound on his back, twisting painfully as he did so, his lips pressed into a grim line. Actually seeing it he realized it was a bit worse then he had calculated, though he had been right— it was shallow, but the cut started between the child’s shoulder blades and ran all the way down to his lower back.
“Itachi” he said in a low voice, as not to wake their other squad mate. The boy looked over and immediately shrunk in on himself, as if he had forgotten Kakashi was there. “Let me help you,” he said as he moved over to the child. He had an expected a “That’s not necessary Captain,”, or something along those lines, but even Itachi seemed to realize he needed the aid. Wordlessly he handed the cloth, bandages and antiseptic he’d been clutching to Kakashi.
He leaned over the child and brushed his long dark hair out of the way. He was small. Very small for a boy of 10, and so thin it was a bit jarring. The boy went rigid when Kakashi touched him and Kakashi could tell from the faint glow illuminating the tree in front of them his sharingan was on.
He pretended not to notice, as he soaked the antiseptic into the cloth. “It’s not bad,” he said conversationally. “I know that.” Itachi replied immediately, almost barking it out. Kakashi could tell it was meant to be biting, but something else was swimming under the surface of the words. Sadness? Fear? Maybe both. Kakashi believed he was excellent at reading people, but the child was hard to know, even being under his care these last few months he was still hard to understand. He ignored the strange animosity and pressed the cloth to Itachi’s back. The boy shuddered involuntarily and Kakashi cringed, the kid was so cold, it was like touching ice. He finished cleaning the wound as quickly as he could, trying to think of comforting things to say and them all dying on the edge of his lips. He’d never been good with people, particularly with children. And despite the fact the boy was at 10 well past where most adult jounin would ever be ability wise, he could still see that childishness within him. Something people had never seen in himself. The curse of genius ninja, he supposed. He sighed and stood up.
When contact was broken the boy seemed to relax a little. “If you’re cold you know you can ask for provisions. Like a thicker blanket. You could ask for that. You should ask for that.” He said as he grabbed one of his own heavier blankets and handed it to the boy. He was fiddling with his hair and was once again folded in on himself, knees tucked to his chest. If Kakashi didn’t know better he’d think this was someone who was utterly helpless. A civilian child who’d gotten lost in the woods.
The boy took it and held it against himself very gingerly, a tiny “thank you” that you could be drowned out with a particularly strong gust of wind. Kakashi crouched back down behind him and starting bandaging him. Itachi seemed to relax a little, wrapping the blanket meticulously around his legs. All one could hear now was the process of Kakashi dressing the wound and the natural sounds of the forest until Itachi suddenly spoke again.
“Captain. Does it get easier?” Itachi asked quietly, running his hands through his hair as Kakashi worked. He was braiding it and unbraiding it, over and over. A nervous behavior, Kakashi noted. Though Itachi’s face did not betray it, not at all. “Does what?” he answered roughly. He had an idea of what Itachi was asking, but the conversation was one that wasn’t going to be easy, for either of them, and if he could get out of it, well, call him a bad leader but he’d prefer it. Itachi said nothing else, instead looking downwards. He picked up a blade of grass, and started examining it intently.
Kakashi felt a bit of guilt stab at him. “We do what we do for the good of the village. We save as many lives as we can. Some people are meant for to protect people in the light-“ His mind flashed to Gai’s smiling face. He tightened his jaw and he finished wrapping the last bit of the wound, tugging it perhaps a bit too tightly around his little frame then he should. “and some of us are meant for the shadows.”. “Just like Lord Danzo says” the boy replied, almost automatically, still staring intently at the piece of grass between his fingers as if it had an answer to some secret that Itachi had been searching for all his life. Kakashi laughed a cold, humorless laugh. “I suppose. Some people have to do the dirty work to keep society functioning. Though Danzo and me have differing views to what extent that exactly is.” Itachi turned to look at him, eyes skimming across his face, an expression on his face he, as usual, couldn’t read.
“Differing…views. Shisui said the same thing.” His brows knitted together. “We’re Hiruzen’s Anbu. We work for Hiruzen.” He reminded the child as he walked over to his own sleeping bag, tiredness suddenly gripping him. Mostly emotional tiredness, but the physical as well. He wanted to escape the conversation, and the child’s questions and his big glowing eyes trained on him whenever he didn’t think Kakashi was looking. “and the village.” The boy’s small voice flittered across the campground. A monotone, lifeless statement. Kakashi yawned an affirmative. “Yes. And the village. The village and the people within we protect and serve over everything else.” The boy was sitting cross legged on his own sleeping bag, and he was nodding, to himself more then Kakashi it seemed. Kakashi sighed and laid back. “Captain, thank you.” came drifting over, so quiet he could have imagined it. Kakashi didn’t respond. Instead he closed his eyes and let sleep overtake him. It happened almost the minute his head hit the pillow. A wave of relieving blackness. Kakashi’s favorite types of sleep were the dreamless.
He didn’t know that Itachi would stay up, most of the night, staring at the starless sky dwelling over their short conversation, pulling it up over and over with his sharingan. He didn’t know he’d use it to weigh decisions that would shake their nation just a few years later. And he wouldn’t think about that conversation again until years later. When he was no longer in the Anbu, and he was looking at a child so unlike the boy he’d once known despite sharing the same face, silently promising himself he’d do better.
Of course, he’d never been good with promises anyway.