Work Text:
Kakashi hears the name Uchiha Sasuke for the first time when he’s six, in a class at the academy about rogue shinobi and elimination procedures.
“Now if you ever run across an S-rank rogue nin, you’ll want to flee on sight unless you’re with a team,” the sensei says, “Depending on the makeup of your team and caliber you may be able to complete a kill or capture, based on the warrant indicated in the bingo book. This here’s Uchiha Sasuke, the latest to be added to the S-rank roster…for now, memorize that face and all the others in here. You’ll be glad you did.”
Kakashi looks at the photo curiously.
Uchiha Sasuke looks young.
Not a kid like Kakashi, but still rather fresh-faced and not at all like the war-torn shinobi he’s used to seeing around the village that are also in the books. He notes the age listed there, fifteen , and blinks in surprise. The boy in the picture has a face the nice lady at the pet store might describe as sweet , cheeks still somewhat round and large eyes that almost look innocent.
They also look wise beyond his years then, and in some ways Kakashi thinks they look older than they have any right to be.
Five foot eight, a lightning user - like Kakashi - but able to use fire style with equal proficiency. Like the rest of his legendary clan, then. The Uchiha are all extinct now, save for Sasuke. Kakashi has read the history. Sasuke has the dark hair and olive skin that had characterized the clan, the same intense eyes and slight frown that’s made a home on his face.
He’s nice to look at. Like a blooming flower or the evening sky, Kakashi’s eyes are drawn to him.
The word pretty comes to mind unbidden and he immediately scolds himself, cheeks reddening as if someone could know what he’d thought. He shuts the book quickly at the sound of dismissal for the day, tossing it into his bag beside shuriken and a ratty copy of a novel he’d been devouring.
Trotting down the steps he contemplates the boy’s entry. Impressive statistics of course, but no one is unbeatable.
“Kakashi!”
“Dad!” he squirms uselessly as his father picks him up, playing at embarrassment but unable to keep it up when he’s swung around, “Hey, I’m getting dizzy.”
Sakumo smiles indulgently, taking him by the hand after setting him down.
“Anything interesting at the academy today?”
Kakashi wonders if he should mention the funny feeling in his chest at the Uchiha nin…he peeks up at Sakumo’s kind eyes, patiently waiting.
No, best keep it to himself for now.
***
Genma lands at his feet with a grunt as their sensei sends him flying.
“Coming at me one-by-one is useless,” their sensei says, looking bored.
Hyuuga Neji is an accomplished shinobi, though not one anyone would have taken to be interested in being a jounin sensei. Seeing his endless well of semi-detached patience at their antics though, Kakashi thinks it’s not a bad fit. He doesn’t particularly care what led Neji to the path of a sensei, though. He’s far more interested in the photo he’d seen in an old academy yearbook, of his sensei’s class picture with a familiar face next to him.
He sits unassumingly by Neji’s side when they break for lunch.
“Kakashi,” Neji says slowly, “Something you want to talk about?”
He should perhaps be offended at Neji’s abruptness, but he’s not known for making idle conversation especially in the years since Sakumo’s death.
“You were in Uchiha Sasuke’s graduating class.”
Neji looks at him fully then, setting down the onigiri he’d been munching on.
“I was.”
Neji’s patience extends to awkward pauses, apparently.
“Well?” Kakashi says, exasperated, “Is he as good as they say?”
Neji regards him for a moment before answering.
“No.”
Kakashi frowns, “Well that’s a let down-”
“He’s better.”
***
When Kakashi is fourteen, he goes on his first S-rank mission. His skill has outpaced his peers by leaps and bounds, and they’d wasted no time sending him on more advanced missions with Neji alone.
They’re on their way back home when Kakashi pipes up with a question that has been burning in his mind since they’d left.
“The surveillance reports said Uchiha was seen around here lately.”
Neji regards him, sidelong, “What is it with you and the Uchiha?”
Kakashi shrugs here, “He’s the most powerful nin in the bingo book, from our village no less - why shouldn’t I keep abreast of his whereabouts?”
His sensei doesn’t answer this, only humming in the way Kakashi knows he does when he’s done talking. It’s not ten minutes later when Kakashi feels an odd shift around them, his senses sparking as the familiar feel of electricity charges the air.
Only it’s not his.
“Speak of the devil,” Neji murmurs.
A figure lands in front of them then, light footed, before either can react. Neji holds his arm out when Kakashi begins to draw his tanto. A good thing too - Kakashi is confident in his skills, but he’s not arrogant. There isn’t any way he can take this man on, not yet.
“Oh?” Uchiha Sasuke says with a lilt, “Have you been speaking of me, Neji?”
Kakashi watches, rapt, as Sasuke walks some paces away to sit on a rock nearby. He leans back on his hands - regarding his sensei almost flirtatiously. The picture, now outdated, doesn’t do him justice. He’s taller now than the entry proclaims, his hair a little longer and framing his face. He’s tanned, like someone who spends a lot of time outside. Despite this, his gaze is just as smoldering and his expression only more self–assured.
“It’s okay, I often think back fondly on our…friendlier matches, too.”
He’s positive he’s not imagining the flush on Neji’s face then. Maybe they had been more than classmates before Sasuke had left. He definitely needs to ask about that later. Sasuke seems to catch him staring, the way Kakashi’s eyes rove over his all-black ensemble and the blade at his hip.
Before he can react, there is another Sasuke behind him and he finds himself moved to the opposite end of the clearing they’re in, beside the seated Sasuke. A knife held to his throat. He curses, embarrassed at the ease with which he’d been caught. Sasuk’s body is warm and solid behind him, more sturdy than he seems from his graceful movements.
“Relax, kid,” the low voice murmurs in his ear, “I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to talk to Neji here and you’re a good insurance policy.”
Kakashi remains still, locking eyes with Neji and nodding shortly to signal he'd be okay.
“What is it, Uchiha?” His sensei grinds out, “Playing your games with me is one thing but laying a hand on one of my students is unforgivable.”
“Honestly, he doesn’t seem to mind very much. But I won’t waste your time. Have you given it any thought?”
Kakashi’s ears perk at this and he eyes Neji’s tense form curiously.
“I give nothing a traitor says any thought.”
Sasuke’s voice sounds resigned when he speaks again, sad almost.
“Not quite there yet…that’s fine.”
There is a charged moment then, where it seems Sasuke is leaving the space for Neji to fill. When he doesn’t - his eyes trained only on his captive student - a sigh leaves Sasuke, ruffling Kakashi’s hair.
“If you want to talk-”
“I have nothing to say to you, Uchiha. So, please…unhand my student.”
Kakashi feels the arm around him drop, the flat surface of the kunai leaving his vulnerable neck and tapping against his cheek in an almost affectionate gesture before he’s shoved forward.
“Off you go then.”
When Kakashi spins back around, the air behind him is empty, leaving behind only swirling leaves.
“What the hell was that?” he asks, perplexed.
“Well, you wanted to meet Uchiha Sasuke,” Neji drawls, looking around at the clearing for more threats, “Now you have.”
***
Later, back at the inn they’d settled at after Neji decided they should avoid travel in these parts by nightfall, Kakashi decides to broach the subject.
“Sensei…about back there. Seems like maybe you knew Sasuke pretty well-”
“And?”
The cut-off is sharp. Kakashi shrugs, feeling like he’s definitely overstepped as he takes in the narrowing of Neji’s eyes, the line between his brow. His byakugan isn’t active now, but it might as well be for how Kakashi feels like he’s under a microscope.
“I just- it must be hard,” he finishes, lamely.
Neji sighs here, walking to the table in their room to pour himself a drink from the small complimentary bottle they’d been given. After some thought, he pours a smaller amount for Kakashi and hands it to him, settling himself on his bed and facing him. He takes a sip, sitting cross-legged and looking every bit the regal shinobi Kakashi knows, the previous fluster hidden away again.
“Sasuke and I could relate to each other in some sense, certainly before he killed his brother…we could provide each other with much needed comfort. I don’t know if I can call us friends, not like he was with Uzumaki. But it did hurt. When he left, and then when he…changed.”
Kakashi downs his drink in a gulp, holding back a smile at the shock on Neji’s face at his lack of reaction.
“ Comfort what they called it back then, sensei?”
“You-” Neji begins, a glare abandoned before it’s fully formed, “I suppose I should just be happy you’re unharmed. Brat.”
Kakashi falls back onto his bed, staring contemplatively at the ceiling as the warm drink burns down his throat and down into his belly.
“Yeah…I don’t think he would have hurt me anyway. Instinct.”
“Careful,” Neji says, finishing off his own drink and setting the glass down on his night stand, “Bad instincts can get you killed.”
It’s only much later that Kakashi realizes Neji hadn’t countered his assessment, despite his disapproving tone.
***
“Fuck,” Kakashi curses at the sting in his side, he’s injured in enemy territory with no disernable way out - at least not quick enough before he dies of blood loss. What he’d thought had been a small nick turned out to be quite the gash and though he’s relatively well hidden, not being found is as bad of a prospect as the opposite at the moment.
A pitiable way to die, he thinks, running through all the missteps that had made this mission go sideways.
He laments the inexperienced team that has landed him here. His genin squad never would have fucked up like this, Neji wouldn’t have allowed it to happen. Never mind that he’d refused to sign a recommendation to put Kakashi in ANBU, right up until the end.
Kakashi misses them. He misses Neji.
Maybe he’d see them soon enough, he ponders, as his vision goes black.
The first thing Kakashi notices when he comes to is that he is warm.
He doesn’t open his eyes immediately and does his best to modulate his chakra so he doesn’t alert the presence he feels nearby.
The man doesn’t even flinch when he unsheathes his tanto, curiously left beside him. It should insult Kakashi, but he’s transfixed by the face he sees in front of him.
“Easy there. My medical jutsu isn’t so amazing, you’ll rip that wound open again,” the man continues to read from his book, uncaring of Kakashi’s blade trained on him.
“You…” he breathes, in wonderment.
“Me?”
That familiar voice and easy demeanor. More powerful than most villages combined, sitting prim and looking for all the world like he’s having afternoon tea and not sitting in a damp and dusty cave with a boy he barely knows and had been on death’s door.
“Uchiha,” he says warily, “You’re an enemy of Konoha.”
“And you’re just a kid,” Sasuke says, something symptathic in his eyes, “I’m not going to kill you, if that’s why you’re worried.”
“Not a kid,” he says instead, fighting the furrow in his brow.
“Right. What are you, sixteen? Seventeen? Old enough to die for Konoha. My mistake, of course.”
“What do you know of Konoha?” Kakashi growls, out of habit more than anything. “You left over a decade ago…you don’t care. Neji died, and you don’t care.”
He’s smug at the way the apathetic expression has melted off Sasuke’s face, leaving something far more wounded. When he speaks again though, there is no trace of anger in his tone.
“Hm. What do you know of Konoha, Hatake Kakashi?”
He blinks. He’s sure Neji hadn’t mentioned his name back then, the first time he’d met Sasuke.
“Don’t look so surprised,” Sasuke says, catching on to his confusion, “Your presence in the bingo book should be an honor, no? For the record, I mourned Neji’s death when news of it reached me. If I had my way he would still be alive. Along with many others. At the very least, he would have been free.”
Kakashi scowls. He may have been moved by Sasuke once, more out of a childish curiosity or adolescent hormones than anything else, but he has little patience for the man’s riddles in this state.
“Yeah, whatever. Look, thanks for helping me, but I’m not here for some conversion attempt.”
Sasuke puts down his book then, and walks over slowly. He kneels in front of Kakashi, something dark in his gaze.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he says, “I just have one question. Something that’s been weighing on me since I read into your history.”
Sasuke pauses here, tilting his head unassumingly.
“What killed your father?”
Kakashi freezes.
No one mentions his father anymore, certainly not around him. It doesn’t matter, he remembers every day - the metallic smell of blood, it’s deep red staining his father’s snowy hair. Kakashi didn’t have the heart to wash it out before the funeral.
He glares.
He doesn’t like this game, whatever it is, and revises his opinion of Uchiha Sasuke to include the word asshole .
“As I’m sure you know, he committed suicide because he couldn’t handle-”
“Wrong.”
“Excuse me?”
“Think deeper.”
The anger rises in him like a tide.
“He brought dishonor to himself, shame to his family-”
“No, Kakashi,” Sasuke says gently, and he stills when large hands cup his face, “ Who killed your father, really?”
He doesn’t answer. Sasuke’s face looks like it had all those years ago, when Neji had denied him. Kakashi takes the opportunity to observe the man. His almost delicate face belying the power inside him, coiled like a snake readying a strike.
“You need to rest,” Sasuke says then, and Kakashi becomes aware of the pain in his side once more, “I’ll leave everything you need right here. You’re safe, one of my summons will guard you and you can leave when you’re ready. Your passage back to your team will be unencumbered if you leave in the next two days.”
“What? Wait-”
He feels the tiny sting at his neck before he can protest, ask Sasuke what it all means, and the last thing he sees is Sasuke leaving him with a tender smile and the feeling of the hand cupping his cheek brushing against his skin softly.
“Take care, cub,” Sasuke says, smile turning playful at the way Kakashi scowls as he loses consciousness, “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
***
“You ready for retirement?” Tenzo asks, “A true hero of the village, settling for the quiet life of a rank-and-file jonin.”
“It’s not really retirement…” Kakashi says, playing with the label on his beer bottle, “And I…don’t know.”
Admittedly, nineteen is a little young to be leaving the ANBU ranks. He’s in his prime, really. It hadn’t been easy getting his discharge through, but the decision was finally approved without much fuss in the end, given he’s staying on as a jounin.
Konoha will get her pound of flesh either way, Kakashi knows.
Over the years he’d encountered Sasuke more, sometimes directly, sometimes a hint or note left behind that could only be him. He’d gotten Kakashi, and sometimes his squads, out of more than one tricky situation - unbeknownst to anyone but Kakashi.
Kakashi doesn't quite know why he keeps these not-so-little secrets to himself, covets them like letters between lovers. A ridiculous thought. Sasuke is a decorated - if notorious - shinobi, handsome and straight out of a novel or movie. Not a villain exactly, Kakashi is realizing, more like a dark anti-hero, shunning the limelight.
Kakashi, on the other hand, is a lanky and naive tool of a system he’s coming to hate more each day. He’s not a child anymore, but he might as well be one in comparison. Sasuke had turned his back on this farce, the only life he’d ever known, years younger than Kakashi is now.
He’s no hero.
He has one last ANBU mission left before he’s moved back into the general ranks - an assignment to destroy the base of a known rebel’s hideout. Kakashi’s snuck into the space, landing in a seemingly empty living quarters when he hears it - soft footfalls and the shuffle of fabric.
He whips around, kunai already flying out of his hands that the man avoids easily.
“Quite the hello, Kakashi. It’s good to see you, too.”
He should probably be more concerned about all this, but since his last several encounters and some off-the-books research he’d been doing, he’s come to see Sasuke as less of a threat and more like an eccentric friend.
Sasuke looks older this time, visibly so, thanks to the scruffy beard he’s now sporting - a feature Kakashi can’t help but remark on.
“Playing a roguish leading man in your local theater production?” he jibes.
Sasuke's answering smile is mischievous, like he knows the comment is not exactly not a compliment.
“Ah, well, I lost my arm in a little skirmish,” he replies, raising his right shoulder where indeed an arm is not , “and I haven’t quite mastered the delicate touch of shaving with my left and not wasting chakra on a clone. It’s only been a month though, I had more pressing concerns.”
That’s one way to describe the disabling of two large crime syndicates in Wave.
Apparently, one handed.
The more Kakashi learns about Sasuke, the more he finds himself questioning everything else.
Pulling a sharpened kunai from his pocket, he holds it up questioningly.
“Want some help?”
***
Kakashi guides the blade gently around Sasuke’s sharp chin and jaw in the little bathroom of the hideout, all the while avoiding his equally sharp gaze.
Underneath the beard, Sasuke still has a young face, bright eyes and soft dark hair. He looks amused.
“This is longer than we usually get to talk. How have the years treated you ANBU-san?”
“It’ll just be Kakashi…soon.”
“Oh?”
“Retiring from ANBU after this mission.”
“What will you do next?”
Kakashi thinks of the files hidden beneath the village, of countless Uchiha names marked deceased and the surrounding redactions, of his father’s lifeless corpse, of holding a kunai before he could speak…
He thinks of being a jounin sensei, an unassuming title, a jovial sounding one even.
Another deception.
“I…I don’t know.”
“I’m sure a man like you has many options.”
He laughs, without much humor.
“Options…In the shinobi world, all roads lead to one thing, but then you know that. You’ve always known that.”
When Kakashi finishes the last stroke of the blade and wipes Sasuke’s face down gently with a hot towel, Sasuke stands and Kakashi is reminded just how much of his growing fantasies have been occupied by this man and his dark eyes. They look at him now appraisingly.
“Not all your options are tied to the shinobi world, as you know it.”
There is a heavy pause here, in which Kakashi realizes he may have been waiting for this moment all along, in all that time of directionless wandering.
“Want some company?” he offers, as if it’s a second thought and not one that’s been rattling around in the back of his mind for years now.
Sasuke grins.
“Thought you’d never ask.”
***
Kakashi looks back at Konoha, at the small lights and familiar buildings, the mass of trees cradling the village.
He’d snuck back in to collect a few sentimental things and leave his plants for Tenzo.
“What you’re doing will protect them, too,” Sasuke says gently, hand on his back.
He nods, giving his home - for better or worse - one last look before he turns back to Sasuke and towards his future.
“Come on. You deserve a break after so many years of loyal service. And then,” Sasuke pauses here, the gleam in his eyes setting Kakashi ablaze with some new purpose, “We have work to do.”