Chapter Text
Frost coated the windows in pretty patterns and the snow fell in neat little piles outside of their neat little apartment. The scene was strangely picturesque.
Christmas was just around the corner. Thinking about it, nobody knew where the holiday had originated from but everyone was happy to celebrate anyway, lights glittering around the village and great hulking trees imported from further inland and children laughing and laughing and laughing without a care in the world…
It was irritating.
Kakashi pulled the curtains shut more harshly than necessary. The ignorance of the people outside made his skin crawl and rage boil in his gut. Sick. He couldn’t breathe for a moment.
Their own apartment looked like something out of Snow Country. Tinsel and garlands and wreaths as far as the eye could see. Multicoloured lights so bright they were blinding in every hall. Little ice figurines that Kakashi had sculpted himself and slaved away at to maintain because Naruto had wanted them.
Naruto…
His skin itched and mind howled. He felt sick again. Wrong in the way that he did sometimes where he wanted to gouge his own eyes out or scratch at the scars on his skin until he bled.
He was angry with him.
All wrong, everything was wrong without him.
His head was full of static as he stumbled into the living room, where his sunshine sat disregarding everything. Heat pricked unforgivingly at Kakashi's eyes when he took a cold hand into his own. He had hoped maybe he'd say something today. Maybe things would return to normal and he would be able to feel joy again.
“I’m sorry,” his voice broke. Naruto’s eyes were frozen like the villagers, like all of the people that wanted him dead, like he’d promised they would never be…
He didn’t say a word in response, looked through Kakashi like he may as well not exist.
Kakashi’s hysteria rocketed.
“You said you wouldn’t leave me, you said you’d never hate me. You promised, you promised me-”
Looking through him with hatred. Lost him, he’d lost him.
He shouldn’t have hurt them but in the moment he’d had to. They had demanded it of him and he’d been happy to comply. Mistake after mistake after mistake. So what if Sasuke had been getting too close to him, if Sakura had been too friendly? It didn’t matter, nothing mattered in the face of this apathy being turned on him. Nothing mattered at all if Naru wouldn’t look at him with those awestruck eyes, if he wouldn’t even utter a word to him.
“Please,” he begged, tears falling freely down his face. “Please forgive me. I’ll do anything just forgive me…please just… please-”
Kakashi didn’t know how long he passed out for. Maybe he hadn’t passed out at all. Maybe he’d stared at the ceiling until he’d forgotten he existed, until his problems weren’t his own and reality was nothing. He didn’t know. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore.
Maybe he should kill Hiruzen? Or the old banshees. That… that sounded good. Konoha had made him who he was today. Even with his mind fractured the way it was, he could recognise he was falling apart at the seams.
They had done this to him.
Exacerbated his flaws until they consumed him, stolen his moral compass, taken and taken and taken until-
“A gift!” Kakashi gasped suddenly, voice guttural. “A gift. If I give you a good enough gift will you look at me the way you used to?”
Naruto’s face shifted into something contemplative before he raised a brow questioningly, almost taunting him. Kakashi didn’t care, it was the most he’d gotten in days. A twisted euphoria filled his heart, he was feverish with hope.
A gift would be his salvation. A gift would return his light. A gift a gift a gift.
He should ask Obito for help, he was always good at giving gifts even if he was rude about it. Did Obito know Naruto as well as Kakashi did though? No. Besides Kakashi couldn’t give him an eye, that would be deranged. His brother would hate it.
Rin would probably be helpful but Kakashi could bet she would’ve taken Obito on some romantic getaway by now, far far away from the village.
He was happy for them. He was jealous.
Kakashi gripped his hair, yanking it in frustration. What could he do? He couldn’t afford to mess this up, not when it was so crucial. He had to find something perfect he had to, he couldn't not- Kakashi didn’t notice when he ripped tufts out, completely lost in his thoughts. Silver strands floated around him like the snowflakes outside.
Would Naruto run to hug him anyway if he failed?
Would he murmur, ‘It’s okay, I’ll always be here’?
Or would he kill him? Stab that dagger through his heart and smile at his corpse?
The thought made him shudder in subdued delight. He wouldn’t mind dying by his hands. It would be like finishing a long race. Konoha wouldn’t have killed him if his sunshine had beaten them to it.
Father wouldn’t like that though.
Kakashi gasped softly as the pain finally hit him, rooting him in the reality he despised. Relief and apathy filled him in equal measure when his hands came away from his hair bloodstained.
A present, he’d needed a present not suicidal ideation.
The steady dripping of his ice figurines was all he could hear. He’d have to fix the melting sculptures in the corner soon, Naruto didn’t like it when they got the floors wet. He’d said they weren’t pretty anymore. He'd said that Kakashi was a failure. He'd said he hated him, he didn’t want a brother like him.
Kakashi had cried then, felt all weepy and sad until Naruto had given him a nice new scar to gush over.
He wouldn’t let it happen again.
The noise was giving him a headache. If it didn’t stop he would start breaking things, he knew it. More importantly than that though, staring at the deteriorating ice was giving him an idea.
“You’ll love it,” Kakashi murmured, caressing Naruto’s cheek with a shaking hand. “I’ll make sure you love it.”
Iruka didn’t know Naruto that well but he’d always been in class, slinking around in the shadows or whispering to Sasuke and Sakura at the back, a constant presence. That was until he wasn’t. On the first day none of them had been in. Despite Sasuke and Sakura’s records he’d written it off as them skipping together and nothing more.
But the days had passed. Sakura had been the first to return, seemingly injured, and then a couple of days after that, Sasuke had walked in, bandaged to heaven but still breathing. They’d whispered to each other more furiously since then, worried glances constantly shot at Naruto’s empty seat.
A few days had become almost two weeks and even Iruka was worried. His students seemed terrified for Naruto to an unreasonable degree but he could understand… Everyone had heard the rumours.
This was how he’d ended up at the door of an inconspicuous apartment at the edge of the village, two presents tucked under his arm. He moved to knock but when he touched the door it easily swung aside revealing a place that looked like what he imagined Santa’s grotto did. Decorations everywhere, beautiful and dazzling...
Despite that he was uneasy.
The house was freezing and there was an insidious quality of offness underpinning the cheerful atmosphere that had Iruka on edge. The only sound other than the wind howling outside was the monotonous hum of indistinguishable words coming from what he guessed to be the living room.
That door was ajar too.
Only years of shinobi training stopping Iruka from vomiting right then.
The frozen heart Hatake Kakashi was offering his brother was human.
There was still blood trickling down the man’s fingers, spattered on his face and clothing. It looked fresh. Kakashi didn't seem to care. His features were twisted into a deranged smile and something disgustingly honeyed dripped from his tone.
“Her! Do you remember? That Anbu that tried to put her filthy hands on you. You like it, right? Tell me you love it, Naruto.” Iruka took a step back, the hairs on his skin standing up. He had to get Naruto out of here, this was no place for a child. How had the hokage ever approved custody when Kakashi was so clearly unstable?
“You’ll love me again now, right? You’ll forgive me now, won’t you?” He only realised how desperate Kakashi was as his smile fell, replaced by a frantic expression. His breathing was erratic and his eyes were wide, pleading. The moment of vulnerability highlighted how disheveled he looked. This... 'search for forgiveness' was tearing him apart, fraying him more dangerously than anything Iruka had heard about in recent times. He likely hadn't slept in days and long gashes marred his arms where Iruka assumed he'd tried to rip his own skin off.
The presents, he would leave the presents but he needed backup immediately. He couldn’t take on Kakashi by himself, especially not when he was like this-
“You have to forgive me, you have to, you can’t not, you have to-”
Kakashi gripped Naruto like he was a lifeline, like he would die without him. Something mad flickered in his eyes as he pulled the blond into a hug and Iruka’s blood froze as he came to a realisation.
Naruto’s eyes weren’t empty in the way they were when he was furious.
They were lifeless.