Lifeline

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Disclaimer: The Naruto universe and its wonderful characters do not belong to me.

SPOILER ALERT if you are not up to date with the latest manga chapters. Read no further if you don't want to spoil it for yourself.

Author's Notes: This is set slightly after the current manga arc (so, quite possibly, this will be AU in a couple weeks' time). I've been mulling this general idea in my head for a while now, although the original was very different from this. I know the manga is focused more on the battles right now and this topic might be touched on later, but it just bothered me so much that Kakashi's death hasn't been discussed in detail at all so I had to fix that issue for myself. A part of me hopes in vain that really he's not dead and somehow they'll be able to bring him back to life. As I haven't written a KakaSasu in an eternity, I decided to throw that aspect into the mix as well – but be forewarned that it is an extremely weak KakaSasu, which you may already have assumed given that one of the characters is dead and it's told from someone else's point of view. The beginning is purposely confusing, but I think once you read further on it's pretty easy to figure out. As always, comments are greatly appreciated!

He comes in the silence of the early morning, the darkest part of night. The sound of dripping water echoes from nowhere, muffled yet indiscreet. His soft sigh mists on air and disappears into the heavy cold of the room, weighed down by death, the metal of the wall cool against the nape of his neck. Eyelashes flitter on the ends of shut lids. On the other side of the room, a door creaks open – as he knew it would, as he knew it must. He feels the footsteps as they progress, feels them rather than hears them because these footfalls were trained not to make a sound. He squeezes his eyelids shut before prying them open, letting nothing else in his body move except his eyes. Slowly, expectantly, he eases the mass of his body, so suddenly ungraceful, around the edge of his hideout to see what he has waited for: this intruder, this visitor, this cadaver of an angel.

Kakashi's body is bare, modestly covered with a single white sheet folded neatly below his arms. He had never known death to ever be so clean. Ivory fingers brush ivory sheets, smoothing out the creases. Only his dark clothes give off a sense of mourning; his face betrays nothing. Dark eyes flash red as the translucent hand floats over the deceased, making its way toward Kakashi's face, impassive both in life and death. He barely dares to shift his weight from the balls of his feet to the soles, engrossed in this death-watch like a melancholy dream. He is suddenly the intruder, watching the bereaved say farewell to the departed. He had said his goodbyes already, with Sakura at his side and no audience to speak of. They could have moved Kakashi's body elsewhere; they could have put his body under stricter guard. Either way, he doubted it would have made much difference. He had known, had been waiting for this scene to play, since the moment he realized that Kakashi would never again show up late to an appointment with them. The man in the room had just as much right to want to say goodbye, although he had debated heavily his desert of such a privilege. He had known he would come back; he knew it was the only thing he would ever come back for.

A pale hand traces the defined lines of Kakashi's face, fingertips brushing over decoloured lips and tracing their curves. A nail traces the path down the bridge of an aristocratic nose, knuckles feeling the coldness of lifeless cheeks. To him these features had been a revelation, a part of the man he had never seen prior to death. To the hand reliving their waking moments, such a sight must have been perfectly natural, as much a staple as breathing.

The hand pauses above one closed eye, hovering uncertainly. He doesn't fail to notice that it is the left eye, and this is the first sign of emotion he shows. For one insane moment, he thinks the man will simply rip out that wayward eye, one that has seen so much suffering and pain. But instead of making contact with his fingers, he retracts his hand to replace it with his mouth, leaning down to press a kiss to the scarred tissue of the eyelid. Barely touching, he grazes the skin with his lower lip and sighs softly onto the shut eyes, his breath moving the delicate hairs of each lash. From the vantage point he has, it appears as if Kakashi's eyes are fluttering in sleep. It is a futile hope at best, but if ever he believed anyone could bring Kakashi back to life, it would be the phantom now standing at his side.

Because he has happened on scenes he shouldn't have, those eons before everything fell apart. He had seen a moment much like this one, Kakashi's hands and his hands, bare skin sliding together as lips devoured and explored. Shock barely had time to register as three red eyes and one black one collapsed to the ground, collapsed into each other. How fiercely they had held each other, as if in seconds it would all end, as if it would never have been had they let go. Kakashi's eyes held a look of desperation while his eyes were glued shut, in a world beyond anyone's reach. The last thing he heard through the open window before departing was a shuddering gasp of passion and fury, indicative of everything he had ever known about the boy he considered his brother. At that instant, he lost a teacher and a friend. Because it was something beyond the comprehensible, because it was something beyond the reach of anyone else, he had never spoken of it to another soul. Until this moment it had remained nothing but a phantom in his mind, a phantom and the assurance of knowing that there was always one lifeline left bounding them.

But their lifeline is no more now than a scarred corpse, flawed and perfect. He would never know if it was ever about love. He isn't sure that he wants to know the fallacies of truth. Either way, Kakashi had never belonged to them. He had always belonged to him. It had always been him alone.

He tucks the blanket neatly under Kakashi's torso and legs, wrapping the loose fabric under stray limbs as he slid his hands beneath the body and lifts it into his arms. Naruto stands in tune.

For the first time in months, he allows himself to even think the other's name.

"Sasuke."

The other turns, Kakashi's body seeming to weigh no more than a feather in his arms. Although he must not have felt Naruto's presence before, he doesn't show the smallest sign of surprise.

"What do you want?"

He steps out from his place of hiding, approaching cautiously. Sasuke follows him with his eyes. Upon closer inspection his skin appears sallow, the flesh gaunt around the hollow of his cheeks and the protrusions of his bones. Naruto thinks he must not have slept in days to make the journey from Sound as quickly as he did. His is an empty and haunting beauty, forever filled with a will of fire but devoid now of consuming hate. There is nothing behind that face that he can notice save for solitude.

"I—"

There is only one dream he has ever known, and he's not quite sure how to express what the other's part is in it. It had never been his intention to ask, force, or persuade Sasuke to return to the village. They have grown up too much for such naïve, wilful thinking. It had never been his intention to let the other boy notice him this night, but the thought of seeing his friend without saying a word was more than he could bear.

"I just wanted to see you."

Naruto isn't sure what Sasuke is thinking as his eyes hold on to his gaze, silent and loud, neutral and expressive all in one instant. He has never been able to read those flashes of true feeling that cross Sasuke's eyes, and it has crossed his mind on more than one occasion that it is probably a good rationale as to why he could never reach the other's heart. Someone had once told him that one may know another being, but knowing did not translate to understanding. These days he questions whether he knew Sasuke even the slightest bit at all.

The moment passes without incident and Sasuke shifts his grip on his precious parcel as he turns to walk out of the room, to walk out of the village, out of his life the way he had so many times before. Something in him says that it will be for the last time. He is halfway between happiness and hurt, selflessness and greed, just the way he had been on that day. For the second time in his life he loses a friend and teacher both. The question slips from him unbidden, unformed, unknowable.

"Would you have come back if it was me?"

Sasuke pauses mid-step at the question, a surprise to them both. Naruto notices for the first time that Sasuke's hair has grown out some length, the majority of which was tied neatly at the nape of his neck, much like that of another Uchiha. In dawning horror he starts to wonder how many corpses Sasuke has been collecting, how many memories he has kept and how many he has been able to let go. Sasuke shifts his grip on Kakashi again, moving him higher up his arms and closer to his body. His voice is hoarse from disuse.

"I don't know," he says finally, honestly. It is more truthful than either of them suspected; more truthful and painful and hopeful than either of them thought was possible. Sasuke disappears without a backward glance, as ambiguous as his parting words.

Much, much later, the sound of his words still echo loudly in Naruto's ears. He sits in the morgue until the first rays of the sun pierce the filtered glass and strike a shard of light on the linoleum floor. When he places his hand on the place Kakashi's body had been, he thinks he feels Sasuke's warmth still clinging to the cold metal.

'I don't know,' Sasuke had said. Naruto almost smiles for the first time in weeks, and thinks that just maybe Kakashi isn't the only lifeline left between them after all.

end