The only time Minato ever let Kakashi sleep in his bed was when Kakashi was seven years old and stumbled into his house with his shirt so soaked with blood it looked black even in the light. His eyes were cold and his face was clean as a slate, but there was a slight tremor in the red-stained hands (a sort of rattling shaking) that Minato almost didn’t notice, at first—almost.
“My dad’s dead,” said Kakashi sullenly, like it was nothing more than being sent to bed without supper.
Minato wanted to be surprised. Honestly, truly, he wanted to, but there was nothing but a dull, dead feeling in the pit of his stomach and an aching sadness for Kakashi. Neither shock nor grief on either side of the mask at the muffled declaration. Sakumo had been dead for months now. This was just the death certificate.
There were times when Minato could admit he wanted to hate the man: abandoning his kid? What right did he have? There was a clear responsibility, here, and it was the thin, bloodied child standing in front of him with lost grey eyes and shaking hands, not honour, or whatever the hell was in Sakumo’s mind when he’d taken his life. God, he wanted to hate him.
But Minato couldn’t. Sakumo had the same lost grey eyes as Kakashi, after all.
“I’ll call the hospital,” Minato had told Kakashi. He’d pulled the boy into his arms and let his breath fall down Kakashi’s neck as he picked him up, shifting the light burden a little to the side. Made his way to the kitchen and called Tsunade, then Kushina. Then he was setting Kakashi down on a chair and sighing heavily, careful not to make eye contact with the broken child before him.
“Do you want to go back?” he asked. Kakashi just shook his head mutely.
Minato ran his fingers through his hair. The hospital would probably be best—Kakashi was thin and pale, and dark circles ran under his eyes. But there was no way he was leaving Kakashi’s side now—not like the dick of a dad that Sakumo was.
“Alright,” he'd said finally, “you can stay here. I’ll sleep on the couch.”
Of course, it didn’t happen that way. Looking back, Minato can’t imagine he ever thought it would. An hour later Kushina had come home to find the two sprawled together on Minato’s single bed, Kakashi’s hand buried in Minato’s and his head pulled tight under Minato’s chin.
Being Kushina, she didn’t wake them. When Minato woke in the morning, there was yet another hand in his.
That hand is gone now, like the woman who held it. But Minato stands tall because he can see his wife in his son’s eyes, can feel her spirit in Naruto’s voice. And even though the whole world is being shot to hell, it feels right, like this was the way it was supposed to be all along.
Minato wonders if Kakashi died happy.
He’s not here—in fact, Minato recognizes next to no one on the battlefield, save his son. Minato wonders if Kakashi fell in love and had children and taught a team of his own. Naruto is seventeen. That’s plenty of time to become happy.
Minato doubts he ever was.
And he knows it’s his fault.
Abandoning a child shouldn’t be so easy. Minato wanted to hate Sakumo for it, hates himself even now. Naruto is strong and happy despite being left behind—but none of that changes the fact that Kakashi isn’t here. He isn’t here, and it’s Minato’s fault, he knows it, knows it like he knows Naruto will succeed him in every way possible.
I’m sorry, Kakashi, he thinks, and at the same time I love you sears through his brain.
All of a sudden, the world explodes in white.
Light blurs into shapes, and when Minato blinks the last of them into reality Kakashi is standing there before him.
His back is towards Minato, so Minato can only imagine the look in his eyes as he plunges the faded kunai into Obito. Blood spurts out and stains his shirt. His jounin jacket is gone, his clothes ripped and torn. Minato can’t see the mask, hopes to God it’s not there anymore, and he's running, running towards Kakashi, towards the son who was never his to begin with. (The words in his mind are please please please but his lips remain strung in a thin, firm line.)
Obito freezes, then reaches for Kakashi’s throat. And Kakashi is weakened, and tired, and Minato can see Kakashi’s eyes now so he can see that they are sad and grey and lost as they were the day Sakumo died. They’re sad and grey and lost as the father who abandoned him.
Kakashi isn’t going to fight back, Minato realizes, like a sucker punch to the gut.
Kakashi is going to let Obito kill him because he thinks it’s what he deserves, and Minato knows, knows, knows he’s going to be too late, again, just like he is every time Kakashi needs him. He’s going to abandon him like every other time in Kakashi’s life.
A single image flashes behind his eyes.
Then Minato finds himself crammed tight between Kakashi and Obito.
Without thinking, Minato shoves Obito away and catches Kakashi in his arms, clinging, desperate. He doesn’t know how he made it in time. Not until he sees the kunai Kakashi is gripping in his hand like it’s the most important thing in the world to him, and recognizes the red seal down that runs down the side.
Kakashi’s eyes are heavy, soft.
“Kashi-kun,” Minato whispers, shaking him. “Kakashi, come on, come on.”
Those sad, lost grey eyes open slowly.
And then, for the first time since Minato’s known him, they aren’t lost anymore.
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