Naruto fic: Beginning and End (Kakashi/Sasuke NC-17)
Title: Beginning and End
Gift For: fleetingly
Pairing: Kakashi/Sasuke
Warning(s): Sasuke is of age? Mild Orochimaru and Kakashi-Gaiden spoilers?
Genre: Unromantic!Angst
Rating: NC-17 (or strong R?)
Word Length: 8.000 aprox
Summary: Post-time-skip, of sorts. Kakashi finds himself charged with Sasuke’s guardianship again, while Sasuke discovers how many things he’s lost, and how many he can still recover … What little is there that can still be won?
Author’s notes: Also done for the naruto_rabu gift-exchange. This fic took me several tries and a long time in planning and smoothing out, given that the pairing is complicated. I love KakaSasu as a concept, but only under certain circumstances: that of Sasuke being of age, and both characters retaining their basic personalities. There are a few fics out there that really hit the nail right on, and this is my tribute to them, in a way. I truly enjoyed writing it, but it was very, very difficult. I hope it pays off for you guys in reading it. :)
Beta'ed by the awesome cindelius
Beginning and End
One cannot make of one’s life an apology, not even to those it is owed to. Kakashi, very aware of this fact, was no less prone to falling back on old habits, like visiting memorials, brooding over past mistakes, and pushing his nose into a book; these were all things that were his before and after them.
Of course, before they came into his life, Kakashi’s understanding of a team had been different. And after … well, after, he began to wonder if he had not been trying, all along, to vicariously relive his youth through those children. He suspected that this was behind the Sannin’s motives as well, but he had had Team 7 first so it was only fair, Kakashi thought, for him to have been the one who originally made them surrogates for… something else.
He sometimes wondered what would have happened if he’d never taught Sasuke the chidori: would he have left sooner? Would he have left at all? Would Naruto have needed to push himself quite so far, or would the dead-last student have become as powerful all the same? Kakashi constantly looked back on those last days of peace, when he chose Sasuke over Naruto - because, really, he owed Obito - and the more he looked back, the less he understood.
Kakashi wondered if he’d really been doing all of that for Obito in the end. This thought came to him strongest as he raced back to Konoha with Naruto’s limp body on his back. Sasuke was far behind, lost to them already, and Kakashi realised, flayed by this sudden guilt, that he’d almost let Obito die again.
As time had gone by, he’d found less and less of his own dead friend in Sasuke, and it slowly became clear that he’d gotten it all wrong. Saving Sasuke wasn’t about Obito, not really; if it had been about Obito, then he would have focused on Naruto the most. But Kakashi, unaccountably selfish as he was, had chosen to save himself, once more.
Naruto lived to tell that tale, but Jiraiya took him under his wing.
Jiraiya, who’d left Kakashi to fare for himself after the Yondaime died, even though the Yondaime asked his teacher expressly to look after Kakashi and Rin. Jiraiya took Naruto - took Obito - from him, and Kakashi, having lost himself and himself, stood before the memorial stone and tucked one hand in his pocket and his nose into a book.
I’m sorry, Obito. I messed up.
That was not the beginning, nor the end of it.
* * *
They brought Sasuke back near the end of the war.
Kakashi had known for a long time that the foolish boy had been working as a rogue, having escaped Orochimaru at the last minute before the transfer. For a while there, Konoha-nin had found themselves inexplicably aided by a particular unidentified warrior. When Kakashi heard this, he knew. In the end, atonement was a concept that came with age and understanding.
They brought Sasuke back with information enough to pay for his life, but not his freedom.
Naruto saw him to his cell and sat beside him, separated by the chakra-infused bars even after everyone except Kakashi had left. Kakashi stayed, but only because the Hokage ordered it. There was something too personal in seeing Naruto’s hunched shape by the cell bars, it set his teeth on edge.
“Sasuke-bastard, welcome home.” It was the first thing Naruto said to Sasuke after hours and hours of silence.
Naruto’s face looked worn. There were shadows under his eyes and Kakashi wished - suddenly - that he could squeeze the boy’s shoulder and say something comforting; something a friend or a close teammate might have said. He knew, however, that he’d given up that chance years earlier, when a younger Naruto had begged for help and had been turned down, in favour of ... “You’ve been missed,” Naruto sighed, getting to his feet with an ill-suppressed wince.
Sasuke nodded and took a breath as if to speak, but Naruto turned his back on Sasuke abruptly, and that killed whatever else might have been said. Black eyes widened and then dulled, his words stillborn.
Naruto paused only for an instant to nod, in deference, at his once-teacher before he reached for the door. His jounin slacks were stained with blood and dirt; they left a smear where he’d been sitting close to the bars, maybe - maybe? - waiting for Sasuke to speak up first. If that was so, Naruto had waited for hours in vain, and his wounds were still bleeding. It made sense that he’d turn away now, all in all.
Kakashi had always wanted to apologise to Obito, and he ached for Sasuke to say anything to Naruto right then; but Sasuke licked his lips and looked out the window, face twisted into a mask of fury or futility, or both.
The door closed behind Naruto with barely a creak, and there something did end.
* * *
“And why, exactly, do I have to live with you?”
Impertinent child. Boy. Man. Brat.
“Because the Hokage has placed you under my care. And when she said ‘constant supervision,’ she meant constant supervision. I’m your parole officer, Sasuke. Live with it, and pick up that bag.”
Sasuke’s eyes strayed - barely noticeable - a little to the left before he picked up his bag and that was a slip-up Kakashi had not expected to see. He too stared at the cracking paint on Naruto’s building, a few blocks down. Naturally, the Hokage wouldn’t have placed Sasuke there. For the good of Konoha, it was agreed upon that Sasuke would not live with Naruto, not even if Naruto offered or begged … neither of which he had. But they placed him close enough, Kakashi thought with a hidden smirk.
Sasuke hefted the bag with his meagre belongings and strode into the apartment that had been picked out for them, strategically close to an ANBU post. “They’re expecting me to run away any minute now, aren’t they?” He murmured, staring out the window with unreadable eyes.
Kakashi hummed noncommittally and checked the pantry to see if they’d need groceries. Sasuke waited for an answer that never came. Kakashi knew that if Sasuke had let himself be brought back, it was because he was now, in fact, the last of his clan. He wasn’t going anywhere anymore. But Konoha would not grant him that fact, Sasuke’s motives would be forever questioned, until the day he died.
Aaaand … we need food. Does Tsunade honestly think cockroaches are edible?
“Why aren’t you killing it?” Kakashi had felt the displacement of air. Still, it was chillingly disagreeable to feel Sasuke so close and realise just how slippery a creature he’d become. It reeked of Orochimaru and, frankly, that thought was enough to make Kakashi lose his appetite altogether. “It’s a cockroach,” Sasuke ventured again; Kakashi could see his flat dark eyes at the back of his mind.
Kakashi shrugged, keeping his body lax and uncompromising despite Sasuke’s proximity. Little brat, did he honestly want to play at keeping him on his toes? “I’m trying to remember how close, or far, we are from the Aburame neighbourhood.”
“Ah,” Sasuke returned in an equally mild voice. “How considerate of you, Kakashi-sensei.” Orochimaru clung to each word like wet silk, slippery and soft but so very there that it cut like a knife.
“Kakashi will do.”
“Kakashi,” Sasuke tried it out, tasting the syllables and - damn you, Orochimaru - Kakashi became all too aware of the measured lilt, sensuous, yet unapparently so. “Kakashi…” It made him wonder just how much Sasuke had been told about his former teacher while he was in Sound.
Sasuke stepped away from him after that and went to unpack.
When Kakashi returned with the groceries, he had to pick his away around the traps that Sasuke had spread out against intruders and against him.
* * *
Sasuke shifted slightly, pointedly, making Kakashi feel his displeasure. “Why are we even here?”
Kakashi stifled a sigh and muttered a curse at the back of his mind. Not against all Uchihas, Obito, just this one brat I happen to be in charge of, again….
“Is this why you were always late for our training?” Sasuke’s voice seemed torn between derision and scorn, but Kakashi sensed the covert curiosity that Sasuke could not hide as well as he thought he could.
Sasuke’s eyes roved over the stone, quick and efficient, distant. Kakashi remembered also that none of Sasuke’s parents - or close relatives - would be there. Heroes’ names were jotted down for posterity, murder victims were not given such honour, shinobi or not. Unsurprisingly, this memorial meant nothing to Sasuke whatsoever, while it was everything to Kakashi.
“Uchiha Sakumo?” Sasuke queried with a toneless voice.
It took Kakashi a bare second to understand what Sasuke was getting at, and to decide to avoid the game altogether. Kakashi blinked and forced his tense shoulders to unwind as he stood. Feigning nonchalance would be best, he judged. “Eh?”
“Or…” Sasuke’s gazed darted over the stone again. “Uchiha Reiko?”
“What of them?”
Sasuke frowned, displeased by the way in which Kakashi avoided the real question. Bluntness came to the fore, at last. “You must have got your sharingan from someone, and they can’t have died before my great grandfather died, so…” Sasuke looked at the stone and back. “That leaves nine names on this stone, after my grandfather’s death.”
“What makes you think that person’s name is on the stone?”
“You’re here.”
“Ah … yes,” Kakashi conceded. “But that wasn’t the only person I knew who’s dead now.”
Sasuke snorted, but there was less confidence in his stance again. Kakashi turned away and walked back to the village with a casual step. Sasuke followed him quietly, dark eyes boring into his back.
* * *
Sakura came to visit, which was - to Sasuke - as surprising as it was not. Kakashi could tell from the way his eyes lit up for a moment, before their depths flattened out again, that Sasuke had probably been expecting her for a while, but hadn’t counted on how long it would take her to come.
Sakura smiled and chattered about odd things, her parents, some missions, her training with Tsunade. Kakashi noticed, after a while, how she continuously avoided mentioning Naruto and he knew then that Naruto wouldn’t come to see Sasuke for a while yet.
If ever.
Kakashi understood, somewhat. Naruto had wanted Sasuke back, but didn’t really know what to do about it now that he had accomplished his goal. There was too much water under the bridge, too much pain Naruto probably never allowed himself to dwell on … until now. The day Sasuke was brought back, as they sat separated by the bars of Sasuke’s cell, had been the moment for Sasuke to apologise, to say anything at all. Sasuke hadn’t said a single word, and to Naruto, most likely, that had been it.
And no doubt, brat, you realised it too late.
Sasuke left Kakashi and Sakura alone for a while to fetch something - or perhaps to get away from them - and Kakashi found himself being glared at. He smiled sheepishly, wishing Sakura’s anger wasn’t so evidently born from pure worry; sometimes she reminded him too much of Rin. All women did, to some extent.
“So … what’s on your mind, Sakura-chan?”
“The spring festival,” she answered rather flippantly, when Kakashi refused to offer any opening to discuss his own problems. There were tense lines on her forehead even though she feigned disinterest. “Are you going?”
“Unless Sasuke and I are away on a mission, probably. Gai will want to out-drink me or out-eat me at some point. It’s tradition.”
“Of course,” she murmured.
“And what about you?” Kakashi threw the ball back into her court, sensing the possible reason for her mild frown.
“What about me?” She avoided, and Kakashi knew.
Oh for … out with it, girl!
“Who are you thinking of going with?” Kakashi inquired mildly. He felt more than heard Sasuke stop outside the room. It was a stealthy movement and Sakura clearly hadn’t noticed him. Kakashi sighed inwardly, having half-expected this.
“Well … there’s this person I wanted to ask … but it’s been too long I think, and too much has happened. He’ll probably blow me off.” She blinked and smiled. “I’m most likely going solo. I was hoping you were too, sensei, so we could commiserate.”
Kakashi choked a laugh at her gall. “What makes you think I’d be going alone?”
“Oh-ho? Who are you going with?” She pressed and Kakashi did allow himself the laugh this time.
Dangerous girl, this one.
“No one in particular. Now, back to yourself. Aren’t you going to ask this ‘particular young man’ out at all? It’s rather cowardly of you not to … if I may say so.”
Sakura shrugged uncomfortably and Kakashi became all too aware of Sasuke’s silence behind the wall. “I… I just don’t know. Or rather…” She sighed explosively. Kakashi smirked, already familiar with her sudden flashes of determination. “You know what? You’re right, enough with this moping.” She got up and smoothed out her dress. “I’m going to ask him out right now, or else he’ll never even THINK of asking me.”
Sasuke stepped into the room then, tugging on a jacket he’d probably fetched at the last minute to justify his absence. “Leaving already?” He asked, markedly standing in her way. Something flickered in his eyes as she turned and smiled.
“Yeah, gotta rush. It was nice seeing you both, do show up at the festival!”
Sasuke went deathly pale as she passed him by and closed the door behind herself. Kakashi bowed his head to hide the sad smile that tugged at his lips. He felt glad for Naruto, truly, but it was still disquieting to watch that look on Sasuke’s face. It wasn’t sorrow, it wasn’t about Sakura even, it was about everything that he’d lost and was just now making itself known.
Everyone changed while you were gone, Sasuke. Even them.
* * *
“Why are we here again?”
Kakashi sighed. “Because I like paying respects to the dead before going on a mission.”
Sasuke turned away from the stone. “How many of your dead are on it, anyway?”
Kakashi stood up and dusted his knees. “Why are you so curious about me anyway?” Sasuke kept prying for information, it was downright strange. Though, maybe it was just desperation: the last resort of a man who finds himself with nothing and clutches at shadows.
“You know much more about me than I do about you.”
“I am your teacher.”
“You were my teacher, Kakashi. Not anymore. Now you’re just---“
“--- your jailor?”
Sasuke flushed angrily. “This shouldn’t even be necessary, there’re other people I can take missions with.”
Necessary? For a former missing-nin? You have no idea what the ANBU had in store for you originally…“No.”
“What?”
“There’s no one else you can be paired with, aside from Naruto, and you must have realised that he won’t request missions with you anymore.”
After the spring festival, Naruto had taken on a joint mission with Kakashi and Sasuke. It was almost like taking a step back in time, and Kakashi knew better than to expect anything good out of it. The Hokage had probably allowed it to make a point, though whether she was making it to Sasuke or to Naruto or both, Kakashi didn’t know.
The mission was completed successfully, that much was undeniable. But Naruto and Sasuke simply could not match up in a coherent dynamic and Kakashi found that, while he could function with Sasuke - comfortably even, though he hated admitting to himself how much he liked having Sasuke as his backup - Sasuke couldn’t deal with Naruto’s unpredictable moves, not when they were on the same side. By the time they got back to Konoha, Kakashi’s nerves felt too exposed and the two men beside him were even worse for the wear.
Naruto cashed in his cut on the payment and left without a word. Kakashi wished - again - that there was something he could do for this different Obito, but again, he found himself comforting himself instead. Sasuke didn’t deserve pity, he didn’t deserve concern, but Kakashi could see that he was hurt and it hurt him too, inexplicably.
Now Sasuke was Kakashi’s problem alone, at least where missions were concerned … and in everything else, too. Consequently, Sasuke found himself visiting the memorial much more than he would have preferred. Not that his preferences would ever be taken into account on this matter.
“If I can’t be paired up with anyone else, can’t I just meet you elsewhere?”
“I thought you wanted to know more about me?” Kakashi jibed humourlessly. Sasuke cursed under his breath and stomped off.
* * *
He knew his room had been messed with as soon as he entered.
The picture was turned slightly to the right. Someone had been in there, and had moved the frame, just so he would know that it had been seen, noted and archived. Not both pictures, just one, the old one.
Kakashi strode into the living room as calmly as he could and found Sasuke polishing his kunai with an oiled cloth. His dispassionate gestures were perfectly executed, designed to grate on Kakashi’s nerves by virtue of being a mimicry of him.
“I don’t want you going through my stuff, boy.”
“I’m not a boy anymore, Kakashi.”
“I mean it. Stay out of my room and my things,” Kakashi kept on, refusing to be sidetracked; he allowed a small measure of his anger to colour his otherwise bland voice.
Sasuke smiled wistfully, no doubt a ploy. “What was his name, anyway?”
His gums ached from gritting his teeth too hard. “His name?” It hurt to keep his back relaxed.
“The boy with the weird diving mask. What was his name?”
Kakashi let his breath slip out of his lips slowly, soundlessly, and bid his heart to be quiet for once. Calm, calm, he’s trying to get a rise out of you. And screw him for being good at it.
The worst part was that Kakashi knew that Sasuke wasn’t trying to hurt him, not really. Sasuke wanted something that he probably didn’t know himself. He wanted a sense of belonging he’d lost; but he only had Orochimaru’s teachings to rely upon for finding it. And there he was, being sneaky because he couldn’t be trustworthy, but still wanting in. Kakashi didn’t quite understand why the truth of it made him hurt.
“Stay out of my room, Sasuke. I won’t say this again.”
Dark eyes smouldered dangerously, drawing an invisible shiver up Kakashi’s spine. “He looks like Naruto, doesn’t he?” Sasuke continued, lifting a shiny kunai to inspect it better in the light. Kakashi saw the marble-like arch of his throat and looked away in feigned indifference, disquieted by the rising tension on the room.
There was something else going on here as well. Sasuke’s eyes were … they were hinting at…
“You’re being a brat Sasuke. Don’t expect me to treat you like a man if you act like a boy.”
Sasuke looked down at his polishing. “I thought you liked boys,” he murmured, rubbing the cloth over the kunai again with gentle - oh so gentle - fingers. Alarms went off in Kakashi’s head.
“Whatever gave you that impression?”
“Orochimaru did.” Black eyes turned on him, snake-like in their vapid regard. “Don’t you?”
Kakashi sighed and smiled in defeat, having suspected for a while that this would come up. It had actually taken longer than he’d expected.
Orochimaru wouldn’t have let the chance to badmouth Kakashi slip through his fingers, not in front of his prize student. But if evasion doesn’t work… There were many ways to win an argument.
“Well, he lied to you Sasuke.”
Sasuke laughed darkly, richly. “He did?” Came the cajoling whisper.
And you make a very inexperienced seducer, boy. “Indeed. I hate boys.” Kakashi smiled under his mask, matching Sasuke’s heated gaze with his own steely regard. “I like men.”
Sasuke flushed darkly then and turned back to the kunai, viciously grabbing up another after he was done with the first. Kakashi let him take it out on the blades and went to cook dinner.
It didn’t end there, of course.
* * *
Sasuke sat under the window, wearing only dark pants and a towel around his shoulders, where his hair dripped. Kakashi came back from a report meeting to find him like that, with lunch set out on the table in pristine perfection. As expected of a noble clansman.
Sasuke rubbed the towel against the side of his head and gave Kakashi a deceptively tame stare, like a cat pretending it’s not as interested as it really is. Kakashi could read this particular cat -or snake, or whatever he chose to pretend to be - like a book, but that didn’t make it any less difficult to deal with.
Sasuke had grown. He wasn’t a scrawny, difficult child now, far from that. And Kakashi hadn’t let himself be swayed by any prospective partner for quite some time. Girls had been a general disappointment and men … well, he liked men, but it was much harder to trust one enough to let him into his bed, not to mention into his life.
Sasuke was already too far entrenched in his life, and Kakashi wasn’t going to even think of what would happen if he … if he--- damnit. The boy isn’t a boy at all.
“Your clothes?” Kakashi asked, ignoring the view, but not so much as to make him seem desperate to avoid it. The pale, pale skin of Sasuke’s belly made his heart contract uncomfortably. There was something awfully dramatic in the contrast between Sasuke’s skin and the dark pants, and the way his wet lashes stuck to each other.
“Washing,” Sasuke drawled, gesturing for him to sit and eat. “Dig in, I already ate.” Which translated to: eat and pretend to be made of steel while I stretch and, oh, look how my chest ripples…. Right…
“I think I want to shower and sleep instead, but thank you anyway. Put that in the fridge, and I’ll have it later.”
Sasuke leaned back against the wall and smiled a vulpine smile. “Of course.”
There was a waver in Sasuke’s eyes which proved to Kakashi that Sasuke didn’t really know that he’d won this little encounter. It was heartening and terrifying all the same. Kakashi bid the gods thanks for that small reprieve and hastened in his retreat.
He had a demon living in his house, clearly.
Damn you, Orochimaru. Damn you to hell.
* * *
“I wonder … what Uchiha Obito was like…” Sasuke’s voice was uncannily wistful, painfully so. Kakashi’s heart almost cracked through his solar plexus, and he narrowly missed giving anything away. Sasuke’s eyes were distant and - almost, almost - sad as they studied the memorial stone.
“Why?”
“He’s the last Uchiha name that was inscribed on the memorial stone … the last hero of my clan. The last one,” he punctuated, to make it perfectly clear that he knew his name would never be chiselled onto that stone, nor would Itachi’s, or any other Uchiha’s. Kakashi swallowed with difficulty and studied Obito’s name, finding it ironic that he should be the last hero born to the great Uchiha clan; surely Obito would find it incredibly amusing.
He would probably find it even more amusing that Kakashi had almost fallen sideways before realising that Sasuke’s question, for once, held no ulterior motive. The one time he wasn’t trying to ply Kakashi for information, he actually hit the right mark.
Obito, you would love this, wouldn’t you?
“He was probably a regular Uchiha, Sasuke. It’s not hard to die a hero when you live in a ninja village,” Kakashi replied mildly, watching Sasuke’s dark gaze shift over the stone, unseeing. Kakashi found himself unnerved by Sasuke’s listless behaviour, particularly when they were about to go on a mission.
However, Sasuke must have detected something in his voice after all. Coal-black eyes swilled onto him with the striking speed of a snake. His lashes fell a bit and a smile ghosted over Sasuke’s features. “Did you know this person … this Obito?”
Now Sasuke was testing him.
“Yes, I did. I knew quite a few Uchihas, in fact.”
“Because of your sharingan?”
Because of Obito’s death, and because I was his teammate. “Sasuke…” Kakashi sighed and put his hands in his pockets. “Why do you keep doing this? You know you’ll get nothing out of me as much as you ask, so why do you keep asking?”
Sasuke lifted his chin and cocked his head to one side, smile gone. “Why don’t you tell me?”
“Because it’s none of your business,” Kakashi intoned, wondering how many times they would have the same conversation, over and over again.
Sasuke surprised him though. “It is my business, it’s my clan so it is my direct concern.”
Kakashi’s visible eye narrowed. “It happened long before your time, Sasuke, and it’s history now.”
“It still concerns my clan. As sole heir, I have a right to know.”
“As sole survivor, you mean?” Kakashi replied mordantly and watched Sasuke’s face tighten. “Is that was this is? A wild goose chase for what little you can still find of your family?” Which it was, Kakashi knew, and it did them no good to have it said, not out in the open.
“Isn’t that why they placed me in your care in the first place?” Sasuke snapped coldly, taking one measured step closer to Kakashi. Kakashi felt his hackles rise at such deliberate defiance, but he kept himself in check, knowing that Sasuke wanted to get a rise out of him, now more than ever.
“Maybe, but it gives you no rights over my private life.”
“It’s not private, Kakashi. You stole that sharingan off one of my clansmen.” It took all of Kakashi’s willpower to stay still, to keep his indolent body posture and not crack Sasuke’s jaw in half with his fist.
“I stole nothing,” you insolent little fuck, “… It was given to me.” And to give that much, to even say it, was painful because Sasuke was winning, he was actually getting it out of him. Kakashi wanted nothing more than to wring the younger man’s neck.
“No Uchicha would give away his eyes - the secrets of our clan - to an outsider. Not even to a teammate.” Sasuke hissed, balling his fists. Abruptly, he leaned back and smiled darkly. “Or … was he your lover? Since we’ve established that you like men…”
Kakashi reached out in a flash of movement and grabbed the front of Sasuke’s shirt, pulling him close to his face. Sasuke kept his smile, though his eyes sparked with some new and uncatalogued emotion. “It was given to me,” Kakashi whispered in a dead voice. “It was a gift from a dying man, from a dying friend.”
“And, incredibly, there was a medical-nin right beside you to perform the operation? My…” Sasuke drawled. “How convenient for you.”
Kakashi tightened his hold on Sasuke’s shirt and stared deep into the other’s eyes, waiting for that smile to slip. Gradually it did; gradually Sasuke’s eyes darkened and his face became paler. The more they stared, the more Kakashi let his anger cool in his gaze, turning his bared eye a cold shade of grey.
He let go of Sasuke when he knew his face revealed nothing more than utter disregard and contempt. Sasuke was pale as a ghost, face taut.
“There were Uchihas who thought more of their loved ones than of ‘clan honour’.” Kakashi lifted his forehead protector with a stiff hand. “I was given this sharingan by my best friend before he died, for trying to save our teammate. He might have betrayed the secrets of his clan … but he knew what it was to be a friend and that he was, until the day he died. His name will be on that stone, forever. What do you have to say for your life and your actions, Sasuke? What grandiose feat did you accomplish that gives you the right to look down on him or anyone else? Killing your brother? Almost killing your best friend?”
“I don’t---” Sasuke began, and then clamped his mouth shut. His jaw was set, but there was a raging storm in his eyes. Kakashi almost thought Sasuke looked afraid.
Kakashi looked away, feeling the burn of the sharingan in his eye, reacting to the anger he could not quite subdue. “But you insist upon insulting the memory of my dead? You call that respect? Or is it a new way of showing appreciation that Orochimaru taught you?”
Sasuke turned away, Kakashi saw it out of the corner of his eye. “Stop it.”
“Stop it? So now you get to draw the line on how personal this gets?”
“Kakashi---“
“No, Sasuke. No.” Kakashi turned again and put his hand on Sasuke’s shoulder, forcing Sasuke to look at him face to face. “You will respect the people I cared for as I respect yours, and that is saying something, given the way you yourself treated them.”
Sasuke stepped away from him and stuck his hands on his pockets, a disturbingly familiar gesture.
Kakashi lowered his forehead protector and turned on his heels, heading off for their mission.
* * *
“Kakashi---“ Kakashi looked up from where he sat.
Sasuke was a dark blur in the arch of the doorway. Kakashi looked down again and kept winding the bandage around his forearm, holding one edge of the cloth between his teeth. His vision kept watering, and he knew he had abused the sharingan, but he would be damned if he let Sasuke see how badly off he was.
You would find this hilarious, wouldn’t you, Obito?
Sasuke stepped into the room and knelt before him. There was a stormy discomfort in his eyes as he regarded Kakashi. For a moment, Kakashi thought he saw him flush, as if ashamed, but it might have been a trick of the light. “Let me help you with that,” Sasuke offered, reaching for the bandage.
Kakashi moved his arm up and out of reach. “I can manage well enough on my own, Sasuke. I have been doing it since before you were born. Go see to yourself.”
“I am fine,” Sasuke insisted, though he didn’t reach out towards Kakashi’s arm again.
“Good, then leave me be.”
“Kakashi---“
“Sasuke,” Kakashi imitated his tone of voice, patience worn thin at last. “Go away.”
Sasuke took one long and shaky breath, then let it go even more shakily and that drew Kakashi’s attention. “I want to apologise … for the other day. I was out of line.”
For a moment, Kakashi stopped winding the bandage. “Yes,” he agreed coldly at last. “Now leave.”
Sasuke blinked and gave Kakashi a wide-eyed stare; he looked as though Kakashi had struck him with his fists without warning.
Kakashi want back to bandaging his arm.
You can’t honestly think apologising makes things better, do you, brat? Kakashi snorted quietly. And you haven’t even apologised to Naruto, have you? Not for anything at all.
Sasuke simply stayed there, kneeling in front of him. Kakashi finally let himself look at him again and found that Sasuke’s gaze was turned inwards, but there was a lingering surprise and pain on his features.
“Sasuke,” Kakashi snapped, recalling his attention. Sasuke’s eyes focused back on him with a clear glimmer of something in them, something that could almost be hope. Kakashi’s stomach twisted, for a moment breath failed him before he regained his footing. “Leave.”
It was terrifying to find himself moved so deeply by something as dangerous of Sasuke.
If only you had never come back.
His sudden wish must have been clear in his eyes for Sasuke did leave at last, moving quietly and slowly, as if wading through his own shock. Kakashi gritted his teeth and went back to his bandage.
* * *
Sunlight struck the memorial stone at odd angles. Kakashi watched a drop of moisture trickle over a faded name.
He took a deep breath; he let it go.
Sasuke was a quiet presence at his back, unusually meek. His shadow barely touched the back of Kakashi’s feet. Kakashi waited for the questions to come, but there was only silence.
* * *
What Sasuke wanted was family, perhaps.
What Sasuke wanted could be summarised, Kakashi deduced, into a sense of belonging. Or, just maybe, it was a sense of ownership over something that gave him solidity in his life. Sasuke wanted to be a part of something just as strongly as he wanted to be a part of nothing. He wanted, selfishly, to be given…
Because Naruto couldn’t, because Sakura wouldn’t, because Konoha shouldn’t … Sasuke turned to Kakashi - of all people - to fill a need so primal and so childish it was beyond Kakashi’s help. Kakashi couldn’t turn back time, he couldn’t give Sasuke what Itachi had taken, nor could he return what Sasuke had given up.
He wasn’t even certain he wanted a part of this demented reality.
Still, Sasuke’s toes found his under the table; still, Sasuke’s eyes smouldered with unsaid possibilities; still, Sasuke’s smile hid an unconscious shred of hope beneath the sensuous lure.
Still, Kakashi knew what Sasuke felt.
* * *
It happened, in the end.
It could have been called the logical result of a natural progression, but that would be just words to cover for both of their weaknesses. Kakashi knew it was probably a bad idea. Sasuke knew it wasn’t a solution to anything.
But to Kakashi, their unresolved taunting had become a game he could look forward to. Sasuke, prodding - though always within limits, lately - and shared meals, and sometimes conversation, and perfectly successful missions. By the time he stopped to think about it, months had gone by, and Sasuke was as firmly entrenched in his life as anyone would ever be.
Obito … you’d think this is insane, wouldn’t you?
Though Kakashi liked to think Obito would have been happy that Kakashi had - within limits, again - let someone into his life. It wasn’t the same life he’d had before, it wasn’t a different life either; but it was something new, where loneliness was still a factor but the flavour of it had changed.
There came a point when there was no denying it, Kakashi knew. It was a word he’d never say, never to Sasuke most of all, but he--- inasmuch as he could, he----
And for it to be Sasuke of all people, was frustrating.
Even more frustrating when he realised he missed Sasuke’s more incisive questions, he missed the sheer need to invade his life that Sasuke had shown … but Sasuke seemed to have taken the warning to heart and he’d backed off, for the most part. Kakashi realised, eventually, that he’d have to leave an opening or Sasuke might slip away again, unhinged, unbound … and leave.
Kakashi stepped into the apartment and sighed. Sasuke brushed his shoulder as he stepped in as well and tugged the straps of a weapon’s pouch free. “I’ll make dinner,” Sasuke proffered quietly.
Kakashi grunted in agreement and sat down on the kitchen counter.
Sasuke gave him an odd look. “Aren’t you going to shower?”
I’m thinking of what to do with you.
“In a moment.”
Sasuke’s smile turned feline, abruptly, and he leaned back against the fridge. “What’s keeping you?” There it was, again, that edge of Orochimaru that tainted Sasuke’s every movement, a hint of the changes the boy had undergone in Sound. A hint of the realities that were a part of his life as he became a man, and poisoned his personality.
“You are,” Kakashi fired, point blank.
Sasuke’s smile stiffened, a clear indication of how unexpected Kakashi’s answer was. Black eyes studied his face, measured his one bared eye with a gaze that was less sure than it had been moments before. Kakashi shrugged expressively and decided that---
What the hell.
--- after all, Obito would have understood, probably -
It’s not like we’ll both live long.
--- and it was something. There was a solidity to this life, to his life, that Kakashi had never expected to find again. He hadn’t wanted to let anyone in, but he’d had every little choice on this one, and he was tired, and he wanted…
Sasuke wasn’t particularly pliant under his hands. He stiffened awkwardly into the kiss and nipped at Kakashi’s face-mask angrily. Kakashi flipped off the kitchen light-switch and pulled down his mask. Sasuke tasted of blood and metal and---
Sasuke wrenched his face away and spat a senbon into the sink. His eyes were wide, animal-wide, in the darkness, but they remained safely black. “What are you doing?” Sasuke demanded at last. Kakashi could feel the tremors in Sasuke’s body, partly excitement and partly uncertainty. Perhaps, too, a little indignation at being pressed up against a refridgerator.
Kakashi shrugged again and went back to kissing him. Sasuke’s hands twitched before settling on Kakashi’s waist, unmoving. Kakashi deepened the kiss a bit more and pulled Sasuke away from the fridge, tugging on his clothes until he peeled them off, blood and all, and they made it to the living room couch.
Beds be damned, he was tired, and the mission had been long and it had been too long since he’d last touched someone. It had been too long since he’d allowed himself to let go that far and this was Sasuke, who could hurt him more than he should, who meant more than anyone - though he’d never know it. It was Sasuke, his former pupil, his ward, his very own personal bane, his worst reminder of himself; and Kakashi remembered what it felt like, to want so desperately it hurt, in a universe turned grey and mechanical.
Sasuke arched against him and stifled a groan. When Kakashi stuck his hand down Sasuke’s pants, the reaction he got was almost violent. Sasuke bit into his shoulder and growled something unintelligible. His pale hands were everywhere, but nowhere definite, and the startled moan at the back of his breathing gave him away as Kakashi deepened the touches.
Kakashi pulled back and studied Sasuke in the darkness. Sasuke stared right back at him, defiant.
Too defiant.
So … he hadn’t learned everything in Sound, after all. Orochimaru had probably taught him a good deal, but Sasuke hadn’t and…
That’s why you make such a lousy seducer. Oh … hell. Damn it all.
Kakashi started to lean back, shocked back into his senses, but Sasuke’s hands gripped the front of his shirt ferociously, and his eyes glowed sharingan-red. Kakashi hesitated - for a moment, he truly did - and then it was all too ridiculous, too insane, to even pretend otherwise.
Sasuke’s inexperience made him amusingly responsive, more so because he persisted with his cool façade. It reminded Kakashi of his own early tries at sex, and he had to smother a laugh.
Kakashi outdid himself at being gentle and thorough with his hands and his mouth. Sasuke bit his lips until he reopened a wound and only then did he allow himself to cry out, a strangled sound. Kakashi smiled against the pale pale skin of Sasuke’s belly and made sure that Sasuke’s mind stopped working altogether. Funny, how one could turn a person’s nerve-endings against them, whether in pain or---
Ah.
Sasuke arched against Kakashi, a furious scowl on his face. Kakashi drummed his fingers on the young man’s belly and contemplated the twists in one’s life. Sasuke drew in a shaky breath and gradually eased back onto the couch.
“I take it no one ever brought you off before?” Kakashi asked in a drawl, imitating Sasuke’s previous attempts at clumsy seduction. Sasuke stared at him owlishly before a frown slammed right back into place.
“What of it?” Sasuke demanded, coldly.
Kakashi grinned and saw Sasuke shudder, probably because he saw Kakashi’s teeth. “You tell me.”
Sasuke’s gaze wavered. He shifted under Kakashi, though not to move away. Dark eyes focused on the ceiling and then back onto him. “Why don’t you tell me?”
Kakashi laughed and decided that - truly - it was enough for one night. “I’m going to have a shower now,” and go upclose and personal with my hand, rather than make you jump out of your skin. “You said you’d prepare dinner.”
Sasuke was unnaturally quiet and tense when Kakashi got back. That much, he’d expected. Kakashi knew what Sasuke had wanted and he knew that sex hadn’t really been it, not quite.
But you see … if I’m going to let you be selfish, I have a right to be selfish, too.
Sasuke went to bed without saying anything further, disappointment crystallized in his gaze, like glass. Kakashi was still Kakashi, and Sasuke was still alone, outside, staring in through the window at a scene from another life. Kakashi let him go, having decided to let Sasuke work those feelings out on his own.
Yes, Obito, I am being a coward for now.
It was too daunting a prospect to give Sasuke what he wanted.
* * *
“The Yondaime was your teacher?” Sasuke muttered, staring at the picture of Team Yellow Flash with something akin to respect, or envy, colouring his eyes.
“What does it look like?”
Sasuke turned over on the bed and splayed his hands over Kakashi’s chest. “It looks like you could at least answer the obvious.”
“I thought you were a genius?”
Coal-black eyes regarded him coldly, hiding their sudden wounds behind an icy veneer. “How about a straight answer?”
“How about some sleep?”
Sasuke got up and went back to his bed. Kakashi heard him slide the door shut slowly and admired his restraint, though he was quite familiar with it.
He stayed awake for a long time, thinking over how nothing had changed at all, not really.
* * *
Spring came again, and with it, came Naruto.
Kakashi waited for Sasuke to stop coming to his room at nights. Not because Sasuke and Naruto would ever--- there was Sakura - but because Naruto could give Sasuke something more definite. Naruto could do, for Sasuke, what Obito had tried to do for Kakashi.
So Kakashi backed away, not without a sense of painful finality, as Sasuke began to take on a few missions with Naruto from time to time, which the Hokage allowed.
Perhaps it was best like this, for both of them. Neither Kakashi nor Sasuke knew how to be more than half-human, and Sasuke’s Obito was still there, there was still a chance…
Yet winter came and Sasuke was still there, panting with less restraint as Kakashi touched him … still there and still very much himself. Sasuke was beside him, like a shadow, asking for the same thing he continued to want, not from Naruto, but from Kakashi.
It was ridiculous, but true.
* * *
He did start coming less, after some time. Kakashi waited on baited breath for him to stop coming altogether, wondering at his own apathy towards something he had come to cherish.
But to take the plunge, to risk it, with Sasuke of all people…
Then Sasuke didn’t show up for almost a month. When he came, Kakashi threw himself fully into it, wondering if perhaps this would be where it ended. He cast himself so thoroughly into making Sasuke cry out that he forgot to tell him to go back to his room. Or maybe he didn’t really forget …
Kakashi’s bed was toasty warm in the morning, so he decided he didn’t want to get up early after all. He lazily kissed a pale shoulder and Sasuke muttered something in his sleep, but did not wake.
And that, Kakashi realised, was a measure of how much Sasuke had been willing to give him.
Kakashi looked at Sasuke’s sleeping face for the first time, at the frown that never left his features. There were scars on Sasuke’s back which Kakashi knew by heart. Sasuke hated it when Kakashi went even remotely close to the curse seal in his caresses. His hair was stringy and tougher than it looked, a bit like Kakashi’s in its level of gravitational defiance. He didn’t like Kakashi’s toothpaste. He was maniacally organised and polished his kunais when he was nervous.
He was sleeping in Kakashi’s bed.
The sun was coming in at an angle, the bed smelled musky and a lot of it was Sasuke. A lot of it was Kakashi as well. Sasuke’s eyelids fluttered and he opened his eyes blearily, lashes crusted with sand. There was a wet patch on the pillow where he’d been sleeping and…
It doesn’t get more real than this.
Sasuke might slip between his fingers unless Kakashi acknowledged that this was, in reality, the life he wanted to live.
Kakashi stared at Sasuke’s murderous frown, knowing that he would kill, if need be, to keep things as they were. He had found something in his life worth fighting for, something that might disappear unless he acted now.
So that wasn’t how it ended, after all.
* * *
Kakashi stuffed his hands into his pockets and stared at the glint of sunlight on the old stone. Sasuke was a quiet shadow to his left, waiting for Kakashi to be done so they could go to their mission. It was a silly little errand for the most part, but Sasuke was - as always - obsessed with being punctual. Kakashi sighed and rolled his shoulders uncomfortably.
So … Obito … what do you think? Have I gone mad?
Maybe there was a time in life for one to stop surviving and begin living again. Perhaps there was a measure of peace, or a small truce to be had, even for people such as they, in lives such as theirs. Kakashi hadn’t saved Obito, he hadn’t saved Naruto and he certainly hadn’t saved Sasuke either; but, like him, Sasuke seemed to have found his way back to this place, and that had to mean something.
Sasuke was still there, in spite of it all. So even though Kakashi was a pragmatist, even though he would have preferred an easier companion, even though he knew it was foolish to let himself hope for the best, he realised there was a time when one could no longer turn one’s life into an apology.
There was a time for oneself.
A time to live … and dare to change, and break old habits. Obito, you tried to teach me that. Help me out here, will you?
“We’re going to be late,” Sasuke murmured carefully.
Kakashi closed his eyes and pulled his hands from his pockets. He stepped back from the memorial stone, but did not turn to leave. The sun was uncomfortably bright, and they were already running late, and still…
“Kakashi?” Sasuke questioned, moving into his line of sight.
Kakashi gave Sasuke a long look before turning back to the stone. His throat burned as he took in a long breath and---“His name was Uchiha Obito, and he was my best friend.”
It was remarkably easy to keep talking, after that.
They were very, very late for their mission.
”(…) and that was the end of it, and the start of something else.”
- David Payne -
The End
Yes, I DO LOVE comments. XD And I am rather proud of this one, even it it's a bit pretentious. ^^ Standard disclaimers apply: Kishimoto pwns, Naruto's cast belongs to him and I just took them out for a ride.
Gift For: fleetingly
Pairing: Kakashi/Sasuke
Warning(s): Sasuke is of age? Mild Orochimaru and Kakashi-Gaiden spoilers?
Genre: Unromantic!Angst
Rating: NC-17 (or strong R?)
Word Length: 8.000 aprox
Summary: Post-time-skip, of sorts. Kakashi finds himself charged with Sasuke’s guardianship again, while Sasuke discovers how many things he’s lost, and how many he can still recover … What little is there that can still be won?
Author’s notes: Also done for the naruto_rabu gift-exchange. This fic took me several tries and a long time in planning and smoothing out, given that the pairing is complicated. I love KakaSasu as a concept, but only under certain circumstances: that of Sasuke being of age, and both characters retaining their basic personalities. There are a few fics out there that really hit the nail right on, and this is my tribute to them, in a way. I truly enjoyed writing it, but it was very, very difficult. I hope it pays off for you guys in reading it. :)
Beta'ed by the awesome cindelius
Beginning and End
One cannot make of one’s life an apology, not even to those it is owed to. Kakashi, very aware of this fact, was no less prone to falling back on old habits, like visiting memorials, brooding over past mistakes, and pushing his nose into a book; these were all things that were his before and after them.
Of course, before they came into his life, Kakashi’s understanding of a team had been different. And after … well, after, he began to wonder if he had not been trying, all along, to vicariously relive his youth through those children. He suspected that this was behind the Sannin’s motives as well, but he had had Team 7 first so it was only fair, Kakashi thought, for him to have been the one who originally made them surrogates for… something else.
He sometimes wondered what would have happened if he’d never taught Sasuke the chidori: would he have left sooner? Would he have left at all? Would Naruto have needed to push himself quite so far, or would the dead-last student have become as powerful all the same? Kakashi constantly looked back on those last days of peace, when he chose Sasuke over Naruto - because, really, he owed Obito - and the more he looked back, the less he understood.
Kakashi wondered if he’d really been doing all of that for Obito in the end. This thought came to him strongest as he raced back to Konoha with Naruto’s limp body on his back. Sasuke was far behind, lost to them already, and Kakashi realised, flayed by this sudden guilt, that he’d almost let Obito die again.
As time had gone by, he’d found less and less of his own dead friend in Sasuke, and it slowly became clear that he’d gotten it all wrong. Saving Sasuke wasn’t about Obito, not really; if it had been about Obito, then he would have focused on Naruto the most. But Kakashi, unaccountably selfish as he was, had chosen to save himself, once more.
Naruto lived to tell that tale, but Jiraiya took him under his wing.
Jiraiya, who’d left Kakashi to fare for himself after the Yondaime died, even though the Yondaime asked his teacher expressly to look after Kakashi and Rin. Jiraiya took Naruto - took Obito - from him, and Kakashi, having lost himself and himself, stood before the memorial stone and tucked one hand in his pocket and his nose into a book.
I’m sorry, Obito. I messed up.
That was not the beginning, nor the end of it.
* * *
They brought Sasuke back near the end of the war.
Kakashi had known for a long time that the foolish boy had been working as a rogue, having escaped Orochimaru at the last minute before the transfer. For a while there, Konoha-nin had found themselves inexplicably aided by a particular unidentified warrior. When Kakashi heard this, he knew. In the end, atonement was a concept that came with age and understanding.
They brought Sasuke back with information enough to pay for his life, but not his freedom.
Naruto saw him to his cell and sat beside him, separated by the chakra-infused bars even after everyone except Kakashi had left. Kakashi stayed, but only because the Hokage ordered it. There was something too personal in seeing Naruto’s hunched shape by the cell bars, it set his teeth on edge.
“Sasuke-bastard, welcome home.” It was the first thing Naruto said to Sasuke after hours and hours of silence.
Naruto’s face looked worn. There were shadows under his eyes and Kakashi wished - suddenly - that he could squeeze the boy’s shoulder and say something comforting; something a friend or a close teammate might have said. He knew, however, that he’d given up that chance years earlier, when a younger Naruto had begged for help and had been turned down, in favour of ... “You’ve been missed,” Naruto sighed, getting to his feet with an ill-suppressed wince.
Sasuke nodded and took a breath as if to speak, but Naruto turned his back on Sasuke abruptly, and that killed whatever else might have been said. Black eyes widened and then dulled, his words stillborn.
Naruto paused only for an instant to nod, in deference, at his once-teacher before he reached for the door. His jounin slacks were stained with blood and dirt; they left a smear where he’d been sitting close to the bars, maybe - maybe? - waiting for Sasuke to speak up first. If that was so, Naruto had waited for hours in vain, and his wounds were still bleeding. It made sense that he’d turn away now, all in all.
Kakashi had always wanted to apologise to Obito, and he ached for Sasuke to say anything to Naruto right then; but Sasuke licked his lips and looked out the window, face twisted into a mask of fury or futility, or both.
The door closed behind Naruto with barely a creak, and there something did end.
* * *
“And why, exactly, do I have to live with you?”
Impertinent child. Boy. Man. Brat.
“Because the Hokage has placed you under my care. And when she said ‘constant supervision,’ she meant constant supervision. I’m your parole officer, Sasuke. Live with it, and pick up that bag.”
Sasuke’s eyes strayed - barely noticeable - a little to the left before he picked up his bag and that was a slip-up Kakashi had not expected to see. He too stared at the cracking paint on Naruto’s building, a few blocks down. Naturally, the Hokage wouldn’t have placed Sasuke there. For the good of Konoha, it was agreed upon that Sasuke would not live with Naruto, not even if Naruto offered or begged … neither of which he had. But they placed him close enough, Kakashi thought with a hidden smirk.
Sasuke hefted the bag with his meagre belongings and strode into the apartment that had been picked out for them, strategically close to an ANBU post. “They’re expecting me to run away any minute now, aren’t they?” He murmured, staring out the window with unreadable eyes.
Kakashi hummed noncommittally and checked the pantry to see if they’d need groceries. Sasuke waited for an answer that never came. Kakashi knew that if Sasuke had let himself be brought back, it was because he was now, in fact, the last of his clan. He wasn’t going anywhere anymore. But Konoha would not grant him that fact, Sasuke’s motives would be forever questioned, until the day he died.
Aaaand … we need food. Does Tsunade honestly think cockroaches are edible?
“Why aren’t you killing it?” Kakashi had felt the displacement of air. Still, it was chillingly disagreeable to feel Sasuke so close and realise just how slippery a creature he’d become. It reeked of Orochimaru and, frankly, that thought was enough to make Kakashi lose his appetite altogether. “It’s a cockroach,” Sasuke ventured again; Kakashi could see his flat dark eyes at the back of his mind.
Kakashi shrugged, keeping his body lax and uncompromising despite Sasuke’s proximity. Little brat, did he honestly want to play at keeping him on his toes? “I’m trying to remember how close, or far, we are from the Aburame neighbourhood.”
“Ah,” Sasuke returned in an equally mild voice. “How considerate of you, Kakashi-sensei.” Orochimaru clung to each word like wet silk, slippery and soft but so very there that it cut like a knife.
“Kakashi will do.”
“Kakashi,” Sasuke tried it out, tasting the syllables and - damn you, Orochimaru - Kakashi became all too aware of the measured lilt, sensuous, yet unapparently so. “Kakashi…” It made him wonder just how much Sasuke had been told about his former teacher while he was in Sound.
Sasuke stepped away from him after that and went to unpack.
When Kakashi returned with the groceries, he had to pick his away around the traps that Sasuke had spread out against intruders and against him.
* * *
Sasuke shifted slightly, pointedly, making Kakashi feel his displeasure. “Why are we even here?”
Kakashi stifled a sigh and muttered a curse at the back of his mind. Not against all Uchihas, Obito, just this one brat I happen to be in charge of, again….
“Is this why you were always late for our training?” Sasuke’s voice seemed torn between derision and scorn, but Kakashi sensed the covert curiosity that Sasuke could not hide as well as he thought he could.
Sasuke’s eyes roved over the stone, quick and efficient, distant. Kakashi remembered also that none of Sasuke’s parents - or close relatives - would be there. Heroes’ names were jotted down for posterity, murder victims were not given such honour, shinobi or not. Unsurprisingly, this memorial meant nothing to Sasuke whatsoever, while it was everything to Kakashi.
“Uchiha Sakumo?” Sasuke queried with a toneless voice.
It took Kakashi a bare second to understand what Sasuke was getting at, and to decide to avoid the game altogether. Kakashi blinked and forced his tense shoulders to unwind as he stood. Feigning nonchalance would be best, he judged. “Eh?”
“Or…” Sasuke’s gazed darted over the stone again. “Uchiha Reiko?”
“What of them?”
Sasuke frowned, displeased by the way in which Kakashi avoided the real question. Bluntness came to the fore, at last. “You must have got your sharingan from someone, and they can’t have died before my great grandfather died, so…” Sasuke looked at the stone and back. “That leaves nine names on this stone, after my grandfather’s death.”
“What makes you think that person’s name is on the stone?”
“You’re here.”
“Ah … yes,” Kakashi conceded. “But that wasn’t the only person I knew who’s dead now.”
Sasuke snorted, but there was less confidence in his stance again. Kakashi turned away and walked back to the village with a casual step. Sasuke followed him quietly, dark eyes boring into his back.
* * *
Sakura came to visit, which was - to Sasuke - as surprising as it was not. Kakashi could tell from the way his eyes lit up for a moment, before their depths flattened out again, that Sasuke had probably been expecting her for a while, but hadn’t counted on how long it would take her to come.
Sakura smiled and chattered about odd things, her parents, some missions, her training with Tsunade. Kakashi noticed, after a while, how she continuously avoided mentioning Naruto and he knew then that Naruto wouldn’t come to see Sasuke for a while yet.
If ever.
Kakashi understood, somewhat. Naruto had wanted Sasuke back, but didn’t really know what to do about it now that he had accomplished his goal. There was too much water under the bridge, too much pain Naruto probably never allowed himself to dwell on … until now. The day Sasuke was brought back, as they sat separated by the bars of Sasuke’s cell, had been the moment for Sasuke to apologise, to say anything at all. Sasuke hadn’t said a single word, and to Naruto, most likely, that had been it.
And no doubt, brat, you realised it too late.
Sasuke left Kakashi and Sakura alone for a while to fetch something - or perhaps to get away from them - and Kakashi found himself being glared at. He smiled sheepishly, wishing Sakura’s anger wasn’t so evidently born from pure worry; sometimes she reminded him too much of Rin. All women did, to some extent.
“So … what’s on your mind, Sakura-chan?”
“The spring festival,” she answered rather flippantly, when Kakashi refused to offer any opening to discuss his own problems. There were tense lines on her forehead even though she feigned disinterest. “Are you going?”
“Unless Sasuke and I are away on a mission, probably. Gai will want to out-drink me or out-eat me at some point. It’s tradition.”
“Of course,” she murmured.
“And what about you?” Kakashi threw the ball back into her court, sensing the possible reason for her mild frown.
“What about me?” She avoided, and Kakashi knew.
Oh for … out with it, girl!
“Who are you thinking of going with?” Kakashi inquired mildly. He felt more than heard Sasuke stop outside the room. It was a stealthy movement and Sakura clearly hadn’t noticed him. Kakashi sighed inwardly, having half-expected this.
“Well … there’s this person I wanted to ask … but it’s been too long I think, and too much has happened. He’ll probably blow me off.” She blinked and smiled. “I’m most likely going solo. I was hoping you were too, sensei, so we could commiserate.”
Kakashi choked a laugh at her gall. “What makes you think I’d be going alone?”
“Oh-ho? Who are you going with?” She pressed and Kakashi did allow himself the laugh this time.
Dangerous girl, this one.
“No one in particular. Now, back to yourself. Aren’t you going to ask this ‘particular young man’ out at all? It’s rather cowardly of you not to … if I may say so.”
Sakura shrugged uncomfortably and Kakashi became all too aware of Sasuke’s silence behind the wall. “I… I just don’t know. Or rather…” She sighed explosively. Kakashi smirked, already familiar with her sudden flashes of determination. “You know what? You’re right, enough with this moping.” She got up and smoothed out her dress. “I’m going to ask him out right now, or else he’ll never even THINK of asking me.”
Sasuke stepped into the room then, tugging on a jacket he’d probably fetched at the last minute to justify his absence. “Leaving already?” He asked, markedly standing in her way. Something flickered in his eyes as she turned and smiled.
“Yeah, gotta rush. It was nice seeing you both, do show up at the festival!”
Sasuke went deathly pale as she passed him by and closed the door behind herself. Kakashi bowed his head to hide the sad smile that tugged at his lips. He felt glad for Naruto, truly, but it was still disquieting to watch that look on Sasuke’s face. It wasn’t sorrow, it wasn’t about Sakura even, it was about everything that he’d lost and was just now making itself known.
Everyone changed while you were gone, Sasuke. Even them.
* * *
“Why are we here again?”
Kakashi sighed. “Because I like paying respects to the dead before going on a mission.”
Sasuke turned away from the stone. “How many of your dead are on it, anyway?”
Kakashi stood up and dusted his knees. “Why are you so curious about me anyway?” Sasuke kept prying for information, it was downright strange. Though, maybe it was just desperation: the last resort of a man who finds himself with nothing and clutches at shadows.
“You know much more about me than I do about you.”
“I am your teacher.”
“You were my teacher, Kakashi. Not anymore. Now you’re just---“
“--- your jailor?”
Sasuke flushed angrily. “This shouldn’t even be necessary, there’re other people I can take missions with.”
Necessary? For a former missing-nin? You have no idea what the ANBU had in store for you originally…“No.”
“What?”
“There’s no one else you can be paired with, aside from Naruto, and you must have realised that he won’t request missions with you anymore.”
After the spring festival, Naruto had taken on a joint mission with Kakashi and Sasuke. It was almost like taking a step back in time, and Kakashi knew better than to expect anything good out of it. The Hokage had probably allowed it to make a point, though whether she was making it to Sasuke or to Naruto or both, Kakashi didn’t know.
The mission was completed successfully, that much was undeniable. But Naruto and Sasuke simply could not match up in a coherent dynamic and Kakashi found that, while he could function with Sasuke - comfortably even, though he hated admitting to himself how much he liked having Sasuke as his backup - Sasuke couldn’t deal with Naruto’s unpredictable moves, not when they were on the same side. By the time they got back to Konoha, Kakashi’s nerves felt too exposed and the two men beside him were even worse for the wear.
Naruto cashed in his cut on the payment and left without a word. Kakashi wished - again - that there was something he could do for this different Obito, but again, he found himself comforting himself instead. Sasuke didn’t deserve pity, he didn’t deserve concern, but Kakashi could see that he was hurt and it hurt him too, inexplicably.
Now Sasuke was Kakashi’s problem alone, at least where missions were concerned … and in everything else, too. Consequently, Sasuke found himself visiting the memorial much more than he would have preferred. Not that his preferences would ever be taken into account on this matter.
“If I can’t be paired up with anyone else, can’t I just meet you elsewhere?”
“I thought you wanted to know more about me?” Kakashi jibed humourlessly. Sasuke cursed under his breath and stomped off.
* * *
He knew his room had been messed with as soon as he entered.
The picture was turned slightly to the right. Someone had been in there, and had moved the frame, just so he would know that it had been seen, noted and archived. Not both pictures, just one, the old one.
Kakashi strode into the living room as calmly as he could and found Sasuke polishing his kunai with an oiled cloth. His dispassionate gestures were perfectly executed, designed to grate on Kakashi’s nerves by virtue of being a mimicry of him.
“I don’t want you going through my stuff, boy.”
“I’m not a boy anymore, Kakashi.”
“I mean it. Stay out of my room and my things,” Kakashi kept on, refusing to be sidetracked; he allowed a small measure of his anger to colour his otherwise bland voice.
Sasuke smiled wistfully, no doubt a ploy. “What was his name, anyway?”
His gums ached from gritting his teeth too hard. “His name?” It hurt to keep his back relaxed.
“The boy with the weird diving mask. What was his name?”
Kakashi let his breath slip out of his lips slowly, soundlessly, and bid his heart to be quiet for once. Calm, calm, he’s trying to get a rise out of you. And screw him for being good at it.
The worst part was that Kakashi knew that Sasuke wasn’t trying to hurt him, not really. Sasuke wanted something that he probably didn’t know himself. He wanted a sense of belonging he’d lost; but he only had Orochimaru’s teachings to rely upon for finding it. And there he was, being sneaky because he couldn’t be trustworthy, but still wanting in. Kakashi didn’t quite understand why the truth of it made him hurt.
“Stay out of my room, Sasuke. I won’t say this again.”
Dark eyes smouldered dangerously, drawing an invisible shiver up Kakashi’s spine. “He looks like Naruto, doesn’t he?” Sasuke continued, lifting a shiny kunai to inspect it better in the light. Kakashi saw the marble-like arch of his throat and looked away in feigned indifference, disquieted by the rising tension on the room.
There was something else going on here as well. Sasuke’s eyes were … they were hinting at…
“You’re being a brat Sasuke. Don’t expect me to treat you like a man if you act like a boy.”
Sasuke looked down at his polishing. “I thought you liked boys,” he murmured, rubbing the cloth over the kunai again with gentle - oh so gentle - fingers. Alarms went off in Kakashi’s head.
“Whatever gave you that impression?”
“Orochimaru did.” Black eyes turned on him, snake-like in their vapid regard. “Don’t you?”
Kakashi sighed and smiled in defeat, having suspected for a while that this would come up. It had actually taken longer than he’d expected.
Orochimaru wouldn’t have let the chance to badmouth Kakashi slip through his fingers, not in front of his prize student. But if evasion doesn’t work… There were many ways to win an argument.
“Well, he lied to you Sasuke.”
Sasuke laughed darkly, richly. “He did?” Came the cajoling whisper.
And you make a very inexperienced seducer, boy. “Indeed. I hate boys.” Kakashi smiled under his mask, matching Sasuke’s heated gaze with his own steely regard. “I like men.”
Sasuke flushed darkly then and turned back to the kunai, viciously grabbing up another after he was done with the first. Kakashi let him take it out on the blades and went to cook dinner.
It didn’t end there, of course.
* * *
Sasuke sat under the window, wearing only dark pants and a towel around his shoulders, where his hair dripped. Kakashi came back from a report meeting to find him like that, with lunch set out on the table in pristine perfection. As expected of a noble clansman.
Sasuke rubbed the towel against the side of his head and gave Kakashi a deceptively tame stare, like a cat pretending it’s not as interested as it really is. Kakashi could read this particular cat -or snake, or whatever he chose to pretend to be - like a book, but that didn’t make it any less difficult to deal with.
Sasuke had grown. He wasn’t a scrawny, difficult child now, far from that. And Kakashi hadn’t let himself be swayed by any prospective partner for quite some time. Girls had been a general disappointment and men … well, he liked men, but it was much harder to trust one enough to let him into his bed, not to mention into his life.
Sasuke was already too far entrenched in his life, and Kakashi wasn’t going to even think of what would happen if he … if he--- damnit. The boy isn’t a boy at all.
“Your clothes?” Kakashi asked, ignoring the view, but not so much as to make him seem desperate to avoid it. The pale, pale skin of Sasuke’s belly made his heart contract uncomfortably. There was something awfully dramatic in the contrast between Sasuke’s skin and the dark pants, and the way his wet lashes stuck to each other.
“Washing,” Sasuke drawled, gesturing for him to sit and eat. “Dig in, I already ate.” Which translated to: eat and pretend to be made of steel while I stretch and, oh, look how my chest ripples…. Right…
“I think I want to shower and sleep instead, but thank you anyway. Put that in the fridge, and I’ll have it later.”
Sasuke leaned back against the wall and smiled a vulpine smile. “Of course.”
There was a waver in Sasuke’s eyes which proved to Kakashi that Sasuke didn’t really know that he’d won this little encounter. It was heartening and terrifying all the same. Kakashi bid the gods thanks for that small reprieve and hastened in his retreat.
He had a demon living in his house, clearly.
Damn you, Orochimaru. Damn you to hell.
* * *
“I wonder … what Uchiha Obito was like…” Sasuke’s voice was uncannily wistful, painfully so. Kakashi’s heart almost cracked through his solar plexus, and he narrowly missed giving anything away. Sasuke’s eyes were distant and - almost, almost - sad as they studied the memorial stone.
“Why?”
“He’s the last Uchiha name that was inscribed on the memorial stone … the last hero of my clan. The last one,” he punctuated, to make it perfectly clear that he knew his name would never be chiselled onto that stone, nor would Itachi’s, or any other Uchiha’s. Kakashi swallowed with difficulty and studied Obito’s name, finding it ironic that he should be the last hero born to the great Uchiha clan; surely Obito would find it incredibly amusing.
He would probably find it even more amusing that Kakashi had almost fallen sideways before realising that Sasuke’s question, for once, held no ulterior motive. The one time he wasn’t trying to ply Kakashi for information, he actually hit the right mark.
Obito, you would love this, wouldn’t you?
“He was probably a regular Uchiha, Sasuke. It’s not hard to die a hero when you live in a ninja village,” Kakashi replied mildly, watching Sasuke’s dark gaze shift over the stone, unseeing. Kakashi found himself unnerved by Sasuke’s listless behaviour, particularly when they were about to go on a mission.
However, Sasuke must have detected something in his voice after all. Coal-black eyes swilled onto him with the striking speed of a snake. His lashes fell a bit and a smile ghosted over Sasuke’s features. “Did you know this person … this Obito?”
Now Sasuke was testing him.
“Yes, I did. I knew quite a few Uchihas, in fact.”
“Because of your sharingan?”
Because of Obito’s death, and because I was his teammate. “Sasuke…” Kakashi sighed and put his hands in his pockets. “Why do you keep doing this? You know you’ll get nothing out of me as much as you ask, so why do you keep asking?”
Sasuke lifted his chin and cocked his head to one side, smile gone. “Why don’t you tell me?”
“Because it’s none of your business,” Kakashi intoned, wondering how many times they would have the same conversation, over and over again.
Sasuke surprised him though. “It is my business, it’s my clan so it is my direct concern.”
Kakashi’s visible eye narrowed. “It happened long before your time, Sasuke, and it’s history now.”
“It still concerns my clan. As sole heir, I have a right to know.”
“As sole survivor, you mean?” Kakashi replied mordantly and watched Sasuke’s face tighten. “Is that was this is? A wild goose chase for what little you can still find of your family?” Which it was, Kakashi knew, and it did them no good to have it said, not out in the open.
“Isn’t that why they placed me in your care in the first place?” Sasuke snapped coldly, taking one measured step closer to Kakashi. Kakashi felt his hackles rise at such deliberate defiance, but he kept himself in check, knowing that Sasuke wanted to get a rise out of him, now more than ever.
“Maybe, but it gives you no rights over my private life.”
“It’s not private, Kakashi. You stole that sharingan off one of my clansmen.” It took all of Kakashi’s willpower to stay still, to keep his indolent body posture and not crack Sasuke’s jaw in half with his fist.
“I stole nothing,” you insolent little fuck, “… It was given to me.” And to give that much, to even say it, was painful because Sasuke was winning, he was actually getting it out of him. Kakashi wanted nothing more than to wring the younger man’s neck.
“No Uchicha would give away his eyes - the secrets of our clan - to an outsider. Not even to a teammate.” Sasuke hissed, balling his fists. Abruptly, he leaned back and smiled darkly. “Or … was he your lover? Since we’ve established that you like men…”
Kakashi reached out in a flash of movement and grabbed the front of Sasuke’s shirt, pulling him close to his face. Sasuke kept his smile, though his eyes sparked with some new and uncatalogued emotion. “It was given to me,” Kakashi whispered in a dead voice. “It was a gift from a dying man, from a dying friend.”
“And, incredibly, there was a medical-nin right beside you to perform the operation? My…” Sasuke drawled. “How convenient for you.”
Kakashi tightened his hold on Sasuke’s shirt and stared deep into the other’s eyes, waiting for that smile to slip. Gradually it did; gradually Sasuke’s eyes darkened and his face became paler. The more they stared, the more Kakashi let his anger cool in his gaze, turning his bared eye a cold shade of grey.
He let go of Sasuke when he knew his face revealed nothing more than utter disregard and contempt. Sasuke was pale as a ghost, face taut.
“There were Uchihas who thought more of their loved ones than of ‘clan honour’.” Kakashi lifted his forehead protector with a stiff hand. “I was given this sharingan by my best friend before he died, for trying to save our teammate. He might have betrayed the secrets of his clan … but he knew what it was to be a friend and that he was, until the day he died. His name will be on that stone, forever. What do you have to say for your life and your actions, Sasuke? What grandiose feat did you accomplish that gives you the right to look down on him or anyone else? Killing your brother? Almost killing your best friend?”
“I don’t---” Sasuke began, and then clamped his mouth shut. His jaw was set, but there was a raging storm in his eyes. Kakashi almost thought Sasuke looked afraid.
Kakashi looked away, feeling the burn of the sharingan in his eye, reacting to the anger he could not quite subdue. “But you insist upon insulting the memory of my dead? You call that respect? Or is it a new way of showing appreciation that Orochimaru taught you?”
Sasuke turned away, Kakashi saw it out of the corner of his eye. “Stop it.”
“Stop it? So now you get to draw the line on how personal this gets?”
“Kakashi---“
“No, Sasuke. No.” Kakashi turned again and put his hand on Sasuke’s shoulder, forcing Sasuke to look at him face to face. “You will respect the people I cared for as I respect yours, and that is saying something, given the way you yourself treated them.”
Sasuke stepped away from him and stuck his hands on his pockets, a disturbingly familiar gesture.
Kakashi lowered his forehead protector and turned on his heels, heading off for their mission.
* * *
“Kakashi---“ Kakashi looked up from where he sat.
Sasuke was a dark blur in the arch of the doorway. Kakashi looked down again and kept winding the bandage around his forearm, holding one edge of the cloth between his teeth. His vision kept watering, and he knew he had abused the sharingan, but he would be damned if he let Sasuke see how badly off he was.
You would find this hilarious, wouldn’t you, Obito?
Sasuke stepped into the room and knelt before him. There was a stormy discomfort in his eyes as he regarded Kakashi. For a moment, Kakashi thought he saw him flush, as if ashamed, but it might have been a trick of the light. “Let me help you with that,” Sasuke offered, reaching for the bandage.
Kakashi moved his arm up and out of reach. “I can manage well enough on my own, Sasuke. I have been doing it since before you were born. Go see to yourself.”
“I am fine,” Sasuke insisted, though he didn’t reach out towards Kakashi’s arm again.
“Good, then leave me be.”
“Kakashi---“
“Sasuke,” Kakashi imitated his tone of voice, patience worn thin at last. “Go away.”
Sasuke took one long and shaky breath, then let it go even more shakily and that drew Kakashi’s attention. “I want to apologise … for the other day. I was out of line.”
For a moment, Kakashi stopped winding the bandage. “Yes,” he agreed coldly at last. “Now leave.”
Sasuke blinked and gave Kakashi a wide-eyed stare; he looked as though Kakashi had struck him with his fists without warning.
Kakashi want back to bandaging his arm.
You can’t honestly think apologising makes things better, do you, brat? Kakashi snorted quietly. And you haven’t even apologised to Naruto, have you? Not for anything at all.
Sasuke simply stayed there, kneeling in front of him. Kakashi finally let himself look at him again and found that Sasuke’s gaze was turned inwards, but there was a lingering surprise and pain on his features.
“Sasuke,” Kakashi snapped, recalling his attention. Sasuke’s eyes focused back on him with a clear glimmer of something in them, something that could almost be hope. Kakashi’s stomach twisted, for a moment breath failed him before he regained his footing. “Leave.”
It was terrifying to find himself moved so deeply by something as dangerous of Sasuke.
If only you had never come back.
His sudden wish must have been clear in his eyes for Sasuke did leave at last, moving quietly and slowly, as if wading through his own shock. Kakashi gritted his teeth and went back to his bandage.
* * *
Sunlight struck the memorial stone at odd angles. Kakashi watched a drop of moisture trickle over a faded name.
He took a deep breath; he let it go.
Sasuke was a quiet presence at his back, unusually meek. His shadow barely touched the back of Kakashi’s feet. Kakashi waited for the questions to come, but there was only silence.
* * *
What Sasuke wanted was family, perhaps.
What Sasuke wanted could be summarised, Kakashi deduced, into a sense of belonging. Or, just maybe, it was a sense of ownership over something that gave him solidity in his life. Sasuke wanted to be a part of something just as strongly as he wanted to be a part of nothing. He wanted, selfishly, to be given…
Because Naruto couldn’t, because Sakura wouldn’t, because Konoha shouldn’t … Sasuke turned to Kakashi - of all people - to fill a need so primal and so childish it was beyond Kakashi’s help. Kakashi couldn’t turn back time, he couldn’t give Sasuke what Itachi had taken, nor could he return what Sasuke had given up.
He wasn’t even certain he wanted a part of this demented reality.
Still, Sasuke’s toes found his under the table; still, Sasuke’s eyes smouldered with unsaid possibilities; still, Sasuke’s smile hid an unconscious shred of hope beneath the sensuous lure.
Still, Kakashi knew what Sasuke felt.
* * *
It happened, in the end.
It could have been called the logical result of a natural progression, but that would be just words to cover for both of their weaknesses. Kakashi knew it was probably a bad idea. Sasuke knew it wasn’t a solution to anything.
But to Kakashi, their unresolved taunting had become a game he could look forward to. Sasuke, prodding - though always within limits, lately - and shared meals, and sometimes conversation, and perfectly successful missions. By the time he stopped to think about it, months had gone by, and Sasuke was as firmly entrenched in his life as anyone would ever be.
Obito … you’d think this is insane, wouldn’t you?
Though Kakashi liked to think Obito would have been happy that Kakashi had - within limits, again - let someone into his life. It wasn’t the same life he’d had before, it wasn’t a different life either; but it was something new, where loneliness was still a factor but the flavour of it had changed.
There came a point when there was no denying it, Kakashi knew. It was a word he’d never say, never to Sasuke most of all, but he--- inasmuch as he could, he----
And for it to be Sasuke of all people, was frustrating.
Even more frustrating when he realised he missed Sasuke’s more incisive questions, he missed the sheer need to invade his life that Sasuke had shown … but Sasuke seemed to have taken the warning to heart and he’d backed off, for the most part. Kakashi realised, eventually, that he’d have to leave an opening or Sasuke might slip away again, unhinged, unbound … and leave.
Kakashi stepped into the apartment and sighed. Sasuke brushed his shoulder as he stepped in as well and tugged the straps of a weapon’s pouch free. “I’ll make dinner,” Sasuke proffered quietly.
Kakashi grunted in agreement and sat down on the kitchen counter.
Sasuke gave him an odd look. “Aren’t you going to shower?”
I’m thinking of what to do with you.
“In a moment.”
Sasuke’s smile turned feline, abruptly, and he leaned back against the fridge. “What’s keeping you?” There it was, again, that edge of Orochimaru that tainted Sasuke’s every movement, a hint of the changes the boy had undergone in Sound. A hint of the realities that were a part of his life as he became a man, and poisoned his personality.
“You are,” Kakashi fired, point blank.
Sasuke’s smile stiffened, a clear indication of how unexpected Kakashi’s answer was. Black eyes studied his face, measured his one bared eye with a gaze that was less sure than it had been moments before. Kakashi shrugged expressively and decided that---
What the hell.
--- after all, Obito would have understood, probably -
It’s not like we’ll both live long.
--- and it was something. There was a solidity to this life, to his life, that Kakashi had never expected to find again. He hadn’t wanted to let anyone in, but he’d had every little choice on this one, and he was tired, and he wanted…
Sasuke wasn’t particularly pliant under his hands. He stiffened awkwardly into the kiss and nipped at Kakashi’s face-mask angrily. Kakashi flipped off the kitchen light-switch and pulled down his mask. Sasuke tasted of blood and metal and---
Sasuke wrenched his face away and spat a senbon into the sink. His eyes were wide, animal-wide, in the darkness, but they remained safely black. “What are you doing?” Sasuke demanded at last. Kakashi could feel the tremors in Sasuke’s body, partly excitement and partly uncertainty. Perhaps, too, a little indignation at being pressed up against a refridgerator.
Kakashi shrugged again and went back to kissing him. Sasuke’s hands twitched before settling on Kakashi’s waist, unmoving. Kakashi deepened the kiss a bit more and pulled Sasuke away from the fridge, tugging on his clothes until he peeled them off, blood and all, and they made it to the living room couch.
Beds be damned, he was tired, and the mission had been long and it had been too long since he’d last touched someone. It had been too long since he’d allowed himself to let go that far and this was Sasuke, who could hurt him more than he should, who meant more than anyone - though he’d never know it. It was Sasuke, his former pupil, his ward, his very own personal bane, his worst reminder of himself; and Kakashi remembered what it felt like, to want so desperately it hurt, in a universe turned grey and mechanical.
Sasuke arched against him and stifled a groan. When Kakashi stuck his hand down Sasuke’s pants, the reaction he got was almost violent. Sasuke bit into his shoulder and growled something unintelligible. His pale hands were everywhere, but nowhere definite, and the startled moan at the back of his breathing gave him away as Kakashi deepened the touches.
Kakashi pulled back and studied Sasuke in the darkness. Sasuke stared right back at him, defiant.
Too defiant.
So … he hadn’t learned everything in Sound, after all. Orochimaru had probably taught him a good deal, but Sasuke hadn’t and…
That’s why you make such a lousy seducer. Oh … hell. Damn it all.
Kakashi started to lean back, shocked back into his senses, but Sasuke’s hands gripped the front of his shirt ferociously, and his eyes glowed sharingan-red. Kakashi hesitated - for a moment, he truly did - and then it was all too ridiculous, too insane, to even pretend otherwise.
Sasuke’s inexperience made him amusingly responsive, more so because he persisted with his cool façade. It reminded Kakashi of his own early tries at sex, and he had to smother a laugh.
Kakashi outdid himself at being gentle and thorough with his hands and his mouth. Sasuke bit his lips until he reopened a wound and only then did he allow himself to cry out, a strangled sound. Kakashi smiled against the pale pale skin of Sasuke’s belly and made sure that Sasuke’s mind stopped working altogether. Funny, how one could turn a person’s nerve-endings against them, whether in pain or---
Ah.
Sasuke arched against Kakashi, a furious scowl on his face. Kakashi drummed his fingers on the young man’s belly and contemplated the twists in one’s life. Sasuke drew in a shaky breath and gradually eased back onto the couch.
“I take it no one ever brought you off before?” Kakashi asked in a drawl, imitating Sasuke’s previous attempts at clumsy seduction. Sasuke stared at him owlishly before a frown slammed right back into place.
“What of it?” Sasuke demanded, coldly.
Kakashi grinned and saw Sasuke shudder, probably because he saw Kakashi’s teeth. “You tell me.”
Sasuke’s gaze wavered. He shifted under Kakashi, though not to move away. Dark eyes focused on the ceiling and then back onto him. “Why don’t you tell me?”
Kakashi laughed and decided that - truly - it was enough for one night. “I’m going to have a shower now,” and go upclose and personal with my hand, rather than make you jump out of your skin. “You said you’d prepare dinner.”
Sasuke was unnaturally quiet and tense when Kakashi got back. That much, he’d expected. Kakashi knew what Sasuke had wanted and he knew that sex hadn’t really been it, not quite.
But you see … if I’m going to let you be selfish, I have a right to be selfish, too.
Sasuke went to bed without saying anything further, disappointment crystallized in his gaze, like glass. Kakashi was still Kakashi, and Sasuke was still alone, outside, staring in through the window at a scene from another life. Kakashi let him go, having decided to let Sasuke work those feelings out on his own.
Yes, Obito, I am being a coward for now.
It was too daunting a prospect to give Sasuke what he wanted.
* * *
“The Yondaime was your teacher?” Sasuke muttered, staring at the picture of Team Yellow Flash with something akin to respect, or envy, colouring his eyes.
“What does it look like?”
Sasuke turned over on the bed and splayed his hands over Kakashi’s chest. “It looks like you could at least answer the obvious.”
“I thought you were a genius?”
Coal-black eyes regarded him coldly, hiding their sudden wounds behind an icy veneer. “How about a straight answer?”
“How about some sleep?”
Sasuke got up and went back to his bed. Kakashi heard him slide the door shut slowly and admired his restraint, though he was quite familiar with it.
He stayed awake for a long time, thinking over how nothing had changed at all, not really.
* * *
Spring came again, and with it, came Naruto.
Kakashi waited for Sasuke to stop coming to his room at nights. Not because Sasuke and Naruto would ever--- there was Sakura - but because Naruto could give Sasuke something more definite. Naruto could do, for Sasuke, what Obito had tried to do for Kakashi.
So Kakashi backed away, not without a sense of painful finality, as Sasuke began to take on a few missions with Naruto from time to time, which the Hokage allowed.
Perhaps it was best like this, for both of them. Neither Kakashi nor Sasuke knew how to be more than half-human, and Sasuke’s Obito was still there, there was still a chance…
Yet winter came and Sasuke was still there, panting with less restraint as Kakashi touched him … still there and still very much himself. Sasuke was beside him, like a shadow, asking for the same thing he continued to want, not from Naruto, but from Kakashi.
It was ridiculous, but true.
* * *
He did start coming less, after some time. Kakashi waited on baited breath for him to stop coming altogether, wondering at his own apathy towards something he had come to cherish.
But to take the plunge, to risk it, with Sasuke of all people…
Then Sasuke didn’t show up for almost a month. When he came, Kakashi threw himself fully into it, wondering if perhaps this would be where it ended. He cast himself so thoroughly into making Sasuke cry out that he forgot to tell him to go back to his room. Or maybe he didn’t really forget …
Kakashi’s bed was toasty warm in the morning, so he decided he didn’t want to get up early after all. He lazily kissed a pale shoulder and Sasuke muttered something in his sleep, but did not wake.
And that, Kakashi realised, was a measure of how much Sasuke had been willing to give him.
Kakashi looked at Sasuke’s sleeping face for the first time, at the frown that never left his features. There were scars on Sasuke’s back which Kakashi knew by heart. Sasuke hated it when Kakashi went even remotely close to the curse seal in his caresses. His hair was stringy and tougher than it looked, a bit like Kakashi’s in its level of gravitational defiance. He didn’t like Kakashi’s toothpaste. He was maniacally organised and polished his kunais when he was nervous.
He was sleeping in Kakashi’s bed.
The sun was coming in at an angle, the bed smelled musky and a lot of it was Sasuke. A lot of it was Kakashi as well. Sasuke’s eyelids fluttered and he opened his eyes blearily, lashes crusted with sand. There was a wet patch on the pillow where he’d been sleeping and…
It doesn’t get more real than this.
Sasuke might slip between his fingers unless Kakashi acknowledged that this was, in reality, the life he wanted to live.
Kakashi stared at Sasuke’s murderous frown, knowing that he would kill, if need be, to keep things as they were. He had found something in his life worth fighting for, something that might disappear unless he acted now.
So that wasn’t how it ended, after all.
* * *
Kakashi stuffed his hands into his pockets and stared at the glint of sunlight on the old stone. Sasuke was a quiet shadow to his left, waiting for Kakashi to be done so they could go to their mission. It was a silly little errand for the most part, but Sasuke was - as always - obsessed with being punctual. Kakashi sighed and rolled his shoulders uncomfortably.
So … Obito … what do you think? Have I gone mad?
Maybe there was a time in life for one to stop surviving and begin living again. Perhaps there was a measure of peace, or a small truce to be had, even for people such as they, in lives such as theirs. Kakashi hadn’t saved Obito, he hadn’t saved Naruto and he certainly hadn’t saved Sasuke either; but, like him, Sasuke seemed to have found his way back to this place, and that had to mean something.
Sasuke was still there, in spite of it all. So even though Kakashi was a pragmatist, even though he would have preferred an easier companion, even though he knew it was foolish to let himself hope for the best, he realised there was a time when one could no longer turn one’s life into an apology.
There was a time for oneself.
A time to live … and dare to change, and break old habits. Obito, you tried to teach me that. Help me out here, will you?
“We’re going to be late,” Sasuke murmured carefully.
Kakashi closed his eyes and pulled his hands from his pockets. He stepped back from the memorial stone, but did not turn to leave. The sun was uncomfortably bright, and they were already running late, and still…
“Kakashi?” Sasuke questioned, moving into his line of sight.
Kakashi gave Sasuke a long look before turning back to the stone. His throat burned as he took in a long breath and---“His name was Uchiha Obito, and he was my best friend.”
It was remarkably easy to keep talking, after that.
They were very, very late for their mission.
”(…) and that was the end of it, and the start of something else.”
- David Payne -
The End
Yes, I DO LOVE comments. XD And I am rather proud of this one, even it it's a bit pretentious. ^^ Standard disclaimers apply: Kishimoto pwns, Naruto's cast belongs to him and I just took them out for a ride.