au challenge
Title: The Remedy
Author: silentdictator
Theme: Circus
Rating: T
Summary: A couple of text messages, a few bruised egos, and one silly home remedy for all those aches and pains later, all that is left is Sakura and Kakashi in a room. Literally.
prelude
“What if we figure out that this is all a mistake in the morning?”
“Just do the best you can, and we’ll worry about all the problems later.”
Kakashi grunted.
Sakura sighed.
They pulled the thick, corded rope towards the pre-marked spot in the grass and while Sakura pulled the rope taunt, Kakashi managed to hammer a peg into the ground and knot the rope around it securely.
“I don’t understand why this place doesn’t have a stadium. Or a gym. Or something!”
Sakura fell into the grass and leaned onto her elbows. She tipped her head back to regard the dark sky above her. The only illumination came from the two electric lamps turned to medium and a sliver of the moon. The sky was clear over the middle-of-no-where plain that Cirque Feuille had set up on.
“You know how Tsunade is. She needs money, and she needs a place where the loan sharks don’t know her.”
“Ugh. Don’t remind me.”
Sakura made a face that was half cast in shadows. She doubted they would make much of a profit performing a show out here.
Kakashi gave Sakura a wry smirk that she could barely make out in the dark. The lower half of his face was hidden by the black scarf that he wore at all times. It made him look as if he had a perpetual cold. She could tell from the way his eyes scrunched up just so and the way he titled his shoulders that his facial expression had changed. His body language seemed to say ‘I’m smirking at you, you know’.
He sat beside her on the grassy plain on the outskirts of middle-of-no-where to admire their handy work.
They could only just make out the faintest shape of the big top towering in the sky, but Sakura knew that in the morning the vertical red and white stripes would make it seem as if a giant peppermint had taken up residence just outside of town. Well, it would look like a giant peppermint-tent if she and Kakashi had rigged the big top up correctly.
Everyone had been so eager to help lay down the floor and set up the support beams, but the moment anyone mentioned putting up the canvases, everyone suddenly had somewhere else to be. No one liked setting up the canvas walls and roof. It was and laborious and boring and the people imparted with the job always got sore hands to show for it.
Only Sakura and Kakashi had been left to do the job. The two of them had ended up tackling a job meant for a dozen people and had worked late into the night.
It would kill her to admit that she had had fun during the hours they had labored to put up the candy-striped walls of the big top. But if she were to admit it she would then be dead. And post mortem she wouldn’t be able to enjoy Kakashi’s company.
Sakura stifled a yawn and cracked her back. She glanced to her side and watched Kakashi stand and make his way towards one of the electric lamps.
She wasn’t admiring the way he moved. Not at all.
i. the show don’t start till the acrobat jumps
sent: 3:30 a.m., 2/28
title: wake up
message: get up Forehead we r going 2 town to do public relatns
sent: 3:32 a.m., 2/28
title: re: wake up:
message: no. go w/ tenten or hinata or something.
sent: 3:33 a.m., 2/28
title: NO
message: no i need u theeeeeeeerrrrrrrrreeeeeeee
sent: 3:35 a.m., 2/28
title:
message: leave me alone. please let me go to sleep.
sent: 3:38 a.m., 2/28
title: :(
message: u r makng me waste txts i’m up, so now u get up
sent: 3:50 a.m., 2/28
title: i hate u
message: WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU PIG?
sent: 3:55 a.m., 2/28
title: in bed
message: dnt wory. tenten and kurena are there 2 rt? ;) have fun.
sent: 4:00 a.m., 2/28
title: pray hard
message: prepare yourself for when i take my revenge, floozy
sent: 4:05 a.m., 2/28
title: wateva
message: and good mornin 2 u 2 geek
ii. don’t break a smile, make a smile
People usually think a circus show doesn’t actually start until the first act begins, but they should know better. The show is on when the ring leader steps into the ring.
But in truth the show wouldn’t even start if people like Sakura weren’t getting up at sinfully early hours to go and tack up posters and hand out flyers.
She and some of the other girls had prettied up a bit and hit the town to advertise. They were to do a bit of public relations with the townspeople that just happened to live in the middle-of-no-where. There had been a whole bunch of smiling and talking involved.
And all of that hard work had paid off.
Sakura stood in the shade of one of the stalls lined up outside of the big top and watched people mill around in tiny clusters. The crowd was decent.
Ino’s fortune telling tent was a smashing success. The people coming out of her deep purple tent were rocking the flabbergasted look like the most wide-eyed of bush babies. Shikamaru and Chouji were doing a bit of clowning as they danced through throngs of people. Lee was making a general fool of himself while Tenten and Neji attempted to do damage control. Even from a distance, Sakura could tell their attempts were futile. Hinata and Naruto were behind the cotton candy machine with their heads tilted together. Whispering and giggling, they spun cone after cone of pink and blue sugar for the children that came up to their stand.
Sakura smiled faintly to herself.
She wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
iii. clowns don’t frown
sent: 11:34 p.m., 3/6
title: chek me out!
message: wat did u thnk of the sho ;-)
sent: 11:45 p.m., 3/6
title: re: chek me out!
message: ws gr8t!!! now go put ice on your wrist you idiot. it is going to swell up later, and then you’ll really hate yourself in the morning.
sent: 11:57 p.m., 3/6
title: u luff meh
message: dont b like tht. did u see me fall? i ws lke woa b/c its been a long time since the last time i clowned u kno
sent: 12:06 a.m., 3/7
title: no i don’t
message: GO TO SLEEP. i know you spell bad just to make me angry honestly grow up. aren’t you supposed to be like 13 yrs my senior or something?
sent: 12:08 a.m., 3/7
title: yesh u dooo
message: dont m8k me feel old ;A; and fyi i am a fom i dun age like normal pplz
sent: 12:10 a.m., 3/7
title: i assure you
message: i’m going to pretend that was the painkillers talking. you did take them right?
sent: 12:15 a.m., 3/7
title:
message: y dot u cum over and check bb/
sent: 12:18 a.m., 3/7
title: >:-(
message: i will gladly go over to your trailer and castrate you excuse me while i go sharpen my knives
sent: 12:19 a.m., 3/7
title: don’t
message: jk, jk. don’t come over on my account. i took the pills.
sent: 12:24 a.m., 3/7
title: but
message: i got my knives all sharp for nothing. i h8t uuu. go to sleep now that you have had your fun pushing my buttons.
sent: 12:30 a.m., 3/7
title:
message: g nite <3 ;-)
iv. head in hands, don’t forget where you stand
Sakura tilted her aching head into her cold hands. Her sense of smell was met with the unpleasant sent of soap and rubbing alcohol.
She sneezed and unhappily rubbed her nose before looking out the window of the trailer she was sleeping in that night.
Two bunk beds were crammed into the trailer and Sakura felt more than heard the smooth breathing of the girl sleeping on the bunk under hers. She glanced out the small window again as if she could see across the circus camp and see how Kakashi was doing.
His fall replayed over and over again in her head as she tucked her phone under her pillow and pulled her covers over her head in an attempt to dampen the light of the moon streaming through her tiny window.
What she would do for a pair of curtains these days.
The opening parade had started with the elephants that Hinata led with a quiet dignity. Naruto and the clowns had followed behind and made a big spectacle of themselves with squirt guns. Naruto had breathed out a tongue of flames towards the crowd and made them squeal. She could almost hear him laughing. He had gestured for the crowd to applaud the tamers that came next. Hana, Kakashi, and Kiba had swarmed into the ring with their dogs in a barking, yipping mass.
The show had begun as planned with Tsunade’s showy opening speech leading into Tenten and Neji’s trapeze act. Lee and Gai’s contortionist and acrobatic acts had left the crowd awed and half-blinded by the sparkle in their smiles.
Things had been going smoothly. Sakura remembered feeling hopeful that she wouldn’t have to treat anyone that night.
And then Kakashi, by some twist of fate, had entered the ring with the clowns dancing and rolling and striking funny poses. Apparently, one of the clowns had pulled his back while doing some last minute practice and Kakashi had been recruited to act in his stead.
Sakura knew that the role he played had not been in any of the skits the other clowns had acted out over and over again before. But the crowd didn’t know a thing, and roared when the clowns entered the center ring.
She hated to say it, but Kakashi had looked ridiculously menacing as a clown. He had been outfitted in tight black with grey armored plates over his arms, chest, and shins. A threatening black katana had been strapped to his back and a red and white mask had been placed over his face. His silver hair had stuck out in unruly spikes. Sakura could feel her fingers twitch with the urge to comb through his hair the next time she saw him, if only so that it didn’t stick out at such obnoxious angles.
The crowd went wild when the clowns began their skit. Kakashi had played the villain.
He had constantly been harassing the clowns by putting a stop to their pranks and menacing them with his katana. His movements had taken on a fluid and dance-like quality as he twirled his blade and moved among the clowns with practiced ease. One flick of his wrist and he had easily slashed a rope here. Then he would spin and quickly stick out a leg to trip a clown there. There had been a fey-like quality to his movements.
He had been mesmerizing. He had seemed untouchable.
And then one of the newer clowns had gotten angry. He had sprung up from behind a tiny car, a prop, and pushed Kakashi with movements too rough to be rehearsed.
Kakashi’s mask had hampered his peripheral vision, so he probably hadn’t even seen the clown appear. The buzz of the crowd and the thump of the music that the clowns moved to had probably been no help. The push had over balanced him and he tumbled onto his side.
His fall had been graceful, just like all the other motions he had gone through the moment he had stepped into the ring. He had landed with a soft thud and a splay of limbs dramatic enough for loud applause. Women had screamed all around Sakura. They had thrown things. Lots of things. Things that will not be mentioned.
But in the end, it had been Sakura who had wrapped up Kakashi’s fractured wrist, rubbed a soothing balm over his bruised ribs, and bound up a cut on his leg. And she was the one Kakashi had kissed goodnight. On the cheek. Nothing, like, special or anything. She repeats the unconvincing mantra to herself over and over into the night.
=*=
She got up at six to help bring down the big top. Almost a week’s worth of performances and the people in the m.o.n.w. were bored with all that Cirque Feuilles had to offer. The circle of life was coming to an end. So on and so forth.
After spending hours dragging down the canvases and taking apart the beams that supported the giant peppermint, Sakura was sweating (what felt like) bucket loads. She guessed it was around one or two by the way the sun struck at one of the remaining picks stuck in the ground.
Sakura practically threw herself onto the grass just a ways away from the half stripped big top and tried to un-stick her shirt from her chest. Sakura closed her eyes to the brightness of the sun and the blue, blue sky where there hadn’t been a cloud in sight for hours. She took a heaving gasp that seemed to take its sweet, sweet time making a burning trail down to her lungs. She exhaled in with loud whoosh and opened her eyes only to see darkness.
Kakashi smiled with his eye. His face took up the whole of her field of vision.
“Lunch.”
“Just a single word from you and my day suddenly brightens. How is your wrist?”
Kakashi only crinkled his eyes and shruged. Sakura frowned up at him.
“You dare to offer me a fake smile? You, mister, are shameless. Does it hurt?”
“No. It’s fine. I swear. Just eat your lunch.” Kakashi twitched his eyebrow at her and then moved out of her range of sight to sit next to her. He handed her a paper carton of food and she dug in while keeping a careful eye on him. She had yet to see his face without his scarf covering his mouth and she was curious so see how he was going to eat with her sitting at such a close proximity.
Kakashi hunched over.
Suddenly, one of his dogs came running across her lap. Pakkun jumped and romped and barked all around and over her. By the time Sakura managed to stop giggling and calm the tiny pug, Kakashi was already standing and leaving with his empty carton of food. It was like magic.
v. ring master, ring master, cen-ter stage
sent: 3:45 p.m., 3/8
title: sparing
message: sakura, where are you? sparing practice today @ 4. b there.
sent: 3:50 p.m., 3/8
title: re: sparing
message: but shishou i helped pull down the big top today
sent: 3:55 p.m., 3/8
title: re: sparing
message: dont make me 2x ur sets of push/sit ups
vi. proper ladies know how to hit proper like
“You are evil. Maybe evil-er than Ino-pig.”
“Are you stereotyping blondes, Sakura? I didn’t peg you as that kind of girl.”
Tsunade cocked a hip and then gestured for Sakura to start her stretches.
“Fortunately for you I’m busy pulling together some last minute preparations before our departure tonight.”
Sakura translated the sentence into something resembling: I have found a casino within fifty miles or so. I’ll be back tonight. Drag my un-sober and very, very heavy body into my trailer, hitch it up, and set out.
“Unfortunately for you I found a willing sparring partner to replace me so that you can stay sharp. He’ll be here shortly.”
Tsunade actually had the audacity to cackle in a giggly way as she walked away.
Sakura managed to do all her stretches and was just beginning on some basic katas to warm up when her sparring partner showed up.
“Kakashi?”
He ambled forward with his obnoxious orange book in hand and a twinkle in his eye as he looked up at her.
Sparring with Kakashi was nothing like sparring with Tsunade. Kakashi moved faster and hit harder. Not to say that Tsunade didn’t hit hard or anything. The last time Sakura had fought with Kakashi was when she had just joined the circus troop. Tsunade had great fun pitting the little girl against one of her best can-do-it-all troop members.
And when Sakura had asked, after her great defeat at the hands of an older man, why Tsunade was going to teach her how to fight, the only answer she had gotten had been something about having proper fist fights when things got bad.
Sakura had just chocked it up to learning self-defense.
Of course, Sakura was big girl now and could hold her own blow for blow. She was of age and she had learned from the best of medics in the years she had been with the troop.
“You’ve gotten really good at this.”
“Sure.” Sakura gasped as she dodged a kick aimed at her ribs.
“But you’re still not as good as I am.” Kakashi said in a sing-song voice with false cheer.
He slipped under a punch and seemed to be right up in her face when Sakura suddenly crouched down and grabbed his ankles. Sakura tugged hard and Kakashi suddenly fell.
Kakashi never fell (except just that once).
“Are you okay?” Sakura asked in a small voice. She felt a little bad since she knew his ribs were bruised from his fall a few days ago.
Kakashi rolled over so that his face was in the grass and made a noise like a small, drowning mammal.
“My ego, it hurts. I think the broken shards have pierced my heart and I’m going to die.” He moaned. The ground and his ever present scarf muffled his words. Sakura chuckled and took up an arm in an attempt to pull Kakashi up.
“Get up. So you’re not too hurt, right? You’re actually going to help with the dismantling of the big top this afternoon. It’ll distract you from your wounded ego.”
“I’ll never be the same.” Kakashi said seriously as he looked at her solemnly with his single eye after he had gotten up from the ground.
“I’m sorry I can’t kiss it better.” Sakura replied with the same gravity.
vii. i spy with my little eye…
sent: 9:46 p.m., 3/8
title: where are u?
message: you weren’t at dinner, are you alright?
sent: 9:50 p.m., 3/8
title: seriously
message: I’m seriously worried. Where are you?
sent: 9:54 p.m., 3/8
title: WHERE ARE YOU?
message: Do NOT make me go look for you. I want to go to bed. Look, I’m punctuating EVERYTHING and using caps lock. ANSWER.
sent: 9:59 p.m., 3/8
title: :(
message: I’m coming for you. And you better be scared because I’m going to hurt you when I find you for making me worry.
sent: 10:03 p.m., 3/8
title: D:<
message: GDI WHERE R U?
sent: 10:08 p.m., 3/8
title: im going to skin u alive
message: u will die a horrible death
viii. a missing you, and i cannot let that fly
Sakura stormed up to Kakashi’s trailer and slammed the door open. She had a plastic bag in one hand and her cell phone in the other.
“Hatake Kakashi, I’m going to kill you. And then you will be dead.” She growled fiercely.
Kakashi was lying in his bed, but suddenly started so that he was sitting up at the sound of her voice. He looked at her blurrily. His trailer was dark, but Sakura was outlined by a bright moon and glowing stars. She looked something like an angel of death.
“I brought you food out of the goodness of my heart. Eat. I’m allowing you one last meal.”
Kakashi murmured something about closing the door and threw an arm over his eyes as he lay back in bed. For once, Kakashi’s headband was off and his silvery hair was hanging over his face. Sakura closed the door only to walk to the Kakashi’s bed stand and turn on the battery powered lamp. It shone a white beam onto the floor and illuminated half of Kakashi’s covered face. Sakura then promptly leaned over Kakashi’s prone form and pulled back his curtains to reveal a waning moon.
“Eat.” She said.
“I think you hurt something more than my ego.” Kakashi said as he sat up.
Sakura just sat down next to him. She offered him a fork and a napkin and then opened the carton of food she brought.
“I’ll take a look at it after you eat. I swear.”
Kakashi pulled down the scarf usually covering his face and began to eat. He had a straight nose and smooth, angled cheekbones paired with a square jaw. There was sensitivity to his mouth and the way his lips turned up into a small grin when he tilted his head to look at her.
“Do I live up to your expectations?”
He looked younger with that grin hitched up a little higher at one corner and his floppy bangs falling into his eyes.
“I don’t really think I had any expectations. After waiting so long to see you face, it’s kind of a letdown, you know? It’s like waiting for a unicorn and then seeing unicorn and being a little sad because you finally saw the elusive unicorn. The suspense is gone.”
Sakura looked down at her knees as she said this in the most serious voice she could. She knew that Kakashi probably couldn’t see more of her than just a curtain of pink hair and maybe the curve of her neck.
Kakashi made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort and then placed the carton of food he had finished onto the ground.
They sat in silence for a heartbeat and Sakura almost broke her serious façade by giggling, but she held it in.
“Where does it hurt?”
“Everywhere.” Kakashi said and then slouched heavily.
Sakura made a face but hiked up Kakashi’s shirt first to check on his bruised ribs. She pressed her fingers along the bruise he had gotten from falling on the sheath of his katana.
“Tell me when it hurts.”
Sakura started moving her fingers down along Kakashi’s ribs towards his hip bone and when she felt him twitch she stopped.
“You’re not even bruised there.” Sakura said with a laugh. She hated how she sounded breathy as she laughed. Kakashi smelled like soap and citrus, clean and fresh. She was just beginning to notice how close they were. “I’ll check your wrist next.”
She trailed her arms along his arm to try and find where the wrappings began in the dark. His arm was warm, and she pulled back the sleeve of his shirt slowly so as not to jar his arm too much. She began to pull apart the bandages covering his wrist with care. Sakura checked for swelling and pressed as gently as she could near a few points where she thought something may have been injured. She felt Kakashi flinch twice and she filed that away for later.
“Nothing is broken.”
“Ah…that’s a pity.”
Kakashi looked at her with his single, visible eye and it seemed to compel her with its fluttery lashes and deep, dark irises, like pools of mountain water, underground, and full of mysteriously sparkly, dark quartz.
“Don’t give me that look.”
“Then will you at least kiss it better?”
Kakashi’s shirt was still hiked up around his ribs and the way he shifted a little closer to Sakura made her hyper aware of how he moved.
Sakura proceeded to wrap his wrist up as neatly as she could with fresh bandages she found in her hip pouch. So what if she was touching his arm a little more than she needed to? She was just checking for swelling, Scout’s honor.
Then, before she could talk herself out such madness, she quickly leaned forward and brushed her lips against the edge of Kakashi’s bruised ribs.
“All better?” She asked brightly. She craned her neck to catch a glimpse of his face and even though it was dark she could just make out a flash of teeth. She was sure she had just managed to squeeze a smile out of stone-faced Hatake Kakashi.
Sakura was pleased.
“A lot better.”
the end (at the beginning)
Sakura groaned into her arm and sucked in a breath through her teeth. She tried to muffle the sound, but Ino heard her anyway.
“How are you feeling, Forehead? You don’t look too well. You should head back.”
“Worst. Headache. Ever.” Sakura ground out from between clenched teeth.
“I don’t see the loud noises or the thudding or the thumping making your headache any better.”
Cirque Feuilles was currently stationed at a local pub far, far away from the sleepy middle-of-no-where town they had been performing in last week. This week saw the circus troop whooping it up with copious amounts of alcohol and oily peanuts after a smashing success of an opening night. Their latest haunt was somewhere in a Big City, but Sakura couldn’t really bring herself to care at the moment.
Sakura tried to press her glass of water to her forehead, but the cylindrical structure of her cup did not make it the most effective of ice packs.
Ino suddenly got up and left their small booth only to disappear into the crowd. Sakura groaned, and put her head in her hands. She tried to sooth her throbbing temples with icy fingers. She couldn’t understand why she was here in the first place.
“Yo. I was planning to head out. Do you want to come with?”
Sakura looked up at the sound of Kakashi’s voice. It took her a moment to process his words.
“Yes. You have no idea how yes my yes meant.”
Sakura took the hand he had offered to help her up. Then the two of them slipped through the crowded pub and into the night.
“How did you know I was hiding there?” Sakura asked when they had walked a good distance away from the pub.
The light pollution made the stars hard to see, so Sakura was stuck with the view of sidewalk moving beneath her feet. The sidewalks in the Big City sparkled in the light of the street lamps. Bits of crushed glass were recycled and mixed into the concrete. They sparkled a bit like stars.
“Ino sent me. She said she was sick of keeping you company while you were ill. Apparently you made ‘really shitty conversation’.”
“That’s just like her to care.” Sakura said without any real irritation to her voice. The cool night air was helping her headache. She kept close to Kakashi even though she no longer needed his arm for support. He was warm, and she was freezing since she had forgotten to bring a jacket. Or so she kept telling herself.
The walk back to where Cirque Feuilles was staying was wonderfully uneventful. The night was quiet aside from the shrieking of tires on asphalt and the honk of an occasional horn. Sakura took a moment to enjoy the quiet and the good company.
“I have a great remedy for headaches.” Kakashi said when they had made it to where Sakura was staying.
“Do tell.” Sakura said. She wanted to go to sleep without her head pounding to each beat of her heart. Her room card was in her hand and she turned to open her door.
“Well…”
“What?”
Kakashi looked at her and she swore she saw the gears in his head turn. He stepped into her room after her and closed the door behind him. He leaned down so that his covered mouth was next to her ear. His scarf brushed her cheek and it was soft from the constant use.
“I could kiss it better. Would you like that?”
His voice was low and his warm breath was just a soft puff against her neck. Sakura suppressed a shiver. Even though they both probably reeked of smoke and alcohol, Kakashi still managed to smell of soap and some sort of citrus. Oranges, Sakura’s brain supplied.
“Is this remedy foolproof?” Sakura asked in a quiet voice. She was afraid if she talked any louder her voice would fail her.
“Let’s try it out.”
His lips were warm and his hands were slow as they ran through her hair and trailed along the sides of her neck lazily. It was a slow kiss and Sakura leaned into it. She slipped her cold hands under his shirt and trailed them along his sides careful of his bruises. When they finally broke apart Kakashi’s hands were cradling her face and he leaned his forehead against hers.
“Better?”
“Much.”
Author: silentdictator
Theme: Circus
Rating: T
Summary: A couple of text messages, a few bruised egos, and one silly home remedy for all those aches and pains later, all that is left is Sakura and Kakashi in a room. Literally.
prelude
“What if we figure out that this is all a mistake in the morning?”
“Just do the best you can, and we’ll worry about all the problems later.”
Kakashi grunted.
Sakura sighed.
They pulled the thick, corded rope towards the pre-marked spot in the grass and while Sakura pulled the rope taunt, Kakashi managed to hammer a peg into the ground and knot the rope around it securely.
“I don’t understand why this place doesn’t have a stadium. Or a gym. Or something!”
Sakura fell into the grass and leaned onto her elbows. She tipped her head back to regard the dark sky above her. The only illumination came from the two electric lamps turned to medium and a sliver of the moon. The sky was clear over the middle-of-no-where plain that Cirque Feuille had set up on.
“You know how Tsunade is. She needs money, and she needs a place where the loan sharks don’t know her.”
“Ugh. Don’t remind me.”
Sakura made a face that was half cast in shadows. She doubted they would make much of a profit performing a show out here.
Kakashi gave Sakura a wry smirk that she could barely make out in the dark. The lower half of his face was hidden by the black scarf that he wore at all times. It made him look as if he had a perpetual cold. She could tell from the way his eyes scrunched up just so and the way he titled his shoulders that his facial expression had changed. His body language seemed to say ‘I’m smirking at you, you know’.
He sat beside her on the grassy plain on the outskirts of middle-of-no-where to admire their handy work.
They could only just make out the faintest shape of the big top towering in the sky, but Sakura knew that in the morning the vertical red and white stripes would make it seem as if a giant peppermint had taken up residence just outside of town. Well, it would look like a giant peppermint-tent if she and Kakashi had rigged the big top up correctly.
Everyone had been so eager to help lay down the floor and set up the support beams, but the moment anyone mentioned putting up the canvases, everyone suddenly had somewhere else to be. No one liked setting up the canvas walls and roof. It was and laborious and boring and the people imparted with the job always got sore hands to show for it.
Only Sakura and Kakashi had been left to do the job. The two of them had ended up tackling a job meant for a dozen people and had worked late into the night.
It would kill her to admit that she had had fun during the hours they had labored to put up the candy-striped walls of the big top. But if she were to admit it she would then be dead. And post mortem she wouldn’t be able to enjoy Kakashi’s company.
Sakura stifled a yawn and cracked her back. She glanced to her side and watched Kakashi stand and make his way towards one of the electric lamps.
She wasn’t admiring the way he moved. Not at all.
i. the show don’t start till the acrobat jumps
sent: 3:30 a.m., 2/28
title: wake up
message: get up Forehead we r going 2 town to do public relatns
sent: 3:32 a.m., 2/28
title: re: wake up:
message: no. go w/ tenten or hinata or something.
sent: 3:33 a.m., 2/28
title: NO
message: no i need u theeeeeeeerrrrrrrrreeeeeeee
sent: 3:35 a.m., 2/28
title:
message: leave me alone. please let me go to sleep.
sent: 3:38 a.m., 2/28
title: :(
message: u r makng me waste txts i’m up, so now u get up
sent: 3:50 a.m., 2/28
title: i hate u
message: WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU PIG?
sent: 3:55 a.m., 2/28
title: in bed
message: dnt wory. tenten and kurena are there 2 rt? ;) have fun.
sent: 4:00 a.m., 2/28
title: pray hard
message: prepare yourself for when i take my revenge, floozy
sent: 4:05 a.m., 2/28
title: wateva
message: and good mornin 2 u 2 geek
ii. don’t break a smile, make a smile
People usually think a circus show doesn’t actually start until the first act begins, but they should know better. The show is on when the ring leader steps into the ring.
But in truth the show wouldn’t even start if people like Sakura weren’t getting up at sinfully early hours to go and tack up posters and hand out flyers.
She and some of the other girls had prettied up a bit and hit the town to advertise. They were to do a bit of public relations with the townspeople that just happened to live in the middle-of-no-where. There had been a whole bunch of smiling and talking involved.
And all of that hard work had paid off.
Sakura stood in the shade of one of the stalls lined up outside of the big top and watched people mill around in tiny clusters. The crowd was decent.
Ino’s fortune telling tent was a smashing success. The people coming out of her deep purple tent were rocking the flabbergasted look like the most wide-eyed of bush babies. Shikamaru and Chouji were doing a bit of clowning as they danced through throngs of people. Lee was making a general fool of himself while Tenten and Neji attempted to do damage control. Even from a distance, Sakura could tell their attempts were futile. Hinata and Naruto were behind the cotton candy machine with their heads tilted together. Whispering and giggling, they spun cone after cone of pink and blue sugar for the children that came up to their stand.
Sakura smiled faintly to herself.
She wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
iii. clowns don’t frown
sent: 11:34 p.m., 3/6
title: chek me out!
message: wat did u thnk of the sho ;-)
sent: 11:45 p.m., 3/6
title: re: chek me out!
message: ws gr8t!!! now go put ice on your wrist you idiot. it is going to swell up later, and then you’ll really hate yourself in the morning.
sent: 11:57 p.m., 3/6
title: u luff meh
message: dont b like tht. did u see me fall? i ws lke woa b/c its been a long time since the last time i clowned u kno
sent: 12:06 a.m., 3/7
title: no i don’t
message: GO TO SLEEP. i know you spell bad just to make me angry honestly grow up. aren’t you supposed to be like 13 yrs my senior or something?
sent: 12:08 a.m., 3/7
title: yesh u dooo
message: dont m8k me feel old ;A; and fyi i am a fom i dun age like normal pplz
sent: 12:10 a.m., 3/7
title: i assure you
message: i’m going to pretend that was the painkillers talking. you did take them right?
sent: 12:15 a.m., 3/7
title:
message: y dot u cum over and check bb/
sent: 12:18 a.m., 3/7
title: >:-(
message: i will gladly go over to your trailer and castrate you excuse me while i go sharpen my knives
sent: 12:19 a.m., 3/7
title: don’t
message: jk, jk. don’t come over on my account. i took the pills.
sent: 12:24 a.m., 3/7
title: but
message: i got my knives all sharp for nothing. i h8t uuu. go to sleep now that you have had your fun pushing my buttons.
sent: 12:30 a.m., 3/7
title:
message: g nite <3 ;-)
iv. head in hands, don’t forget where you stand
Sakura tilted her aching head into her cold hands. Her sense of smell was met with the unpleasant sent of soap and rubbing alcohol.
She sneezed and unhappily rubbed her nose before looking out the window of the trailer she was sleeping in that night.
Two bunk beds were crammed into the trailer and Sakura felt more than heard the smooth breathing of the girl sleeping on the bunk under hers. She glanced out the small window again as if she could see across the circus camp and see how Kakashi was doing.
His fall replayed over and over again in her head as she tucked her phone under her pillow and pulled her covers over her head in an attempt to dampen the light of the moon streaming through her tiny window.
What she would do for a pair of curtains these days.
The opening parade had started with the elephants that Hinata led with a quiet dignity. Naruto and the clowns had followed behind and made a big spectacle of themselves with squirt guns. Naruto had breathed out a tongue of flames towards the crowd and made them squeal. She could almost hear him laughing. He had gestured for the crowd to applaud the tamers that came next. Hana, Kakashi, and Kiba had swarmed into the ring with their dogs in a barking, yipping mass.
The show had begun as planned with Tsunade’s showy opening speech leading into Tenten and Neji’s trapeze act. Lee and Gai’s contortionist and acrobatic acts had left the crowd awed and half-blinded by the sparkle in their smiles.
Things had been going smoothly. Sakura remembered feeling hopeful that she wouldn’t have to treat anyone that night.
And then Kakashi, by some twist of fate, had entered the ring with the clowns dancing and rolling and striking funny poses. Apparently, one of the clowns had pulled his back while doing some last minute practice and Kakashi had been recruited to act in his stead.
Sakura knew that the role he played had not been in any of the skits the other clowns had acted out over and over again before. But the crowd didn’t know a thing, and roared when the clowns entered the center ring.
She hated to say it, but Kakashi had looked ridiculously menacing as a clown. He had been outfitted in tight black with grey armored plates over his arms, chest, and shins. A threatening black katana had been strapped to his back and a red and white mask had been placed over his face. His silver hair had stuck out in unruly spikes. Sakura could feel her fingers twitch with the urge to comb through his hair the next time she saw him, if only so that it didn’t stick out at such obnoxious angles.
The crowd went wild when the clowns began their skit. Kakashi had played the villain.
He had constantly been harassing the clowns by putting a stop to their pranks and menacing them with his katana. His movements had taken on a fluid and dance-like quality as he twirled his blade and moved among the clowns with practiced ease. One flick of his wrist and he had easily slashed a rope here. Then he would spin and quickly stick out a leg to trip a clown there. There had been a fey-like quality to his movements.
He had been mesmerizing. He had seemed untouchable.
And then one of the newer clowns had gotten angry. He had sprung up from behind a tiny car, a prop, and pushed Kakashi with movements too rough to be rehearsed.
Kakashi’s mask had hampered his peripheral vision, so he probably hadn’t even seen the clown appear. The buzz of the crowd and the thump of the music that the clowns moved to had probably been no help. The push had over balanced him and he tumbled onto his side.
His fall had been graceful, just like all the other motions he had gone through the moment he had stepped into the ring. He had landed with a soft thud and a splay of limbs dramatic enough for loud applause. Women had screamed all around Sakura. They had thrown things. Lots of things. Things that will not be mentioned.
But in the end, it had been Sakura who had wrapped up Kakashi’s fractured wrist, rubbed a soothing balm over his bruised ribs, and bound up a cut on his leg. And she was the one Kakashi had kissed goodnight. On the cheek. Nothing, like, special or anything. She repeats the unconvincing mantra to herself over and over into the night.
=*=
She got up at six to help bring down the big top. Almost a week’s worth of performances and the people in the m.o.n.w. were bored with all that Cirque Feuilles had to offer. The circle of life was coming to an end. So on and so forth.
After spending hours dragging down the canvases and taking apart the beams that supported the giant peppermint, Sakura was sweating (what felt like) bucket loads. She guessed it was around one or two by the way the sun struck at one of the remaining picks stuck in the ground.
Sakura practically threw herself onto the grass just a ways away from the half stripped big top and tried to un-stick her shirt from her chest. Sakura closed her eyes to the brightness of the sun and the blue, blue sky where there hadn’t been a cloud in sight for hours. She took a heaving gasp that seemed to take its sweet, sweet time making a burning trail down to her lungs. She exhaled in with loud whoosh and opened her eyes only to see darkness.
Kakashi smiled with his eye. His face took up the whole of her field of vision.
“Lunch.”
“Just a single word from you and my day suddenly brightens. How is your wrist?”
Kakashi only crinkled his eyes and shruged. Sakura frowned up at him.
“You dare to offer me a fake smile? You, mister, are shameless. Does it hurt?”
“No. It’s fine. I swear. Just eat your lunch.” Kakashi twitched his eyebrow at her and then moved out of her range of sight to sit next to her. He handed her a paper carton of food and she dug in while keeping a careful eye on him. She had yet to see his face without his scarf covering his mouth and she was curious so see how he was going to eat with her sitting at such a close proximity.
Kakashi hunched over.
Suddenly, one of his dogs came running across her lap. Pakkun jumped and romped and barked all around and over her. By the time Sakura managed to stop giggling and calm the tiny pug, Kakashi was already standing and leaving with his empty carton of food. It was like magic.
v. ring master, ring master, cen-ter stage
sent: 3:45 p.m., 3/8
title: sparing
message: sakura, where are you? sparing practice today @ 4. b there.
sent: 3:50 p.m., 3/8
title: re: sparing
message: but shishou i helped pull down the big top today
sent: 3:55 p.m., 3/8
title: re: sparing
message: dont make me 2x ur sets of push/sit ups
vi. proper ladies know how to hit proper like
“You are evil. Maybe evil-er than Ino-pig.”
“Are you stereotyping blondes, Sakura? I didn’t peg you as that kind of girl.”
Tsunade cocked a hip and then gestured for Sakura to start her stretches.
“Fortunately for you I’m busy pulling together some last minute preparations before our departure tonight.”
Sakura translated the sentence into something resembling: I have found a casino within fifty miles or so. I’ll be back tonight. Drag my un-sober and very, very heavy body into my trailer, hitch it up, and set out.
“Unfortunately for you I found a willing sparring partner to replace me so that you can stay sharp. He’ll be here shortly.”
Tsunade actually had the audacity to cackle in a giggly way as she walked away.
Sakura managed to do all her stretches and was just beginning on some basic katas to warm up when her sparring partner showed up.
“Kakashi?”
He ambled forward with his obnoxious orange book in hand and a twinkle in his eye as he looked up at her.
Sparring with Kakashi was nothing like sparring with Tsunade. Kakashi moved faster and hit harder. Not to say that Tsunade didn’t hit hard or anything. The last time Sakura had fought with Kakashi was when she had just joined the circus troop. Tsunade had great fun pitting the little girl against one of her best can-do-it-all troop members.
And when Sakura had asked, after her great defeat at the hands of an older man, why Tsunade was going to teach her how to fight, the only answer she had gotten had been something about having proper fist fights when things got bad.
Sakura had just chocked it up to learning self-defense.
Of course, Sakura was big girl now and could hold her own blow for blow. She was of age and she had learned from the best of medics in the years she had been with the troop.
“You’ve gotten really good at this.”
“Sure.” Sakura gasped as she dodged a kick aimed at her ribs.
“But you’re still not as good as I am.” Kakashi said in a sing-song voice with false cheer.
He slipped under a punch and seemed to be right up in her face when Sakura suddenly crouched down and grabbed his ankles. Sakura tugged hard and Kakashi suddenly fell.
Kakashi never fell (except just that once).
“Are you okay?” Sakura asked in a small voice. She felt a little bad since she knew his ribs were bruised from his fall a few days ago.
Kakashi rolled over so that his face was in the grass and made a noise like a small, drowning mammal.
“My ego, it hurts. I think the broken shards have pierced my heart and I’m going to die.” He moaned. The ground and his ever present scarf muffled his words. Sakura chuckled and took up an arm in an attempt to pull Kakashi up.
“Get up. So you’re not too hurt, right? You’re actually going to help with the dismantling of the big top this afternoon. It’ll distract you from your wounded ego.”
“I’ll never be the same.” Kakashi said seriously as he looked at her solemnly with his single eye after he had gotten up from the ground.
“I’m sorry I can’t kiss it better.” Sakura replied with the same gravity.
vii. i spy with my little eye…
sent: 9:46 p.m., 3/8
title: where are u?
message: you weren’t at dinner, are you alright?
sent: 9:50 p.m., 3/8
title: seriously
message: I’m seriously worried. Where are you?
sent: 9:54 p.m., 3/8
title: WHERE ARE YOU?
message: Do NOT make me go look for you. I want to go to bed. Look, I’m punctuating EVERYTHING and using caps lock. ANSWER.
sent: 9:59 p.m., 3/8
title: :(
message: I’m coming for you. And you better be scared because I’m going to hurt you when I find you for making me worry.
sent: 10:03 p.m., 3/8
title: D:<
message: GDI WHERE R U?
sent: 10:08 p.m., 3/8
title: im going to skin u alive
message: u will die a horrible death
viii. a missing you, and i cannot let that fly
Sakura stormed up to Kakashi’s trailer and slammed the door open. She had a plastic bag in one hand and her cell phone in the other.
“Hatake Kakashi, I’m going to kill you. And then you will be dead.” She growled fiercely.
Kakashi was lying in his bed, but suddenly started so that he was sitting up at the sound of her voice. He looked at her blurrily. His trailer was dark, but Sakura was outlined by a bright moon and glowing stars. She looked something like an angel of death.
“I brought you food out of the goodness of my heart. Eat. I’m allowing you one last meal.”
Kakashi murmured something about closing the door and threw an arm over his eyes as he lay back in bed. For once, Kakashi’s headband was off and his silvery hair was hanging over his face. Sakura closed the door only to walk to the Kakashi’s bed stand and turn on the battery powered lamp. It shone a white beam onto the floor and illuminated half of Kakashi’s covered face. Sakura then promptly leaned over Kakashi’s prone form and pulled back his curtains to reveal a waning moon.
“Eat.” She said.
“I think you hurt something more than my ego.” Kakashi said as he sat up.
Sakura just sat down next to him. She offered him a fork and a napkin and then opened the carton of food she brought.
“I’ll take a look at it after you eat. I swear.”
Kakashi pulled down the scarf usually covering his face and began to eat. He had a straight nose and smooth, angled cheekbones paired with a square jaw. There was sensitivity to his mouth and the way his lips turned up into a small grin when he tilted his head to look at her.
“Do I live up to your expectations?”
He looked younger with that grin hitched up a little higher at one corner and his floppy bangs falling into his eyes.
“I don’t really think I had any expectations. After waiting so long to see you face, it’s kind of a letdown, you know? It’s like waiting for a unicorn and then seeing unicorn and being a little sad because you finally saw the elusive unicorn. The suspense is gone.”
Sakura looked down at her knees as she said this in the most serious voice she could. She knew that Kakashi probably couldn’t see more of her than just a curtain of pink hair and maybe the curve of her neck.
Kakashi made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort and then placed the carton of food he had finished onto the ground.
They sat in silence for a heartbeat and Sakura almost broke her serious façade by giggling, but she held it in.
“Where does it hurt?”
“Everywhere.” Kakashi said and then slouched heavily.
Sakura made a face but hiked up Kakashi’s shirt first to check on his bruised ribs. She pressed her fingers along the bruise he had gotten from falling on the sheath of his katana.
“Tell me when it hurts.”
Sakura started moving her fingers down along Kakashi’s ribs towards his hip bone and when she felt him twitch she stopped.
“You’re not even bruised there.” Sakura said with a laugh. She hated how she sounded breathy as she laughed. Kakashi smelled like soap and citrus, clean and fresh. She was just beginning to notice how close they were. “I’ll check your wrist next.”
She trailed her arms along his arm to try and find where the wrappings began in the dark. His arm was warm, and she pulled back the sleeve of his shirt slowly so as not to jar his arm too much. She began to pull apart the bandages covering his wrist with care. Sakura checked for swelling and pressed as gently as she could near a few points where she thought something may have been injured. She felt Kakashi flinch twice and she filed that away for later.
“Nothing is broken.”
“Ah…that’s a pity.”
Kakashi looked at her with his single, visible eye and it seemed to compel her with its fluttery lashes and deep, dark irises, like pools of mountain water, underground, and full of mysteriously sparkly, dark quartz.
“Don’t give me that look.”
“Then will you at least kiss it better?”
Kakashi’s shirt was still hiked up around his ribs and the way he shifted a little closer to Sakura made her hyper aware of how he moved.
Sakura proceeded to wrap his wrist up as neatly as she could with fresh bandages she found in her hip pouch. So what if she was touching his arm a little more than she needed to? She was just checking for swelling, Scout’s honor.
Then, before she could talk herself out such madness, she quickly leaned forward and brushed her lips against the edge of Kakashi’s bruised ribs.
“All better?” She asked brightly. She craned her neck to catch a glimpse of his face and even though it was dark she could just make out a flash of teeth. She was sure she had just managed to squeeze a smile out of stone-faced Hatake Kakashi.
Sakura was pleased.
“A lot better.”
the end (at the beginning)
Sakura groaned into her arm and sucked in a breath through her teeth. She tried to muffle the sound, but Ino heard her anyway.
“How are you feeling, Forehead? You don’t look too well. You should head back.”
“Worst. Headache. Ever.” Sakura ground out from between clenched teeth.
“I don’t see the loud noises or the thudding or the thumping making your headache any better.”
Cirque Feuilles was currently stationed at a local pub far, far away from the sleepy middle-of-no-where town they had been performing in last week. This week saw the circus troop whooping it up with copious amounts of alcohol and oily peanuts after a smashing success of an opening night. Their latest haunt was somewhere in a Big City, but Sakura couldn’t really bring herself to care at the moment.
Sakura tried to press her glass of water to her forehead, but the cylindrical structure of her cup did not make it the most effective of ice packs.
Ino suddenly got up and left their small booth only to disappear into the crowd. Sakura groaned, and put her head in her hands. She tried to sooth her throbbing temples with icy fingers. She couldn’t understand why she was here in the first place.
“Yo. I was planning to head out. Do you want to come with?”
Sakura looked up at the sound of Kakashi’s voice. It took her a moment to process his words.
“Yes. You have no idea how yes my yes meant.”
Sakura took the hand he had offered to help her up. Then the two of them slipped through the crowded pub and into the night.
“How did you know I was hiding there?” Sakura asked when they had walked a good distance away from the pub.
The light pollution made the stars hard to see, so Sakura was stuck with the view of sidewalk moving beneath her feet. The sidewalks in the Big City sparkled in the light of the street lamps. Bits of crushed glass were recycled and mixed into the concrete. They sparkled a bit like stars.
“Ino sent me. She said she was sick of keeping you company while you were ill. Apparently you made ‘really shitty conversation’.”
“That’s just like her to care.” Sakura said without any real irritation to her voice. The cool night air was helping her headache. She kept close to Kakashi even though she no longer needed his arm for support. He was warm, and she was freezing since she had forgotten to bring a jacket. Or so she kept telling herself.
The walk back to where Cirque Feuilles was staying was wonderfully uneventful. The night was quiet aside from the shrieking of tires on asphalt and the honk of an occasional horn. Sakura took a moment to enjoy the quiet and the good company.
“I have a great remedy for headaches.” Kakashi said when they had made it to where Sakura was staying.
“Do tell.” Sakura said. She wanted to go to sleep without her head pounding to each beat of her heart. Her room card was in her hand and she turned to open her door.
“Well…”
“What?”
Kakashi looked at her and she swore she saw the gears in his head turn. He stepped into her room after her and closed the door behind him. He leaned down so that his covered mouth was next to her ear. His scarf brushed her cheek and it was soft from the constant use.
“I could kiss it better. Would you like that?”
His voice was low and his warm breath was just a soft puff against her neck. Sakura suppressed a shiver. Even though they both probably reeked of smoke and alcohol, Kakashi still managed to smell of soap and some sort of citrus. Oranges, Sakura’s brain supplied.
“Is this remedy foolproof?” Sakura asked in a quiet voice. She was afraid if she talked any louder her voice would fail her.
“Let’s try it out.”
His lips were warm and his hands were slow as they ran through her hair and trailed along the sides of her neck lazily. It was a slow kiss and Sakura leaned into it. She slipped her cold hands under his shirt and trailed them along his sides careful of his bruises. When they finally broke apart Kakashi’s hands were cradling her face and he leaned his forehead against hers.
“Better?”
“Much.”