Drabble Trade: Guy/Kakashi
Last of the drabble trade! Uh, this post is a bit longer. Not a show of obvious bias, not at all. >_>;
[prompt of "pandora's box"]
"There are some boxes that should stay closed," said Kakashi, "because if you open them, there's no going back."
Guy swallowed hard, mouth dry. "Maybe I don’t want to go back," he said, voice hoarse, words crackling like dry leaves in his mouth.
Kakashi looked away. "So that means you get to decide for everyone?"
“No,” said Guy. “But what if the box is already open?”
Kakashi ran a tired hand down the side of his face. Guy didn’t reach out. What was there left to say?
“Give me some time,” said Kakashi.
Guy nodded. Time was all he had.
--
Guy ran his fingers along Kakashi's cheeks, his lips, traced the length of his nose. He pressed kisses along Kakashi's temple, his jawline, staring, endlessly staring as he committed every inch of skin to memory.
"God, Guy, it's just a face," said Kakashi finally, pushed Guy away to glare fiercely. "If I don't get to at least second base tonight, I will kill you."
Guy knew his smile had long since gone goofy, but he couldn't help it. Guy leaned in and finally touched their lips together. Then, for Kakashi's sake (and okay, maybe his own), Guy skipped straight to third.
--
There was this once that Guy thought it would all work out for the best and that everyone would be happy in the end. It was when he had reached the status of genin and the sensei had placed the sign of his graduation on his forehead, adjusted the plate to best protect his brain, and Guy was young enough to feel stronger and safer and better for it (before he realized that it was only a symbol and the human body's weak points were too numerous to come close to complete, or even significant protection).
Despite his later epiphanies, the constant lessons life thrust upon him, he couldn't help but believe that something had to work out. Enough senbon will hit, enough strikes will break through and break down the strongest wall. It was why he could encourage Lee to be the best without any twinges of conscience, try to open Neji to the possibilities of flight and freedom in ways he didn't yet realize were open to him, told Tenten what he knew of the legendary Tsunade and spoke of his admiration for Kurenai and Anko. He hoped that each of his students would strike true.
And this endless, unexpected hope for the future was why he kept his challenges, his promise to be better to Kakashi, rewarded with their own strange brand of friendship. But it was too much to hope for more, to bridge the gap between them, press lips and open hands to spaces that only fists and feet had touched before. It was too much to hope to sprout wings halfway down to the waiting abyss or expect to land on his feet.
So why--Guy had to wonder, watching Kakashi watch the stone, novel discarded to the side and hand pressed to one set of names of many--why did it feel so much like waiting?
--
Kakashi looked from Guy to the dresser. "No," he said. Guy gave Kakashi one of those pleading looks. "Hell, no."
"I did your stupid sexy no jutsu challenge and roleplayed three scenes from Icha Icha Tactics," Guy pointed out.
"You enjoyed tying me up as much as I did," said Kakashi. "Maybe more."
"There was also the gag."
"You brought that on yourself."
"And the public sex." Kakashi smiled at the reminder, remembering how Guy had blushed for weeks despite not getting caught. "Not to mention the cake incident."
"Fine." Kakashi heaved a long suffering sigh. "I'll wear the damn spandex. But I get to choose whatever I want next time."
"Maybe this isn't such a good ide--"
Kakashi snatched up the green cloth and brandished it at Guy. "Too late. I'll do it." He stripped and pulled on the jumpsuit. Who knew it felt just as clingy from the inside as it looked from the outside? Despite the discomfort, Kakashi couldn't tamp down on the smirk stretching his lips. "Think of it this way, Guy. It can't be as bad as the thing with the cake."
Guy did not look reassured.
--
The cicadas chirped their lonely song, and a single frog added its own dubious baritone to their chorus. The night was unusually cool for the season, pleasant after the muggy heat of the day. The smell of the tea and tatami were comforting, comfortable.
Kakashi rubbed his eyes. You were right, he thought. I'd rather stay, he thought. "I should go," he said. He took another sip of the tea, gone tepid and bitter in his mouth.
"If you have to," Guy said, sipped his own tea, then held the cup in his hands, looking down into its contents. What fortune did he read there, in the leaves? Kakashi didn't want to know.
Kakashi put his cup down with care. The clink of glass on wood was louder than expected. Guy continued to stare into his tea.
"See you around," Kakashi said. He pulled up his mask, then stood. He stepped down into the entrance, stared at his sandals for a few moments.
Guy looked up. He was frowning. When he slammed the cup down, dregs slopping out the side and onto the table, Kakashi winced a little underneath the mask and pulled on his sandals. He half expected Guy to follow him out.
The walk home was cold, lonely as the cicada's song.
--
[In response to an everyone-is-genderswitched-fic:]
"Fuck, Guy," said Kakashi. What Guy could see of Kakashi's face through the hand clamped over his mouth was redder than Guy had ever seen it before, like sakura in full blossom. Kakashi's eyes were wide open and staring down at Guy.
Guy smirked and returned to what he was doing. Kakashi moaned, and buried both hands in Guy's hair, spreading his legs wide. "Multiple orgasms," he mumbled. "Who knew?"
When Naruto burst in, shouting something happily about a cure, Kakashi had to be held down so he wouldn't kill his erstwhile student. Naruto impeded these efforts at preserving his own life by insisting, "no, really, I want to die."
When Sakura wandered in to see what all the noise was about (and why they hadn't assembled for their cure yet) and saw the situation, Naruto very nearly got his wish.
--
"Why don't we try the pirates tonight instead?" Guy suggested.
Kakashi smirked and adjusted his eye patch. "I'm surprised to see you so eager to play my cabin boy."
Guy didn't like to admit to any failings as an accommodating lover, but . . . "I'm starting to get sick of being tied up," he admitted.
Kakashi's smirk turned to a full-fledged grin. "Why didn't you say so?" he asked, stalking closer. He pressed the ropes into Guy's hands. "Never let it be said that I wasn't willing to take my turn." Kakashi flung himself onto the bed, wrists conspicuously close to the headboard.
"Well?" he asked, after a few moments of Guy looking from the silk bonds in his hands to Kakashi laid out on the mattress.
"I think you should take off your shirt so I don't have to rip it open." Kakashi complied. Guy felt a sudden surge of power. Yes, power, nothing untoward about it. Then Kakashi spread his legs and Guy gave up any pretense, crawling over Kakashi to lash his arms to the headboard, fingers stumbling just the tiniest bit through the knots when Kakashi bucked up, bumping their bodies together.
"Hurry up," Kakashi said, and Guy finished the last tie.
"I don't remember being nearly so mouthy when I was in this position." Guy ran his hands down Kakashi's arms, down his sides, pulled open and pushed down Kakashi's pants.
"But you were twice as loud," Kakashi countered.
Guy allowed a smirk of his own to slip through. "We'll see how loud you get when you're the one unable to use his hands."
It turned out that it was loud enough for the neighbors to stare and stare, the next morning as Guy passed them in the hall, then whisper something very speculative and highly private about Guy's apparent prowess. Torn between pride and embarrassment, Guy wondered if this was why Kakashi had usually insisted on it being the other way.
--
Kakashi is starting to tire of this game, the challenges, the extra glint to Guy's eyes as he asks Kakashi to choose.
When the sakura litter the dirt and clog the puddles, when petals stick to shoes and slacks and everything they touch, Kakashi chooses to take advantage of a season of endings, beginnings. He stops longing for the taste of cherries and takes, crushing lips to lips and tumbling them down to wet grass below.
Guy's tongue is bitter, like fruit picked too soon, but Kakashi presses in against him, helps peel off spandex clinging like a second skin. Guy is warm beneath him, and the sun beats like summer against their bare skin.
After, Kakashi rubs his hand against Guy's stomach, again, again, and tries not to think of fall.
--
Kakashi always smelled of burnt clover and old ink, always had smears of it along his lips like he sucked on his pens while grading and imprinted in the whorls of his thumbs from the constant reading. If it wasn't a paper or a photocopied journal article, then he had a cheap Harlequin novel on hand and a demeanor that demanded silence as he finished this one last passage. Guy always immediately interrupted, or else Kakashi would move to the next and the next, always seeing how far he could push it this time.
The first time they'd met was the record. One hundred and fifteen pages (and two paragraphs) and then Kakashi had finished the entire book and turned to stare at Guy, who wordlessly offered up the pen that had slid from Kakashi's open lips a couple hours before.
It was an instant and mutual fascination, though Kakashi would never own up in person (though he'd once spent a week answering Kakashi's e-mail for him and had caught in a reply that Kakashi had cited as his important reason why he kept driving away his grad students as "not one has waited for me to finish my damn book").
Despite appearances, Kakashi was a worthy academic rival. It was a stretch to publish before Kakashi, a push to just keep up with his output.
Better, though, than their rivalry, was this, the slide of hands through hair and against skin, the warm shared beds and trading off who cooked breakfast in the morning, the way that Kakashi chose Guy's office to hide in every time despite the dean having figured it out ages ago.
Kakashi might have said it was the way that Guy shared his grad students for grading periods, but his lips would smile if he said it, and his firm grip on Guy's arm would tell the lie.
--
The scent of ozone was strong that afternoon, and Guy had only just finished closing his windows against the impending rain when the knock came.
He opened the door to Kakashi, lounging casually against the door frame. It seemed like the only thing holding him up. His hair was tangled and matted with dirt and blood, the left side of his face covered with it. Kakashi's clothing was torn, but his skin was whole where it peaked through the rents in fabric. None of the blood was his own, then.
"Can I use your shower?" Kakashi asked, voice casual. Guy noted that the hand resting against the frame had blood in the creases, under the fingernails. He nodded and stepped aside.
Guy tracked how Kakashi favored his left leg as he stepped inside, probably strained the muscles again. If Kakashi'd wrenched his knee, he would've gone to the med-nin first.
Over the years, they'd visited one another at home a handful of times, enough for Kakashi to know the general lay-out of the apartment. Kakashi headed unerringly for the bathroom, disappearing behind its closed door. Guy pulled out towels, a spare uniform, and a handkerchief that could serve as a makeshift mask. He left them outside the bathroom, calling briefly through the door to let Kakashi know they were there. The sound of the shower didn't stop, but Guy knew Kakashi had either heard him or figured it out for himself when he appeared in the kitchen in the clean clothing.
He wasn't wearing the handkerchief.
Guy nearly burned himself moving the tea kettle onto a cool burner, but his years of training didn't fail him and the kettle made it safely over. Guy cleared his throat and asked, "Would you like some tea?"
Kakashi ran a scoured red hand through his hair, then crossed to Guy's side of the kitchen. He pulled out the cups, and they rattled a little in his hands. He placed them on the table. Guy prepared the tea.
"Milk, sugar?" Guy asked.
Kakashi shook his head. Guy poured for them both. They sat down and drank the tea. Finally, Kakashi pushed his away.
"They all had your face," he said. He pushed his finger through a small puddle of water from his hair dripping onto the table. "Every last one of them." Kakashi looked up, and Guy tried not to stare.
Guy put down his tea.
"It's a new jutsu," and Kakashi's voice was casual, so very casual. "They'd sent reports to Tsunade, but thought it might not be a problem for me." Kakashi looked down at his now clenched hand. "It wasn't. Not really."
"I see," said Guy after several long minutes, swallowed hard against the obstruction in his throat.
Kakashi stood. "Feel free to burn the clothes." He pulled out the handkerchief from a pocket, unfolded the green cotton. "I'll return this later."
Guy was such a fool he let Kakashi make it out of the kitchen, into the main room and the entranceway-had to catch him up against the door so he could pull away the makeshift mask and press his hands into clothes that smelled like laundry detergent and faintly of himself, into skin that smelled of soap and a hint of copper.
At some point, it finally, finally started raining, skies wide open to wash everything away.
[prompt of "pandora's box"]
"There are some boxes that should stay closed," said Kakashi, "because if you open them, there's no going back."
Guy swallowed hard, mouth dry. "Maybe I don’t want to go back," he said, voice hoarse, words crackling like dry leaves in his mouth.
Kakashi looked away. "So that means you get to decide for everyone?"
“No,” said Guy. “But what if the box is already open?”
Kakashi ran a tired hand down the side of his face. Guy didn’t reach out. What was there left to say?
“Give me some time,” said Kakashi.
Guy nodded. Time was all he had.
--
Guy ran his fingers along Kakashi's cheeks, his lips, traced the length of his nose. He pressed kisses along Kakashi's temple, his jawline, staring, endlessly staring as he committed every inch of skin to memory.
"God, Guy, it's just a face," said Kakashi finally, pushed Guy away to glare fiercely. "If I don't get to at least second base tonight, I will kill you."
Guy knew his smile had long since gone goofy, but he couldn't help it. Guy leaned in and finally touched their lips together. Then, for Kakashi's sake (and okay, maybe his own), Guy skipped straight to third.
--
There was this once that Guy thought it would all work out for the best and that everyone would be happy in the end. It was when he had reached the status of genin and the sensei had placed the sign of his graduation on his forehead, adjusted the plate to best protect his brain, and Guy was young enough to feel stronger and safer and better for it (before he realized that it was only a symbol and the human body's weak points were too numerous to come close to complete, or even significant protection).
Despite his later epiphanies, the constant lessons life thrust upon him, he couldn't help but believe that something had to work out. Enough senbon will hit, enough strikes will break through and break down the strongest wall. It was why he could encourage Lee to be the best without any twinges of conscience, try to open Neji to the possibilities of flight and freedom in ways he didn't yet realize were open to him, told Tenten what he knew of the legendary Tsunade and spoke of his admiration for Kurenai and Anko. He hoped that each of his students would strike true.
And this endless, unexpected hope for the future was why he kept his challenges, his promise to be better to Kakashi, rewarded with their own strange brand of friendship. But it was too much to hope for more, to bridge the gap between them, press lips and open hands to spaces that only fists and feet had touched before. It was too much to hope to sprout wings halfway down to the waiting abyss or expect to land on his feet.
So why--Guy had to wonder, watching Kakashi watch the stone, novel discarded to the side and hand pressed to one set of names of many--why did it feel so much like waiting?
--
Kakashi looked from Guy to the dresser. "No," he said. Guy gave Kakashi one of those pleading looks. "Hell, no."
"I did your stupid sexy no jutsu challenge and roleplayed three scenes from Icha Icha Tactics," Guy pointed out.
"You enjoyed tying me up as much as I did," said Kakashi. "Maybe more."
"There was also the gag."
"You brought that on yourself."
"And the public sex." Kakashi smiled at the reminder, remembering how Guy had blushed for weeks despite not getting caught. "Not to mention the cake incident."
"Fine." Kakashi heaved a long suffering sigh. "I'll wear the damn spandex. But I get to choose whatever I want next time."
"Maybe this isn't such a good ide--"
Kakashi snatched up the green cloth and brandished it at Guy. "Too late. I'll do it." He stripped and pulled on the jumpsuit. Who knew it felt just as clingy from the inside as it looked from the outside? Despite the discomfort, Kakashi couldn't tamp down on the smirk stretching his lips. "Think of it this way, Guy. It can't be as bad as the thing with the cake."
Guy did not look reassured.
--
The cicadas chirped their lonely song, and a single frog added its own dubious baritone to their chorus. The night was unusually cool for the season, pleasant after the muggy heat of the day. The smell of the tea and tatami were comforting, comfortable.
Kakashi rubbed his eyes. You were right, he thought. I'd rather stay, he thought. "I should go," he said. He took another sip of the tea, gone tepid and bitter in his mouth.
"If you have to," Guy said, sipped his own tea, then held the cup in his hands, looking down into its contents. What fortune did he read there, in the leaves? Kakashi didn't want to know.
Kakashi put his cup down with care. The clink of glass on wood was louder than expected. Guy continued to stare into his tea.
"See you around," Kakashi said. He pulled up his mask, then stood. He stepped down into the entrance, stared at his sandals for a few moments.
Guy looked up. He was frowning. When he slammed the cup down, dregs slopping out the side and onto the table, Kakashi winced a little underneath the mask and pulled on his sandals. He half expected Guy to follow him out.
The walk home was cold, lonely as the cicada's song.
--
[In response to an everyone-is-genderswitched-fic:]
"Fuck, Guy," said Kakashi. What Guy could see of Kakashi's face through the hand clamped over his mouth was redder than Guy had ever seen it before, like sakura in full blossom. Kakashi's eyes were wide open and staring down at Guy.
Guy smirked and returned to what he was doing. Kakashi moaned, and buried both hands in Guy's hair, spreading his legs wide. "Multiple orgasms," he mumbled. "Who knew?"
When Naruto burst in, shouting something happily about a cure, Kakashi had to be held down so he wouldn't kill his erstwhile student. Naruto impeded these efforts at preserving his own life by insisting, "no, really, I want to die."
When Sakura wandered in to see what all the noise was about (and why they hadn't assembled for their cure yet) and saw the situation, Naruto very nearly got his wish.
--
"Why don't we try the pirates tonight instead?" Guy suggested.
Kakashi smirked and adjusted his eye patch. "I'm surprised to see you so eager to play my cabin boy."
Guy didn't like to admit to any failings as an accommodating lover, but . . . "I'm starting to get sick of being tied up," he admitted.
Kakashi's smirk turned to a full-fledged grin. "Why didn't you say so?" he asked, stalking closer. He pressed the ropes into Guy's hands. "Never let it be said that I wasn't willing to take my turn." Kakashi flung himself onto the bed, wrists conspicuously close to the headboard.
"Well?" he asked, after a few moments of Guy looking from the silk bonds in his hands to Kakashi laid out on the mattress.
"I think you should take off your shirt so I don't have to rip it open." Kakashi complied. Guy felt a sudden surge of power. Yes, power, nothing untoward about it. Then Kakashi spread his legs and Guy gave up any pretense, crawling over Kakashi to lash his arms to the headboard, fingers stumbling just the tiniest bit through the knots when Kakashi bucked up, bumping their bodies together.
"Hurry up," Kakashi said, and Guy finished the last tie.
"I don't remember being nearly so mouthy when I was in this position." Guy ran his hands down Kakashi's arms, down his sides, pulled open and pushed down Kakashi's pants.
"But you were twice as loud," Kakashi countered.
Guy allowed a smirk of his own to slip through. "We'll see how loud you get when you're the one unable to use his hands."
It turned out that it was loud enough for the neighbors to stare and stare, the next morning as Guy passed them in the hall, then whisper something very speculative and highly private about Guy's apparent prowess. Torn between pride and embarrassment, Guy wondered if this was why Kakashi had usually insisted on it being the other way.
--
Kakashi is starting to tire of this game, the challenges, the extra glint to Guy's eyes as he asks Kakashi to choose.
When the sakura litter the dirt and clog the puddles, when petals stick to shoes and slacks and everything they touch, Kakashi chooses to take advantage of a season of endings, beginnings. He stops longing for the taste of cherries and takes, crushing lips to lips and tumbling them down to wet grass below.
Guy's tongue is bitter, like fruit picked too soon, but Kakashi presses in against him, helps peel off spandex clinging like a second skin. Guy is warm beneath him, and the sun beats like summer against their bare skin.
After, Kakashi rubs his hand against Guy's stomach, again, again, and tries not to think of fall.
--
Kakashi always smelled of burnt clover and old ink, always had smears of it along his lips like he sucked on his pens while grading and imprinted in the whorls of his thumbs from the constant reading. If it wasn't a paper or a photocopied journal article, then he had a cheap Harlequin novel on hand and a demeanor that demanded silence as he finished this one last passage. Guy always immediately interrupted, or else Kakashi would move to the next and the next, always seeing how far he could push it this time.
The first time they'd met was the record. One hundred and fifteen pages (and two paragraphs) and then Kakashi had finished the entire book and turned to stare at Guy, who wordlessly offered up the pen that had slid from Kakashi's open lips a couple hours before.
It was an instant and mutual fascination, though Kakashi would never own up in person (though he'd once spent a week answering Kakashi's e-mail for him and had caught in a reply that Kakashi had cited as his important reason why he kept driving away his grad students as "not one has waited for me to finish my damn book").
Despite appearances, Kakashi was a worthy academic rival. It was a stretch to publish before Kakashi, a push to just keep up with his output.
Better, though, than their rivalry, was this, the slide of hands through hair and against skin, the warm shared beds and trading off who cooked breakfast in the morning, the way that Kakashi chose Guy's office to hide in every time despite the dean having figured it out ages ago.
Kakashi might have said it was the way that Guy shared his grad students for grading periods, but his lips would smile if he said it, and his firm grip on Guy's arm would tell the lie.
--
The scent of ozone was strong that afternoon, and Guy had only just finished closing his windows against the impending rain when the knock came.
He opened the door to Kakashi, lounging casually against the door frame. It seemed like the only thing holding him up. His hair was tangled and matted with dirt and blood, the left side of his face covered with it. Kakashi's clothing was torn, but his skin was whole where it peaked through the rents in fabric. None of the blood was his own, then.
"Can I use your shower?" Kakashi asked, voice casual. Guy noted that the hand resting against the frame had blood in the creases, under the fingernails. He nodded and stepped aside.
Guy tracked how Kakashi favored his left leg as he stepped inside, probably strained the muscles again. If Kakashi'd wrenched his knee, he would've gone to the med-nin first.
Over the years, they'd visited one another at home a handful of times, enough for Kakashi to know the general lay-out of the apartment. Kakashi headed unerringly for the bathroom, disappearing behind its closed door. Guy pulled out towels, a spare uniform, and a handkerchief that could serve as a makeshift mask. He left them outside the bathroom, calling briefly through the door to let Kakashi know they were there. The sound of the shower didn't stop, but Guy knew Kakashi had either heard him or figured it out for himself when he appeared in the kitchen in the clean clothing.
He wasn't wearing the handkerchief.
Guy nearly burned himself moving the tea kettle onto a cool burner, but his years of training didn't fail him and the kettle made it safely over. Guy cleared his throat and asked, "Would you like some tea?"
Kakashi ran a scoured red hand through his hair, then crossed to Guy's side of the kitchen. He pulled out the cups, and they rattled a little in his hands. He placed them on the table. Guy prepared the tea.
"Milk, sugar?" Guy asked.
Kakashi shook his head. Guy poured for them both. They sat down and drank the tea. Finally, Kakashi pushed his away.
"They all had your face," he said. He pushed his finger through a small puddle of water from his hair dripping onto the table. "Every last one of them." Kakashi looked up, and Guy tried not to stare.
Guy put down his tea.
"It's a new jutsu," and Kakashi's voice was casual, so very casual. "They'd sent reports to Tsunade, but thought it might not be a problem for me." Kakashi looked down at his now clenched hand. "It wasn't. Not really."
"I see," said Guy after several long minutes, swallowed hard against the obstruction in his throat.
Kakashi stood. "Feel free to burn the clothes." He pulled out the handkerchief from a pocket, unfolded the green cotton. "I'll return this later."
Guy was such a fool he let Kakashi make it out of the kitchen, into the main room and the entranceway-had to catch him up against the door so he could pull away the makeshift mask and press his hands into clothes that smelled like laundry detergent and faintly of himself, into skin that smelled of soap and a hint of copper.
At some point, it finally, finally started raining, skies wide open to wash everything away.