Chapter Two! (New and improved!)

At long last! The fabled chapter two is here! (In case you've already gotten ahold of chapter two, I'm happy to say that this is a new, edited and altogether snazzier version of what you may have read.) Happy reading!

--Chapter Two--

Sasuke was a dangerous houseguest. He was infinitely twitchy, hair-triggered, and temperamental. He set random traps in the house. Some of them were sensible, like across doorways or windowsills. Setting tripwires across the bathtub not so much. And an exploding tag beneath the kitchen sink, Kakashi decided, was downright low. Getting extra scrubbies from that cupboard should not have been a punishable infraction. Kakashi couldn’t decide whether Sasuke was really so paranoid and unsure as to think that attackers would hide next to the dish soap and bleach, or whether Sasuke just wanted to fuck with him.

Granted, Kakashi fucked right back. Or, at least, he thought about it and had vivid daydreams of putting dye in Sasuke’s toothpaste. He had visions of short-sheeting Sasuke’s bed. Kakashi was halfway through writing a personal ad for Sasuke, but he was constantly revising it in his head and never bothered to actually write it down.

Kakashi’s fuse got shorter by the day and Sasuke wasn’t getting any better. So Kakashi decided the best thing would be to move to a different place. Sharing Kakashi’s little bachelor pad had never been the best of ideas, but it had been a spontaneous sort of decision. Moving wasn’t a question of if or when. It was a question of where. Not too close to the old Uchiha district, or the Hatake house, or the Academy or Naruto’s old place. Or the memorial…the training grounds, the bridge where the team used to meet…anywhere near the ANBU offices or the site of the jail or the monument. Huh. There were so many places that were uncomfortable, so many that might set either one of them off, and Kakashi was under orders to not let Sasuke get worse--and try to make things better, if he at all could.

So one day, over a modest dinner of takeout, Kakashi said:

“We’re moving. Do you want a house or an apartment?” Kakashi was viciously pleased that he’d managed to make Sasuke choke on his food. He was less pleased when he looked up from his plate of greasy noodles into the Mangekyou.

Even in that black-and-white world, Sasuke was conflicted. Kakashi was tied to a post, true, and it wasn’t a very comfortable position, but at least he wasn’t being tortured. Yet. Sasuke just stood...no, loomed, over him, running his limited facial expressions over and over, but mostly switching between an agonized angry look and one of desolate confusion. Sasuke held a sword and it twitched irritably in his hand, as if it couldn’t wait to sink into Kakashi’s otherworldly flesh. Kakashi gritted his teeth and tried to prepare for what he knew could turn ugly and painful very quickly.

The clouds overhead boiled, never repeating the same movements. A small part of Kakashi’s mind compared Sasuke’s inner world with Itachi’s. Sasuke’s was just as parched and flat as his brother’s but it lacked a certain hardness. If Kakashi looked closely at anything, the edges weren’t sharp and clean. Kakashi didn’t know if it was a lack of practice that shaped the world like that, or if the world was so well tuned tyo Sasuke’s conflict with himself. Every now and then, some strange shape would form in the darkness beyond them, and Kakashi was both curious and frightened to find out what moved there, just out of reach and nearly out of sight. It was impossible to judge distance here.

An interminable amount of time later, Sasuke’s face settled into a frown. Not an angry frown. Not a sad frown. Just a frown that swept his dark brows together and pinched his mouth shut in the whiteness of his face. The sword vanished from his hand and the clouds froze in place. The ropes around the post squeezed Kakashi hard. The Mangekyou world melted away.

Of course, undergoing the technique still took it out of a body, even if that body was blissfully phantom-wound free. Kakashi was drenched in sweat and breathing hard. But he seemed to have it better than Sasuke, who twitched into awareness, clutched his head, and passed out in his plate.

“Damn it. He never answered.” Kakashi sighed. He moved Sasuke’s head to the side so he wouldn’t suffocate on the long-cold dinner. Kakashi debated whether or not to finish first or to drag Sasuke to bed. Food won out initially, but he only managed three bites before he made himself get out of the chair, sling one of Sasuke’s arms around his shoulders, and carry him to his futon. Kakashi dropped into his own bed, grateful for the reprieve from the usual tension in the apartment. He didn’t remember falling asleep.

He bolted awake in the darkness. Someone was in his room, standing over his bed with an intense focus on him. He threw three kunai without opening his eye, but wasn’t surprised that they were deflected. A split second after throwing them he’d decided it was probably Sasuke, or perhaps a messenger from the Hokage.

“A house.”

Sasuke left the room and Kakashi took a look at the clock. Four in the morning. Of course Sasuke would wake him up an hour before he’d normally rise. He rolled over again and didn’t move an inch until the alarm went off.

By the time he’d showered and dressed and come out into the kitchen, Sasuke had, apparently, made breakfast for the both of them. His face looked especially pale this morning, though Kakashi couldn’t tell if the pinched look on his face was a side effect of the Mangekyou or from getting up so early. Kakashi guessed that, as soon as the worst of Sasuke’s headache had dissipated, he had stayed up and brooded. Sasuke was like that. But the unusual thoughtfulness of breakfast threw Kakashi a bit. He peered at Sasuke and still couldn’t tell what he was thinking. An apology, maybe?

“It’s not an apology,” said Sasuke. “It’s just...I though maybe we’d get an early start looking for a place.”

“Ah,” said Kakashi. “Well then.”

He scratched his head, scrambling to find a neutral topic of conversation. He settled for burying himself in the food…or at least, appearing to be busy with breakfast so he could continue to attempt to gauge Sasuke’s mood.

Sasuke scowled into his teacup, but carefully avoided looking Kakashi in the face. Yep. It was a peace offering, this breakfast. But it didn’t mean much, coming from someone so volatile. He sighed inside. He’d still have to watch carefully for a couple days. A conciliatory Sasuke was a Sasuke more on edge, looking for any signal that it was alright to stop being apologetic and start being angry again. Life was simpler without Sasuke. The day was already shaping up to be the latest in a never-ending parade of very long, very tiring days. Kakashi sighed and started eating.

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Chapter three may make its debut sometime soon...

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. All rights remain with its original creator, Masashi Kishimoto. I make no profit from writing these stories.