Chapter 12 Complete!

Late it is, but chapter twelve is also done! Enjoy!

Chapter Twelve
---------

Instead of reading while on the living room futon, as he usually did on Thursday afternoons, Kakashi was using his book as cover for planning a visit to the memorial. He had to figure out what to do with Sasuke. He could just abandon him to the tender mercies of the ANBU squad, but, frankly, it was an unattractive option. Kakashi couldn’t just leave him alone. That was all kinds of rule-breaking there. Not only would it violate his mission parameters, but it also broke the unspoken rules about leaving traitors unattended while in the village. Kakashi shifted in his seat uncomfortably. Could he bear to bring Sasuke with him? His visits were intensely private. While Sasuke and he had become close during their enforced and prolonged contact, the young man was still in many ways a stranger. A familiar stranger, perhaps, but nothing like a friend. Kakashi didn’t have many who would be privy to this part of his life.

Come to think of it, there wasn’t anyone who was that close anymore. Kakashi scratched his face through his mask. His fingernail snagged on a thread and he stared at it as it hung between the cloth and his face. There were a few people who knew that he went to the memorial on a regular basis, but not one of them knew exactly why or for whom. Kakashi got up and went to his room for a fresh mask, one without pulled threads.

Half across the threshold of his door, Kakashi paused. The photos on the windowsill caught his eye. He smiled, though they couldn’t see it. He had been so isolated from his age-group because he was really good at what he did. He’d been a jounin before most of them were genin, and while Itachi had been as quick a study, his genius didn’t quite make up for the age gap between them. Kakashi stripped the old mask off. Besides. They moved in different circles. It struck Kakashi, in the instant he saw himself in the mirror over his bureau, that his face was the face of a stranger. He hurried to cover it.

Kakashi had had a lot of solo missions, and Itachi…was an Uchiha. He was busy being groomed for the police force and leading squadrons and generally networking and being an obedient son. Until he started killing people he wasn’t supposed to kill. Kakashi shrugged. They probably wouldn’t have gotten along anyway. He hesitated, then walked over to the window. He turned the photos face down. Kakashi returned to the living room, not daring to look in the mirror again. Not now, when he couldn‘t be sure of what he would see.

He settled onto the couch again as he pondered how much further he wanted to let Sasuke into his life. Yes, he’d willingly taken him in, but Kakashi hadn’t realized how much more connected to the village he’d been until he suddenly had to limit himself to orbiting Sasuke. Lounging on the futon was a poor substitute for wandering Konoha’s streets. Sasuke wasn’t trusted anywhere, wasn’t welcome anywhere, and by default neither was Kakashi. He was used to being invisible among the citizens. Somehow, Kakashi was surprised at how much people hated Sasuke. Bad feelings rose, fog-like, palpable and wet, whenever people saw them coming.

They lived in a house that they’d built together--and a nice one it was, Kakashi noted with pride as he glanced up from his book. But it was in the middle of nowhere because no one would have them. At any given time, Sasuke was no further away than ten yards. Kakashi felt claustrophobic thinking about it--not specifically because Sasuke was Sasuke, but because Sasuke was another human being. He had forgotten how exhausting leading a team was. The constant contact was tiring. He rolled over on the futon and stretched his limbs as far as he could. It wasn’t enough. The job never ended. Kakashi wanted some space, just this one thing that was his and not, by default, shared between the two of them. He sighed and shut his book. He didn’t see any point in pretending to read any more.

Kakashi tried to fight down the resentment he felt. He was aware, peripherally, that Sasuke probably felt the same way. It likely was even worse for him, living with the understanding that one screw-up would be the end of the line. Making a mistake was remarkably easy when everyone around Sasuke was watching, waiting, and even expecting him to do wrong. Anxiety stole into the spaces between Kakashi’s ribs as he tried to imagine himself in the same situation. He shook his head. Empathy got him nowhere. He didn‘t need to keep thinking this way. Kakashi drew in a breath and held it as his heart pounded harder and harder, and sparks floated before him. He needed to focus because there wasn‘t anything he could do to help Sasuke survive. What he needed was faith, to watch and wait and believe that this now-grown boy would do right. Kakashi exhaled.

He wondered what Sasuke would say if he were given the choice. Sasuke didn’t get a lot of choices these days. Would he ask a lot of questions? Might he prefer the watchful ANBU to sitting near the memorial? Kakashi’s gaze slid out the window. He noted the faintly-there chakra signatures. Making this offer felt like he’d be holding out an olive branch. He scratched his chin. What would Sasuke make of it? For that matter, he wondered what the ANBU would report to their superiors. Kakashi got off the futon again. Only one way to find out.

Sasuke was out in the yard, motionless on top of a stump. Kakashi followed his line of sight to a dark place between the trees. There wasn’t anything there, as far as he could tell, but it held Sasuke’s attention well enough. Kakashi drew close to him. He remained standing.
“There’s something I have to do,” said Kakashi. “Something I’ve been putting off since you came back.”

“Came back?”

Sasuke sounded cool, aloof, but his chakra was agitated.

“well, not came back per se,” said Kakashi. “Since you came back from prison. And the hospital after that.”

“Ah.”

Sasuke’s chakra stilled. Good thing too. It made Kakashi’s skin crawl with its tightly leashed possibility of violence. Sasuke stood a fair chance of gutting him at this range.

“I have to go to the memorial,” said Kakashi. “Unless you want to be babysat by them--” and here his fingers crooked at the trees “--you have to come along too.”

“You don’t want to take me with you.”

Kakashi knew it was a statement of fact, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t loaded. He surprised himself with his answer.

“Not really. Mourning isn’t exactly a spectator sport.”

Sasuke blinked twice. It seemed Kakashi had startled him as well.

“Did it ever occur to you that I might have my own dead to mourn?” Sasuke said.

Kakashi was silent. He buckled and unbuckled his weapons pouch for a minute, let the conversation settle down into his patch worked understanding of Sasuke.

“Does that mean you want to go?”

Sasuke shrugged. He kept his eyes on the forest.

“It’s as good a place as any, I guess. But if I don’t like it, I won’t go again.”

“Right then, “ said Kakashi. “Be ready to go by daybreak tomorrow.”
Sasuke grunted.

Kakashi wanted to say something else, words suspiciously like a thank you forming at his lips. But he didn’t speak. After an awkward minute or two of silence thick between them, he left Sasuke for the relative safety of the house.

Despite it still being a Thursday afternoon, Kakashi broke with tradition entirely. He headed for his bedroom instead. He locked and sealed the door behind him, stilled his breath and listened hard for the scrape of bare feet against wood or the rustle of clothes. Sasuke hadn’t followed him, for once, and Kakashi was glad. He sat on his bed and watched the trees. The forest was quiet. The wind barely stirred the leaves and the insects were complacent, calling sporadically in the warm sunlight. Kakashi stayed at the window until long past the fall of dusk.

----


Uh yeah. So this was a little later than I had anticipated, but have been experiencing some medical stuff that has prevented me from sitting/standing. I couldn't use the computer for several days.

Also, I'm not sure if I've cut off too abruptly here or not. Maybe I should have stopped as soon as they finished their conversation? I always feel this urge to wrap up neatly, though. It's practically irresistible!

Chapter thirteen may take even longer than normal to get up here. I've got some stuff to write completely from scratch before I can take up again with the (extremely rough) already written material. I'm struggling with integration.

I have to go before the medical stuff gets out of hand. I'm already paying in pain for sitting this long.

Later!



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

Nine Months

Okay, so I'm entering the ninth month of (increasingly sporadic) work on Entropy. That's a really long time. I'm still grappling with the same basic issues that have been there from the start. I confess I'm working at a much less frantic pace, which is probably good for the overall growth of the story but bad for my work ethic. I still don't have all the discipline I want, but I'm getting better.

I'm pleased to say that chapter twelve is almost--almost!--done. I don't really have a good excuse, except to say I've gotten hung up on having sentences that flow together well (read: are varied in length and complexity.) When I read through, I keep hitting clunkers. I also am giving up on getting everything I'd wanted into this chapter. I've got a good break point and I'm going to go with it, despite having oodles of related stuff that could have made the chapter into some monstrous length.

Let's see. Other writing things I've done over the past nine months...not a lot. I've done a couple poems, started two one-shots (and finished one recently), and made plans both vague and detailed, for multiple other stories. My follow through is crap. You'd think I'd have done more, considering writing is practically the only productive thing I do. I think I liked it better when I banged out twenty-five hundred words a day. I'm going to try to get back into that. My creative self is going bananas right now...I'm attempting to multitask cooking, writing, editing, and quilting projects at the same time, and it's kind of not working. I'm sidetracking myself because there's so much I want to do!

Hopefully I'll finish chapter twelve by sometime tomorrow. But now, I must attend to a quiche!

Later!

New Story is a Guinea Pig?

I have a new story for you to read. It is a Naruto fanfic, though I could make very minor changes and it could stand on its own. (In fact, I'm considering doing that, but instead of making it into an original, I want to see how it works out with different characters from other fandoms. It's a fiction experiment!)

After some serious thought, I'm shaking things up a little in how I'm allowing people to view this particular story. It does contain some objectionable content, so I didn't want to just lay it out and accidentally whammy anyone. Instead, I'm providing a link to the story, which is in the extremely-convenient-to-me Google Docs. (I love the whole mass of kissing-cousins Google products that are bundled into gmail accounts. It's like I have a chicken coop full of chickens ready to lay eggs when I need them.)

Warnings for the story:

*Angst and general craziness
*sexual innuendo/suggestive dialogue
*thematic elements
*mention of the existence of porn
*gay guys co-habitating
*gay kissing
*two guys groping
*kittens...but not in a nice way.
*pervy old ladies

So that list? I may be over-exaggerating the importance of some things and under-representing others. I don't want to give too many specifics because I'm worried it will ruin the story experience. I will not lie. This story is not a happy story. It is unpleasant and a bit disturbing, but I promise I wrote it with love.

Now that you have been thoroughly warned, read the new story, Liability, here.

I don't know. Does this system of delivery work better? I may back-track and convert all the really long entries on here into GDs. I suppose aesthetically it's not everything I'd want, but maybe I can tweak it.

I think this is also a good (temporary) compromise while I consider whether I need to use Blogger's adult content filter. While there are many benefits to filtering, I hate that it's an all-or-nothing deal on here. For now, this is as close as I can get to selective filtering. Is it working for you?

Later!


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

In The Works

I realize I've been quiet on here lately. I promise I've been writing and not slacking off, though. As proof, I offer this list which may or may not be full of hot air and lies.

In the works:
*Chapter 12 of Entropy
*an unrelated K/S oneshot (which is close to having a finished rough draft! Yay!)
*A random and vague start of a Supernatural oneshot
*Some original science fiction-y stuff

See? Four entire items! I hope to actually post something soon that will substantiate their existences.

Later!