Stretched Thin...

I feel pretty exhausted, truth be told. I managed to get myself started on another (potentially) fanfic-o-doom, this time for Saiyuki. This past weekend was hectic, because I was editing Entropy and drafting the as-yet-unnamed fic...at the same time. The new fic was hammering hard, demanding to be written, and yet I had promised myself that I would get another Entropy chapter ready for posting. I persevered and finished the editing.

I have good-ish news, I suppose. Today, I edited and posted a short piece for a Saiyuki challenge community on Livejournal. Did I mention I've gotten myself an LJ for the exclusive purpose of fanfic? Well, I did. I will probably end up crossposting all the things that go up on AFF on the LJ, mostly because I want to offer alternatives to viewing sites. (Read: posting on LJ gives a thin veneer of classiness to my tasteless writings, hahaha.)

Also today, I finished drafting part two of a two-parted fanfic/writing experiment. I say experiment, because it's one of those flip-side things, where you get one writing style and perspective in one half and another radically different style and different perspective in the other half. (And both halves cover the same events.) I need to figure out a real title for it, too. I hope to polish it off tomorrow.

I worked a short while on the unnamed fic, too. It kind of rickrolled me, really, because I was focusing on that two-parter (which is a vastly, vastly different kettle of fish) and the other story was all...BAM! Write this scene, since you're sitting right there! I don't care if you don't want to, you have no choice! Do it!

Let's see...I want to edit another chapter of Entropy over the next couple days, too. (It might be a good idea to draft more of that, while I'm at it. I'm running low on pre-written, just-needs-editing chapters for that.) I have a pretty good handle on where the story is going. It's just a question of connecting the dots with a combination of plot and character development. I haven't exactly lost interest in the story, but I am getting tired of grinding away. I suppose it's more accurate to say that other stories are getting my attention more than this one. (I shall do my best to persevere and get more done, though!)

Must go, words will eat me...

~Later

Bridging the Divide

I know, it's been ages since I've written anything here. That's because...well...there are a number of reasons, chief of which is that I've been focusing almost exclusively on retooling Entropy and setting up a page with AFF. (You can find that page here, though it is only, I repeat, only going to house my fanfiction, and there's precious little of that right now.)

As for Entropy, I'm going to be going through and uploading the new versions of the chapters sometime soon, so that we're all on the same page, metaphorically speaking. At this time, I don't plan to put up any of the other, shorter fics here. I think I'm going to go back to my original plan of making this blog be for my original stuff and not my fanworks, but I'm not going to get rid of Entropy here yet.

Random Subject Change: epigraphs and epigrams. (Not to be confused with epitaphs.) I'm wondering how well they work as focusing tools. You know, sometimes you'll read a book and it will have a few lines of poetry or a quote at the start of a chapter/section. That's what I'm talking about. I guess I'm wondering about how they cause a person to focus on the contents of a chapter. I'm not in the habit of using them, mostly because I'm concerned I'll get too married to an idea or subtext and ignore the other possibilities and directions the work could take. What if I were to choose and apply them after the chapter is done? I wonder how that would go...

Anyway, must go do other writerly things!

~Later

Updates and Odds and Ends

Here's the deal. I've temporarily down-ranked the Entropy index. I'm doing this partly because I don't want any crossover traffic to be getting confused about what's what with Entropy. I'm going through and revising things in order to post them elsewhere, and I don't want people to think that what they've read of it here is the be-all-end-all. It's not. The story is constantly evolving, changing, growing. Some changes are minor, but there are going to be some big revisions, too. I'm working hard to better mesh the older and newer material. It's hard to keep such a sprawling body of work consistent. So anyway, that's why the Entropy index is currently moved down a bit. It can still be found in the tags under "Entropy chapter index."

That aside, I have been working on new chapters for it in addition to polishing the old ones. At this very moment, I have three chapter thirteens. Or wait. No. I have four chapter thirteens and a general sketchy outline of what chapter thirteen is supposed to cover. Working from that outline has produced three chapter thirteens in addition to the fourth, original thirteen. Obviously, once they're all nice and ready for posting, they will no longer be 13a, 13b, and 13c. They'll be thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen...and depending on how the original thirteen looks after all that new stuff, there'll be a sixteen, too. (And all of that will trigger the domino effect, considering I already have a chapter 14, 15, and 16.) I swear, every time I turn around Entropy gets bigger. Maybe I should have called it Inertia. (I'm joking. ^_^)

Besides Entropy, I've recently done up a one-shot, also Naruto and also Kakashi/Sasuke-centric. I'm still on the fence about posting it here, because it definitely requires some sort of adult content warning. Is it possible to be graphic and tasteful at the same time? I definitely shot for intimate and delicate (versus raunchy and porntastic) but I didn't really skimp on the details...In fact, I sort of wallowed in the details.

I have a few other bits and pieces from various fandoms floating around, but nothing is too serious at this point. I've been consumed by the big projects recently.

As for non-fandom things...I haven't done too much. I drafted a poem recently but haven't touched it since. Really, I have two poems on the back burner. I also have been picking at a fiction piece, but I've been derelict in pushing forward with it. That particular one is tricky: I've written some for it before and it was quite serious. Doing bits for it now, I find myself dipping into the humorous and almost farcical. It's tough to balance the different moods and styles, and I'm not convinced I'm doing it successfully. I suspect it's going to be one of those stories where the different styles interrupt the main story every so often. (I consider the serious parts to be the real meat of this story.)

I've had a real yen for discussions of writing craft lately. I've been re-reading pieces of writing manuals and style guides. I've been reading about reading too, and have just encountered a rather interesting-looking book on the subject, entitled "The Crafty Reader." Part of the premise of it seems to be about reading as a multi-faceted discipline. the thing that grabbed me about it was that A. the dust jacket promised a good discussion on the craft and tools of critical reading, and B. it kind of promised to debunk and demean the New Critical theory. (I despise New Critical.)

Still, my search for shop-talk isn't turning up a lot of results. I want discussion, not a "Thou shalt write this way and this way only" sort of thing, of which so many books on writing are. I suppose I'd do better looking for essays on writing, really, but it's kind of the same problem there, with the added distinction that a lot of the "good" essays are either by or about authors I don't read, and the works they may discuss are, for lack of a better term, dated. If I wanted to delve more into the socio-historical aspects of writing craft, I would...but I don't. I think part of the problem is that I can't clearly define what I want; I am only able to look through and say that this or that is what I don't want.

Ugh. This was a singularly unproductive post, wasn't it?

~Later

New and Improved Chapter 1!

Holy moley. A whole year? Really? I've finally come back around to fixing the flagrantly bad chapter one of the dread fic Entropy.

Reccomended reading before going forward: The Prologue

Enjoy!


Chapter 1
---

Kakashi waited outside the Hokage's office. He knew exactly why he was here, but that didn't stop his stomach from churning unpleasantly. He had doubts and misgivings about all this. Could he really accomplish what the Hokage had set him to do? He forced his body to relax, made his hands hold onto the paperwork securely but without crumpling it. As he did with most quiet moments these days, Kakashi ruminated.

It was an unspoken rule not to mention the fact that Sasuke was crazy. True, he’d never been right in the entire time team seven had known him, but he had become decidedly worse after receiving Orochimaru's tutelage. Killing his brother had been the last straw.

But, while the ninja of the village were careful not to say anything in front of Naruto or Sakura, they had no such compunctions about Kakashi. Kakashi wondered why this didn’t apply to him. Perhaps because he had been an instructor and not a classmate? Maybe everyone thought Sasuke and he had not been close, despite months of group training and months of one-on-one and that middle-of-the-night intervention that had so miserably failed. Kakashi sighed.

He knew he shouldn’t blame himself entirely. After all, he had had a few months to try and affect the patterns of years’ worth of obsession in a particularly stubborn and willful not-quite teenager. Even then Sasuke had looked like he was only just stopping himself from imploding with hate and anger and despair. He’d been so feral the night Kakashi had tried to intervene, so violent and cruel.

Kakashi smoothed the papers in his hands. He corrected himself. No. Not cruel. But unthinking and uncaring beneath the widespread branches of the tree. If he’d had wings then, no doubt he would have flown off on the wild winds that had stripped the leaves off twigs and frothed the water of the river into great sprays.

Kakashi had failed him, no matter that Sasuke was as flat and dead as the moon. He hashed and rehashed the events, thinking that there could have been some way he could have done more. Kakashi's heart twisted deep in his chest. He felt responsibility for everything Sasuke had done after that, could see the lack of his influence so clearly in all the bad, wrong, and downright nonsensical events that followed Sasuke's defection.

This was why, now, years after Sasuke’s return to Konoha, Kakashi had agreed to take him on again. Sasuke’s homecoming had been no easy thing. Admittedly, he had come back to the village of his own will. It was pure bad luck that he had come to destroy it, but it was the thought that counted, right? He cared enough about it to want it wiped off the face of the planet, at least.

It had been obvious to Kakashi then--and was still plain to him now--that Sasuke had come completely unscrewed. It showed in his commanding, too. He had been too focused on destroying the village and not enough on things like defense…or basic tactics. He hadn’t seemed to care if his people got taken down, as long as he had more time to cause as much destruction as he could. Sasuke had been bent on personally taking out each and every house, building, or wall of mortared stone.

Kakashi remembered that a good third of the village had been flattened by enormous battling summons, and most of what remained had been scorched by Sasuke’s hard-won Amaterasu. The academy was reduced to rubble. Many good ninja had died, not the least of whom was Tsunade. To be more accurate, she didn’t actually die during the battle but rather some days afterward from chakra exhaustion from both the fighting and the healing afterward. Tsunade had spent her last hours dictating village business from her bed. One of her final orders as Hokage was to send Naruto out as a diplomatic envoy.

So, while Sasuke had spent the first few weeks after the destruction of Konoha with Ibiki at the ANBU headquarters, Naruto had been fulfilling Tsunade's request. Kakashi scratched his head, trying to remember. Naruto had spent a year--or was it two?--as a diplomat, first to Suna and then on an as-needed basis to less friendly countries. Although he lacked a certain polish, he was exceptionally good with people. It also didn’t hurt that he had, by then, subsumed all the Kyuubi’s power and could (though he never did) flatten a country with that massive chakra reserve.

During Sasuke's debriefing and Naruto's diplomatic dispatch, a secondary ninja council had taken over as a temporary measure while the village rebuilt and took stock and tried to decide who would be Hokage next. Shizune had taken the lead on it for a time, before declaring that the hospital needed her more. Ibiki was second choice, but he declined before they could officially elect him. He much preferred the shadows to the limelight. Danzou had stepped in to fill the void, which lead to Sasuke's transfer from the ANBU holding cells to the Konoha prison.

There had been months of infighting and backstabbing and dirty politics, to all of which Kakashi had been privy. Finally, the remaining jounin and ANBU who were not loyal to Danzou banded together and kicked him out of office through surprisingly democratic methods. Those same ninja had then stepped up to the responsibility in a rotational fashion. Kakashi had begged off of council duty: he knew he wasn't suited for such a tedious and thankless job, but he had couched it in terms of being more useful in the field taking missions. Thankfully, the majority had agreed with him.

When Naruto had come back from diplomatic deployment, he did some time on the council rotation. He consolidated power, won over councilors and heads of clans, and proved himself to be politically astute. Then he had taken another turn. And another. Finally, the provisional government agreed that he should become Hokage. The regular council insisted that he have advisors who were, quote, “not biased towards him in such a manner as to cause undue favor of his ideas.” This meant that Kakashi wasn’t allowed anywhere near him. (Not that Kakashi wasn't already flat-out with critical and difficult missions.) Naruto's council-appointed advisors were Ebisu, Ibiki, Shizune, and Anko. Naruto agreed that the advisors would assist him with village matters large and small, for a probationary period of six months. If he didn’t manage to run the village into the ground in that time, the council would consider allowing him complete autonomy after that.

Ibiki and Anko had bailed on him after a week. Apparently, for the first time in his life, Naruto proved in a very big and public way that he was more than competent. Shizune gave up dogging him after a month. Ebisu stuck it out the longest, but this was more for the sake of looking good in front of the council than any real desire to assist or police Naruto. By the time Ebisu quit, Naruto had firmly cemented himself in village politics and no one said anything when he announced, with great aplomb, that Ebisu would be returning to his former duties.

As soon as Naruto had officially accepted the mantle of Hokage, he got to work cleaning up the village. He had made public works one of his priorities. He wanted everyone to have a home and he wanted all the buildings and infrastructure repaired, rebuilt, or replaced. The last thing that went back up was the Academy. Once everything was rebuilt, Naruto had set his sights on the prison. It rankled him that not only did Konoha have a prison in the first place, but his former best friend was there…had been there, actually, for nearly five years. Whoops. Naruto asked Ibiki to look into it, and Ibiki did. Yes, Sasuke was still there. No, he didn’t plan on escaping. No, he wasn’t going to destroy the village anymore. Yes, yes, he was still terribly crazy. Dangerously so. Although Ibiki used the terms “unstable” and “likely to harm himself.” Sasuke wasn’t doing notably worse in prison, but he wasn’t getting better.


So Naruto, still as surprising as ever, had come up with a plan. The plan still gave Kakashi a warm feeling of pride that this young man had once been his student. Naruto had made many diplomatic overtures and promises and called in favors, and in return the prisoners were sent off to various other countries as menial hard laborers. They’d be fairly treated: properly clothed and fed, but supervised and, most importantly, they wouldn’t be in prison any more. For those prisoners who were ninja, Naruto consulted with Shizune and Sakura and the knowledge of the Kyuubi. He found ways to block their chakra. It was a hard decision to make, but Naruto couldn’t just let the prisoners loose, even in the supervised work environments, to start causing trouble again. If the former prisoners were ever rehabilitated, the blocks could, in theory, be removed.

As soon as the prisoners were taken care of, Naruto gleefully had had the prison demolished. He had vowed that he would find solutions other than incarceration for future offenders. But all this progress still left the problem of what to do with Sasuke. Naruto had been convinced that, given more time, Sasuke could recover into some semblance of normalcy. So, briefly, Sasuke had gone into the hospital. It didn’t help anything and. In fact, Sasuke had gotten a bit worse. More isolated. More withdrawn. More likely to burst out in a fit of anger.

And so Kakashi had volunteered to watch over Sasuke. Or, more accurately, Kakashi was volunteered by the Hokage. Naruto had given it a lot of thought and decided that Kakashi had a better chance than anyone else. Better chance of what he didn’t say. Survival, probably, though success was also implied. It had been made an official mission, paperwork and all. Kakashi would be taking charge of Sasuke tomorrow, which was why he was waiting to see the Hokage now. He had looked over and completed his half of the paperwork. He just needed to turn it in.

Kakashi wondered now if he should have visited Sasuke during either his prison or hospital stays. He had been busy, yes, but being busy was an excellent excuse to not do it. He hadn't always wanted to see Sasuke, for one. He didn't want to see the changes the years had wrought, didn't want to connect the genin he'd trained to whoever Sasuke had become. Of course he had doubts about this mission. But, Kakashi reminded himself, he had to do this. He would do this. He may not like it, but he could endure it.

He took a deep breath and steeled himself as the door to the Hokage's office swung open.

"Come in."

The Hokage's voice drifted into the hall.

Kakashi rose from his seat. It was unavoidable. He couldn't escape this duty now, no matter how he felt about it. He double-checked his paperwork, took another breath, and stepped into the open doorway.

---

I think it is entirely less choppy than before. I also hope that it now reads a bit less like the boring exposition it used to be. (Okay, so it's still exposition. I just hope it's more readable now!) I probably still didn't do enough to make it less boring, but I think I made real, genuine improvements. (For comparison's sake, here's the original chapter one. I'm not removing it from the site, but I will be redoing the index so new readers get the improved version.)

Anyway, I must away! Onward and upward to better and different things!

~Later

Take that, crappy exposition!

I have re-worked chapter one of the dread fic Entropy! I'm going to take a break before I give it a quick look over, but I'm fairly pleased at how I was able to streamline it and make it slightly less boringly expositional.

Expect it to be posted later this evening.

~Later

In the wind...

Remember when I said, back whenever it was, that I was going to have to write all-new material for chapter thirteen of Entropy? And remember how I said more recently that that chapter was going to be a boring montage-ish chapter? Well, I've made a fool of myself. I have a chapter thirteen now, and it is not a montage. It also covers a fraction of what I was intending to cover, which means I need to do even more new writing to catch up between twelve and the chapters that lay in the story's future (which I have already written and will need to rewrite.)

Speaking of rewrites, I've done a quick re-read of Entropy as posted here. I've found some parts of chapter one that I will be tending to in the next couple days. I can finally say that distancing myself from the story has helped me find the problems. I now see better what needs to be improved and removed in order for chapter one to fit in smoothly between the prologue and chapter two. Lesson learned: try to avoid writing prologues after laying out chapters of stuff that come after! I think I can properly streamline chapter one now. It's such a relief! (Especially knowing I had some serious, very obvious errors in there.)

In other news, I've officially taken up with an online fanfic community. This is exciting, mostly because it affords me the opportunity to expand my readership rather dramatically (and yet, so easily!) I'm just getting used to the setup over there as far as posting goes, and it also amazes me how satisfying it is to watch the number of hits my story has crawl higher. (I put up one quick story over there just to acclimate myself to the controls and process and all. I'm going to take my time with the rest of what I want to put up.)

Conversely, this may mean a gradual increase in visits over here, as I've listed this as my website...not that I'm expecting much of anything.

One thing is for sure, though. I'm going to try my best not to sit around waiting for warm fuzzies and hits to come my way. I'm going to try to keep busy writing! If I just keep my head down and work, I may eventually get somewhere. With that in mind, I'll probably post something here in the near future. Fingers crossed!

~Later

Pushing Boundaries with Naughtiness

Apologies for the non-writing over this week. I've been stricken ill by some terrible plague and have, honestly, been shivering in a recliner all day every day while watching movies and waiting to die.

To celebrate the possibility that I may be recovering, I give you porn. Gay porn. Well, okay. It's not particularly explicit: I've seen pg-13 movies with naughtier sex. But I'm hoping you, the reader, will find it as evocative as I do. Yes, it is fanfic. But if it makes you feel better, substitute two different man-names. There's really nothing fandom-specific in this story...I just like to think about ninjas getting it on, hahaha.

-----
Sasuke thinks of other things when they do it. Sensational association games. Kakashi’s skin is smooth and he thinks of stones and frogs and water without ripples. Kakashi’s hair is soft and grey, warm mist and kittens and softly broken dawn and his breath is the strange air before a thunderstorm with teeth like lightning closing on his neck, quick strike and on to another area. Sasuke lets Kakashi roll him over on the bed.

He thinks, oddly, of vegetable gardens; freshly turned rows, tomatoes, zucchini, onions in soft dirt. Footprints as his toes flex and his feet arch and dig for purchase in the sheets. Kakashi’s belt buckle jingles, the burr of a zipper and the shush of clothing pushed aside lay train tracks, stretch for miles like scars crisscrossing the pale skin of the land. Horses racing, heartbeat-hooves thunder under hot skies’ intensity.

Kakashi’s eyes and he can’t breathe. Arresting, bright, full of love, for him, full like the ocean. Overflowing. High tide. Seashell nails clutching him, fingers digging into the meat of his shoulders as they writhe, grappling, vying to express this thing between them. Lights flash behind his closed eyelids and he wonders if he’s going to cry.

Sasuke sniffs, feeling water gathering at the corner of one eye, tries to focus more--and at the same time less--on Kakashi, what they’re doing together, to each other. He thinks he’ll go mad as his heart hammers in his chest and it might burst because it is full and squeezing in tandem with what Kakashi is doing and he’s just lying there. He should reciprocate, give back, do something. But his hand is shaking as he reaches and presses even closer to Kakashi and he knows that Kakashi knows. It is branded into his palm, radiating, burning into Kakashi’s skin, will forever be written there, an invisible seal of love and longing and things he’ll never say out loud.

Sasuke’s world seizes. Stutter--stop--stutter--stop-stutter-stutterstutterstop. Stop. His hearing rushes out to sea and returns on a wave. He’s bitten his tongue, and all he can say to Kakashi through the copper taste is “drapes” because the connections are gone. He can’t find the words. Kakashi takes it as approval, because he replies in kind: “toaster oven.” They laugh breathlessly, plastered together on the bed. Kakashi offers him a tissue and Sasuke takes it, holds it, wonders what to do with it. Kakashi takes another and wipes Sasuke’s face--he cried after all, then--and Sasuke dabs at the mess on his front. He brushes the hair out of Kakashi’s eyes and draws him close for a kiss, lets Kakashi’s sweat transform his lips into something else. He tingles, pulls back a fraction of an inch, and they breathe the same air. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale.

-----

Have I disappointed you by posting something old instead of writing something fresh?


I have, for the moment, decided against putting this under some kind of content filter because it is (very much) a fill-in-the-blanks piece of writing. If it were a painting, it would be the sort where you'd be stepping closer and back to try to find the perspective in which it makes the most complete picture. To rephrase: I don't think it's got enough in it to qualify for filtering. Let me know what you think, yeah?

I had both a very easy and a very difficult time writing this. It's very easy to get into the sort of stream-of-consciousness this piece takes on, but it is hard to hone it and reign it in. Even now, months after writing it, I'm still tempted to trim and rephrase pieces of it. Have I overwhelmed the reader with too many random thoughts in between the sexy bits? I hope I have, mostly because I thought all of it was sexy, even the weird, disconnected parts. I have this thing about language...(And for some reason, I couldn't come up with a better euphemism for sex than "doing it." It's just one of those things, I guess, founded in my interpretation of the characters.)

Also, I seem to have a continual struggle with pronouns versus proper names, especially when I've got two men on the page. I try to be specific in who is doing what, but sometimes I fail in juggling all the he- and him- and his-es.

~Later


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

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!

Prologue Complete

Yes, at some point in the near future, this will become relevant to the present story. I wish I'd put it up sooner...but it kind of didn't exist too long ago. Regardless, I hope you enjoy!


Prologue
-------

It had taken Sasuke nine years to get this far. Nine years of hating and growing and training. Nine years to shape himself, nine years of failure and doubt and killing off everything in himself that stood in the way. Nine years to hunt his brother down for the final fight. And now here he was, laying next to his brother’s still-warm body. He was exhausted. He was numb. Itachi’s corpse was still bleeding and he felt the need to get away from it, but he couldn‘t move. He lay there and the blood seeped into his clothing.

And then Madara came and snatched Sasuke’s proof of victory away. Sasuke made to chase, but he too collapsed in an abortive attempt to stand. He woke in a cave, prostrate on a makeshift bed. Madara explained everything and Sasuke’s world broke apart again. He twisted around to see the curse seal on his shoulder. It was still there, but it had changed. Sasuke touched it, and it was like live electricity tearing through him. His vision swam. He fainted.


When he woke for the second time in the cave, Madara was dead. His corpse continued to burn with the Amaterasu’s black flames. It seemed even he could not escape the attack, however instinctive its origins were. Sasuke struggled up off the pallet on the floor. He drew his sword and cut off Madara’s head. That face, nearly untouched by the fire, looked eerily similar to Itachi’s. Sasuke’s left eye opened wider and wider. Fire leapt from it. Madara’s head burned itself out and Sasuke dripped tears of blood.

He staggered down passageways, leaving smears of blood where he rested against the walls. Eventually, Sasuke came to a huge chamber with an seven-eyed statue. No, wait. It had nine eyes, but only seven of them were open. And then he saw his brother’s body at its foot and he didn’t care about the statue‘s eyes anymore.

Sasuke sat beside it--the body (his brother)-- for an indeterminate amount of time. He couldn’t make himself look at it. At him. At what he had been. He began to prepare for the disposal of Itachi.


The smoke and ash bit into his eyes. He breathed his brother in, held his breath until his lungs burned before he exhaled. Sasuke looked upward, watched the smoke spiral around the top of the cave. For the second time, he noticed the statue. This time, though, he realized what it was. He could see that it was beginning to destabilize. Sasuke hadn’t planned for this, didn’t think he’d ever have the misfortune. His options were simple: let it fall apart and be blown up by proximity when the bijuu escaped, or find a way to fix it, at least long enough to get away. What Sasuke really needed was more time. He wanted time to rest and think, but if he didn’t do something now, didn’t start to repair the damage now, it would be too late and he would be dead. The stress of the work still might kill him, but inaction definitely would. Sasuke took a deep breath with his eyes closed. He opened them, Sharingan swirling. He began.


Nine days later, it was done. Sasuke had re-structured the statue and its dangerous contents. When Sasuke finally looked up from his work, he saw that there were four people--no, seven--in the room with him. Karin, Suigetsu, and Juugo made a rough triangle around him. Protecting? Watching over? Sasuke wasn’t sure why they were doing it. But they stood between him and the other four. The others all wore Akatsuki cloaks.

Sasuke’s muscles screamed when he tried to stand. He batted away Karin’s manicured hand, instead allowing Juugo to pull him to his feet. Karin handed him a handkerchief. He gave her a look and she pointed to his nose. He wiped. The cloth came away bloody.

“Nice work,” said one of the cloaked figures.

Sasuke recognized him. It was his brother’s partner. Sasuke wracked his brains, trying to come up with a name. The thinking made his head pound. Or made it worse. He wasn’t really sure, at this point.

“Kisame,” said Suigetsu. “So nice to see you again.”

He bared his teeth in imitation of a smile. Kisame ignored him.


“You missed a spot,” said Kisame.

He pointed to Sasuke’s neck. Sasuke looked. His entire chest was streaked with red and brown. He scrubbed at it halfheartedly and it flaked off a bit at a time. His white shirt was a gory mess at the collar.

After the introductions were over, Sasuke explained that what he wanted was to destroy Konoha. Wipe it off the map. Why should the Akatsuki follow him? Well, aside from killing Itachi and Madara, Sasuke had fixed the statue, permanently. They were blocked from their ultimate goal, more or less for forever. And hadn’t it been Madara’s fondest wish to destroy the Leaf as well? Of course, he was in no position to force them to follow him. And, in fact, aside from what was bound to be a good fight, he had little to offer them. Zetsu tried to decline and Sasuke cut off one of his leaves in the blink of an eye. The next person to say no would lose a limb.

Pein and Sasuke actually got along well, their ideas of total destruction running along the same lines. Konan followed Pein without question. Zetsu was distinctly unhappy, but he could afford to wait for revenge. And Kisame…Well, Kisame was somewhat indifferent. He admitted, with a toothy grin, that he was curious to see what his former partner’s brother could really do. As nice as Sasuke’s work on the statue was, he wanted to see some fireworks.

And so they set out to destroy Konoha, eight against an entire village. They all knew it was a suicidal plan, but they just didn’t care, either from actual indifference or a lack of belief in their own mortality and fallibility.


The battle took nine hours. The village was almost completely destroyed. Sasuke’s forces were gone, and he himself was unconscious now, surrounded by a diminished group of former classmates and colleagues. Blood leaked out from underneath his eyelids. They watched him draw breath. They discussed what to do with him with hand signals, lest they wake him by speaking. They did not turn their backs on him. Night swept over the valley and stars blinked into the sky.


Nine minutes into Kakashi’s birthday, nine minutes into the night following Sasuke‘s return, Sasuke was unceremoniously dumped into Kakashi’s arms. Kakashi looked over the group. Tension knotted and strangled any possible conversation. He nodded and left them in the rubble of Konoha. He took Sasuke to Sakura for healing. A tent city sprawled outward from the hospital, and he wandered through, finally catching sight of her pink hair above the crowd. She treated Sasuke silently, her mouth held tight. Kakashi felt her eyes on his back as he carried his burden to ANBU headquarters. He felt nothing as he turned Sasuke over to Ibiki. All through this, Sasuke didn’t once stir.

-------------

Well! Wasn't that fun? I hope it wasn't too much like boring expository narrative. (I hope it was at least interesting expository narrative!) Just to be clear, this is the only chapter that's even close to being from Sasuke's perspective. Maybe that's because this was the only part of the story that was really his alone? I'm not really sure.

Anyway, I'll be slaving over chapter twelve for the foreseeable future and keeping the prologue-derived plot on the back burner. Kakashi and Sasuke need to work on their interpersonal issues, hahahahaha.

Later!

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

Chapter 11 is done!

Well, okay. It's probably not completely finished, but it's a heck of a lot better and I feel somewhat confident in its lack of suckitude. If I do any more on it, I'm going to get confused and start taking out the good parts.

Chapter 11
------

Even though the house wasn’t very big, Kakashi and Sasuke still rattled around for a few weeks, tried to find places for things and for themselves. They each had a bedroom, and they shared the living room, bathroom, and kitchen. During the construction phase, Sasuke had argued for a week about which bedroom would be his: the one in the northeast corner. But, upon moving in, he decided that Kakashi’s was better and he took it over--when Kakashi had poked his head in, Sasuke had staked his claim with packs of gear on the bed. Kakashi merely sighed and kept unloading crates from the borrowed cart.

For a while, the boxes went round and round on an endless parade through the house as Kakashi or Sasuke changed his mind about what should go where. But everything found a place eventually, and Kakashi and Sasuke now faced the task of carving out niches for themselves.

Sasuke spent almost all of his time in his room. When he wasn’t eating or showering, he was sitting on his bed--or the roof above it--staring into the perpetually dark forest. Kakashi was frequently in the living room, lounging across the couch and thumbing through the same books he‘d been re-reading for years. When he tired of that, he went into the small cleared area in front of the house and made plans to develop a training yard there. The churned up dirt, left over from construction, acquired grass and flowers and plants Kakashi didn’t care to identify.

Sasuke took to yanking up the plants. When Kakashi asked, Sasuke gave him the “you’re an idiot” look. They were weeds, and yards don’t grow weeds. Kakashi questioned the logic in this, seeing as most of the yard was in fact forest. Sasuke refused to stop pulling weeds, and Kakashi decided this vigilante-ism was a tolerable character flaw. Besides, it was ultimately helping his goal of a training yard. Those plants would all get plowed under anyway. Not that Kakashi was in any hurry. He relished the planning.

Creating a training yard required nearly as much thought as that of planning a house. There were so many little details to think on. Kakashi wanted it to be as naturalized as possible; in his travels, he’d seen indoor and outdoor facilities with varying levels of sophistication. He found the obviously artificial ones distasteful. What was the point of training in a space that would never, ever occur in the field? Kakashi wanted a visceral setting, one that punched him in the gut and said “this is real.” He wanted the scents and sounds of nature around him, preferred the roughness of tree bark to the smoothness of a man-made climbing wall and sunlight to the incandescent floodlights of indoor arenas.

This was not to say that he wanted the training ground to resemble solely the forests of Fire country. Kakashi envisioned bits and pieces of foreign landscapes; the sand and rocky scarps of Wind country; the plains bordering Earth country with their six-foot-high grasses and deceptive horizons. He knew there was no way he could replicate the mountains in Snow country, but he gave himself better than fair chances of success with the coastal marshes that led to the Water country archipelago. He also had vague notions of water features--slippery rocks to climb and leap across, water to walk on. The thought alone made his heart pound harder with anticipated excitement. Kakashi wondered briefly if Sasuke had a favorite terrain.

These plans were time and energy consuming, which was, as far as Kakashi was concerned good. There were plenty of other thing he didn’t want to think too hard about, not the least of which was the distinct lack of training he’d been doing lately.

Kakashi was approaching ninja middle-age. Despite no lingering injuries or permanent damage, the hard life he’d lived for nearly three decades was taking its toll. He woke up with stiff joints and odd twinges. These faded away after stretching and working out for a short while, but they kept coming back. Rainy days, much closer together this far into the forest, left Kakashi feeling like he’d completed a particularly challenging mission not long ago.

His body missed the lack of constant exercise training provided. Kakashi told himself it was just readjustment to a lack of adrenaline coursing through him. He felt like he was walking underwater half the time, moving too slowly toward a future he couldn‘t see, even with his Sharingan flaring and wild and calling to the scattering of Uchiha blood in his veins.

Kakashi’s left eye had started hurting again, like back in the early post-transplant days, when he had struggled to integrate it. The eye burned in the socket, seared into his skull and left him much weaker-feeling than he’d like to admit. He tried, very hard, to ignore the un-ignorable parts of his life.

Kakashi felt a certain amount of guilt while trying to keep his head in the sand--just as he hadn’t been training, he hadn’t gotten within throwing distance of the memorial since Sasuke had come to live with him. He hadn’t had time. Or energy. Or something else necessary to do what he had to do, what he felt driven to do. He was recovering whatever it was that had been missing before. The guilt was becoming relentless and the urge to sit atop the memorial stones unremitting. Kakashi was half-surprised at the guilt he’d accrued over the past months, how heavily it weighed on him. It made him sloppy. It was distasteful and oddly disgraceful.

He could have been killed, literally killed, dozens of times over through that carelessness--by slipping up with Sasuke; by hostile nin while he remained only half-aware in his fugue of self-recrimination; or even in accidents that, under ordinary circumstances, would have been preventable. As much as it pained him to admit it, Kakashi couldn’t keep ignoring his dereliction. He needed to go to the monument again.

--------

I know it's not a very active chapter, but I just couldn't get to where I wanted to go without all this almost-extremely-boring narrative. I suppose it's a transitional chapter. The worst part of re-working this was, quite honestly, telling myself it was okay to chuck out the parts that weren't fitting. I get stuck with that all the time.

I cringe at setting aside what I've already written, but the idea of the story keeps changing. (Seriously. I've got at least three different plots that I could implement at this point...and more if I go back and change things from the beginning.) The heart of this story isn't static, and it's damnably hard to pin down and elucidate what, for now, is only a sort of vague instinct about how things are going to play out--despite me already knowing the plot and knowing what is going to happen, all roads leading to Rome and all that. Even the littlest changes now will affect the main plot points in future.

Ramble, ramble, ramble. Who the heck knows when chapter twelve will be done? I may skip right ahead to thirteen, if twelve proves inconsequential.

Later!

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

Chapter Ten

Tada! I am back from hiatus with a nicely edited chapter ten. I think I've done the most editing on this chapter out of all the stuff I've posted so far. (I really didn't think this one was going to take so much, either.) I don't know if it's just because I had so much time to work on it or what. I took perverse pleasure in printing out copies and doing the work in busy public places. Anyway, enjoy!

Chapter 10
------
Overnight, Sasuke began making calculated demands on Kakashi’s time. They were out of the only kind of mushrooms Sasuke ate-enoki-so go to the store and get more. He had heard that the bookstore had just received a few copies of the commemorative Icha Icha Anthology-wouldn’t Kakashi like to go check it out? Sasuke knew Gai was back from a mission and was looking to challenge Kakashi. (Somehow, he knew this without leaving the house.) It didn’t take a genius to see that Sasuke wanted him out of the apartment. Not that Sasuke would ever ask him to leave. He continued to block Kakashi’s attempts at packing. Sasuke wasn’t really tall enough to loom, but his intimidation skills were improving, as he spent most of his time forcing Kakashi, without a word, from every room but his bedroom.

Kakashi came and went without warning, but he didn’t catch Sasuke doing whatever it was he didn’t want Kakashi seeing. He tried setting up traps with shadow clones. Sasuke turned out to be elegantly efficient in dispatching them. Kakashi disguised himself. Sasuke found him out. He set his dogs to watch him (subtly, of course.) He used genjutsu, but Sasuke was not fooled. Kakashi tried out many, many different methods of catching him in the act, each with different levels of complexity and all to no avail. He concluded that the best approach might be the most direct-the one thing he hadn’t yet tried because it seemed too simple to work.

By the time Kakashi had exhausted all his other options, Sasuke had finished in the bathroom and living room. He exuded a certain smugness when Kakashi inquired as to how the packing was going. It irritated him and spurred him on. The kitchen was his last chance. He made a clone into a potholder and snuck it in with all the other potholders. So that Sasuke wouldn’t cotton on too quick, he threw in some misdirection. He gave himself imaginary points for using the truth.

“You want me out,” he said. “I’ll leave. You’ve got one hour and then I’m coming back.”

Kakashi brushed past him on the way to the door. He left Sasuke staring.

Kakashi’s potholder clone, laying innocently on the counter, was a first-hand witness. Sasuke stood, not moving, in the middle of the kitchen for fifteen minutes. Then, he closed the blinds on the window over the sink. He kept looking around the room, as if he suspected someone would transport in at any second. Sasuke began opening cabinets and drawers one by one. He fished around inside with one hand, sneaking something out in his fist. He did it half a dozen times before coming to the drawer underneath the disguised clone. He reached in and pulled his hand out again, and Kakashi poofed in behind him and grabbed his wrist.

Kakashi found himself clutching a potholder instead, and Sasuke was across the room, looking hunted. Kakashi chucked the potholder and Sasuke sneered as it hit him in the face, but then the henge came undone and Sasuke was sandwiched between a Kakashi clone and the real one. Kakashi felt Sasuke’s pulse speed up. It hammered like a moth beating its wings against glass.

“What have you been hiding? Drugs? Money? Forbidden techniques?”

Sasuke fought as much as he was able. His chakra spiked and flared and raged. He was apparently much more concerned with preserving whatever was in his hand: Sasuke had unprecedented opportunities to disable Kakashi, but that would have taken both hands. Kakashi finally got a real hold on him, and he pried Sasuke’s fingers apart. Sasuke looked pained and Kakashi must have hurt him more than he might have intended. Sasuke finally gave way and opened his fist.

Kakashi stared. He blinked and stared some more. He sighed and let Sasuke go. Sasuke stepped back, cradling his full hand against his chest. Dark bruises blossomed around his wrist. Kakashi could see his pulse fluttering at the base of his throat, could smell the sweat beading at his hairline.

It didn’t make sense. What Sasuke was protecting didn’t make sense. Kakashi tipped up his hitai-ate to be sure. A tangle of hairs, a couple pieces of gravel, presumably from the flower beds outside, some wood shavings, and a large bit of dried-up maple leaf. Why was Sasuke hiding that? Kakashi was reminded of the T&I reports he’d seen. When they’d searched him at the beginning and found a few twigs and dried pieces of grass in his pocket, Sasuke had asked, “with a forced politeness” that the materials not be thrown out. But someone had dumped it in the waste bin and he had put that ninja into the hospital with a crushed femur and two fingers shorn off. After that, they’d started draining his chakra and immobilizing him completely.

“Turn out your pockets,” Kakashi said.

Kakashi crossed his arms over his chest. He could wait as long as he had to, had waited this long already.

Sasuke glared. He silently emptied out everything he’d collected from his kitchen hiding places. He dragged it out, placing it piece by piece onto the counter. When he finished, there was a sizeable mound of the equivalent of shinobi pocket lint: scrids of wire and a length of boot lace; more rocks and vegetation (long dead); some twine, actual lint and desiccated cloth scraps; a broken writing brush; chips of ceramic from a teacup shattered weeks ago; and other less identifiable odds and ends.

Kakashi moved closer to it, and Sasuke tensed. The Sharingan was constant in his eyes. With a sinking feeling, Kakashi recognized the boot lace. It was his, or at least it had been. He mulled it over as he bent towards the pile. It still didn’t make sense.

“Don’t,” Sasuke said. “Please.”

He looked torn between rushing forwards to stop Kakashi and running away.

“Why?” Kakashi said. “Why keep this? Why hide it?”

He pointed to the boot lace in particular and all of it in general.

Sasuke looked more uncomfortable and on edge than Kakashi had ever seen him.

“Because it’s mine. I need it.”

His fingers twitched almost uncontrollably. Kakashi knew Sasuke was holding himself back and waiting for Kakashi’s signal.

He could tell Sasuke meant what he said, and his emphasis was the same. He nodded and allowed himself to feel the tiredness building up inside him. Sasuke let out his breath and started forward, sweeping it all into his hands. He held it reverently for a moment and then looked into Kakashi’s eyes.

“It’s mine and I’d hurt you if you touched it.”

The Sharingan swirled twice before slowing and stopping. It did not subside.

Kakashi considered this, considered the ninja Sasuke had hospitalized, thought about the squirrel Sasuke must have compelled to steal the boot lace in the first place. Sasuke’s dedication was frighteningly misplaced.

“You wouldn’t kill me?”

Though lightly said, Kakashi had rarely been more serious.

“I’d try,” said Sasuke.

There was a desperate, sullen tone in his voice. It was ugly. He curled ever so slightly around his burden. His muscles tightened, prepared for defense.

A flash of understanding leapt between the two of them, and Kakashi relaxed a fraction. It was good that Sasuke realized how disturbed this was. At least Sasuke didn’t actually want to kill him over it. Sasuke didn’t break eye contact as he smoothed the detritus into a pocket, unable afterward to stop stroking the cloth over it. The red bled out of his eyes.

Kakashi looked away first. He let Sasuke have that slight victory, though he left the room with a parting shot.

“Can we get to moving now?”

Sasuke froze. He gave Kakashi a look that he interpreted as “you’re a blithering idiot.”

Well?” Kakashi said.

He opened the door to his bedroom.

Sasuke grunted. Kakashi heard moving boxes scrape across the floor. He smiled and closed the door behind him.

---------


As an aside, I also took the time to replace the double hyphen [--] with dashes. It was a pain in the butt and I don't know that I'll continue doing it. I had been hoping to use the "find and replace" function to make it a little less manual of a job, but that search-and-destroy mission somehow interpreted the dash as a single hyphen. It was worse than useless.

Look forward to chapter eleven sometime next week! I'm headed out tomorrow for family stuff, but I'll be back by the end of the weekend.

Later!

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

Chapter Nine--Complete!

Here it is! I am reasonably satisfied with it, so I'm posting it now, before I go to bed. If I waited until tomorrow, I might get too distracted and forget to post.

I did indeed end up splitting the original chapter nine into chapter nine and chapter ten. I'm really glad I did, too, because it grew by almost a page again by the time I finished.

Enjoy!


Chapter 9
----------


It was the first week of November, and the house was finished. Kakashi stood in the middle of the first floor, surveying the empty space critically. The weak afternoon sunlight made the room glow. Kakashi watched a particle of dust drift into a groove in the floor. He sighed, looking at the stack of shoji that had yet to be erected. At least the upstairs was done and their bedrooms were, blissfully, walled off. They could argue about the division of the main floor later, once they had actually moved. It was a little hard to imagine where all their possessions would go. The room looked so big like this, the floorboards running off into infinity, the walls blank canvases. Kakashi looked up. Even the ceiling was impersonal. The smell of new wood permeated the air. He found it hard to breathe, suddenly, and so he went outside.

Three feet from the door, Kakashi nearly ran into Sasuke. Sasuke was just standing there, a hand shading his eyes from the sun as he stared up at the house. His chest barely moved with each breath, but Kakashi could see the pulse pounding at his throat, saw the flickering of red in his eyes. He looked stunned. Kakashi felt much the same, though probably for different reasons. Even if Sasuke did explain himself, Kakashi wasn’t sure he’d understand.

He felt a sudden pity for Sasuke. Sasuke didn’t make changes easily, and now, suddenly being done with the house…well, it brought that hazy, far-off idea of someday, maybe living there crashing down into the present. Kakashi stood beside him for a few minutes, watching the sun grow weaker behind the house. Hesitant, he reached out a hand, made to touch Sasuke’s shoulder and wavered. He felt the warmth of Sasuke’s body an inch from his fingers. Kakashi stretched himself out, instead, and hoped Sasuke hadn‘t caught his abortive gesture. Sasuke didn’t want his pity or his reassurance.

“Let’s go back to the apartment,” said Kakashi. “we’ll start packing in the morning.”

A chill breeze picked up. He thought he saw Sasuke shiver. Sasuke’s hand dropped to his side.

“In the morning,” Sasuke said.

His eyes narrowed as he looked at the house one more time. He turned his back on the building.

“In the morning,” Sasuke said.

It sounded like a death sentence, coming from him. Kakashi wanted to tell him to grow up, but it was at least nine years too late. Kakashi turned his back to Sasuke and tried not to feel it was an act of rejection. He couldn’t convince himself. Sasuke was suspiciously quiet. His eyes drilled into Kakashi the whole way back to town. Kakashi felt no relief that night as he left Sasuke in the living room and closed his bedroom door.


The next day, he started packing, beginning in his bedroom. All his uniforms filled one box. His civilian clothes filled less than half of another and, for a moment, Kakashi pondered trying to cram the clothes all into one box. His photographs and books and the contents of his desk went into a third box. He took down the art on the walls. He rolled them up and stuck them in with his civilian clothes. Kakashi tossed in his alarm clock and, as an afterthought, carefully placed his potted plant in the box as well.

The room was bare, save for the still-made bed. He glared at the shuriken-print blanket. He’d have to get another box. It was an unprecedented event. When Kakashi had moved into this apartment, in anticipation of Sasuke’s release from prison, he’d only needed two boxes for everything. He had twice as much stuff now in the bedroom alone. He felt smothered. Kakashi was sure it was somehow Sasuke’s fault. Kakashi slid to the floor and examined the dust bunnies under his bed.

Sasuke had had three boxes’ worth of stuff already when he’d come under his supervision, and Kakashi was sure he had only added to it over time. He didn’t know all of what Sasuke owned, of course, but he could truthfully say that most things in the apartment were not his. Sasuke owned some books, lot of pots and pans for cooking--and really, what was wrong with having just one pot?--and a veritable mountain of bedding. Kakashi didn’t remember Sasuke carrying an especially large bedroll on missions, but then, that was on missions. Carrying more than was strictly necessary was exhausting.

He slid under the bed with a rag, intent on eradicating the dust. Kakashi didn’t usually pay attention to the furniture…not that he had much. There was the eating table and its two mismatched chairs. He had his desk and bed and the desk chair and a stray ottoman. More recently, he’d acquired a futon and a pair of end tables to make it look less insignificant while it floated in the middle of the living room’s space.

Now that Kakashi thought about it, the futon was Sasuke’s too. Kakashi may have paid for it, but it was Sasuke’s bed more than it was a place for company to come and sit. During the day, Sasuke kept his bedding stored in a cupboard. Every night he straightened the frame and made his bed, and every morning he folded it all up again. When Sasuke wasn’t under covers, they sat two feet high on the surface of the cushion. It was amazing how they never dragged on the floor.

Kakashi didn’t know how Sasuke could sleep like that. He himself had had the same, solitary blanket for years and years, long enough for him to have forgotten when he first slept under it. It was a long time. He’d had it all through his last apartment…but before then? It was so hard to remember. Kakashi hadn’t had it while he had lived under his father’s roof. By the time he moved into his first apartment, he’d been busily working his way up to jounin status and that was all that stood out from those dark times. Kakashi wriggled out from underneath the bed and tried to ignore the way his dust cloth was trembling and shaking dust all over him.

Kakashi tossed the rag and stretched. He tipped the alarm clock face-up in the box. He’d wasted half the morning on unpleasant memories, which was exactly half a morning more than he‘d intended to waste. Time to see how Sasuke was doing.

When Kakashi entered the living room, he was, well, shocked. The empty boxes were still stacked neatly by the entrance. Everything looked exactly the same as it had the night before. Sasuke was, technically speaking, still in bed. He was stretched out, fully dressed, over the couch. His blankets were nowhere in sight; Kakashi presumed they were in their cupboard. Sasuke cracked an eye open and fixed it on Kakashi.

Kakashi felt challenged by the look in that eye. It said “You can’t make me pack.” Kakashi itched to do it, to somehow force Sasuke to fill boxes. It was irrational and he couldn’t stop thinking about it. There were jutsu designed to puppeteer, to manipulate, to convince and coerce. He could, in theory, invade Sasuke’s mind and make him think packing was his idea all along. Or he could leave Sasuke’s awareness intact and just pilot his body. That, though, would be crossing all kinds of boundaries, all of them bad.

Many of these jutsu assumed that the recipient was some sort of unaware moron. Sasuke’s mind was strong despite its damaged state. During his debriefing, his interrogation at the hands of the T&I squad, they had used many mental jutsu to pick apart his answers to the questioning, but it was nigh on useless. In the same way that a once-broken bone is strongest at the break site, so too was Sasuke’s mind…and parts of it had broken many, many times. The damage was unfixable at this late point. But if Sasuke could find a way to change, little by little, he might carve out a new direction that went around those damaged parts. It would be painful. Could Sasuke take it?

As much as Kakashi wanted, he couldn’t force Sasuke to pack. So he settled for the next best thing: Kakashi started to do it for him. But, as soon as he had put a single book into the first box, Sasuke was behind him, holding a kunai to his throat. Kakashi let out a breath. The edge scraped the fabric of his mask. Anger and murderous intent radiated out from behind him. He idly wondered whether it was a good thing or a bad thing the kunai wasn’t as sharp as it might have been.

“Put it down,” said Sasuke.

He paused. Kakashi felt the blade at his neck shiver. He heard Sasuke’s knuckles creak. His grip on the haft firmed.

“Please,” Sasuke said. “Put it down.”

His breath washed unevenly over the nape of Kakashi’s neck. Kakashi dropped the box to the floor and, moving slowly, nudged it away with his foot. He was clear of it.

“I‘m assuming this is what you wanted,” said Kakashi. “If you wouldn‘t mind…”

Sasuke removed the kunai. The point caught on a fold of fabric and made a little slice. It was intentional and Kakashi resented it.

He made a strategic retreat to his room. He could feel Sasuke still boiling in the living room, which was not especially out of the ordinary. The incident struck him as being off, though. Kakashi sat down on his bed to think. He fingered the tiny hole in his mask and frowned. That Sasuke didn’t want to pack was obvious. Yet he seemed perfectly fine with the concept of living in the new house, and living in the new house required packing and moving. Sasuke wasn’t an idiot. He had to have realized moving meant packing.

The conclusion Kakashi suddenly came to was so obvious that he was amazed he hadn’t seen it earlier, kunai to the throat aside. Sasuke didn’t want him looking at his belongings. This begged a new question: why? It wasn’t like he didn’t know almost everything there was to know about Sasuke’s stuff. He knew what Sasuke had brought with him in those three boxes. He also knew what Sasuke had bought in the intervening months and there was nothing unusual there.

Kakashi got off the bed and sat at the desk, resting his feet on a box. He knew that Sasuke kept kunai tucked into his pillowcase at night and that a garroting wire kept the edge of Sasuke’s collar stiff. He knew that Sasuke collected and burned the detritus from his personal grooming, which was inexplicably intimate and weird to think about, but Kakashi knew it anyway. He knew the altered shape of Sasuke’s curse seal, despite its being disguised with both genjutsu and physical means. What could Sasuke be blocking him from seeing? If he had hidden anything from Kakashi, anything at all, it had to be bad.

Kakashi couldn’t let Sasuke’s reluctance stall them for long. They had to be out of this apartment in five days. He needed to encourage him to pack. He decided to keep his eye peeled and see if he could figure out what it was, exactly, that Sasuke was hiding. Kakashi poked his finger through the hole in the mask and sighed. He dug through his uniforms, found another mask. Maybe Sasuke would slip up and give some hint or clue. Kakashi peeled off the old mask and put on the new. Until then, he was prepared to wait. They weren’t going anywhere until he found out exactly what was going on.

-----------


How was it? If it is riddled with errors, I apologize. I'm going to look it over after I have some sleep.

If you notice a couple small discrepancies between this chapter and the rest (namely, regarding Sasuke's curse seal and his sleeping arrangement,) I promise to explain the former right now. Sasuke's seal is something I've tweaked from the canon, mostly because what happens with it in the somewhat-recent canon is not in keeping with what I have planned for this story. I know I'm being vague. I'm trying to avoid spoilers. ^_^ (It probably would also be less confusing if I had put up the prologue already, but I haven't.)

As to the whole couch/bed/futon thing, I've probably used these terms all interchangeably and indiscriminately for what Sasuke sleeps on. What I've been trying to convey all along is that Sasuke doesn't have a legitimate bed. He's been stuck with a make-do, temporary set-up for nearly a year.

A total digression: would you be interested in seeing my major events timeline? Not my horifically messy sharpie version, but one that is all nice and neat. It's the sort of thing I like to know about a story, but you readers may not necessarily want the same sort of insider knowledge. Also, at some point, I will be thinking about publishing a playlist/quasi-soundtrack for this fic. I have a working playlist that I listen to while I work on this story, but that's not necessarily the same as the music that really captures the moods of this writing. Any takers? (I know, it's kind of pathetic that I end up with theme songs and stuff for the stuff I write.)

Later!

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

Chapter Eight-- complete!

Here it is!

Chapter 8
--------

A half mile out from the Forest of Death, Kakashi and Sasuke were building a house and getting nowhere fast. With the Hokage’s approval to build and experienced architects and contractors looking over their plans--to make sure the house wouldn’t fall down around their ears--they themselves were responsible for making everything else happen. Sasuke’s paranoia, pride and, Kakashi assumed, inherent idiocy, meant that not only did all the work have to be personally inspected by Sasuke, but also that he and Kakashi were the only ones allowed to work on it at all. This slowed construction to a crawl. It was a good thing Fire country had long summers and short, mild winters. Kakashi was now expecting that the house would not be done until the start of winter.

Kakashi had made a nice flat piece of land via earth jutsu for the house to sit on, but the two of them had labored for a week to mark off and dig out for the foundation and cellar. Kakashi winced even now when he thought about how the two of them had struggled to agree on a plan for the building…and a suitable location. And materials. They had fought over just about everything, actually. Little decisions got settled with a quick spar. Big ones involved a lot of stubborn silence and prolonged psychological tactics. Sasuke was better at intimidating than he used to be. Kakashi had more patience and could wait out almost anything.


Both he and Sasuke discovered that ninjutsu was simply not designed for the sort of work house building required. Their jutsu could cut through a swath of trees in ten seconds, but those trees were subsequently splintered into oblivion and completely useless as construction materials. Superior physiology, dexterity, speed, and other myriad advantages of high-ranking ninja did not protect Kakashi from the dangers of carpentry. Having one eye made using a hammer damn near impossible, but hammering his thumb repeatedly was more than possible. Getting the nail where he wanted it to go was proving challenging. Kakashi could have used his Sharingan to copy Sasuke’s elegant and flawless hammering technique. It wouldn’t give him the muscle memory to repeat it correctly. He needed to train himself, and nothing would do but more of the same hard work. He bore it stoically as Sasuke hovered nearby. Kakashi couldn’t fathom how such scrutiny was supposed to help. He was, however, glad that no comments, helpful or otherwise, broke the silence.

It was exhausting to do everything the long way. Kakashi had come back from A-rank missions feeling better. As gratifying as it was to see Sasuke covered in mud day after day, it wasn’t nearly as satisfying as Kakashi had once imagined. Sasuke bordered on perfect no matter what he was doing. He was fast, strong, and seemingly tireless. Aside from the dirt, Sasuke didn’t seem to be affected by the work at all. He never ran out of breath, though as the days wore on, Kakashi noticed more and more that Sasuke was prone to sweating. Not that Kakashi minded. It wasn’t like Sasuke smelled bad. And he himself had no room to complain, considering how filthy he got every day.


Today, they were working to cut down some trees for timber. They each had separate trees so that the likelihood of accidents was minimal. Kakashi firmed up his grip on the axe and swung. He’d spent some time observing Sasuke, watching how he planted his feet on the ground and braced himself with his legs. The kinetic energy rippled up through his torso, flowed along the shoulders and out the arms--and by extension, the axe. Chips of wood flew out of the cut, and every few strokes Sasuke brushed out any remaining debris. Each time he did this, he resumed his stance. Once in a while, he’d wipe the sweat from his hairline onto his sleeve.

Kakashi modeled himself after Sasuke and tried to imagine how it felt to execute that seamless movement. It was a bit like learning a new taijutsu pose. The feet went like this and the balance went up into the calves. The abdominals and obliques moved to channel the force upward into the shoulders, to the arms, to the axe. Kakashi’s blade bit deep into the tree. Not, he noticed, quite as deeply as Sasuke’s, but it was much better than his first attempts.

“Not bad,” Sasuke said.

The unsolicited comment took Kakashi by surprise. He left his axe in the tree for a moment.

“You’re doing quite well yourself,” said Kakashi. What he really wanted to do was ask what this little round of self-congratulation was all about. He didn’t need Sasuke’s compliments. He was more than Sasuke’s equal, even if Sasuke had the edge on him here.

Kakashi made to pick up the axe again. He was preparing to swing when Sasuke spoke.

“Wait,” he said. “Not like that.”

Kakashi froze in place.

Sasuke crossed the forest floor between them, carefully giving the blade of the axe a wide berth. He stripped off his gloves. He molded his hands over Kakashi’s around the handle and shifted their grips a little. Sasuke let go again. He cleared out the cut in Kakashi’s tree, removing a handful of wood and bark. He returned to his own tree. He wiped his hand off on his pants leg. The fabric clung to the sap on his palm. Sasuke shook it off. He donned his gloves and picked up his axe. Kakashi noted that he held his in an identical manner.

“You’ll get a better result like that,” Sasuke said. “Try it. You’ll see.”

Sasuke ducked his head and started chopping again.

Kakashi tried not to puzzle over what Sasuke had just done. He needed a clear head right now, and thinking about the whys and wherefores of Sasuke’s behavior would not help. He tried using the axe with the new grip. The head thunked into the trunk. He snuck a glance at Sasuke’s work. He had actually gotten further into the wood than Sasuke that time. Kakashi thought about thanking him, but he had the distinct impression that Sasuke was now trying to pretend that he hadn’t done anything.

For now, Kakashi would go along with it, though it all made him curious. Where had Sasuke developed his aptitude for hard labor? Or was it more than simply talent? Sasuke wasn’t shirking, that was certain. Did he like this sort of work, then? Kakashi was half-afraid to ask, but he wanted to despite the niggling feeling that Sasuke might not respond well to this line of questioning. Kakashi decided to ease into it.

“Hey, Sasuke. You’re very good at this sort of thing…” He said.

Sasuke only grunted in reply. He didn’t break stride.

Kakashi stuck his axe in a log and leaned against another tree. It wasn’t really break time yet, but he couldn’t be casual while he was working so hard to concentrate on what he was doing. Besides, Sasuke was at his back, wielding a bladed weapon, and Kakashi wasn’t wholly comfortable with that.

Kakashi waited a minute and then tried a little harder.

“I heard that only the harmless prisoners got to do menial labor.”

Sasuke missed his swing and the axe blade landed an inch from the toe of his boot. A large bird squawked and flew away out of the trees. The forest was strangely quiet. Okay. Maybe that was trying too hard.

“This has nothing to do with that.”

He picked the axe up again and swung it harder than he had before.

A chip of wood flew through the air and grazed Kakashi’s forehead. Kakashi let it hit. He decided he’d rather not find out if Orochimaru would be a sufficient goad. Kakashi picked up his own axe again, and they worked in silence for some time.

“It was my father.”

Sasuke’s sudden, stark confession made Kakashi lose his rhythm. He took his cue from Sasuke and kept working.

“I work hard because hard work impressed my father.”

Sasuke wiped his brow and continued, head down and not looking at Kakashi. His face twisted into a frown. His voice was low and rough.

“Not that he ever noticed. Ita--my--he was all my father ever noticed.”

Kakashi took the explanation at face value. It explained the work ethic, maybe, but it said nothing about the force of construction he was now. Kakashi sighed. Maybe he was just getting old.


They worked in silence until lunchtime. Then Kakashi put down his axe and, before Sasuke could say anything about wasting time, slipped off to wash in a nearby stream. It was nice to cool down for a minute, to remove flecks of wood and tree sap before he ate. It was also nice to spend a moment away from Sasuke, alone in the greenness underneath the trees. As indefensible as a forest was, Kakashi had always liked these barked leviathans. With so many trees, it sometimes seemed as if they were pillars holding up the sky. Kakashi had always striven to be that sort of a ninja; deeply rooted, reaching upwards to support something greater than the woods. He snorted. What ninja with his experience still thought like that? He dove under the water and swam. His thoughts floated away.

Kakashi surfaced and looked at the sun’s position. He got out of the water. He toweled off with his shirt, which wasn’t very effective considering how dirty it was. A closer inspection of his clothes made him decide to put off getting dressed until he was fully dry. Having wet skin would only transfer more of the grime onto him, though going naked in the meantime wasn‘t ideal either. He lay down on a smooth rock to eat. The stone was warm, the breeze pleasant, and the sun was making quick work of the water that puddled around him.

Sasuke hadn’t come down to the stream, and Kakashi felt, guiltily, reprieved as he repacked the remains of his lunch. Sasuke was…driven to complete the house and he often loomed nearby, impatience undisguised. Kakashi still hadn’t managed to make him understand that he liked to take his time, even if Sasuke didn‘t need much in the way of breaks. A well-rested ninja made fewer mistakes and was less irritable to boot. Considering how abrasive Sasuke could be, he wanted all the patience and even-temperedness he could muster.

Kakashi rolled over onto a dry part of the rock. The heated stone was wonderful on his back. It was only midday, and he was already feeling the impact of his labors. Still, it wasn’t like Sasuke didn’t try to be a good working partner. He’d made a lot of restrictions about the work, but he did his best to do as much of it himself as possible. Kakashi often was forced to guess what Sasuke wanted him to do. He got riled up if Kakashi didn’t intuit the proper order of things.

He was working on drawing out more verbal communication. So far, engaging in conversations hadn’t done much except make Sasuke act more recalcitrant. He was fairly certain that he could get him to talk if he kept at it long enough, but he knew that this would make Sasuke blow up in the worst sort of way.

The breeze picked up, shaking the leaves all along the bank of the stream. Kakashi plucked a leaf out of his hair and gazed at it. He was now practicing not talking, and it seemed to be working. Sasuke made occasional efforts to talk to Kakashi that were not statements like “Put that log here” or “That’s not even.” Talking with Sasuke was still like pulling teeth, but at least he was saying something. With this rate of success, Kakashi wasn’t surprised that Ibiki’s people hadn’t had much luck in “debriefing” him.

Kakashi was dry now. He hopped down off the rock and started putting his clothes back on. He eyed the shirt with distaste. It looked bad, smelled worse, and was still wet from being pressed into service as a towel. He sighed. Looks like he’d be spending the afternoon shirtless. No sense in getting another one dirty today. He rinsed the offensive article in the stream and hung it on a bush to dry. A flicker of movement caught his eye and he turned, throwing a kunai at the same time.

It was a squirrel. Kakashi relaxed and walked over to his boots. He frowned. It had chewed off a couple inches of one of the laces. He wished he’d nailed the fuzzy-tailed rat, but he’d aimed to scare, not kill. He’d pinned a couple squirrel hairs into the dirt, nothing more. He wiped the kunai off and stuck it back in his pouch. Kakashi re-laced his boot, stretched, and headed back to the work site.

Upon reaching the clearing, Kakashi noticed something interesting. Sasuke was sitting on a tree stump, back to. Ordinarily he’d be pacing the clearing, waiting impatiently to get back to work. Kakashi took this as a sign of improvement.

“Yo,” said Kakashi.

Sasuke jumped up, bad attitude radiating around him. Now this was more like what he expected. Sasuke turned, and the scowl on his face morphed into something less readable, more confused than anything else.

“What?” Kakashi said. He watched Sasuke give him a look up and down. Kakashi looked down to see what it was that had caused Sasuke’s bemusement. Kakashi kicked himself. Of course.

“My shirt needed a wash,” he said. “I didn’t want to use another clean one.”

He stretched out, swinging an imaginary axe once or twice for practice. He picked up his axe and his fingers found their way into the grip Sasuke had shown him.

“Your boot lace looks ratty,” said Sasuke. “What happened to it?”

Kakashi took a hard look at Sasuke then. He lowered his axe. It wasn’t like him to notice small things like that…at least, he didn’t make mention of such discoveries. Sasuke was industriously preparing to chop at his tree some more. He was avoiding looking into Kakashi’s face, but that wasn’t anything new. Kakashi stared down at his boot. At that distance, he knew Sasuke wasn’t able to discern the state of his laces. Crap. Sasuke had, obviously, been spying on him.

Kakashi wasn’t sure if Sasuke was just being an idiot in letting him know, or if there was something else going on and this was the misdirection. Maybe he just didn’t care if Kakashi knew. Sasuke had been keeping tighter tabs on him since he’d come back from the mission, but he’d thought Sasuke was over the worst of that. Kakashi decided ignoring the bad behavior would be best. He shrugged. If it worked for training dogs, maybe it’d work on Sasuke.

“Well, there was a certain rodent gnawing on it,” said Kakashi. “I defended myself, but it got away.”

Sasuke held up a squirrel, the lace still in its paws even as it chattered at him.

“This rodent?” He said. “I saw it running by with what appeared to be some jounin-issue gear, so I caught it.”

He took the bit of string and set the squirrel free. Kakashi smothered a few chuckles. Sasuke would be the one to stop a suspicious-looking squirrel in the middle of the forest.

“Thanks,” Kakashi said.

He took the pilfered lace from Sasuke. Sasuke hesitated, just a moment, when he let go of it. It seemed like reluctance. Weird.

“I have a spare,” said Sasuke. “If you want it, you can have it.”

Ah, thought Kakashi. That was it. It was a generous offer, as far as Sasuke was concerned. Sasuke wasn’t in the habit of making such gestures.

“Tell you what,” said Kakashi. “I’ll trade you the old one for the new one.”

Sasuke nodded agreement. He fished the spare lace out of his nearby pack. Kakashi handed over the broken one and threaded the new one through the holes. He didn’t see what happened to the old lace, but he assumed Sasuke would throw it out later, when they next went to town. There was a definite lack of trash cans out here in the woods.

Sasuke waited politely until Kakashi hefted his axe again.

“Let’s get to work then, shall we?” said Kakashi.

Twin thunks echoed underneath the canopy. Kakashi was, for once, very comfortable with the relative silence. They didn’t talk for the rest of the afternoon.

-------

What is interesting about this chapter, I find, is that I think it reads more smoothly than the last chapter. I felt chapter seven needed less work, and this chapter needed mountains, but somehow I think it came out better. I don't know. Maybe the subject matter had a hand in that. I mean, chopping down trees in the forest has different pacing needs than what happened in chapter seven.

I am having some trouble deciding whether I am being too subtle in my hinting at future relationships/characters' frames of mind. Partly, what I mean is that the person whose perspective we see through is flirting on the edge of the unreliable narrator. I'm not sure how much truth the reader can reasonably expect to glean from him. I'm not sure if I'm being too subtle in showing how he is avoiding certain truths...namely, all his feelings.

Am I dropping enough hints so that you, the reader, knows what's what, even if the characters aren't saying it? And, on that same line, am I giving enough here and there to show the development of their relationship, such as it is? I'm not going to write either of them as being terribly showy about all this because I feel that would be taking them into the realms of out-of-character...which I don't want to do. I'm trying my best to show my interpretation of their characters, even if they differ some from the canon.

Anyway, I'm going to have a quick peek at chapter nine tonight and see what needs work. (Sometimes I feel like writing is a roller coaster. You struggle up, and zip down. And then you think it's over, but then you realize no, you're going up again, which means another down phase and probably you'll go up again after that too.)

Later!

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

Chapter Seven is up!

After less struggling than normal, I give to you chapter seven! I hope you enjoy it! (Strangely, I had fun making some extra use of the semi colon in this chapter. I think I used more adverbs and other modifiers than usual, too, which could be bad.)



Chapter 7
-----

Kakashi strode up to the Konoha main gates. He checked in with the on-duty chuunin. They waved him on and Kakashi nodded; it was as close to a conversation as he generally had at the guard post. Then, as soon as he got far enough away, weaving his way through the crowds with expertise, he turned off the main street and leaned heavily on the closest wall. He felt underneath his vest. Even the lightest touch was painful. Kakashi sighed. He’d have to go to the hospital then and have whatever those guards had managed to score on him tended.

Ordinarily he wouldn’t have bothered. If the wounds had been really bad, he would have done some stopgap measures on the way back and then collapsed upon reaching the front gates. If the injuries were light, Kakashi would have let it get out that he was hurt, yes, but he would have milked his injuries to get some time off. He wouldn’t find himself heading for the hospital as he did now. Nope. But now there was Sasuke to think about. Kakashi frowned. It was thinking about Sasuke that had gotten him hurt in the first place. Best not to start again. He forced himself to a speed only marginally faster than his usual amble. His side protested every time he put one foot in front of the other. Kakashi needed to be at his peak to deal with Sasuke, that was all. Lazing around in bed while waiting to heal was not a smart idea. For one, he was sure Sasuke was not temperamentally inclined to being a nurse.

Kakashi checked in at the emergency room front desk. The nurses gave him a once-over. He tried to look unaffected and bored. The waiting room was empty, but he hoped that they would let him sit down in private somewhere. It was oddly embarrassing to be at the hospital when he wasn’t dying.

A nurse directed Kakashi to an empty examination room. He was instructed to take off his clothes and don a gown. He considered claiming some sort of modesty if she started to do it for him, but before he had a chance, a code came over the intercom and the nurse rushed out. The door slammed behind her. Kakashi shrugged and immediately wished he hadn’t. He had an insistent urge to rub his side where it hurt the most, to try to alleviate the pain. To distract himself, he removed his gloves and stripped off his pants as carefully as he could. He toed off his sandals with a minimum of wincing. Kakashi was able to get out of his vest, but he struggled with the tight-fitting shirt beneath it. He was glad no one else was in the room. He wondered if the doctor would make him take off his mask.

Disrobing left him a bit short of breath. He decided that, in the interest of being a model patient, he would deign to sit on the exam table for a minute. The doctor would be late. Doctors always ran late. He’d rest a minute and then, somehow, wriggle into the johnny. Tying it might be out of the question, though. Codes kept blaring out of the PA system. Kakashi ignored them. He considered throwing a kunai at the speaker. His body throbbed in warning. Kakashi speculated that the speaker was probably an expensive item and not easy to replace. He would spare it, this time.

He was still sitting on the table, waiting for a medic, when the door exploded in a hail of smoke and splinters.

Kakashi looked up from beneath the improvised shield of a tray that had held surgical instruments a moment before. Sasuke stood in the wreckage of the doorway. He looked paler than usual as he brushed ashes off his clothes. He hesitated a moment before crushing a still-glowing cinder on his sleeve, as if he were confused as to how it had gotten there. Sasuke’s eyes were moving constantly and the Sharingan flickered in them.

Kakashi felt the ANBU land on the ledge outside the window and he relaxed minutely. He didn’t take his eyes off Sasuke. It was nice to have backup today, even if it was costing him some dignity. Kakashi sighed. He wished, distantly, that he’d already put on the gown. At least his mask was still on. He tensed again as Sasuke stepped into the room.

“No flowers? I’m in the hospital after all.”

Inside, Kakashi was calculating how much time and space he’d need to subdue Sasuke, and whether Sasuke could kill him, or only hurt him on top of his still untended injuries. He knew the ANBU wouldn’t be able to intervene in time, though they could probably pull Sasuke off him after the fact. Kakashi took a deep breath, readying himself.

Sasuke turned his head sideways. He didn’t look like he was going to attack, which was good, but he seemed confused, at best. At worst, he appeared… Kakashi didn’t know. Sasuke had been a few letters short of a post box before Kakashi had left. Now he looked worse. Much worse. Kakashi hadn’t realized how much Sasuke had improved since his release until now, with this apparent relapse.

“I heard them saying you’d come back,” Sasuke said. “But you didn’t show up, and I’d waited and waited and now I’m here.”

Sasuke turned his red pin-wheeling eyes on Kakashi and then past him, to the ANBU in the window. He crossed the room and sat on the stool near the foot of the exam table. He was a yard away from Kakashi.

“They weren’t going to let me come. But I broke the seal.”

Sasuke glanced down briefly, and Kakashi saw a few smears of ink at the base of his throat and around his wrists. Kakashi snorted. Sasuke was lucky he hadn’t blown his extremities off from the backlash. Still, maybe it had something to do with Sasuke’s rattled, not-quite-right appearance.

“Are you feeling well Sasuke?” Kakashi said. “If not, you’re in the right place.”

Sasuke looked around the room. It seemed he only now realized he was in the hospital.

“I’m a bit tired,” he said.

Kakashi’s eyebrows shot upward before he could stop himself. If Sasuke admitted to weakness, it was undoubtedly much worse than it appeared. Sasuke would have gritted his teeth and passed off a severed leg as a scratch if anyone said anything about it. Kakashi tried to be casual.

“Oh?”

“You were gone,” said Sasuke. “I couldn’t sleep with them--” and here he gestured at the window-- “watching me. So I stayed awake.”

“Well, missing a night’s sleep isn’t abnormal,” said Kakashi.

His instincts screamed inside his head. Kakashi struggled to keep appearing calm. He knew the signs of a ninja on the edge of collapse. Sasuke needed to keep believing Kakashi was relaxed, that nothing important was going on, or he might get dangerous. Three feet away wasn’t enough.

“But you still haven’t told me why you’re here,” said Kakashi.

Kakashi had a sinking feeling. The longer Sasuke talked, the worse he sounded.

“I stayed awake the whole time,” Sasuke said. “When I got tired I went up on the roof and watched the stars. Except then it was raining but I couldn’t go inside.”

Sasuke shivered and drew in on himself. Kakashi made a quick sweep of the room for weapons.

“They were waiting for me to go inside so they could go back to staring at me through the windows .”

Kakashi decided that Sasuke was more than just tired. He looked sick. His cheeks had a light flush and all the skin Kakashi could see was shiny with sweat. Fine tremors rippled across Sasuke’s shoulders.

When Sasuke was distracted by a nervous orderly peering into the room, Kakashi hand-signaled the ANBU detail. Did Sasuke do anything that might have made him ill? Kakashi was disgusted with the answers. Not only had Sasuke stayed up every night and cat-napped in the day, but he had sat unprotected in the rain for the better part of two days. Why hadn’t the ANBU sent for a medic when Sasuke started getting sick? Not their job his ass. If Sasuke hadn’t been sick and, Kakashi suspected, somewhat delusional because of it, he wouldn’t have broken the seal and done who-knew how much damage to the hospital. Kakashi didn’t know what else Sasuke might have done en route. Sasuke might not have been here now at all, as close to raving as he’d ever been, if the ANBU had done their jobs properly. Kakashi silenced the thought that it was his fault, for taking the mission in the first place. It wasn’t his fault.

Eventually, a doctor came by and patched up Kakashi. She also gave Sasuke a look-over. Kakashi noticed the doctor’s hands trembling as she made a show of not noticing the incinerated door. She gave Kakashi medicine and instructions and sent the both of them home. The whole thing rubbed Kakashi wrong. Still, no use in making the other patients nervous--not to mention the doctors and nurses--and it would be better for Sasuke to go ballistic on apartment furnishings than expensive medical equipment.


Kakashi got Sasuke settled on the couch. He took his bags into his bedroom to unpack. As soon as he entered, he realized Sasuke had been in there. Things were slightly off; pictures just a hair to the side of their former positions; the covers on his bed at a different crooked angle; the door to his wardrobe not properly shut. And there, on the window, was a Sasuke-sized handprint. It had to have been deliberate, that lone print. Kakashi was furious, but it would be meaningless to take it up with Sasuke now. It was too late after the intrusion and Sasuke was sick. Kakashi had his doubts that Sasuke would realize his infringement even when he was well. He threw his dirty uniforms in a corner and polished kunai for a while.

When Kakashi had done enough work on his equipment to calm down, he saw it was time for Sasuke’s medicine. Kakashi deliberately made noise coming into the living room. Getting kunai thrown his way was annoying, but that was what a well Sasuke would have done. Who knew what sort of thing a sick Sasuke would do? Kakashi tried not to think about an out-of-control Mangekyou, provoked by fevered nightmares. Thoughts about that were fodder for bad dreams. Kakashi cleared his throat when he got within three feet of Sasuke’s head.

Sasuke sat up quickly for a sick, sleeping person. Kakashi was fascinated to see he was indeed asleep and not merely leaving his eyes closed. He didn’t want to startle him awake, so he tried to slip the tip of the medicine dispenser between Sasuke’s lips. He was surprised when it actually worked. He pressed the plunger down and the medicine hit Sasuke’s taste buds. Sasuke cracked his eyes open.

“Kabuto? What…”

He stopped and took a better look.

“Next time wake me, or I’ll spit it out in your eye.”

Sasuke closed his eyes and was asleep again in seconds. His body folded back onto the couch. Kakashi fought against draping a blanket over him. He didn’t want to know what Sasuke had thought he was doing with the medicine. His hands moved almost before his mind could catch up, pulling a blanket over Sasuke‘s torso. Kakashi dropped the corner of it as if it were hot. Sasuke didn’t need mothering. He stood for a moment. He studied his hands and, for once, they weren’t what he expected. They were strangely foreign, grafted onto his familiar arms. He forced them down at his sides where he couldn’t see them anymore. He went back to his bedroom.


Over the next few days, Kakashi did as Sasuke asked, waking him for medicine and water. He also roused him during nightmares. Sasuke’s eerie, half-strangled cries came right through the walls, penetrating Kakashi‘s sleep and dreams. Kakashi got used to Sasuke’s forehead dampening his shoulder during the short staggers to the bathroom so Sasuke could piss and swipe at his teeth with a toothbrush. Kakashi drew the line at sponge baths, though Sasuke smelled terrible after the first day. And, while he wasn’t a good nurse, he thought it said something that Sasuke didn’t die under his care.

Sasuke recovered slowly. Kakashi was glad that he left some of his paranoia and bad dreams behind. Already Kakashi had learned more than he needed or wanted to know about Sasuke’s time away from the village. He also now knew many of the more visceral details of Sasuke’s imprisonment, things that had been left unsaid in the dry facts of the reports he’d read. Sasuke would be completely humiliated to know what he’d said in his sleep. Kakashi burned with embarrassment for him. He was overwhelmed with the desire to forget what he’d discovered. Sasuke seemed to know he’d done something while he was sick. He went around as normally as he could. Kakashi kept his best poker face up. If Sasuke ever got the courage to ask him what he’d said, Kakashi had already decided to lie.


The next time the topic of a house came up, Sasuke said, as calmly as he could without seeming desperate--a noble but unsuccessful effort--that he’d like to try it. Either they would succeed or not. In the case of failure, it would give them more time before looking for a new place. Kakashi suspected that Sasuke’s imaginings of what the neighbors might have heard recently had influenced his decision. It probably wasn’t the most objective way to decide, but at least Sasuke had finally given him an answer. Kakashi didn’t know how this would affect the unacknowledged tensions between them. He sighed. Like it or not, caring for Sasuke was his duty. If moving to a house in the middle of the forest would be best him, then he was prepared to work hard to get them there. Besides…they were two S-rank ninja. How hard could it be?


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Random author's notes:

I debated the use of various synonyms for hospital gown in this part. (For one, I couldn't remember it was a hospital gown. I kept thinking smock was almost-but-not-quite the right word.) I consistently referred to it as a johnny. But then, when the spell-checker questioned it, I did a little research, and it is now mostly a gown in the story. I figured it would be a johnny from Kakashi's fairly informal perspective. I tossed "smock" out the window completely because I kept thinking of artists wearing smocks, which made me think of Kakashi in a smock and beret, doing a painting. It was a ridiculous image. (Of course, using gown makes me think of Kakashi in a red carpet event celebrity-woman's gown with sequins and a feather boa and stuff...but it's better than smock!)

Also, I still have come to no conclusion on the smart quotes issue. I didn't even bother looking for turned around apostrophes this time. Oh, how the mighty have crumbled!

I'm going to kick back and not even look at chapter eight until tomorrow. My brain is still buzzing from completing chapter seven.

Later!

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