#so this means when i last watched naruto i got farther than when i last read naruto.

[orcelito]

Man I really hadn't gotten as far in the manga as I thought. I just finished ep 267 of shippuden and it's gearing up for the Gaara vs his dad fight, which I remember being where I dropped off in the manga. Bc I'd been keeping up with new chapters for a while, but with all the war talk... idk it just didn't capture 14 year old me that much. So I stopped keeping up.

Now, though. I find all the war tactics interesting hfkshdk it has me wanting to play a fire emblem game again. Hmmmmmm

[ayyyeisa]

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Pairing: Eren Jaeger x Mikasa Ackerman

Word Count: 9.7k

Content: Modern! AU, fluff, angst, best-friends-to-lovers trope

Content Warnings: PTSD, alludes to alcohol

Summary: Childhood best friends Eren and Mikasa go through a series of ups and downs throughout their life, struggling to realize what exactly their relationship is

Notes: Thank you to everyone who helped edit this piece! I really appreciated all the feedback you gave me <3

Prologue

They’ve always been told that they’ve been friends since the moment they were born, and it was difficult to argue against it because it really did feel like it’s been a lifetime of friendship. There has never been a moment where one isn’t with the other. It had never been just Eren, and it had never been just Mikasa. No matter where they were and when it was, it was always (and always will be) Eren and Mikasa. The girl, Mikasa, even claimed to have known her friend Eren in her life before, and although he'd never admit it in front of anyone but Mikasa (in fear that his older brother would make fun of it), he did too. At 28, their friendship definitely had quite a few ups and downs, but if they learned one thing during their years of being best friends it was that they both wanted one thing more than anything in the world: to be with each other. That was it. It didn’t matter, when, where, with who, or for what reason. Just to be in the presence of one another was enough to make them happy.

27 Years Ago (4 months old)

Eren and Mikasa were born just barely two months apart, so it was no surprise that they wouldn’t even remember meeting as babies. As their parents were good friends, the couples jokingly tried to make their children be friends too, by making sure they saw each other frequently. Mikasa and Eren’s moms held their babies across from one another so they could see each other again. It was the first time they officially met, excluding the time the Ackerman family came to visit Carla when she gave birth to Eren. The moment baby Eren had set his big, forest green eyes onto Mikasa’s brown ones, he had tried to reach out to her, going as far as untangling himself from the red scarf (a gift given at his baby shower, though because of his size, could not be used as an actual scarf yet) that his mom used to swaddle him. Unfortunately, from his lack of motor skills, the little girl was awoken by Eren's hand. Mikasa shrieked, upset that she was pulled from her sleep. Zeke, Eren's senior by ten years, freaked, immediately apologizing to Mikasa's mom about Eren. "I'm so sorry Auntie! I'm sure Eren didn't mean it. Please don't be mad."

The woman just let out a light-hearted laugh. "It's alright Zeke. Look, Mikasa is fine now. Besides, her and Eren seem to be getting along pretty well," she said as she watched the two babies looking at each other, arms flailing like an octopus's legs in an attempt to reach each other. Mikasa had gotten a hold of an end of Eren’s swaddle scarf and was lightly tugging at it, while Eren continued to reach forward until his small hand lightly touched Mikasa’s forehead. They were giggling, almost as if they were keeping a secret.

23 Years Ago (5 years old)

It was their first day of first grade. They had been smart enough to go to school a year early. Yes, they. Mikasa refused to start school without Eren, and he refused to go without Mikasa. They were a team, never leaving each other’s side. The teachers were a bit surprised at first when they refused to sit with different people, but they soon got the message. Many actually found it quite cute. Eren had many girls crushing on him (yes, he was a very cute boy, and eventually grew up to be a handsome man). Although the girls didn’t completely understand their emotions at that age, they refused to believe that the cute boy prefered Mikasa over all of them. This of course was bad for Mikasa since it led her to having enemies from a young age. Even if she didn’t need total protection from them, she still had Eren to help. He was, however, useless when his own fangirls chased him around the playground. Though he always proudly claimed "As if I would even think of hitting a girl,” Mikasa was there to help him out when they chased him.

Not even a week in, Eren had met a boy named Armin-- a short and shy young blonde, who always seemed to be in the little library corner of the classroom. He was as smart as Misaka and Eren, if not smarter, therefore he also started a year early. The older boys were constantly making fun of Armin for his short stature, yet what caught Eren’s eyes the most was how no matter the power difference, Armin did not seem to back down. Even as the bullies picked and teased at him, he held his head high.

When Eren approached one day to ask why, Armin would simply state “I haven’t lost yet if I refuse to back down.” And it was that bravery, even in the most dire of situations, that had Eren grinning.

Hands on his hips, he announced, “my name is Eren, but you probably already knew that. And that girl over there,” Eren paused to point at Mikasa, who was watching from across the room to make sure Eren wasn’t getting himself into trouble, “is Mikasa. Let’s all be friends. Mikasa! C’mere! This is Armin and he’s super cool and smart.” After gesturing her over, he turns back to Armin with a grin on his face. “Mikasa is super cool too. She’s smart like you, and really strong. She’s my best friend, and I’ve known her my entire life. I just know we’ll all get along,” he said happily while readjusting his scarf.

And right he was, for that was the beginning of the trio’s epic friendship.

21 Years Ago (7 years old)

He took her hand, and led her to his horse. Just like how the leaves were swept away by the wind, so were they. If you watched, you’d see the horse getting smaller and smaller as they rode farther away. But maybe, if you listened, you would hear the princess’s and prince’s joyful laughter- a truly happy ever after ending for them.

“No, no, no, no!” That’s not what happened in my dream! If I remember correctly, we lived in a castle!” Eren exclaimed. He didn’t know where Mikasa got that dream before.

“Well, I’m just telling you what I saw in my dream. Maybe you’re the one with bad memory,” she snapped back, a frown on her face as she lightly tugged on the red scarf he always kept around his neck.

For the past couple months, they had been dreaming of being together in a number of lives. They often fought about them in front of Armin, constantly asking him which one of the two dreamt the right dream. Poor Armin. Luckily, the boy had a knack for reading any and every book he could find, and he decided to do something about it before the fight could escalate again.

“Maybe you two remembered different parts of your old life, and maybe even different lives. You never know, you could have been a prince or princess more than once,” he proposed.

Mikasa’s brows quirk in confusion. “You think so?” she asked.

Eren, on the other hand, fully trusted the other boy, knowing just how smart he was from all the reading he’s done. Grinning, he proudly stated,“Don’t doubt Armin, Mikasa. He’s super smart. I bet he’s right with just about everything.”

“Really?” the girl excitedly asked. “Wait, so Armin, do you know how babies are made?”

Omake:

Eren: “Of course he does! He read it in a book and told me. A stork plucks a baby from a pond and delivers it at night.”

19 Years Ago (9 years old)

“We were super cool ninjas with powers! Like Naruto!” Eren exclaimed, jumping, kicking, and punching the air as if he was fighting an imaginary person. His red scarf danced and swayed along with him as he energetically moved around. He briefly paused to glance at Mikasa, excited to see her reaction, when he saw her expression. It had his previously bright, green eyes dulling into a light grey color. Furrowing his eyebrows, he asked, “You okay Mikasa?”

She sat there, a worried look on her face. “Eren, will my mom be okay?” Even though she was young, she knew something went wrong when her mom had her. Her mom was always happy, yet sad when talking about Misaka's birth. She overheard one night from her parents that having Mikasa was very difficult for them, let alone having another child.

This question always broke his heart- no matter how many times he’s heard it. He stared at her for a moment before slowly walking to her, unwrapping his scarf off his neck. He stopped right in front of her-- her head right below his chin-- before taking his scarf in two hands and wrapping it around her neck instead. Finishing up the last loop, he messily placed the last few inches on top of her head before taking a seat next to her on the couch.

“I don’t know Mikasa. I don’t know. But you’re going to be okay, I promise.”

Eren had said “you’re” not “it’s,” and she couldn't be more thankful. The little boy could not promise that everything would be okay, but he could promise that she would. Why? Because she still had a home. Because he was there. And he always would be.

“I’m right here. And if you ever need more comfort, whenever and wherever we are, I’ll just wrap that scarf around you again,” he stated confidently. He hugged Mikasa, who in turn hugged him back before they laid down facing each other.

“You’ll really do it? You’ll wrap the scarf around me just like you did in the dream I told you I had last night? That one’s my favorite dream-- but I like all of our other dreams too. Promise me we’ll always talk about them. No matter how old we are, we’ll still tell them to each other, okay? Promise me,” Mikasa prompted as she rested her hand in between them.

It was no surprise when Eren gave her a small smile while stating “Promise,” before reaching out with his hand to interlock his fingers with Mikasa’s.

18 Years Ago (10 years old)

At ten years old, Eren was starting to believe what the other boys in his grade were saying about girls. At first, he tried to fight back and ignore their stupid antics, but he hated the fact that people thought Mikasa was stronger than him. He didn’t want her protection; he wanted to protect her.

“Why does she always speak for you, anyway?” one of them would ask.

“She’s a girl; shouldn’t you be stronger?” another would add.

“Don’t forget that girls have cooties.”

“She’s just plain scary too.”

Eren could feel his cheeks heat up at the comments, and if the boys were paying close attention, they would’ve seen his eyes turn a stormy grey. Whether it was from embarrassment of being below Mikasa, or anger of someone daring to badmouth her, he didn’t know.

“Don’t say that about Mikasa. Girls should be strong, and there’s nothing wrong with not being quiet and dainty,” he loudly proclaimed. But while his heart was burning to continue defending Mikasa, a part of him couldn’t help but hate the situation he was in. Why was Mikasa always the one to protect him, and why did it bother him so much?

Weeks had passed, and Mikasa noticed how Eren seemed to be avoiding her. Was it what everyone was saying about them? Or was it something else? The only other thing she could think of was when she gave him a nice punch (a well-deserved punch at that) for being an idiot and getting into trouble again. Because of him, they both had to stay in the classroom writing apology letters during recess-- it’s not like she was going to let him fight those bullies alone. But he couldn’t be THAT mad at her, could he? The jerk sort of deserved it. It broke her. But, Mikasa being Mikasa, she decided to confront him today.

“Eren, why are you ignoring me? Are you okay? Did something happen?” she asked.

“I’m not ignoring you, okay? Why can’t you just let me be and do my own thing. You’re not my mom, and I'm not your kid brother. I don’t need you around all the time, and I definitely don’t always need your help.” Eren spat, irritated.

Just as he was about to leave, Mikasa spoke again. “So you’re saying that I’m not important.”

Eren, caught off guard, froze. “No! I never--”

“You’re saying that those other boys, your other friends, are more important than me and that what they think matters more than me.” Mikasa clarified, tears starting to swell up in her eyes.

...1 second...

...2 seconds…

Gears were turning in Eren’s head, realizing what he’d almost done to their friendship-- what he’d almost done to Mikasa, his Mikasa, his best friend. He could feel his anger subside, and Mikasa saw his grey eyes slowly brighten to green. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. Why don’t you come over today? We can play tag and hide and seek… Or I could even play with the dolls you made. You made one of me, right? Just the two of us. I promise this won’t happen again.”

“Good. I like Auntie Carla’s cooking. We’re walking home from school together, okay? Like old times,” she simply stated before walking away. She was not going to take any chances of Eren saying no. Of course, Mikasa expected his previous response. As much as Eren had been avoiding her, she truly trusted him to always come back. He always did. She could bet her life (and heart) on it.

17 Years Ago (11 years old)

Lunch was going well for the first day of 6th grade. It was an odd transition from eating with classmates in their grade level to being able to eat with just about anyone that attended their school. Eren, Mikasa, and Armin were finishing up their lunch when they heard a voice.

“Your long black hair is… really beautiful, by the way,” a boy with ash-brown hair shyly says to Mikasa. His blush was evident on his light skin and he could barely look at the girl. His name was Jean Kirstein, a new classmate of the trio’s; and he annoyed Eren to no end. Who did this guy think he was? It was their first year at South Paradis Junior High-- there were so many other elementary schools that fed into here that it was unlikely that they’d know all their classmates. And yet, this boy was already coming straight up to Mikasa and complimenting her hair. Mikasa was a rare beauty and Eren’s best friend; she deserved the best and only the very best. He wasn’t going to let some horse face of a boy take a chance with her.

Armin noticed Eren’s frown and how his eyes were a dark grey. He honestly considered teasing him: “Of course you’d be the petty, jealous type.” That’s all he had to say. It was fairly easy, and Armin was quite sure that voicing that thought would have Eren in a stuttering mess trying to deny it all. He’d probably be so busy denying it that he would’ve spent more time arguing with Armin than acting on his jealousy. Though against his better judgement, Armin kept his mouth shut, allowing Eren to speak up.

“Mikasa,” Eren said softly as he grabbed a piece of her hair, “aren’t you trying out for the martial arts team? You should cut your hair. You could get into an accident.” Eren didn’t even bother glancing at Jean; he opted for keeping his gaze on Mikasa as he waited for an answer.

“Yeah… you’re right. I should probably cut it,” she stated as she absentmindedly grabs the same strand Eren was holding, their fingers grazing one another in the process. Eren would never admit it, but his fingers burned right where his and Mikasa’s briefly touched. The physical contact didn’t last long, but he could still feel the warmth she emulated when he went to bed that night. He didn’t know why, though.

13 Years Ago (15 years old)

It wasn’t until sophomore year of high school that Eren realized just why he felt that way-- why he always had the urge to protect Mikasa to the point that her being stronger than him made him angry, why he was always hit with an overwhelming feeling of jealousy whenever Jean was anywhere near her, why his skin started burning at her slightest touch. It wasn’t until sophomore year of high school that Eren realized just why he started to look at his best friend a little differently, why she always lingered in his thoughts a bit longer and a bit more than everyone else.

He was, unfortunately, stupid enough to make homecoming plans without Mikasa. Last year, the two of them and Armin had all gone together, but Armin was finally going with Annie this year. It was of the utmost obviousness that those two had something going ever since she transferred to their school in 7th grade. Annie was a quiet girl who usually kept to herself, maybe occasionally speaking with Bertholdt and Reiner since they transferred from the same school. But otherwise, it seemed as if only Armin was able to break through her shell. It was honestly quite ironic how Eren and Mikasa often teased Armin for his incapability to express his feelings, when he could’ve easily pointed out theirs. The ache in his heart when Annie was away --the way he constantly missed her and wished she was around-- was no different from what Eren and Mikasa secretly told Armin when they were apart. How could Eren and Mikasa not know?

“Historia asked me to homecoming,” Eren had told Mikasa one night after they both respectively finished martial arts and baseball practice. He could see the small glare she gave him, as she stared at him for what felt like hours without saying a word.

“Okay, then just ask her out.” Mikasa didn’t even try to hide her annoyance.

“It’s not like that. I don’t-- There’s nothing-- We’re not like that. I think she’s just pretty bummed that Ymir moved and needs a friend. You know she doesn’t have that many ‘cause her dad’s been sheltering her. You can come with. I told her that I was planning on going with you,” Eren replied. It’s not like he wanted Mikasa to feel left out or unimportant. One of his friends needed his help, and he would never-- could never-- turn his back on a friend. They were the most important people in the world to him, almost on the same level as his parents, Armin, and Mikasa. Of course he would be there if one of them ever needed a hand.

And it was because Mikasa knew him so well that she tried to control herself. Mikasa wanted to argue-- wanted to tell Eren that there were plenty of other people Historia could’ve asked. She had Sasha, Connie, and Jean too. She could’ve even asked her. Why did it have to be specifically Eren? She was jealous, she acknowledged that, because all she ever wanted was to be near Eren. The thought of him belonging to some other girl hurt so badly. For him to have another home besides her, for her to not be able to call him her home-- she didn’t know if she wanted to even be alive if that were to happen. Eren was everything to her. But another part of her just wanted to let it be. If Eren was happy, and as his best friend, shouldn’t she be happy for him too? All she ever wanted was to be near him. Romantic relationship or not, she already had that. Eren cared about her and Armin more than anyone in the world; she has everything she’s asked for. Shouldn’t that be enough?

“No, it’s ok. You don’t need to explain. She needs a friend, and I think you should go. Jean and I were talking in class today. He actually offered for us to join their group because Sasha and Connie wanted to do a whole extravagant group meetup, with pictures and food and everything. I’ll just tag along with them,” her lips drew into a straight line in an attempt to smile. She knew Eren well enough to know that he knew --that she knew-- that he knew that it was most definitely not okay. But to her dismay, neither acknowledged the elephant in the room nor the growing tension between them.

Eren didn’t want to. He was too busy feeling the blood rushing through his ears at the mention of Jean asking Mikasa out. There was only one other time he remembered feeling this jealous-- it had been all that time ago, when they first met Jean back in 6th grade. The horse face had told Mikasa her long, black hair was beautiful, and while Eren agreed, it pissed him off to no end that someone other than him was looking at Mikasa. Of course, it was no surprise that many boys and girls were looking at her-- she was beautiful and strong and everything that a woman should be. But having random people look at her didn’t compare to the jealousy he felt when it came to Jean. Eren wanted Mikasa all to himself. But what right did he have to whine and complain when he was the one to bring up taking Historia to the dance? Jealousy was an ugly feeling, and he hated how accustomed he had gotten to feeling it. Stupid Jean, stupid world, stupid homecoming, stupid him. Oh how he hated himself more than ever for putting himself in that situation. All he ever wanted was to be with Mikasa, and here he was doing the opposite-- here he was starting a small rift between them. One stupid statement, and he already felt far, far away from home.

12 Years Ago (16 years old)

It was concerning, really, how months later, Eren and Mikasa still couldn’t address the divide between them. While the two often got into small arguments before, they were usually solved within a week, if not immediately. This was the first time that it ever lasted more than a few days, if this could even be considered an argument. They were talking, but something felt off-- both of them could feel it. Mikasa didn’t want to push boundaries. Eren was still her friend; he was safe and nearby, so could she really complain? As for Eren, he could feel the ache of Mikasa’s absence run deeper than his heart. It made him sick in a way he couldn’t completely describe— like he was homesick or something.

While he saw her everyday at school, she often paired up with Armin or Jean instead. While he ate lunch with her at the same table as their friend group, she usually spent her time listening to Sasha ramble on and on about meat and food and the so-called cute senior in her culinary class named Niccolo. Even when he was sitting right next to her in the driver’s seat as he dropped her home after practice, their conversations ran shallow. He missed their inside jokes and their talks about their dreams. For months, he’d been wanting to tell her his recurring dream of one of their past lives. How every night, his sleep would send him to the peaceful mountains of Switzerland, where he lived in a tiny cottage with her. They were alone-- isolated from society-- and they often needed to fish, hunt, and gather their own food, but they were together. They were together and they were happy, and God help him, that’s all he ever wanted.

He wondered that of the many other dreams she’s had of what they presumed to be their past lives, if she saw that same dream too. He hoped so. He hoped that when he was away, she felt that same ache too. He hoped that in the same way no one could ever replace her in his heart, no one would ever replace him in hers. Call him selfish, but he wanted Mikasa all to himself-- wanted to be the only person that would ever claim her heart. He didn’t want anyone-- not Jean, not even Armin-- to have Mikasa. So why was he letting her slip through his fingers?

It wasn’t until months later, near the end of summer, that the two finally resolved whatever issue was going on. With school out, Historia rarely saw anybody outside her friends, and even then, she was only really comfortable around Eren-- only he knew the pain of missing someone. Historia knew he was suffering. He never told her-- never really told anyone except Armin-- how he felt about Mikasa, but Historia could see the longing in his eyes whenever he gazed at Mikasa and the sadness they held whenever he talked about her. And it was for this reason that she refused to leave Eren alone. He needed a friend, and so did she. There was no way she’d abandon him-- no way she would abandon anyone in need.

Over summer, the two started volunteering at homeless shelters and orphanages. They’d occasionally invite the whole group over: Sasha, Connie, Jean, Mikasa, Armin… There were days that the seven of them would volunteer during the day and go out for dinner in the evening to catch up. But the amount of time that the group met up was nothing in comparison to the amount of time Historia and Eren spent together. It was evident in the way they talked at their group outings, and it didn’t help with the growing tension between Eren and Mikasa either.

Seeing them together, seeing them so happy-- seeing Eren so happy without her-- had Mikasa feeling things. Was she missing something-- a component or aspect that maybe was pushing Eren away from her? Or was she too overbearing? What did Historia have that she didn’t? There must be a reason why Eren seemed to be wanting to spend more time with the other girl as opposed to her. She missed seeing Eren’s smile and his happy, green eyes. She was both angry and hurt, and while she knew she had no right to speak, for she was Eren’s best friend, not his lover, she could only take so much before snapping.

She hadn’t meant to say it; at least, not out loud and most definitely not in front of Eren, but her jealousy got the better of her. Historia and Eren were once again telling the group about some project they went on the other week to help orphans in a different country. They were laughing and reminiscing about the troubles they went through during their time there when Mikasa spoke.

“We get it. You guys had a great time,” her voice dripping with disdain as she glared at Historia. It wasn’t until Mikasa noticed everyone staring at her that she realized the rudeness of what she had said. Hesitantly, she said “Sorry. I’ve, uhh, I’ve had a rough few… months. I’m just gonna go,” before hastily leaving the table.

“Wait!” Historia called after her.

“We haven’t even ordered anything yet, aren’t you hungry?” Jean added.

She ignored them both, though, and opted to continue walking out of the restaurant, even as the others tried to call out after her.

Armin used that distraction to nudge Eren’s side. “Eren,” he whispered sternly, grinding his teeth together. “It’s now or never. Don’t let it get worse. Are you really going to let her go?”

And it was because Armin knew both Mikasa AND Eren so well that he didn’t doubt that it was all he needed to say to get the guy moving. Not even a second later, Eren was scrambling off his chair and past his friends as he hurriedly followed Mikasa.

“Mikasa! Mikasa, wait. What was that? What’s wrong?” he asked. One of his hands was gripping her arm and holding her in place. He had tugged at it lightly so that Mikasa was slightly facing him, and his eyes desperately searched hers for an answer.

“Nothing,” she stated, trying (but failing) to keep her composure. It’s not like she could come out and say “Oh, I’m jealous of Historia. I hate how she spends a lot of time with you because I secretly love you, Eren.” She could barely admit that fact herself, let alone confess it to someone else.

Eren stared at her in wait, desperately wanting to know what they had and where they stood. Anyone watching could’ve easily seen it in his eyes. “Please,” he begged when she remained stubbornly quiet. “Please tell me what’s wrong. Don’t you miss the way things used to be? What’s happened between us?”

“Historia--”

“Historia and I are just friends! I already told you that, back during homecoming. Why did we drift apart just because of that? Why did it seem like you weren’t interested in talking to me anymore? Why did we stop hanging out everyday?” Eren urged Mikasa to answer. He was already fighting back tears, when one question that had been nagging at him the past few months made its way out his mouth. “Why did we stop talking about our dreams?! Didn’t we always promise to talk about them? Have you given up on a useless idiot like me?”

Seeing Eren cry stopped Mikasa in her tracks. She stopped trying to get her arm out of Eren’s grip and settled for looking at him straight in the eyes, near tears herself. “Eren,” she says with soft urgency. It was only then, when he felt her sad gaze on him and lack of resistance against his grip, did Eren completely let go of Mikasa. She grabbed both his shoulders, giving him the slightest shake. “Don’t say that about yourself. Please. You’re not a useless idiot. It’s just-- I… really missed you. I’m sorry. I know you told me that you and Historia were just friends, but I didn’t like how jealous I felt. I wanted you only by my side, because it’s always been Mikasa and Eren, and Eren and Mikasa, and seeing you with someone else-- I… I don’t know. I guess, I’m not used to having to be apart from you. More than anything in the world, all I want is to be near you. When you kept visiting Historia and spending the summer with her, it just felt like you didn’t need me around anymore, or that you maybe didn’t want me around,” Mikasa confessed, her blush evident.

If Eren heard her correctly, then maybe she was feeling the same ache that he’d been feeling. Maybe, just maybe, she did love him the way that he loved her-- not as a sibling nor a best friend, but something more. He raised both his hands to grab her face, never breaking eye contact.

She could see how his previously gray eyes had started shifting over to green. Mikasa lifted her hands to hold onto his wrists needing to stabilize herself, as she felt like she would faint at any moment with the way Eren was holding her. Since when did his touch start making her knees so weak? And since when did his gaze start making her self-conscious and nervous?

“Mikasa,” Eren whispered, closing his eyes. He didn’t think he’d have the courage to look at her when their faces were close-- so close that their foreheads were nearly touching and he could feel the warmth of her shaky breaths on his face. “I’ll always want you with me,” he whispered softly as he tried to lean in. He wanted to kiss her-- wanted to know what it’d feel like to have her lips on his-- but what if he was wrong about his assumptions? What if Mikasa didn’t feel the same ache in her heart as he did? What if he was just like family to her and nothing more? If he kissed her and he was wrong, it’d for sure ruin their friendship, and the rift between them that they were currently trying to heal would be damaged for good.

He was too busy worrying about all that to realize that Mikasa, too, wanted to kiss him. He didn’t even realize the slight tilt up of her head nor the way her fingers lightly squeezed his wrists before she stopped in realization that he wasn’t actually going to kiss her. Neither of them wanted to make the first move in fear of ruining what they had-- whatever it was. And so instead, Eren went limp and rested his forehead against hers, eyes still closed, and Mikasa did the same. They didn’t move until Mikasa’s stomach growled.

“I knew you were hungry. It’s 7 o’clock and you usually eat an early brunch,” Eren laughed.

“Eren, your eating habits are worse than mine. You’re probably hungrier than me. Let’s go back inside,” Mikasa snapped back with a smile.

Things felt normal again and both were the happiest they’ve been in months. Their friendship was okay. Romantic relationship or not, they were still Eren and Mikasa, and Mikasa and Eren-- they were still each other's best friend. They were together, and to them, that’s all that ever mattered in the world. They were home.

10 Years Ago (18 years old)

Many moments from the next few years were filled with awkward silence or slight tension, ones caused by the fight they had at 16. It was like the rift never fully healed, and that made it much easier to get into small fights. Maybe it was because much of the problem itself never went away. The arguments grew from insecurities and miscommunication; they were two teenagers stupidly in love, yet too scared to say anything. Regardless, it was Eren and Mikasa, and so the fights never lasted too long.

It was the last weeks of summer before the two had to go off to college, and unlike two summers ago, Eren made sure that they were making every last moment count. From getting ice cream to hiking at nearby state parks, Eren came up with plans to hangout every single day. He had to, especially because they’d be spending the next four years apart. Both were originally going to Purdue University, along with quite a few of their friends. Eren was going for aviation, Mikasa for elementary education, Armin for political science with a minor in oceanography, and Jean for business.

Unfortunately, times were cruel and news channels were filled with stories of a possible onslaught of World War III. It seemed surreal, but the growing tensions across many countries of the world had many people worrying if it was actually possible. Eren, in particular, found it interesting enough to change his mind about college. He still wanted to fly-- wanted to know the feeling of freedom-- but first and foremost, he felt a strong duty to protect his country because it’s where the people he loved lived. If the possibility of an oncoming World War III was true, Eren wanted to be prepared. He still hadn’t brought it up to Mikasa or Armin, his decision being so last minute.

He had spent countless nights contemplating on whether he should go or not. If he entered the military, he’d be signing his life away for four years. That’s four years of not being able to always see Mikasa, assuming he’d be able to hide it from her. He just had to keep his decision a secret long enough for Mikasa to not be able to follow him in. Eren knew that she wouldn’t hesitate to drop everything if it meant being able to be with and protect him, but if Eren cared about her the way he claims he does, shouldn’t he be protecting her too? They should be equals, not whatever this was. Just this once, he wanted to be the one protecting, even if it meant being apart from her.

And so, that’s how he came to the decision the night before Decision Day to enter the military as opposed to Purdue. It broke his heart and worried him to no end that for the next four years, he’d be far away from Mikasa-- far away from home. What if something happened while he was gone? Something bad, and he wasn’t there to help her through it? Sure, Jean and Armin would be there, and Mikasa would surely meet other people too. But would they be able to be there for her in the way she deserved? He knew Mikasa better than anyone else, even Armin, so could anyone really live up to his expectations of what he wanted for Mikasa? All these questions ran through his head as he drove Mikasa back home from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, another one of the trips he planned.

Mikasa, not one to not notice Eren’s changes in behavior, glanced over at the driver’s seat, wondering why Eren suddenly got quiet. “Eren?”

At the sound of her voice, Eren was immediately pulled out of his thoughts. But one look at her, and he was filled with sorrow again. Soon, he’d have to leave her and it’d be another four years or so before they would be able to return to the old days, if going back to the old days was even possible. For all he knew, this could be the very last time they’d talk to each other like this again. These last few days could be the very last time that Eren and Mikasa, and Mikasa and Eren are a thing. He wanted to make the most out of it-- whatever time he had left. “Mikasa,” he stated before pulling over to the side of the road. He wanted to be sure he could clearly see her face, without any distractions. “Let's get out of here,” he continued, looking her in the eye.

She stared at him, observed his movements, the color of his eyes. They were a mix of green and gray, much lighter than his usual forest green eyes that signaled his happiness, but not exactly the stormy grey eyes he had when he was angry or sad either. It confused her, because in the rare times that she didn’t know what he was feeling, his eye color usually gave it away. But this time, it’s like he was both happy and sad. “What do you mean?”

Eren was practically quivering in fear that she’d be angry or reject what he was about to offer. But he kept reminding himself that these last few days would be the last time he’d see her in a long while. They’d be apart for the first time since they were born, and he wasn’t sure how either of them would be able to handle it. He looked away to gather his nerves before turning back around and taking a deep breath.

“Don’t be mad with what I’m about to say. Please.” Eren waited for her nod before continuing. “The night before decision day, I actually decided I was going to be joining the military-- the army. And before you even think of telling me you’ll join too, don’t. You needed to decide by decision day, so there’s no point in joining now if we’re going to be in different regiments. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I just wanted to do this to protect everyone, while not influencing any of your decisions to pursue your dreams…” he paused again, waiting for Mikasa’s reaction.

The girl wanted to scold him for making such a hasty and dangerous decision. She didn’t know where to begin. The military was a four-year commitment, which meant that they’d be apart for four years. Would she be able to handle that? They had never been apart for anywhere near that long. And what if the military changes him? Even if he didn’t get deployed, he’d still have to go through basic training and the like. She had heard stories of how the military, even just camp, changed people. What if some part of him never comes back from that? Would he still be her Eren-- the same Eren?

“Mikasa, stop thinking about it. Let’s just… enjoy what time we have left of summer break, okay? I told you this because I was hoping you’d say yes to what I’m about to ask you. For the last few days of summer, let’s go to Switzerland, in Crans-Montana-- in between the mountains where we went on that band trip junior year. Remember how Armin and I climbed the balcony on the third story of the building, just so we could spend the night talking about the most random things? We stayed up till sunrise and nearly got caught staying together in the same bedroom,” he chuckled. “Let’s go there again. Just the two of us. Mikasa, come with me. It wouldn’t be home with you.”

Mikasa, who was shocked and deep in thought, could only manage to give him a small smile before taking the opportunity to reach over the console and grab one of Eren’s hands. “One condition: you wrap this scarf around me one last time, okay?”

6 Years Ago (22 years old)

“Hey Mikasa, have you heard from Eren? I don’t think I’ve received any letters from him in a while,” Armin said.

Their usual group was having a meet-up at their favorite restaurant, a celebration for finishing finals; they’d be graduating in less than a month’s time. And yet, there was a sort of sad or empty feeling to the group, as Eren wouldn’t be home for another 6 months or so. He had to finish his military contract, and there was no way for him to visit at the moment due to his most recent deployment.

“No, I haven’t; the last letter was from a few weeks ago. I think he’s busy. Last I heard, he was deployed somewhere in the Middle East,” Mikasa replied softly.

“Have you told him already?” asked Jean. He gently placed his arms across her shoulders from his seat next to her.

Even from across the table, Armin could see the ring glistening on his finger. He had read somewhere that only about 7% of men actually wore engagement rings; he wasn’t surprised that Jean was of that percentage. It matched the diamond on Mikasa’s hands that were resting on the table. Armin didn’t know how to feel about the entire thing. Mikasa did genuinely look happy, and she deserved every bit of it. So did Jean, especially after all that he’d done for Mikasa when Eren wasn’t able to be there for her. It wasn’t really in his place to judge— what did he know about love? It had taken him years to spend time with Annie, and even then, it took many more awkward conversations and longing glances for them to establish the bond between them. So maybe it did make sense for Mikasa to accept Jean’s proposal. While everyone felt Eren’s absence, he was sure that he and Mikasa felt it the most.

Jean was always there to comfort Mikasa, even when Armin couldn’t. He never overstepped his boundaries, knowing that it was improper to make a move on someone whose heart belonged to someone else, but as the time between Eren’s letters lengthened, the more Jean found himself attending events with Mikasa, or being left alone to study for classes together since Armin wanted surprise Annie, until one day she started smiling at him almost the same way as she did to Eren. A part of him initially wondered if Mikasa really did love him, or if she just appreciated his presence. But those doubts didn’t last long because it just wasn’t like Mikasa to do something like that.

Mikasa was glad that he did believe her when she said she loved him, because she did. Jean was kind and funny; he was hardworking, empathetic, and an amazing leader. She saw how he treated his peers and subordinates with respect and often put himself in their place to make sure they received the best treatment. He also smiled at her in this certain way. She couldn’t describe it, but it made her heart flutter. She loved having him around because he was one of the only people that filled the void of Eren’s absence. She loved when he would pull out a chair for her on lunch and dinner dates, when he brought her breakfast at her dorm in the mornings, and when he helped her put on her jacket even when she didn’t need help. She loved him-- Jean; she really did. But she also knew a part of her would never really let go of Eren, not completely.

“No, I haven’t,” Mikasa stated hesitantly. “I thought he should find out in person, especially since it’d be awkward for me to ask him to be my maid of honor when he’s not even a girl,” earning snickers from Sasha and Connie, who were also seated with them.

“Wait, so you guys have been engaged for months now, and Eren still doesn’t know?” Annie asked, her voice blunt.

Armin lightly kicked Annie’s foot under the table. “Annie,” he softly warned. The two stared at each other as Jean attempted to break the awkward atmosphere.

“No, it’s all good. We wrote to him saying that we started dating, but I guess we’re waiting to tell him about the engagement. He’s on Mikasa’s side after all. He deserves to hear it from her, whenever she’s ready.”

. . . . .

It wasn’t until Annie and Armin were on their way home from lunch did Annie dare to speak again. “Correct me if I’m wrong,” she started. “But Jean’s just in denial that Mikasa is prolonging the engagement because a part of her will never stop loving Eren,” she tells Armin

“I don’t think he’s in denial… Just that, a part of him-- well, a part of all of us-- know that Eren will always have a place in Mikasa’s heart. It doesn’t mean she won’t move on with her life. Though, I will admit that I think Jean deserves someone who will love him completely.” Armin said. And though Annie remained silent, he knew her well enough to see the slight hesitation in her actions, as if she was contemplating on whether or not she should say something. “Eren’s always been adventurous, wanting to explore the world rather than stay here; he’s always been a small distance from Mikasa and me, no matter how close we try to be to him. I think--” he paused, trying to process his thoughts into words. “I think that he just needs time to understand what she means to him. They both do.”

1 Year Ago (27 years old)

The wait for Eren’s return came by slowly, and the way he took the news of Mikasa and Jean’s engagement was quite anti-climactic. Everyone in their friend group expected more, but he was just blank and glaze-eyed for what seemed like months after he returned home. Even years later, not much of his behavior changed. The military had not been what he expected. He went in excited to serve his country-- determined to protect his people and loved ones, no matter the sacrifices he had to make. But the horrors that awaited him were beyond anything he could imagine.

Everytime he closed his eyes, he could hear bombs, screaming, and gunshots, along with the sights of blood and blurred vision. He’d somewhat grown accustomed to it, at least on the outside. He no longer jolted at the slightest touch or immediately stood alert at loud noises. Unfortunately, he still felt far, far away. There were times when he didn’t feel like he was safe or at home, but in fear of worrying Mikasa and the others, he opted for staring blankly at his surroundings.

He could practically hear his mom nagging in his ear “How many times did I tell you to NOT join? Did I not tell you that the army isn’t worth it?”

Eren almost agreed. Almost. Because while a selfish part of him wished he stayed with Mikasa, he couldn’t exactly regret leaving. Yes, more than anything in the world, he wanted to be with her; It had been his dream when he was younger, and still was his dream now. But how could he compare his happiness to the lives of millions, or more importantly, his friends?

He hoped his unhappiness didn’t show too much-- hoped that his friends wouldn’t see how his jaw clenched in anger at the thought of not being able to be with Mikasa the way he was in his dreams.

But they did, at least, Armin and Mikasa did. They noticed because this new Eren, so emotionless and easily irritated, wasn’t him. It broke their hearts to see him so different. It broke Mikasa’s heart to see the caring and determined boy she grew up with-- the one that would do anything for his family and friends-- was just… gone. Her heart ached because she had waited so long, waited 4 years to see him again, only for it to seem like he never even came back. She wanted nothing more than to be able to hug him, ask him what the matter was, and tell him everything was going to be okay because she was there-- the same way he always did when she was out of it. She wanted to tell him she lov--. No, she couldn’t do that, because it wouldn’t be fair to Jean. It wouldn’t be fair to Jean who always cared about her well-being when Eren was gone, who never overstepped when he sensed something going on between her and Eren. It just wasn’t right for her to be saying any of that last part to Eren.

Not that it would change anything. It was like he was always angry. And whenever someone asked, he’d just rudely brush them off. Which is how Eren and Mikasa got into this position: as if the past few years have not already been filled with awkward glances and underlying tension, Eren and Mikasa were, once again, fighting.

Eren could only bite his cheek while shaking his head, “That’s just the thing, Mikasa. You don’t understand. You would never be able to, and you’ve just really been pissing me off lately. God, I hate you.”

“No, no you don’t. I know you, Eren,” she insisted softly.

He hated how it didn’t phase Mikasa, as if she was expecting him to say that or that his opinion didn’t matter to her. But while this was so, he hated even more her unwillingness to give up on him. Why wouldn’t she just let go. He doesn’t deserve any type of kidness-- not after abandoning her for some stupid dream in the military, not after letting some other man claim her, not after all the awful things he had to do while he was in the Middle East. He didn’t deserve any kindness from Mikasa-- he didn’t deserve her.

And yet, he was angry that Jean was with her, because even after everything Eren had done, he still wanted Mikasa to be his. He wasn’t mad at her-- God no, he could never be mad at her-- but he was mad at the entire situation and all his conflicting emotions.

His anger got the better of him, of course, and he continued speaking. “Don’t you think your life is so pitiful? I might be fucked up in the head, but at least I’m not stuck in a long engagement, working a regular 9-5 schedule like some robot who’s following orders. I actually have some interesting things going on in my life,” Eren sneered. He internally cringed at the harshness of his words when he saw Miaksa recoil. He hit her where it hurt, he was sure. Good. Maybe if she hated him, it’d be easier for him to move on with his life without her beside him.

It took Mikasa a second to recollect herself. She honestly wanted to cry, but with the way Eren had just treated her, she did not want to give him the satisfaction of it. “Okay,” she tried to calmly say. “You clearly don’t want me around, so I’m just going to go,” she stood up from the table they sat at before walking away. Maybe Eren was too far gone-- too far changed after his military service-- too bitter at how life turned out for him. She deserved better, right? It was okay to walk away after what just happened. Slowly taking off her red scarf --the scarf he had given her so many years ago when they were just 9 years old-- she didn’t dare to look back. It was too bad she didn’t-- if she did, she might’ve caught Eren shedding a tear before quickly wiping it away.

Present Day (28 years old)

“Mikasa, we need to talk,” Jean stated firmly. It had been months since Eren and Mikasa’s big fight, and while everyone in their friend group knew something happened, no one was actually sure what exactly went down. Years of being Eren and Mikasa’s friends taught them to stay out of it. They’d solve it eventually-- they loved each other too much to stay apart forever. Which is the thought that solidified Jean’s decision to do what he was about to do. “I think we should break our engagement,” Jean announced slowly and quietly, as if it pained him to say it-- it probably did.

Mikasa reached out to grab his hand, “Jean--” she started before pausing.

Jean outstretched his hand in a gesture to let him continue.

“I’ve thought about it a lot. There is no doubt in my mind that you do love me. I know that. But I also know that you’ll never love me in the same way you love Eren. Even after everything, you still have his scarf. Mikasa, love like what you guys have-- it doesn’t happen often. Don’t let him go,” Jean’s voice cracked at his own advice.

Mikasa couldn’t deny it-- she could only stare at him sadly while apologizing. What for? She didn’t know. Maybe for leading him on? Or not loving him as much as Jean deserved?

“Hey, it’s okay. I love you. I want you to be happy, and if that means letting you go, then I will learn to live with it,” Jean gave her a small smile.

It made Mikasa want to cry. She probably hurt him a lot, with him always knowing he wouldn’t live up to Eren, and yet here he was, being understanding, a gentleman. He was letting her go. “Thank you,” she whispered before she gently kissed his cheek.

And before Jean knew it, she was gone. Just like that. Everything seemed to run by in a blur that he hadn’t even realized how much time had gone. One second, he was watching Miaksa leave, and the next, he was sandwiched between Connie and Sasha at a bar. He had a drink in his hand that he didn’t even remember buying. Had he been drinking?

“Yo, you seem out of it, man,” Connie stated while hooking his arm around Jean. It earned him a nudge from Sasha, who muttered something about letting Jean wallow in his despair a little longer. He had just let Mikasa go after all-- someone who he’d loved for over a decade. “Uhh what I meant to say was, I hope you know that you deserve someone who will love you with all their heart, and all of their mind, body, and soul. Someday, you will find someone who makes you happy, then you’ll forget just how much this hurts,” Connie says, him and Sasha rubbing Jean’s back in comfort.

. . . . .

Mikasa was never one to back down from confrontation, so even she found it surprising when a week later, she still hadn’t talked to Eren. It’s not that she didn’t want to, but rather, didn’t know how. Luckily, Eren was impulsive as ever, and so everything seemed to fall back into place when he showed up at her doorstep one day.

“Hey,” he says with a short breath, as if he was trying to hide his exhaustion from running or whatever extraneous activity he was doing beforehand.

“Hi,” Mikasa replies, looking at his disheveled hair and the sweat-stained neckline of his shirt. Did he rush over here?

“I heard from Jean… about umm… about what happened,” he pauses, seeming to take a moment to gather his thoughts. “I’m sorry for all the trouble I caused you-- what I’ve been causing you. But I just wanted to tell you this before I lose my courage: I’ve uhh I’ve been having this dream for a while, practically forever. Of all our dreams, our past lives-- presumably, at least-- this one is my favorite. We were together in Switzerland, in this small cabin. There were trees everywhere and mountains in sight. Nothing ever really happened, except… normal everyday things. We hunted, fished, gathered wood… it was simple, but I was really, really really happy. I was happy because I was home with you. Those nights and my memories of that dream kept me going, even during my hardest times.” He notices how she was slowly registering what he said, so he gives it one last push. “What I’m trying to say is--”

“I know, sorry it took me a second,” Mikasa lightly laughs. “Why did you come back?” she dares to ask. It was a little awkward, like they haven’t been friends for the past 28 years.

Eren could only smile before grabbing her hands in between them, slightly hesitating. He grips them a little more tightly as if to stabilize himself. “Because we’re Eren and Mikasa, and Mikasa and Eren. Because you’re my best friend. Because I love you. Because you are my home, and I’ll always find my way home back to you.”

[wolf08]

Igniting the Fuse

A fic for @zutaraweek

Summary: Zuko can’t stand Katara’s obvious contempt towards him. Determined to fix their relationship, he asks Aang and Sokka for help, who, in turn, devise a series of team building exercises with the intention of sparking friendship between the water bender and the banished Prince. They hadn’t anticipated sparking something more. Pre- (and post-) Southern Raiders. Zutara.  

Available on A03 and FanFiction.net. 

Prompt: Loosely inspired by the prompt “Fuse” (Zutara Week 2020) Genre: Romance/Humour Words: 4293 Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender or any of its characters.

A/N: Hi! Please accept my humble offering to the ATLA fandom for Zutara week. :) I’ve only ever written fics for the Naruto verse, but I just finished ATLA last month and have been fangirling about Zutara and the Gaang dynamics ever since. When I learned that Zutara week was just around the corner, I just knew I had to write something. Enjoy. :)  

***

Igniting the Fuse

Now that he was part of the group of vagabond do-gooders (who he used to think were his sworn enemies), Zuko felt a sense of contentment and purpose like he’d never felt before.

It had been an excruciating uphill battle filled with awkward encounters and blows exchanged to finally convince them that he was on their side. But he’d persevered because Zuko just knew he was destined to be here, with them, to support their quest of defeating his father.

Thankfully, in the end, they accepted him.

Well, all except for the water bender, that is.

Katara, the last water bender from the Southern Water Tribe, who had the biggest heart and kindest smile that Zuko had ever seen, utterly despised him.

She made no effort to hide this fact, with how she always sat as far away from him as possible, sneered at his (attempted) jokes, and ignored him point-blank whenever he spoke.

As the Fire Nation’s banished Prince with a prominent scar on his face marking him as such, Zuko wasn’t unfamiliar with this type of treatment. But what made it different with Katara was that (a) she was avoiding him out of pure dislike – not fear (hell, he’d faced her in combat before and knew she could hold her own against him), and (b) it was Katara.

Why did it have to be her who hated him, of all people? She was level-headed, compassionate, and strong, in other words, she was an embodiment of everything that Zuko wished he himself could be.

And, not to mention, she was rather easy on the eyes and nice to be in the presence of (though, of course, Zuko would never dare admit this out loud).

Perhaps the worst part of all of this was that Zuko knew her hatred was justified. After she’d let her guard down in the catacombs of Ba Sing Se by confiding in him and offering to use her few drops of sacred water to heal Zuko’s scar (a gesture that Zuko would never ever forget), Zuko had responded by siding with her enemy and trying to kill her.

So, yeah, Katara had every right not to trust him ever again.

But that didn’t mean Zuko wasn’t going to give it his best shot anyways. After all, he was a changed man now. He was determined to reconcile for his sins. Earning Katara’s trust wasn’t just something he wanted – it was something he needed to fulfill his personal quest for redemption.

Not that Zuko had a clue where to begin.

After numerous fruitless attempts to force an interaction with her around camp like some school boy trying to get a girl’s attention, Zuko realized he needed help fixing his relationship with Katara.

He cast a wistful glance at Katara’s tent before turning towards the sea, where Aang and Sokka were currently fishing.

Zuko sighed and ran a hand through his shaggy, black hair. Despite being a little weird, Aang and Sokka were the most helpful sources of information around, with one of them being Katara’s brother and the other being, well, the Avatar. So he slipped off his shoes, hiked up his pants, and waded out to meet them.

Their fishing tactics were a rather theatrical sight, with Anng literally blowing fish out of the water with some air bending technique and Sokka spearing them as they flung into the air.

Zuko cleared his throat.

Aang, who was wearing nothing but his orange underpants, beamed at the sight of him. “Zuko! Have you come to help us fish?” he asked. “It’s not really my thing, but Sokka needed a hand.”

Zuko shook his head, folded his arms, and proceeded to explain his dilemma. The other boys listened attentively.

“Have you tried being, well, nice to her?” Sokka asked with raised eyebrows. “Katara likes everyone. It shouldn’t be that hard to get on her good side.”

Zuko rolled his eyes. “Of course I’ve tried being nice! But I guess I just suck at it.”

After a moment of deep thought, Aang’s eyes lit up. “I’ve got it!” he said, clapping his hands together. “We’ll do team building exercises to foster trust. When Katara sees that you can trust each other, I’m sure she’ll like you more.”

But Zuko wasn’t entirely convinced. “This isn’t Air Temple preschool, you know,” he grumbled.

“No, no, I think Aang’s onto something here,” Sokka said with a smirk. “No offense dude, but your social skills suck. Structured ice-breakers are exactly what you need.”

“What? My social skills don’t suck!” Zuko shot back, but Sokka just shook his head, still smirking.

Then, in a deep, mocking tone, Sokka said, “Hello! Zuko here. I sent an assassin after you. Can we be friends?”

Aang covered his mouth to stifle a laugh.

Zuko’s eyebrow twitched, his face burning. “Okay, fine. Let’s try your stupid team building then.”

“Great!” said Aang. “Let’s start after lunch. We’ll handle everything Zuko, so don’t you worry about a thing.”

***

In an effort to gain Katara’s support for their day of team building, Aang and Sokka selected an activity that she was sure to enjoy for the first exercise: surfing lessons – an activity that was, quite literally, right in Katara’s element.

It wasn’t a bad idea, Zuko admitted and side-eyeing Katara’s enthusiastic response to Aang’s proposal of the activity. Her blue eyes were brighter than he’d ever seen them.

Shortly after, the four of them, with the additions of Toph and Suki, were gathered around the shore, with the girls in their swimming attire (cropped shirts and shorts for all but Katara, who wore a white skirt overtop) and the boys in their shorts. Then, Sokka explained that there would be no surf boards.

“No surf boards? How’s that supposed to work for surfing?” Toph asked, voicing Zuko’s concerns.

Katara stood, a smile on her face. “I’ll bend the water to make you float – you’ve just got to balance,” she said. Toph raised her eyebrows and crinkled her nose and Zuko made every effort to refrain from making the same face.

The water bender proceeded to demonstrate. With her feet pressed to the rolling waves as if she were on a solid surface, she jumped and glided in a shower of water droplets, her arms outstretched, like she was sliding through snow or sand. In a way, it looked like she was dancing, Zuko observed, and he wondered if he could really do that too, so effortlessly.

The demonstration came to the end and Katara approached the group. “All right – who’s first?” she asked cheerily, while wringing water from her thick, brown hair.

Zuko avoided eye contact.

“I’ll go!” Suki beamed and hopping to her feet.

And said Kyoshi warrior, despite not being a water bender, made it look rather easy too, in Zuko’s opinion, his confidence boosting ever so slightly. Suki jumped and twirled on the water, laughing the entire time, clearly having a blast. Sokka wolf whistled as Suki neared the shore at the end of her turn. She met his eyes and blushed before leaping into his arms with a big smile.

Zuko watched the interaction from the corner of his eye and wondered if he could ever get Katara to feel that comfortable around him.

Yeah right.

Aang went next and he glided over the water with ease (though it was hard to tell if he was truly surfing or floating over the waves with air bending). Even Toph took a short turn, despite her obvious discomfort over being parted with solid ground.

“Zuko’s turn!” Aang exclaimed after everyone had gone, like he was afraid Katara would forget about him.

Zuko caught her gaze and was met with an icy stare. More like she doesn’t want me to have a turn.

He got to his feet and sloshed through the shallow water before turning to the group in anticipation.

With mixed emotions, he noticed that Katara was smiling at him now, her eyes bright once more. What’s with the sudden mood change? he wondered while returning the smile with much hesitation.

Then Katara raised her arms and he was off.

“Whoa!” he gasped, arms outstretched for balance, while the water carried him upwards and backwards, towards the sea. He pivoted and widened his stance for stability, while he adjusted to the strange sensation of a rapidly rolling current against his bare feet, and his total loss of control over where he was going.

Despite this, before long, Zuko began to relax, leaning into the waves’ winding motions, feeling a thrill with each dip and jump, as he climbed higher and higher and farther out to sea.

And then – SPLOOSH!

Like a rug being tugged from beneath his feet, the water supporting Zuko vanished, falling back to the sea – along with said fire bender.

He fell into the water in a rather undignified manner, limbs flailing. When he came up for air, spluttering, to his displeasure, just about everyone was doubled-over laughing.

Zuko gritted his teeth as he swam towards shore, glaring at the mischievous water bender.

“Oops,” she said with a shrug, though she didn’t look the least bit sorry.

Well that was a flop… literally, Zuko thought with a grimace as he trudged along the beach and shook water from his soaked hair.

Aang had the decency to try to look apologetic though tears were streaming down his face.

***

“The next activity better not end like that,” Zuko hissed when the boys regrouped. “How about we try something where she has to trust me this time? Because clearly the other way around doesn’t work.”

“Hm. Maybe you can teach everyone something. What are you good at Zuko?” Sokka asked.

“Fire bending.”

“Well, you can’t exactly teach everyone fire bending.”

“Oh, I know!” Aang piped up. “Zuko isn’t a bad dancer. He nailed the Dancing Dragon formation.”

Zuko dismissed the suggestion immediately. “That wasn’t a dance! And you’re out of your mind if you think I’d ever teach dancing lessons.”

A moment of silence passed while all three boys contemplated their next move.

“It’s probably best if I don’t hire another assassin and like… save her from it. Right?”

“Yes, Zuko. Best we table that idea.”

***

Zuko felt a little more confident about the second activity that Aang and Sokka planned for the group.

“We’re going rock climbing!” Aang exclaimed and gesturing to the ropes and makeshift pulleys he and Sokka had fastened to the cliff side earlier. For the most part, in Zuko’s opinion, this activity far exceeded the last because he and Katara would be on relatively even footing as far as their bending was concerned.

“Everybody partner up!” Sokka instructed. “I call working with Suki!”

“And I call Toph!” Aang shouted, which garnered suspicious looks from both Toph and Katara. “I thought we could work on our teamwork?” he added to the earth bender sheepishly.

Toph smirked. “Whatever you say, Twinkletoes. Gosh, I’m popular, huh?”

Through narrowed eyes, Katara directed her attention to the person she was evidently stuck with.  

Zuko tried his hardest to seem friendly, though he was suddenly uncharacteristically nervous. “You can go first, if you want,” he offered.

Katara lifted an eyebrow. After a moment, she said, “All right then,” and turned towards the cliff, her braided hair flipping over her shoulder as she did.

The rock climbing ensued, with Toph practically flying up the wall while she bended parts of the cliff side to jut out like stairs. Momo was doing quite well himself from a little further down, not even holding onto the rope, though Appa dutifully spotted him anyways.

Despite not having any distinct advantages, Suki flourished in this activity too, scaling the wall like a ninja. “Atta girl, Suki!” Sokka cheered on from below. She responded with a glowing smile at her rock climbing partner.

Zuko turned his attention to his own rock climbing partner, who was faring well, though not quite as well as the other climbers. Her movements were a little clumsy and she clung to the rope and handholds like her life depended on it. After all, with each step she climbed, the water bender ventured farther away from the comfort of the sea behind them.

There was no way Zuko would let her fall though, considering the death grip he had on her rope. He needed to prove he was the most trustworthy rock climbing partner she could ever have.  

Taking a page out of Sokka’s book, Zuko decided to egg his partner on. “You’re doing great!” he called.

Unfortunately, his comment prompted an icy glare. “Are you mocking me?” Katara snapped, as she freed her blue sleeve from a protruding twig that had snagged it.

“No...,” Zuko snarled through gritted teeth.

This is impossible! I can’t even compliment Katara without her getting mad!

She proceeded to climb in silence without sparing him a glance, and Zuko couldn’t think of what to say, so he just sighed and frowned in her general direction.

How on earth was this activity supposed to bring them closer together now?

She’s probably clinging to the rope for dear life because she doesn’t trust me to stop her from falling, Zuko thought with a scowl.

But then he was struck with a brilliant (and morally questionable) idea.

What if Katara’s rope were severed… for some reason… and Zuko caught her?

Now, Zuko was no expert, but saving someone from falling seemed like the ultimate gesture of trust if you asked him.

Surely Aang and Sokka would disprove if Zuko deliberately severed Katara’s rope, but she was maybe only twenty feet up – so surely, even if she did fall, she’d survive.

Before Zuko had properly thought through his plan, he’d sent a barely discernible fireball – no more than a small collection of sparks – up the cliff side. It went undetected by the others, who were focused on their rock climbing tasks.

With the softest of hisses, the fire made contact with the rope about ten feet above Katara’s head. The rope began to fray immediately but no one seemed to notice. Until –

“Whoa!” Katara exclaimed as the rope started to give. She clawed for the nearest handhold and gripped it firmly while looking around with wide eyes.

Now, Zuko thought, dropping the rope and racing towards the cliff.

By now the others were catching on to Katara’s predicament.

“Oh no, careful Katara!” called Aang.

“Hold on!” cried Suki.

“Just drop!” Zuko shouted from below, his arms outstretched. “Don’t worry – I’ll catch you!”

Katara peered down at him, like she was mentally calculating the risk of doing what he asked. When she met his eye, Zuko felt a swell of anticipation for a reason he couldn’t quite place.

Then, something determined entered Katara’s eyes and she directed her gaze beyond him, towards the sea.

The rope snapped and Katara began to fall.

Zuko braced himself for the impact, his arms at the ready.

I won’t let you down!

And then – WHOOSH!

Zuko faced an impact but it wasn’t the one he was expecting.

An aggressive current of water slammed straight into Zuko’s legs, knocking him off his feet.

“What?” he gasped as he lost his footing, toppled sideways, and fell to his back. Spluttering, he watched in disbelief as Katara bended a neat stream of water through the air, stepped into it, and directed it towards the ground to safety. She landed beside Zuko with a splash – soaking him from head to toe.

Katara straightened up and regained her composure, brushing off the front of her blue dress, as the water drifted back out to sea.

She turned to Zuko like she was just noticing him for the first time. “Oh!” she said while extending her hand. “You okay down there?” she asked, eyebrows raised and the slightest mischievous glint in her eye.

Zuko accepted her offer to help him up, but didn’t have it in him to celebrate the kind gesture – he was far too embarrassed and couldn’t meet her eye.

As soon as he was on his feet, he retreated and stomped away. “I’m fine,” he growled while shaking water out of his hair for the second time that day.

***

“The next team building exercise will be different. We’ll use our words this time,” Aang decided during a brief rendezvous with Sokka and Zuko.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Zuko asked, eyebrow raised.

“You’ll see – I’ve got a plan. Just make sure you’re sitting beside Katara when we gather round the campfire after dinner. Trust me.” He patted Zuko’s shoulder and flashed him what he probably thought was a reassuring smile, but given their track record with team building exercises thus far, Zuko didn’t feel so confident.

“Fine,” he said anyways because he didn’t have anything to lose.

***

True to his word, after the sun had set, bellies were full, and Aang had summoned everyone to the campfire, Zuko claimed the spot beside Katara, even though he had to wrestle Toph in the process of squeezing in between them.

Katara gave Zuko a weird look and motioned to get up.

He grabbed her sleeve. “Wait – stay here,” he said before he could think better of it (and immediately regretting the motion).

She startled and opened her mouth to respond, but thankfully, Aang chose that moment to command everyone’s attention and start the activity. Zuko released a breath.

It turned out the activity was rather simple. Each person was required to share a compliment about the person on their right – and once everyone had a turn, they were to repeat the exercise in the other direction.

Zuko was skeptical about the cheesy activity having any effect on his relationship with Katara but he figured he might as well try.

He frowned and glanced at Katara, who was on his right, noticing the firelight dancing in her blue eyes. He would have to share a compliment with her first.

I’ve got one shot so I need to think of something good, Zuko mused while absently bending the flames from the campfire into little loops.

His first thought was to comment on her water bending, which was quite good as far as he’d seen. But would that just remind her of the times she’d used her water bending against him?

Then what could he say about her to get her to like him?

It was Sokka’s turn to pay a compliment to Suki.

He turned to the brunette Kyoshi warrior with a wide smile and an arched eyebrow, and said, smoothly, “Suki, you are as radiant as the sunset.”

Suki’s face lit up and her lips curved into a shy smile. “Oh, Sokka,” she sighed and shoving his arm lightly, in a friendly, teasing manner.

That’s it! That’s the reaction I want from Katara, Zuko thought, his chest tightening at the very prospect of it, but would complimenting her physical appearance have that effect on her? He wasn’t sure.

By the time Zuko tuned back in to the activity, Aang was telling Toph that she was the most terrifying girl he’d ever met.

Zuko watched the exchange in anticipation for surely the earth bender would take offense to the remark. But instead, she punched Aang’s arm and beamed. “Thanks, Twinkletoes!”

Would Katara want to be called terrifying? Honestly, Zuko thought she was the farthest thing from terrifying (unless she was really angry). No, Azula was terrifying. And Katara was… well, not like Azula.  

Toph turned to Zuko next, gazing up at him with a cheeky smile. “Oh, this is easy. Thanks for the entertainment in the water today. I haven’t laughed that hard in weeks!”

Zuko bristled with anger for a moment, but when he realized everyone was chuckling, and he remembered that he would much rather them find him funny than evil, he swallowed his pride and smiled. “You’re welcome,” he mumbled.

“Okay, Zuko’s turn!” Aang prompted, and then, suddenly, everyone was starting at him expectantly.

Zuko swallowed. “Okay,” he said before turning towards Katara, whose arms were folded and was watching him from the corner of her eye.

Here goes, Zuko thought. He said the first thing that popped into his head, inspired by Sokka’s earlier success.

“You’re… as beautiful as the… ocean?”

Now, Zuko wasn’t sure what reaction he was expecting, but, strangely, no one seemed to react at all. In fact, the entire group was eerily silent, their eyes trained on him, including Katara’s.

Suddenly, Zuko felt nervous. I did something wrong, didn’t I?

He turned towards Sokka for support, but only then, to Zuko’s horror, did he notice that Sokka and Suki’s hands were clasped together.

Is Suki his… girlfriend?

That hadn’t occurred to Zuko, honestly. He’d dismissed the idea because surely Suki was too good for the guy.

But maybe he was wrong. Maybe they were so close because they were dating. And maybe, by mimicking Sokka’s behaviour, Zuko had inadvertently suggested that he wanted to date Katara.  

He felt his face heat up.

I could use some of Uncle’s calming tea right about now.

Then, Katara was on her feet. She avoided eye-contact when she growled, “Really? Don’t have anything to say about my abilities, do you? I’m just some damsel in distress to you, huh?”

And then she stormed off, effectively ending the team building exercise. Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration.

I should have just called her terrifying.

He followed her.

***

Katara was perched on a rock near the ledge of the cliff, overlooking the sea and star-sprinkled night sky. She was hugging her knees and her shoulders were slumped.

Zuko approached with caution. “Hi,” he said when he was within earshot.

Katara glanced at him and turned away quickly.

He sighed.

Why do I suck at everything?

“Um, let me try the compliment thing again,” Zuko mumbled, not sure how much Katara was paying attention to him but going for it anyways. “My uncle taught me how to control lightning using the principles of water bending. I never really thought about water bending much, but since then, and since I saw what you can do, now I appreciate it more. It’s a… beautiful ability. And it’s strong. Like you.

“And that’s… what I’m trying to say.”

Katara glanced at him again, and to his relief, there was something kinder in her eyes.

This encouraged him to continue. “And I’m sorry for everything I did before. Please tell me how to make it up to you because I’m trying but I don’t know what I’m doing.”

After a moment, Katara’s lips curled into the smallest of smiles. She turned towards the sea. “You could reconquer Ba Sing Se in the name of the Earth King. Or bring my mother back,” she said sadly with a humourless chuckle, like what she was proposing was ridiculous. She buried her face into her knees.

Later that evening, after a brief consultation with Sokka about the story of his mother’s death, Zuko made plans for what would end up being the most effective team building exercise yet.

***

Many days later, Zuko found himself standing on a dock overlooking the ocean and a sunset painting the sky a glowing medley of pinks and oranges.

He had just returned to camp after a long trek with Katara to track down her mother’s killer, with the intention of executing revenge, but Katara ended up sparing him in the end – while still finding the closure she needed.

Zuko had learned more about Katara’s motivations and abilities on the trip, including her impressive repertoire of water bending feats.

To put it frankly, Zuko had no shortage of compliments to give her if they ever played that campfire circle game again.

And now that he understood Katara better he was filled with hope that maybe, just maybe, she didn’t hate him anymore. Though he wasn’t completely sure.

Katara was sitting at the end of the dock with her toes dipped in the water. Aang was beside her and speaking about the importance of forgiveness.

She got to her feet and faced the two of them. “Thanks Aang, but I didn’t forgive him. I’ll never forgive him.”

And then she turned towards Zuko, a smile blossoming on her face. Zuko’s breath caught in his throat.

“But you,” she said and drawing closer, “I am willing to forgive.”

Before he knew quite what was happening, Katara pulled him into a tight hug. Zuko was startled at first – hardly able to believe what was happening.

I did it! he thought in awe, thinking back to how envious he had been of Suki jumping into Sokka’s arms on the beach.

He smiled in spite of himself and returned the hug with equal enthusiasm, his heart racing.

But then, abruptly, Katara retreated. She stared at Zuko from a short distance away, looking positively radiant in the light of the sunset. A strange expression crossed her features. Embarrassment? Anxiousness? Zuko wasn’t sure. But then –

“I’m not flirting or anything, you know,” she said.

Not… what?

Katara seemed to remember that her hands were still on Zuko’s shoulders and pulled them back quickly. “I forgive you and that’s – that’s it!”

Zuko was still processing her words when she scurried past him, down the dock.

He gaped at her retreating form. “What was that about?” he asked.

Aang, who had been hanging back from the exchange, approached. One of his eyebrows was distinctly twitching. “Well, after the team building exercise around the campfire, everyone thinks that you… well, you know.”

Oh.

Zuko put his head in his hands, face burning. Something told him he was going to need a lot of help, and maybe even a new round of team building exercises, to figure out this new development in his and Katara’s relationship.

[applsauss]

The Date

Description: You and Kakashi go out on a date.

Fandom: 
Naruto

Pairing: Hatake Kakashi/Reader


Word Count: 
2.9k+

Warning(s): 
None.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-


      You’re out to dinner with Team Gai, which doesn’t happen as often as you’d all like. Lee and Tenten are often busy with missions, as are you, and Gai has been spending so much time at the academy that he might as well sign on full-time; He’s good with kids and he’s good for kids, with his endless enthusiasm and praise. 

The barbeque sizzles in front of you, and you’re beginning to feel full, but Tenten and Lee are still leading the charge through your ridiculously large order. Twenty minutes after the sake comes out is when the conversation shifts from prospective Jonin promotions to yours and Kakashi’s flowering romance.

“You guys just don’t get it. Our relationship is… Relaxed. I don’t really like going out all that much, and neither does Kakashi. We spend time together in our own way.” 

“But where’s the romance?” is the immediate response you receive. “In order for a relationship to last, you need to woo each other,” Gai states enthusiastically, taking another gulp of sake before pointing at you and exclaiming: “You need to sweep him off his feet!”

“W-What?” you stutter.

“Have a date night!” Lee suggests.

“Yes! A date night!” Gai latches on to the idea, and refuses to let go of it. “You need excitement! To surprise each other with romantic gifts and occasions. You have to keep things fresh - To feel the heat of your eternal summer!” 

You don’t think they know what they’re talking about because as far as you know, Lee’s never dated anyone and Gai is more often off-color than anything else. “Sweep him off his feet?” you repeat, unconvinced. 

“Exactly, my friend! You and I, we’ve known each other for a long time. Would I steer you wrong?” Gai attempts to convince you further, waving his arms around and gesturing so loudly he rocks in his wheelchair. Some of the other patrons glance at your table, but quickly avert their eyes once they realize you’re all shinobi. 

You hold your tongue when you think, amused, about all the times Gai has absolutely steered you wrong. You won’t ever forget when you were still Genin and he’d led you and Raido so deep into Tsuchigakure controlled territory that you were nearly captured, and you were only looking for a lost cat!

Unimpressed, you take a chance to gauge Tenten’s reaction to all of this because she’s usually the voice of reason, but she remains quiet all the while, shovelling slices of barbecued pork into her mouth, unconcerned with appearances. She catches your eye and shrugs, not necessarily disagreeing, but not jumping to your rescue either. It hits you that you’ve known Tenten and Lee since they were genin, and now they’re fully fleshed-out Chunin. Equals, in yours and Gai’s eyes. 

Maybe they’re onto something. 

So you shrug and promise Gai and Lee to consider their suggestions, and the night unfolds after that.

***

      A week later, and you still haven’t been able to get Gai and Lee’s advice out of your head. You think about how you and Kakashi haven’t done anything ‘official’ yet every time you see him, and see him almost everyday so you think about it a lot.

You’re picking apart the pack you take on missions, when you think again about Gai’s advice of ‘wooing’ Kakashi, and suddenly, you can’t keep it to yourself anymore. You’re calling out for him before you have a plan of approach. 

“Kakashi…” 

“Hmm?” he’s sideways on the couch, reclining, with his nose in some book he plucked off your shelf. He’d been taking up space in your living room since he decided he wasn’t needed in the Hokage’s office earlier this morning. You’re sitting across the room at the kitchen table.

Though Kakashi is no longer considered an active duty shinobi (he’s only sent out when he’s specifically required) and barring his little, personal excursions to check up on states of affairs, you’re still very much on the active roster and sent out regularly. 

“Would you like to have dinner? Sometime when I get back?” Maybe you feel confident and bold because you know you’re leaving and won’t be returning for at least a week to face his reaction to what you’re about to suggest. 

“Dinner? Do you want me to cook for you or something?” he looks up from his book, amused, to tease you, thinking maybe you don’t know how to ask him to make you something. He’s been told he’s very good in the kitchen. 

“No, I mean… like a… hmm...” This is dumb. You’re an adult and you’re lack of experience in these sorts of situations is leading you to lose your resolve. You can confidently carry out all your duties owed to your village, you can pull on a snake mask and wield your tanto in the face of death, but you can’t ask the man you’re already sort-of dating out on a date. 

He’s waiting patiently for you to finish.

“Like, on a date.” You conclude quietly, gripping the kunai you’d been sharpening tightly. 

Without his mask on, you can see a blush crawling up his pale cheeks and it makes you feel a little more confident, in control. “A date.” he states. 

“Yea,” you can feel yourself start to resume sharpening the blade, “A date. When I get back. Lee and Gai were talking about a new restaurant that opened, that serves food from Suna.” 

He looks back down at his book, but you can tell he’s not reading from how his eyes stare at the same spot on the page. He shrugs. “Sure, sounds like fun.” But the blush doesn’t go away and it makes you smile wider than you probably should. 

He catches the hint of amusement in your tone and glances back up at you. “What?” 

You only shake your head and return the Kunai to its proper pouch. “Nothing. I look forward to it, then.”

***

      When you return, Kakashi isn’t at the village gates, but you don’t necessarily expect him to be there. He’ll make his presence known when he wants to, and you understand that you’re both busy professionals anyways. 

You’re also not surprised when you find him sitting with half his ass on the window sill under the window you usually enter your apartment through, with his faded copy of ‘Icha-Icha: Paradise’ comfortably in hand. In such an odd sitting position, five stories up above the alley cats pawing at garbage bins, he looks like a stray. 

He looks up when you round the corner, then scooches over and drags the window to the side with him so it opens as you approach without so much as greeting you. You pause below him, looking longingly up at your open window and the bottoms of Kakashi’s feet before pushing your tired legs to just make it up to your apartment one last time. 

Rocking back on your heels, you force your chakra to pool on the soles of your feet, then expand outward, assisting your jump as you leap halfway up the building next to yours, then spin around and propel yourself past Kakashi, and into your living room. 

As you stand for a moment, in the stale apartment, you hear Kakashi swing around into the living room behind you. “How was the mission?” he asks as you drop your pack, rolling your shoulders. Afterwards, in a practiced set of motions, you loosen your armor and gear just enough to be able to pull it all off in one motion. He catches the hard chest plate in a hand before it can hit the floor and make a sound. 

You’re too busy with your hand up your shirt, pulling apart the knot keeping the bandages tied tight to your chest to come up with a better response than “Fine. Successful.” The knot loosens and you sigh as your breasts are given space to breathe, “How’ve you been? Do anything fun?” 

You turn to watch as he flops down onto the couch and runs a hand through his hair, dragging his forehead protector off and leaving it on the cushion beside him. “Mm,” he hums thoughtfully. “No. Just a lead on more of Orochimaru’s research that went nowhere.” 

You pause in undoing your sandals, and drag your eyes up to finally get a good look at him. Your eyes meet, warm each others gazes, and he holds his arm out in a silent invitation. You toss the sandal in your hands to the floor and flop into his side without another word. 

Now on the couch and huddled into his warm side, you toe your other sandal off while he pulls his gloves off, the two of you jostling each other a bit until you settle back into a comfortable position. He pulls you up farther and tugs the tie out of your hair, letting it fall around your face, and you hiss at the ache, but he begins to run his naked fingers through your hair, massaging your scalp and so you close your eyes and wrap the arm not wedged between your body and the couch around his torso, eventually dipping down to push your fingers up under his shirt just to touch the warm skin of his midriff. 

“Anything else happen while I was gone?” you ask absentmindedly, rubbing circles into his side with your thumb. 

He pulls his fingers through your hair one last time, sure that there are no tangles, and then twists his body to hold you more fully, resting his cheek on the top of your head. His breath is hot through his mask, and he grunts, then pulls it down below his chin. 

“No,” he says, resting his cheek back on your head, “honest. It’s been unusually quiet. No life-threatening incidents, no non-life-threatening incidents. Naruto even seemed bored when I gave him my report.” 

“Report?” you ask.

“Just a quick border check.”

You sigh heavily, already feeling yourself being lulled by the rumble of his voice in his chest and the secure warmth of his hold. “That’s good… Sounds like you… Got to relax a little.” Your train of thought begins stalling, and Kakashi laughs warmly at your loss of concentration. 

“Yea, and it sounds like it might be your turn to take it easy.”

“Mhmm?”

“Yea.” 

You yawn, and then pull your hand out from under his shirt and set it on his chest, curling your fingers into his shirt when your hand begins to slip. “But what about our date?” 

“Tomorrow,” he says, “or the day after. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Alright, then,” you breathe, “I’ll hold you to it.” 

***

      In the morning, before the sun rises, you leave Kakashi with a gentle kiss and a promise to see him later, tangled in the sheets of your bed. 

As the sun begins to stain the sky red, you’re once again out in the training fields with Gai, Lee, and Tenten, working through the same set of morning exercises you’ve practiced since your days as a stringy genin, with an unreadable teacher and over-confident teammates. 

As the sun pales, and shines its damp rays over Konohagakure, you kneel before your hokage and deliver your mission report. 

As the sun begins to harden in the sky, cutting through the cool mist left over from the night, you find yourself leaping once again, through your window into a now empty apartment. You don’t have much else to do, so you find yourself puttering around, watering the plants Kakashi no doubt watered for you while you were away, and inspecting your various shinobi gear for wear and tear, a habit meant to pass the time. 

Your thoughts eventually drift back to yours and Kakashi’s relationship, and the date he agreed to. He’s never needed much for as long as you’ve known him, and left to his own devices, he becomes rather domestic; but Gai, and by extension Lee’s, ideals regarding a relationship have you as worried as you can be over personal matters like these. Above all else, you don’t want to risk losing Kakashi. You’re glad you decided on action, rather than letting the idea of taking him out on a date burn a hole in your skull.

After checking all of your gear twice, you gather the unrepairable scraps and toss them in the trash bin, then meander into the kitchen to begin considering your choices for lunch. Your fridge is disappointingly empty except for some fresh herbs that Kakashi no doubt brought from his own apartment, so you settle for a plain meal, and after eating, a simple nap.

You don’t see Kakashi again until you sense him strangely at your front door. It’s now late-afternoon-pushing-evening, but the summer sun does nothing to betray the time. He knocks, like a respectable visitor, and so you pad over to the entrance way and when you slide the door open, you find him standing there in his usual uniform, but holding a bouquet of flowers. 

“I promised you a date, didn’t I?” He says with a sheepish smile, raising his hand to scratch the back of his head. 

You purse your lips, and when he sees your lack of reaction, he lowers his hand and looks at your slight frown seriously. “What’s wrong?”

You shake your head. “Nothing,” you say, forcing yourself to straighten your back and smile, “but I just wanted to take YOU on a date. Not… The other way around, I guess.” 

“Well… I guess,” he looks thoughtful for a moment, “we could both take each other out… on a date.” 

You smile immediately. “You always know what to say, Kakashi.” you bounce up to peck his cheek over his mask then turn on your heel, “Let me get some clothes on.” 

***

      You both decide on Yakisoba after finding out the restaurant Gai told you about was reservation only. Neither of you have lost any spirit over the slight snag in plans. 

You take your bowls graciously from the vendor and perch yourselves up on a high retaining wall, backs to a small community garden within walking distance of the ever developing commercial center of Konoha. More and more, you’re bearing witness to all of the changes as the village grows. 

Kakashi has already told you of the Hokage’s tentative plans to build another, larger wall encircling the current boundary of the village to give the residential district some breathing room, though he also told you it was difficult negotiating with some of the civilians who own the land just outside the walls. 

“Have you talked to Gai lately?” you ask before shoving another mouthful of noodles into your mouth. Kakashi shakes his head while chewing, and you let out a sharp, reprimanding puff of air. “Gai was complaining about you this morning, you know.”

Kakashi shrugs helplessly, “I’ve been busy...” 

“You just told me last night how weirdly quiet it’s been.” you accuse, and Kakashi smiles the way he does when he knows he’s been caught in a lie. 

“... Avoiding him. I’ve been busy avoiding him.” he finishes lately, and you snort, then nudge your elbow into his arm. 

“Don’t be mean to him,” you say, “I’ll kick your ass.” He looks at you with such sudden admiration that you feel your face flush and immediately look back down into your bowl of Yakisoba, cursing yourself for being so easily embarrassed. 

“I know. I’ll catch up with him sometime. Promise.” 

***

      The sun sets far later than it should, and you and Kakashi find yourselves strolling aimlessly through the old commercial district as paper lanterns are lit. A couple minutes later, you blink as one by one, flickering light from the neon lettering most shops nowadays are adopting drowns out the mellow lantern light. 

New and old, the juxtaposition of technology and entrenched traditions is something strange to witness. Much like the strange, out of place life breathed into the village after the third shinobi war, the death-bred boom in industry, you’re watching once again as the world progresses faster than you can keep track of. Everything is just swept along with the leaps and bounds each new generation brings about. 

You mention the popularity of neon to Kakashi, and he stares at the bright lights for a few moments before uttering, “It reminds me of how after Pein, or the… Third Shinobi war, the village just seemed to come back twice as strong.”

Your wandering eventually leads you both to Kakashi’s apartment complex.

“That was fun,” Kakashi says at his doorstep. You’re loitering, suddenly embarrassed and unsure if he’s going to invite you in. “It didn’t really feel like a date though.”

“... Yea.. Just sort of like… We were just spending time together,” you say distantly as he opens the door and flips the lightswitch next to the entrance, warm light spilling out and over you into the hallway. You stand there, just inside the threshold, wanting to sink into the warmth of his apartment, but unable to do so without invitation. 

He’s taken off his shoes and shrugged out of his outer layer before he realizes you’re still standing there, not entering. “Do you not want to come in?” He turns to look at you, mask still stretched over his nose and mouth, eyes curious and dark. 

You scoff, relief flooding your body, and shake your head. “I was just enjoying the breeze. Y’can’t blame me for that.” You step into the apartment and shut the door behind you, content in the wake of an evening that will follow a successful date.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-


Masterlist in blog desc.

[the-mic-drop]

Shonen Jump Rap Cypher by Rustage

Lyrics below the cut

If anyone wants to break down some lines that you think not everyone will get, please feel free!

Monkey D. Luffy- One Piece (Performed by Rustage)

Starting with the number one, hey

How’d a pirate get this long, hey

‘Cause I eat the gum-gum, see them run run

when I hit that gun, hey

Sailin’ I’m taking no breaks when my crew’s on the move as we pillage the grand line

Looting the treasure we can find

I’m blowing up like a landmine

Going gear second, I reckon that I’m a weapon

I’m wrecking up those who threaten in messing with my own brethren

Stay reppin’ look where I’m headin’

No question the Yonkos sweatin’

I’m bettin’ in words I’m yellin’

I’m the king and there’s no forgettin’, UH

Gon Freecss- Hunter x Hunter (Performed by Fabvl)

I’ll jump the competition, really there’s no contest

Channeled future Nen and most of y’all ain’t even bomb yet

It’s nonsense

Pro exams completed as a child

Hisoka, I think these clowns are living in denial

So don’t make me power up, I’ll call the thunder at my right hand

If you want the strongest Shonen, then you called the right man

They might stan

Treat you all like Pitou, it won’t take long

Name is Gon and this time, I’mma make sure that you stay gone

Naruto Uzumaki- Naruto (Performed by None Like Joshua)

Oh, better believe it’s Naruto

Who’s the best hero? All of you know

My legacy is happening, I got a type of running named after me

while you’re slow

Can’t keep up with my chakra flow

Except Hinata, I’m her Ho

Kage

All I did was call her and I told her to come over ‘cause my parents are not home

Out of these ninjas, you can watch my dub

Even all my filler is so far above

When it comes to Boruto, why y’all givin’ up

like I did with simpin’ on Sakura?

Killer B’s rapping, but I get the encore

With the power that I bring, I don’t really want yours

‘Cause I came from the swing, everybody shunned more

Now you’re looking at the king of this Jump Force

Yami Yugi- Yu-Gi-Oh! (Performed by Connor Quest!)

I’mma master, you be

practice newbies

That’s a doozy

for Yami Yugi

Puzzle did something like a hadron tunnel

‘cause now I got Atem through me

Champ of the match see fans fawn, no matter what hand’s drawn

I’m kicking up dust, metal tanks in land form

When we d-d-d-d-duel there’s sandstorms

Cards are flippin’ I need an answer quick

and I might find my Dark Magician

If I wish, and believe hard enough in the heart that’s in ‘em

(Heart of the cards)

I see Seto’s fear

Pull the fifth part of Exodia

Guess it’s all came to a head, so clear

that your deck’s gonna get X’d, oh dear!

Asta- Black Clover (Performed by Eddie Rath)

Welcome to the magic

It’s a tale that’s tragic

Filled with a pain that’s harder than plastic

especially when you discover you don’t have it

When I started I was less than amazing

But now that I’ve been chosen by the Grimoir, I’m rising to the occasion in a blazing flame of

Magic

Ain’t no Hocus Pocus and Abracadabra

Not a wizard you joke with

This is not Gandalf the Grey, but you shall not pass hopeless

Better be ferocious

Was the poorest orphan living in darkness

but now that I’m focused, I be thanking all my hardships

Ichigo Kurosaki- Bleach (Performed by IBDL)

Uh, hittin’ back with that Bankai

Got that power like I came out of the Dangai

Pops passed the torch; now I’m the fam’s Don guy

Think you Aizen, but you lookin’ like that Don guy

Y’all like Soifon, your raps barely sting

My bars are Getsuga Tensho, got that masterful swing

They say, it ain’t over til the fat lady sings

But you’ll know it’s really over when that black lady sings

Koro-sensei- Assassination Classrom (Performed by CDawgVA)

Mach speed

Blow up the moon and now I’m making these children write essays

Comin with tentacles teach you a lesson in why you don’t mess with the sensei

I amaze

Used to be the Reaper, now I run this class

I can turn a loser to assassin, do it real fast

Light Yagami- Death Note (Performed by Zach Boucher)

I think I’ve been out of my head

Gift was given, made some poor decisions, that I wish I didn’t, but I’d do it again

Feeling different, I was on a mission to achieve my vision with a page and a pen

Sit and listen to the words I’ve written

I ain’t even finished ‘til I see that they’re dead

Don’t even try to pretend

There’s no malicious intent

Stay in my thoughts, stick to the morals I’ve got,

and kill everyone who is not

Just never get caught, ‘til every criminal rots

They’ll consider me as a god

At whatever cost, that’s how I excel

Cannot be stopped, even if I fell

I’m taking them off if you couldn’t tell

I gave up a lot to give you this L

Shoyo Hinata- Haikyuu!! (Performed by Shwabadi)

Yah, here comes Hinata

When I’m on the court the enemy has got their guard up

Never gonna fall off, bet I’m gonna pop off

Way short, but I’m packing punches like a sawnoff

Hot like a sauna, this ball of fire don’t know nada

but I’m gonna chase desire to go farther

every jump will take me higher

They put walls up, so I had to learn to fly

Putting up points, spiking it, or clearing the way

Best decoy, got a little something to say

to anyone that doubts that I’m here to stay

Only got one goal, that’s to play the game

Underestimated, I’m the ace, you just wait

when I spike it past the net, you might take it to the face

Izuku “Deku” Midoriya- My Hero Academia (Performed by Divide Music)

Coming in with 100% of me

I got you all trembling

Oh just with a flick of a finger

put you back where you’re supposed to be

I’m not, holding back

I got you so calculated. I’m

one step ahead, One for All gon’ be demonstrated

Get it? Got it? Good.

Nothing better and you should know

Started at the bottom

but I made it to the top so

Step aside, I’m climbing to great heights

with All-Might by my side

Reppin’ U.A. with pride, oh

Yusuke Urameshi- Yu Yu Hakusho (Performed by GameBoyJones)

Giving you the finger, Spirit Gun

Send you off with Botan, then you done

Hit you with the stick, and I didn’t need a grip when I’m pulling from the hip, then click!

Because I’m, locked loaded, the clip is ready to go

Got a, shotgun in my hand that’s ‘bout to blow

Cause I’m hittin’ you quick fast

givin’ you whiplash

wearing these Spirit Cuffs

You could be human or demon, cause honestly, I just don’t give a fuck

If you’re looking for the best, just know there’s no other

‘cause I’m flexing out here like I’m the youngest Toguro brother

Gintoki Sakata- Gintama (Perfomed by Shao Dao)

They call me, Gintoki, slim not stocky

Lemme Shonen Jump on your leg and your body

Odd Job Gin, don’t mess with my possee

If you touch my hair, then you will be sorry

Ne, boge (Hey, bloke)

Nanikore, uruseena (what is this? Not good.)

Cause you’re way too sloppy

Got a silver soul, Shiroyasha

Swing my sword and Amanto scatter

Gintama, not Kintama

Tell Shinpachi we need money

If Kagura or Katsura bring more trouble, we keep running

Pay rent? That’s a waste of time

That weather girl, I will make her mine

You can beat me up and that’s fair and fine

But if you hurt my friends, then prepare to die

Tanjiro Kamado- Demon Slayer (Performed by DizzyEight)

Look, slayin’ demons that’s what we do

If you filled with evil, then my blade is highly lethal

If you comin’ at my people, pray to god I never meet you

Ever mess with Nez, you KO’d when I see you

I’ve grown stronger from that fateful day they found me

I trained hard to hone the skill, the progression so astounding

My style like breathing water, that mean you can never drown me

Whirlpool, that mean I’m slicin’ everything around me

Emma- The Promised Neverland (Performed by FrivolousShara)

E-M-M-A 63194

Listen to what I’ve gotta say

The others walked, seems now we’ve gotta run away

Don’t you talk, adults are the enemy

You can break every bone in my body, I won’t falter

and if the plan fails, the idea simply alters

Ah, these demons scheming, but they ain’t the only monsters

Our combined IQ breaks the safe, strength in numbers

Now we’ve woken from the slumber

Never ending perfect Summers

Across the farm, you can’t help but wonder

Soma Yukihira- Food Wars! (Performed by DiggzDaProphecy)

See I’m the anime Raekwon

The chef baby, stay calm

You can’t stand the heat

Stay out the kitchen, get a day job

Word, and the finale’s superb

I take a sec, put on my band, an’ I’ll be happy to serve, uh

So ma, tell me what you like and I can hook it up

Ya boy’s got them recipes the best couldn’t cook it up

And she gon’ bust from the taste of my meat

Chef, boy are these boys always cookin’ up heat

Jotaro Kujo- Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure (Performed by Dreaded Yasuke)

It’s my go, they call me Jotaro

Don’t get me mad, I’mma go fat only with jabs you go through silos

Got that drip from Cairo, girls will simp my silhouette

I know think it’s a typo fighting with a platinum psycho

None of y’all is a threat

What you gotta say in your breath

Better speak with a bigger chest

Now you lyin’ down with my pet,

while Iggy piss on your neck

All types of disrespect, what you expect?

Go against a vet, better get your techs

wanna get swept through the complex,

now who is next?

Bobobo- Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo (Performed by BassedOlaf w/ ThighHighSenpai)

Bobobo making the foes stare

Call me the master of nose hair

Look at the hair on the heads of these anime characters,

brother, it’s no fair

But I’m better than these guys, don’t you understand?

I came second place at screaming face-to-face with desk fans

Afro is full of surprises, look at my power’s immense

Leaving beauty screaming-

(Bobobo, that makes no sense!)

Hunting hair hunters, Saitama, I’m coming for you

Don Patch a better Super Saiyan God than Goku

Son Goku- Dragon Ball (Performed by DaddyPhatSnaps)

Oh they went and called Kakarot

had to be danger

Leave em flat-footed like they in the gravity chamber

I’m just looking for a challenge, can you battle me stranger?

Shonen legend in the saddle and the power is major

Level up on the track, flow Ultra Instinct

Bye bye bye fusion dance is always in sync

Wink

And they wonder why I’m last on the song

‘Cause when all of y’all were talking

I just formed a Spirit Bomb

[arsenicgodhead]

Top 5 Friends of Damian Wayne I’d Like to See Again

It’s been way too long since Damian had his own solo title, or really any title written by someone who didn’t think he was a little brat with no friends (R.I.P. Tomasi’s run on Super Sons, which ended WAY too soon). In each new title that Damian starred or co-starred in, he’s had a rotating cast of buds who disappeared when the boy changed writers. Check out my top 5 friends of Damian Wayne who should return to mainstream comics under the cut.

#5 - Sara Meyer

Making her debut in the too-short-lived first volume of Peter J. Tomasi and Jorge Jiménez’s Super Sons, Sara Meyer comes from a family that suddenly got powers of their own due to the Amazo Virus. By day, the Meyers masqueraded as the perfect family – but by night the parents’ in fighting broke the family apart, driving Sara’s brother Reggie to become the villainous Kid Amazo.

In her first and only appearance, Sara is held prisoner by her older brother as she watches him kill android replicas of her and her parents over and over, until she uses her own powers to transfer her consciousness into an android duplicate and escape, seeking the help of the Super Sons. She spends most of her appearance helping Damian and Jon take down her old brother, showcasing her technopathic powers alongside her raw hatred for her abusive, borderline psychopathic sibling. Sadly, she faded into obscurity after this arc and hasn’t been seen again.

#4 - Suren Darga

Suren was the big bad of the New 53 series Robin Son of Batman right up until the penultimate issue 12, where Damian pulls a Naruto and befriends his enemy. Damian and Maya decide to take Suren under their wing and give the violent young sorcerer the same chance at redemption that Damian got – which Suren is more than happy to take.

The series ends with Suren, Damian, and Maya riding off into the sunset. Suren had truly rejected his Darga heritage in much the same way that Damian has rejected his Al Ghul roots. It looks like the next arc of Robin: Son of Batman would’ve delved into Suren’s path to redemption. Unfortunately, the book was cancelled to make room for the new DC Rebirth titles, and Suren was lost to the sands of time.

#3 - Mara Al Ghul, A.K.A. “The Demon’s Thumb”

Less of a friend and more of a mortal enemy – but still family – Mara was a shining light of potential in an otherwise mediocre incarnation of the Teen Titans. Her cousin Damian was Ra’s’ (Ras’? Ra’s-es?) golden grandson and preferred vessel, meaning that Mara lived her whole life as Grandpa’s second choice.

She finally got her moment in the sun when Damian defected to the ranks of the Bat Family. Mara got her revenge in the form of a chance to hunt and kill the Teen Titans with her own group of anti-titans – the elite “Demon’s Hand”; a group of kids in training to join the league of assassins. The hand lost to the Titans and were denied their entry as full-fledged members of the league, but Mara swore her revenge on Damian. We’ve never seen her make good on that promise, though, since she never appeared again after that arc.

#2 - Maya Ducard, A.K.A. “Nobody”

Maya Ducard is an orphan whose father (the first Nobody) was killed by Damian in the New 52 series Batman and Robin. Her dad wasn’t great – in fact, Maya didn’t even really like him. But he was still her dad, so she tried to kill Damian in a plot for revenge. Her and Damian talked out their feelings, and the two ended up sharing a very tight sibling-like bond.

Unlike Suren, Maya actually made it to the Rebirth universe – she made an appearance in Superman and even in the first volume of Super Sons. This was the last we saw of her though – unlike Colin, she doesn’t have a return date coming anytime soon.

#1 - Colin Wilkes, A.K.A. “Abuse”

Making his debut in Paul Dini and Dustin Ngyuen’s Detective Comics #847, Colin was a 10-year-old orphan boy who had been moved from foster home to foster home and developed several mental illnesses and crippling abandonment issues along the way. The boy was kidnapped by Scarecrow and saved by Batman, but not before being pumped full of Scarecrow’s homebrewed Bane venom. Batman thought he had purged the boy’s system of the toxin, but Collin soon found that he could control his transformation and decided to use his powers to help abused children on the streets of Gotham – taking up the moniker “Abuse” for the job.

It was in this role that he met Damian. The two took down Victor Zsasz’s child fighting ring in Streets of Gotham #10-12 and became fast friends. This friendship is farther explored in Nguyen’s series Lil’ Gotham, which is making a comeback in February of 2020 as the young reader-targeted children’s book Gotham Tales: Once Upon a Crime. Colin Wilkes fans rejoice – the redhead is making an appearance!

And those are my top 5 friends of Damian Wayne that I’d like to see again in comics. I really hope DC brings them back in some way, shape, or form. Perhaps as new members of the Teen Titans? Or side characters in a new Damian Wayne solo title? Any way they go about it, I’m sure I’m not the only one who’d love to see these faces again.

[raendown]

Commission for @cassieeeeanne.

Pairing: KakashiShikamaru Word count: 4013 Rated: E Summary:Coming home after a long day to see only one light left on in their house, Kakashi finds quickly himself bound by shadows and helpless to the whims of the master who wields them. He loves every second of it. Just as he loves every second of this life they've built together.

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

KO-FI and commission info in the header!

影の縛る

The lights were off. He had a good view of all the windows in their modest little bungalow from down the street and he could very clearly see that all the lights were off. Of course, that didn’t mean there couldn’t be any on in the back of the home but it was strange considering Shikamaru’s habit of leaving at least one lamp lit in every room he passed through during the evening. Preparing yourself for battle was a habit no shinobi could ever fully kick even when they had spent the last two weeks on forced vacation.

Because someone didn’t know how to turn their brain off and just let themselves rest.

What made him sad about the anomaly was the chance that Shikamaru might not be home when he got there. Despite the fact that his was the loudest voice sending the man on vacation it had been an actual hellscape in the weeks without him at work and coming home to a warm smile at the end of the day with increasingly elaborate dinners hot on the table had become the only thing keeping him sane. Now it looked as though his partner might have finally taken his advice to go spend time with some of their other friends and he found himself oddly disappointed. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been lonely since they moved in together but it seemed he would be tonight.

Or so he thought until he stepped through the back door they both typically came and went through and noticed a single light on down the hall. The hour was fairly late, endless paperwork keeping him chained to his desk long past when he would have disappeared if not for Sakura’s watchful eye glaring at him from her own little makeshift desk across the room. Considering the time it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that his partner had given up and gone to bed already.

Kakashi did his best to keep that in mind, moving as quietly as possible as he kicked off his sandals in a messy heap and padded in to the kitchen for some much needed dinner. Just as he expected there was a plate of dinner waiting for him in the fridge that he stood over the sink and wolfed down without bothering to heat it up, not wanting the microwave to make tons of noise in case his bedtime suspicions were correct. It didn’t taste anywhere near as good as he knew it would have were he sitting across the table from Shikamaru with their feet crossed together in a big messy heap while they casually stole bites from each other’s meals.

After washing the plate and his hands Kakashi shrugged the wrinkled haori that served as a badge of office from his shoulders and folded it across one arm with the intention of getting undressed in the bathroom. His plan was put on hold when he stepped out of the kitchen and noticed that the single lamp still burning in the living room was casting a very familiar shadow.

Smiling gently now, he changed directions and went to see if his partner had fallen asleep on the couch reading again, something that happened with adorable frequency.

The smile faded briefly when something wrapped around his legs and locked him in place, creeping up the trunk of his body to spiral back down his arms. By the time the jutsu reached his head Kakashi found himself entirely immobilized and yet all he could do was grin sheepishly at the figure watching him from the couch with a passive expression.

“I know I was supposed to be home a little earlier but wouldn’t you say this is a little excessive?” he asked, pulling at the Shadow Stitching more to make a show of struggling than because he thought he could break free. Shikamaru hummed.

“What makes you think I’m upset that you came home late?”

“Oh, it might be the ambush. Might be the holding me in place. Something in there feels like you’re upset. I don’t suppose you would listen to a few excuses before you dole out whatever punishment that brilliant mind of yours has come up with?” Kakashi offered a winning smile, grateful he hadn’t bothered replacing his mask after eating.

Shifting a little farther back in to the shadows, Shikamaru scoffed. “I am far from upset, though you still don’t get to move. Tell me something. Do you know what day it is today?”

Immediately the guilt retuned tenfold. Clearly he had missed some important anniversary and while Kakashi might be a lazy person and he might appear to others not to care very much about anything he had always put as much effort as he could in to this relationship. Dates and anniversaries were something he was good at thanks to a simple glance at the calendar with his Sharingan but even wracking his permanent memories yielded nothing. He was forced to shake his head with a pathetically apologetic face.

“Today is a rather obscure holiday that surprisingly originates from the Hyuga, National Recommitment Day.” Leaning forward so that Kakashi could finally see all of him, Shikamaru gave a deadly smirk when it became clear he was completely naked. “I thought to myself, what better way to show my commitment than to indulge you in some of those fantasies we haven’t tried out yet?”

“Oh the gods are smiling on me,” Kakashi breathed.

“If they aren’t, I certainly am.”

“Hallelujah,” he declared fervently.

Since he had a few dozen fantasies they still hadn’t tried it was hard to narrow down which particular one his lover had in mind until he realized that the Shadow Stitching hadn’t budged so much as an inch, forcing him to keep still and watch as the man across from him adjusted the lamp to give them just a little more light. When he leaned back across the couch he looked like a feast, the ultimate temptation, and it was glorious torture watching him slide both palms down the planes of his chest at an unhurried pace. Shikamaru did almost everything at an unhurried pace.

When he reached the top of his thighs his hands dipped inward and curled so he could drag his nails lightly against the sensitive skin. From experience Kakashi knew exactly what it was like to do that himself and feel Shikamaru shivering pleasantly against him but now he could do no more than drink in the sight of that beloved face tilting back to expose a pale throat so perfect for nibbling. Oh how he wanted to nibble.

“You’re being very mean to me,” he whimpered, still not bothering to struggle since he knew it would do him no good. He was unsurprised to hear his partner scoff.

“I’m being very nice to you right now. Wasn’t this your favorite scene from the latest Icha Icha? Junko’s adventure exploring herself in the bathtub, knowing she was being watched but not caring?” Shikamaru slid one hand down to cup and roll his own sacs. “If I remember correctly she found it rather thrilling to have someone look upon her with such hunger.”

“Well I can definitely say I’m hungry for something right now.”

“Not to worry,” Shikamaru purred. “I’ll make sure you get your fill.”

Instead of moving upwards as Kakashi expected him to do he stretched his hand down farther, scratching a line up his perineum just to make himself shiver again. His legs spread wider as though he, like the character Junko, wanted to put as much of himself on display as he could. Only when Kakashi let out a quiet whimper did he bring his hand back up to palm the cock sitting full and heavy in his lap.

Without a hint of shame he let out a slow groan of appreciation for his own touch, closing his fingers in a loose grip and drawing light circles around the tip with his thumb. His lips parted in a soft yet obscene expression of pleasure when he finally began stroking himself, base to tip, in a steady rhythm more designed to tease his audience than anything else.

It was definitely working. Kakashi couldn’t decide if he wanted his cock inside that fist of long elegant fingers or if he wanted to be the hand honored with pleasuring such a beautiful man but either way he desperately yearned to be a part of what was happening on the couch. He had also never been this turned on before in his life. Something about being forced to watch his partner give himself pleasure was incredibly hot in the same way getting all worked up only to be denied orgasm at the last minute drove him absolutely wild.

He really was lucky to have a partner who not only knew all his kinks but accepted them, was willing to play up to them. All the way home he’d been looking forward to a relaxing night with Shikamaru but he hadn’t expected anything nearly on this level. Later he would have to ask what he’d done to deserve such a scrumptious treat but for now all he could do was stand still and let the shadows binding him in place take his weight when he felt his knees almost buckling. Shikamaru smirked, feeling the pull against his jutsu, and opened his legs just a little wider again. From this position his entrance was just barely out of sight but now Kakashi could see the glimmer of shine on his inner thighs.

The dirty rotten tease had already prepared himself and now he was sitting naked and slick on their living room couch and Kakashi wanted him so bad he could taste it. When he said as much he got a wicked look in return.

“Oh, would you really like a taste?” Shikamaru asked, giving him pause for a moment before he decided that playing along could only lead to more good things.

“Yes please. I’m always happy to get a taste of you, love.”

“Flattery will get you nothing that I wasn’t already going to give you, Kakashi.”

He almost laughed but the amusement was cut short when he felt the shadows pulling at him, forcing his body to move however Shikamaru wanted him to. If it were anyone else Kakashi knew he would have called a red light and put a stop to their little game right there, not exactly a fan of being forced to perform actions like he was a fan of being bound for sexy reasons. When he was bound there was always a little voice in the back of his mind reminding him that he was a strong shinobi, he could fight his way out of almost any situation if he needed to. Having his bodily autonomy removed was a different story.

But with Shikamaru there existed that level of trust he had only experienced with fewer other people than he could count on one hand. Knowing it was Shikamaru pulling the strings kept him calm and little more than curious as his body was made to walk across the room where he was then folded to kneel by the couch.

“Well?” Shikamaru demanded as though bored. “Go ahead and have a taste.”

A flick of one finger and Kakashi was gently bowed forward until his mouth hovered just over where his partner was still lazily stroking himself. He licked his lips with gratitude when he realized what was expected of him; a boon, actually, considering he had only just been battling with his desire to take part.

“Thank you,” he murmured, appropriately grateful.

He waited politely until Shikamaru’s hand stopped moving and brought that delicious looking cock right to his lips before opening his mouth and dragging his tongue along the flushed head. After lapping a few times he wriggled with the intention of freeing his head, almost surprised to have his wish granted, then immediately put his new freedom to use by lowering his neck to take the entire head in his mouth – and then he groaned with relief. This was exactly what he had been craving and he hadn’t even known it until it was given to him.

It felt like all the stress of the past few days was flowing out of him bit by bit as he sank down, letting his eyes fall closed to properly enjoy the sensation of having his mouth filled. Soft noises egged him on and Kakashi mourned for a brief moment that he didn’t have use of his hands to better pleasure his lover but he was more than capable of giving his best with nothing but lips and tongue. Fingers wove their way in to his hair, gentling guiding his movements without controlling them, some of the shadows immobilizing his head relaxing their hold to let him do as he would.

Kakashi smirked around his treat when he felt Shikamaru’s thighs begin to tremble. His partner had always been weak to a good blowjob and he knew damn well that every blowjob he’d ever given was good. It was still always nice to know that he hadn’t lost his touch, as evidenced by the way the fingers in his hair began tugging absently after only a minute or two, small involuntary jerks that danced in time with the patterns he drew with his tongue. For each quiet moan he hallowed his cheeks and for each hitch of breath he dipped his tongue in to the slit to taste the precum beading there. He wasn’t surprised in the least to be pulled away long before his jaw even had a chance to feel the strain of staying open.

“Fuck’s sake,” Shikamaru mumbled. “I was gonna order you around some more but it’s too bothersome, just get up here and fuck me would you?” With that he released his Shadow Stitching and reached to pull Kakashi off the floor.

“I always have to do all the work,” he pretend to complain.

“You like it.”

Tumbling his partner down across the cushions and spreading his legs to see the glistening hole already stretched and waiting for him, Kakashi smirked. “I enjoy making you feel good,” he admitted.

“Well it would sure make me feel good if you could get on with things before I put you back on your knees and finish on that smarmy tongue on yours.” Shikamaru glared but there was no heat behind the expression, not even when his words earned a quick laugh.

“As much as that would not be a punishment at all you know I am always on board with fucking you in to the couch.”

“So fuck me then, damn it!”

“Maa, yes sir.”

Quelling his laughter was as easy as letting Shikamaru pull him down in to a kiss. Kakashi followed with the rest of his body carefully, slipping in between the thighs so eagerly parted for him and using one hand to line himself up. For a moment he questioned if he should grab some extra lube just in case but just pressing the head of his cock against the area was enough for him to tell there was plenty of lubricant.

Shikamaru must have been stretching himself here in the living room while Kakashi walked home from work and wasn’t that a pretty little picture to imagine?

Completely ignoring any further attempts to hurry him along until he was good and ready to do so himself, Kakashi took his time pressing inside just to enjoy the sweet relief of friction after being denied any touch up until now. Almost better than the physical pleasure was the sight of Shikamaru’s face going lax and both of his hands fisting against the couch as well as he could. When Kakashi bottomed out inside of him his eyelashes fluttered shut in what must surely be the most blissful expression anyone had ever worn. Then he cracked them back open with a heated stare, soft light from the lamp casting half of his face in to mysterious darkness.

“Make me scream,” he commanded.

Kakashi grinned as he pulled out slowly but neither of them were able to keep up the amusement when he thrust his hips forward again. Immediately caught up in how good it felt to be inside of the other man, all thoughts of humor and teasing flew out of his mind as Kakashi took up a brutal rhythm right from the start. In his peripheral vision he could see Shikamaru’s hands scrabbling to get a better grip and brace himself to ride out the motions. Each thrust shifted them just a little until eventually he was fucking his partner in to the corner of the couch, folding him in half and driving in to him with animalistic focus.

Sweat gathered on both of their brows and dampened their hair and still Kakashi pushed closer to the man underneath him. The dark parts of him that had taken over simply couldn’t conceive of pulling away until they had both been satisfied, frantically rutting in to the eager body opened to him, racing towards the tension he could feel gathering inside. The heart inside his chest felt as though it were beating in his throat and yet the only thought Kakashi could keep in his head was how beautiful Shikamaru looked on the verge of ecstasy.

He could tell his partner wouldn’t last much longer when Shikamaru began trying to wedge a hand between their bodies to take himself in hand. It was hard to ignore the first instinct to deny him, the need to be the one to drive his partner over the edge without help, but Kakashi could admit that he was ever a slave to the other’s needs and he knew how much Shikamaru enjoyed coming with a hand around his own cock while Kakashi drove in to him without mercy.

Pulling back just enough to bat the reaching hand away and wriggling his own between them was still too far apart in his mind at that moment. He did it anyway so he could feel the weight of a dripping cock in his palm, run his thumb through the slit to gather precum and using it to create an easy glide as he began pumping Shikamaru in time with his own frantic thrusts.

“Ah!” the moment his hand took off in proper motion it was as though he had released a beast. Unable to keep still with so many good sensations coming at him from two directions, Shikamaru writhed and bucked as well as he could in the limited space between couch and top. As always happened when both of them were teetering so close to the edge, the rhythm of their movements began to break down in to arrhythmic rutting, both of them frantically moving their hips to chase their own pleasure and just hoping to the gods that it worked for the other as well.

“Come on,” Kakashi panted, one hand holding his weight with a tight grip on the back of the couch and the other stroking in a pattern that only made sense to him. “Scream for me, love, that’s it.”

“Shit, fuck, don’t fucking- ah- don’t fucking stop!” Shikamaru writhed a little harder, jaw clenched, every muscle in his body tensing with anticipation.

Whether it was the passage around him slowly tightening and driving him wild or the fact that he was always weak to these few shining moments when Shikamaru threw laziness out the window to swear and writhe and make demands, Kakashi was the first to tip over the edge with a drawn out moan. It was almost a herculean effort to keep his hips in motion and prolong his own orgasm just enough to shift the angle of his thrust but he was rewarded when he impacted his lover’s prostate and Shikamaru followed him in to bliss with a loud shout.

The two of them shuddered against each other in the aftermath, gasping for air after such wild exertion. Shikamaru released his death grip on the couch and lifted both arms to wrap them loosely around Kakashi’s shoulders, not truly gripping him but rather draping himself as well as he could in a semblance of a hug, lazy habits already reasserting themselves.

“I knew I could make you scream,” Kakashi mumbled in to the sweaty skin he was pressing his face against. He smiled a little lopsidedly when he felt Shikamaru’s body huffing with silent chuckles.

“Do you want a pat on the head for a job well done?”

“Well, I mean, I wouldn’t say no.” Nuzzling a little, he made sure to leave a few kisses before he pulled away so they could look each other in their equally dopey looking eyes. “I think I would be much more interested in carrying you to bed, though.”

Shikamaru pretended to think about it while his body melted further and further in to the couch cushions. “Hmm. I suppose I could be talked in to letting you carry me.”

“Of course you could. You like it when I carry you places.”

“It means I don’t have to walk there myself.”

“Too bothersome?”

“You know me so well.”

Kakashi rolled his eyes good-naturedly and gave a loud put upon sigh. Before he moved he swooped in for a few more kisses and called it payment for his services, though he was probably the one who owed a bit of thanks for such a delightful surprise after a long day at work.

He pulled away as carefully as possible and hurried to reach for the tissues nearby, not wanting the couch to obtain any unsightly stains. That would definitely be the first thing pointed out the next time any of their friends dropped by for a visit and they would never live it down. Before he could carry anyone anywhere he had to scoot over to the kitchen and throw all the tissues in the garbage but when he returned Shikamaru held out both arms like a spoiled prince and jokingly turned his nose up in silent command.

“I spoil you, you know that right?”

“Yes but you enjoy it so that makes it okay,” Shikamaru said.

Not bothering to hold back his smile, Kakashi nodded. “Fair enough.”

In his head he was already making plans for what meetings he could move around to schedule a day off of his own and what sort of scene he might set to pay his partner back for such this evening’s surprise. Most of the options in his head would require him to put together a little outfit. The man might not enjoy putting in a lot of effort to most things himself but Shikamaru did like it when Kakashi dressed up in certain skimpy outfits for him.

The final decision on that could be made another day, however. At such a late hour it was no surprise that both of them were yawning by the time they tumbled down on the mattress together. Covering both of them with the sheet and kicking all the rest of the blankets away, Kakashi pulled Shikamaru to his chest and nosed around until he found the pale neck hiding underneath all that long dark hair. He had to turn his head away and fight off a yawn first but he made sure to dust a few more kisses before cuddling in and closing his eyes for the night.

“Welcome home,” Shikamaru muttered to the dark room. “I don’t think I said that earlier.”

“Maa, I felt very welcomed nonetheless.”

No matter how many years they spent together it would never stop thrilling him how welcomed he felt each day he came home to Shikamaru, how easily the younger man had turned his empty in to a place of peace. Releasing all thoughts of anything else but the small cocoon their bodies made in the bed, tightening his grip, Kakashi hoped that his partner knew how much he was loved; he felt much the same himself.

[abhisheksingh098]

SHONEN JUMP RAP CYPHER | RUSTAGE

SHONEN JUMP RAP CYPHER | RUSTAGE

SHONEN JUMP RAP CYPHER | RUSTAGE - Rustage Lyrics

**Lyrics** (Luffy: Rustage) Starting with the number one, hey How'd a pirate get this long, hey Cause I ate the Gum Gum See them run run When I hit that gun, hey Sailing I'm talking no breaks When my crew's on the move As we pillage the grand line Looting the treasure we can find I'm blowing up like a landmine Going gear second I reckon that I'm a weapon I'm wrecking up those who threaten In messing with my own brethren Stay repping look where I'm heading No question the Yonkos sweating I'm betting the words I'm yelling I'm king and there's no forgetting <![CDATA[ (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); ]]> (Gon: Fabvl) I'll jump the competition, really there's no contest Channelled future yen and most of y'all ain't even bomb yet It's nonsense Pro exams completed as a child Hisoka, I think these clowns are living in denial So don't make me power up, I'll call the thunder in my right hand If you want the strongest shonen, then you called the right man They might Stan Treat you all like Pitou, it won't take long Name is Gon and this time Imma make sure that you stay gone (Naruto: None Like Joshua) Oh, better believe it's Naruto Who's the best hero all of you know My legacy is happening I got a type of running named after me While you're slow Can't keep up with my chakra flow Except Hinata, I'm her ho- Kage, all I did is call her and tell her to come over cause My parents are not home Out of these ninjas you can watch my dub Even all my filler is so far above When it comes to Boruto why ya'll given up Like I did with simpin' on Sakura Killer B's rapping but I get the encore With the power that I bring I don't really want yours Cause I came from the swing, everybody shunned more Now you're looking at the king of this Jump Force <![CDATA[ (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); ]]> (Yugi: Connor Quest!) I'm a master, you be Practice newbies That's a doozy For Yami Yugi Puzzle did something like a hadron tunnel Cause now I got atem through me Champ of the match see fans fawn No matter what hand's drawn I'm kicking up dust Metal tanks in land form When we D-D-D-D-Duel there's sandstorms Cards are flipping I need an answer quick and I might find my dark magician If I wish hard and believe enough in the heart that's in 'em I see setos fear Pull the fifth part of Exodia Guess it all came to a head so clear That your deck's gonna get X'd, oh dear (Asta: Eddie Rath) Welcome to the magic It's a tale that's tragic Filled with pain that's Harder than plastic Especially when you discover When I started I was Less than amazing But now that I've been chosen By the grimoir I'm rising to The occasion in a blazing flame of magic Ain't no hocus pocus and abracadabra That you don't have it a wizard you joke with This ain't Gandalf The Gray But you shall not pass Hopeless, better be ferocious Was the poorest orphan living in darkness But now I'm focused I be thanking all my hardships <![CDATA[ (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); ]]> (Ichigo: IBDL) Uh, hit em back with that Bankai Got that power like it came out of the Dangai Father passed the torch now I'm the fam's don guy Think you Aizen, but you looking like that don guy Y'all like Soifon, your raps barely sing My bars are Getsuga Tensho, got that masterful swing They say it ain't over till the fat lady sings But you'll know that it's really over when that black lady sings (Koro-Sensei: CDawgVA) Mach speed, blow up the moon And now making these children write essays Coming with tentacles teach you a lesson In why you don't mess with the sensei I amaze, used to be the reaper now I run this class I can turn a loser to assassin do it real fast (Light: Zach Boucher) I think I've been out of my head Gift was given made some poor decisions That I wish I didn't, but I do it again Feeling different I was on a mission To achieve my vision with a page and a pen Sit and listen to the words I've written It ain't even finished till I see that they're dead Don't even try to pretend there's no malicious intent Stay in my thoughts, keep to the morals I've got And kill anyone who is not Just never get caught until every criminal rots They'll consider me as a god At whatever cost, that's how I excel Cannot be stopped even if I fell I'm taking em off, if you couldn't tell I gave up a lot to give you this L <![CDATA[ (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); ]]> (Hinata: Shwabadi) Yeah, here comes Hinata When I'm on the court the enemy has got their guard up Never gonna fall off, bet I'm gonna pop off Way short, but I'm packing punches like a sawed off Hot like a sauna, this ball of fire Don't know nada, but I'm gonna chase desire To go farther every jump will take me higher They put walls up, so I had to learn to fly Putting up points, spiking it or clearing the way Best decoy, got a little something to say To anyone that doubts that I'm here to stay Only got one goal it's to play the game Underestimated I'm the ace, you just wait When I spike it past the net You might take it to the face (Deku: Divide Music) Coming in with 100% of me I got you trembling Just with a flick of my finger Put you back where you're supposed to be I'm not holding back I got you so calculated I'm one step ahead One For All gon be demonstrated Get it? Got it? Good! Nothing better, and you should know Started from the bottom and I made it to the top, so Step aside I'm rising to great heights With All Might at my side Repping UA With pride, oh <![CDATA[ (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); ]]> (Yusuke GameboyJones) Giving you the finger spirit gun Send you off with Botan, then you done Hit you with the stick and I didn't need a grip When I'm pulling from the hip then click Because I'm lock loaded, the clip is ready to go Got a shotgun in my hand that's bout to blow Cause I'm hitting you quick, fast Giving you whiplash wearing these spirit cuffs You can be human or demon Cause honestly I just don't give a fuck If you're looking for the best, just know there's no other Cause I'm flexing out here like I'm the youngest Toguro brother (Gintoki: Shao Dow) They call me Gintoki, slim not stocky Lemme Shonen Jump on your leg and your body Odd Job Gin, don't mess with my possee If you touch my hair then you will be sorry Cause you're way too sloppy Got a silver soul, Shiroyasha Swing my sword and Amanto scatter Gintama, not Kintama Tell Shinpachi we need money If Kagura or Katsura bring more trouble we keep running Pay rent? That's a waste of time That weather girl, I will make her mine You can beat me up and that's fair and fine But if you hurt my friends then prepare to die <![CDATA[ (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); ]]> (Tanjiro: DizzyEight) Slaying demons is what we do If you filled with evil then my blade is highly lethal If you coming at my people, pray to god I never meet you Ever mess with Nez, you KO'd when I see you I've grown stronger from that fateful day they found me I trained to hone the skill, the progression so outstanding My style like breathing water, that mean you could never drown me Whirlpool, that mean I'm slicing everything around me (Emma: FrivolousShara) EMMA, 63194 Listen what I've got to say The others walked now seems we gotta run away Don't you talk adults are the enemy You can break every bone in my body I won't falter And if the plan fails, the idea simply alters These demons scheming but they ain't the only monsters Our combined IQ breaks the safe, strength in numbers Now we've woken from the slumber Never ending perfect summers Across the farm you can't help but wonder <![CDATA[ (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); ]]> (Soma: DiggzDaProphecy) See I'm the anime Raekwon The chef, baby stay calm You can't stand the heat, get out the kitchen get a day job Word, and the finale's superb I take a sec, put on my band and I'll be happy to serve So ma, tell me what you like and I can hook it up Ya boy got them recipes the best couldn't cook up And she gon bust from the taste of my meat Chef boy are these boys always cooking up heat (Jotaro: Dreaded Yasuke) It's my go, they call me Jotaro Don't get me mad Imma go fast only with jabs You go through silos Got that drip in Cairo, girls will simp my silhouette I know think it's a typo fighting with a platinum psycho None of Y'all is a threat What you gotta say in your breath Better speak with a bigger chest Now you lying down with my pet, while Iggy piss on ya neck All types of disrespect, what you expect Go against a vet, better get your techs Wanna get swept through the complex Now who is next? <![CDATA[ (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); ]]> (Bobobo: BassedOlaf w/ ThighHighSenpai) Bobobo making the foes stare Call me the master of nose hair Look at the hair on the heads of these anime characters Brother it's no fair But I'm better than these guys, don't you understand? I came second place at screaming face to face with desk fans Afro is full of surprises, look at my powers immense Leaving beauty screaming Bobobo that makes no sense Hunting hair hunters, Saitama I'm coming for you Don patch a better Super Saiyan god than Goku <![CDATA[ (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); ]]> (Goku: DaddyPhatSnaps) Oh, they went and called Kakorot, had to be danger Leave em flat footed like they in the gravity chamber I'm just looking for a challenge can you battle me stranger? Shonen Legend in the Saddle and the power is major Level up on the track, flow ultra instinct Bye bye bye fusion dance is always in sync *wink* And they wonder why I'm last on the song Cause when all of you were taking I just formed a spirit bomb

https://img.youtube.com/vi/tbqAb2SwHz4/maxresdefault.jpg from Blogger https://bit.ly/2SPqKpd

[roraewrites]

fourteen - falling

Glass Heart Rating: M And he was in the darkness, so darkness he became.

previous |

With the ground beneath his feet and his eyes scanning for familiar faces, Sasuke was finally making his way towards the mountains. Even though he wasn't exactly sure where he was at, the crisp air was nostalgic, bringing his mind back to his genin days when he was still running around with Sakura and Naruto.

There was just something about the Land of Fire that would always annoy him to no extent.

"Oi!" The familiar voice echoed through the woods, and by the time Sasuke's eyes glanced to the left, he was met with a pair of familiar lavender eyes.

As he was perched on the tree, Suigetsu began to make his way towards the Uchiha, followed by Karin and Juugo.

"Well don't you look rough," Suigetsu sneered with a wide grin.

Sasuke felt a low growl rumble in his throat as he eyed the white haired man. The way his sharp teeth showed from behind thin lips, and the fiery look in his eyes made something within Sasuke's mind snap. He could rip this man in two, right here, right now, but instead of replying to his snarky remark, he dropped his gaze.

As crumby as he felt on the outside, he also felt absolutely miserable on the inside. His chest hurt, almost like it was weighed down by an intense anchor, yet he refused to admit why he felt this way. Even his mind wasn't right, everything felt fuzzy; his throat was tight, his eyes heavy but he'd only claim that he was tired.

"Where's Sakura?" It was Karin's turn to antagonize him, but when Sasuke's eyes found her own, he didn't feel angry anymore. He felt sick to his stomach, like he could curl up and vomit at any time.

It took the Uchiha awhile to register her words, along with registering exactly what had happened only hours ago. He could remember the anger that filled her eyes, and the shaky voice she spoke with. It hadn't made sense then, but now that he recalls, Sakura was absolutely hurt. He'd never seen her so broken down, incredibly vulnerable like everything she had ever had in her life was now gone.

"Sasuke?"

"Don't worry about it," he snapped.

Karin's amber eyes narrowed, but he could still see the lust that filled her eyes whenever she looked at him. Throughout their journey, all of them had encountered tough trials, and even standing there in the dense forest, located somewhere in the Land of Fire, Sasuke's body was just exhausted.

"You're not telling us something," Suigetsu began to pick, his eyes glazing over with a livid anger.

"I don't need to tell you everything."

"Then just tell us one thing!" Karin's shriek was loud and thunderous; her eyes now held fire. "Did she die?"

Sasuke's hesitation was a mistake, as he could see just how wide Karin's eyes had grown, but before she could continue her fit of shrieks and accusative screams, Sasuke shot her his own dirty look. "Sakura is fine, but she's no longer coming with us. If anyone else would like to question me, please, go for it."

His voice was dry as he began to make his way forward and through the trees again. Behind him, he could feel the uncomfortable tension begin to loom, but like puppies, they followed closely behind him.

Sasuke couldn't shake the hurt look from within Sakura's vivid green eyes, the way she spoke with a voice filled with hurt and insecurities, but yet he let her walk away. Even throughout the day, he continued to think of the kunoichi, remembering the feeling of her skin against his, and the way her lips felt when they kissed not just once, but multiple times. Goosebumps began to ascend throughout his body and although the blistering sun remained high in the sky, Sasuke's body had grown cold.

He wasn't in the mood to argue with anyone, nor face the emotions that remained in his heart. He cut all those ties before when he left the Leaf years ago, but when he saw Sakura, he couldn't just leave her to die in the hideout. Sasuke knew he was a selfish man; he took Sakura, made her stay by his side and wanted her to help him during his fight with Itachi, yet the longer she remained by his side, the softer he grew. He didn't want to have to force her to stay there, nor say mean things when he didn't exactly mean them; she was just a frustrating woman and as much as she annoyed him, he felt an empty hole begin to form in his chest with her presence no longer around.

How was is so easy to turn his feelings off all those years ago, but now he could hardly make it a minute without thoughts of Sakura flooding his mind? Sasuke soon felt frustrated with himself for the actions he made. He'd taken Sakura when she was vulnerable, took her for what she's worth and now he was the one left to feel broken inside while the world around him continued on. Even the whispers from Karin and Suigetsu didn't go unnoticed, yet he was too tired to care; too tired to say anything.

"I think something more serious happened," he could hear Suigetsu chime in.

"No shit, you idiot."

"I'm just saying, he's not himself..."

"Suigetsu, I will make it my own personal mission to kill you. Of course he's not-" the words eventually faded out as Sasuke inhaled deeply and continued on.

Obsidian eyes watched as they emerged from the trees, slowly making their way towards the mountains that had been formed hundreds of years ago. The shadows created were formed in all kinds of different shapes, and as they began to head towards the canyon created by them, Karin stopped suddenly.

"There's a lot of people through here. Almost like a town is located here."

"That's because there is," Sasuke answered quietly.

The rock formations had always been a great setup for enemies to hide, but the town located deeper within the confines of canyon was nothing more than a place stripped of their rights and forced to poverty. Although small, many runaways made their way towards this specific spot as they hid from greater villages.

As Sasuke made his way forward, it was like everything had gone quiet around them and evacuated the area. No one greeted them as they made their way through the old, rustic gates. Nor when the four of them followed in tow behind Sasuke, his eyes felt tired as he looked from one old, run down building to another.

Through the town they went, until stopping at what was a run down inn, and after Sasuke arranged for the four of them to get one, large room, he made his way down the hall in silence. The door creaked from beneath his palm and after wandering in, he immediately found one of the beds and flopped.

He didn't want to deal with anymore people, he didn't want to listen to Karin and Suigetsu's paining whispers. Sasuke craved sleep, he craved the need to be alone.

He yearned to see Sakura's green eyes and feel her intoxicating presence once more.

-

-

Waves of water washed up the shore, touching the tips of his toes as he sat at the lake. Rain had been pouring from the clouds above his head, soaking his raven locks - his hair stuck to his face when he glanced up towards the sky.

Everything was gray, there was no color in this world of Sasuke's. Finally, he let his body collapse to the sad and rocks, his fingers taking handfuls of whatever he could grab before he started throwing the earth into the water, watching it drown underneath the rough waves.

"Why!" He finally yelled, eyes growing wide at the waves that had yet to come. Everything was spiraling out of control, and before he could grasp another handful of rocks and sand, the waves came up and over him, soaking every part of his body before washing away and leaving him to curse on the land.

"Fuck this," he muttered out before falling to his back and looking up to the sky. Everything was gray, not even a shade of white could be seen, because his world was shattered and he was nothing more than broken glass; dangerous for himself and to those around him.

"Sasuke." A voice spoke, something that sounded all too familiar and uplifting, rinsing the anger straight from his body. He couldn't help but turn his head the moment he shot back up, and when he searched for the owner, he couldn't find her.

"Sakura," he called out in short breaths. He was now to his bare feet, his toes dipping into the sand and rocks as he began to walk away from the shore's edge. He dripped with water, his dark, dark eyes searching for that voice, trying to find any clue as to where she was.

The farther he walked, the darker it got. He was beginning to panic, his mind began to cave in on itself, his body becoming far too cold while his heart hammered against his ribcage. He was no longer walking, but running to get away from the cold tension that ran down his body. He refused to be taken by it, refused to quit fighting.

"Sakura." He huffed out once more, a cloud of white coming out as he breathed her name out, but this time, he couldn't hear himself. Everything around him had fallen to pitch black, he couldn't even see his own hands when he lifted them up.

Sasuke was freezing, his body started to shake while his fingers trembled and eyes ached from tears that had yet to fall. He was so cold, so alone, so afraid, tired, his fears running wild in his mind as he curled up and fought to hear her voice again.

"Sasuke!"

His eyes snapped open, finding a pair of ruby eyes staring back into his own dark orbs, her face entirely too close for comfort before he choked on his spit and began to cough. Sasuke's dark locks were drenched with sweat, his eyes burned from tears that pricked beneath the surface, and as he pushed away from Karin, it was clear that Juugo and Suigetsu were sitting just behind her.

All three of them had wide eyes and pale faces. Sasuke hated the looks on each of their face, but instead of questioning them, he coughed until his throat was clear and his mind wasn't as fogged. The last he remembered of his dream was falling into complete isolation, in a dark cavern where he was revealed and exposed. His body shivered at the thought, his hands still shaking as he brought them up to view them.

"You okay, man?" Suigetsu was the first to speak after they had woke Sasuke up. "You don't look too good."

The atmosphere was tense, something Sasuke came to realize as he ran his calloused fingers through his hair. He still felt the pain in his throat from coughing, but instead of verifying his state of well being, he stalked off towards the bathroom and slammed the door behind him.

When he glanced at the mirror before him, his eyes focused on the broken glass of the mirror. What reflected in what visible glass was left was him; broken and chipping away just like the mirror.

"Petty," he commented before turning the handle on the sink.

He splashed cool water up and over his head, relishing in the calm that washed over his body at last. The only thing that didn't feel okay was his heart. The Uchiha felt nauseous to his very core, his body still ached and his mind still felt foggy.

Sasuke swallowed hard before reaching for a supplied towel and running it over his face. Black soot smudged along the off-white fabric, and instead of continuously washing his face, he glanced back towards the mirror one last time before scowling at his reflection.

"You're nothing but a coward," he told himself, letting the insult of his own words engrave themselves in his mind as he continued to glare. "Nothing more, nothing less you fucking coward."

Thoughts of letting Sakura slip away from him in the early hours of the morning still trailed through his mind, her viridian eyes losing the last bit of hope that she had for him while he stood in his lost state of mind, watching her go as she walked away.

Before Sasuke could control his actions, his fist collided with the wall just behind the remaining pieces of the mirror. The leftover glass came shattering down all around him; pieces sliced through his knuckles, lodging into his skin as he smirked his approval and threw the now blood stained towel to the floor.

His hand threw the door open, his eyes scanning over the white faces of Karin, Juugo and Suigetsu before he grabbed his Kusanagi and vanished through the window.

He no longer felt numb; he felt pain because everything fucking hurt.

-

-

His fingers picked at the glass chunks in his arm and knuckles, trying his hardest to remove the dirty mirror shards as best as he could. The blood never stopped trickling from his skin, but it was a reminder of the pain he felt on the inside.

Night had already settled in the sky above him, and instead of returning to the inn that night, he sat perched in the grass that settled somewhere along the cavernous mountains. His fire that he had made flickered light around his dark surroundings, and instead of keeping his mind focused on what was going on around him, he continued to pick at the pieces in his skin.

The last time that he had smelled smoke from a fire and sat in grass that crunched under his weight was when he was with Sakura; stroking fingers through her hair and caressing her soft skin under the light of the moon. Everything was perfect, everything was clear and he could breathe and focus, but that damned demon inside him ripped her from his grasp and let her walk away.

Take responsibility for your own actions, the inner voice taunted him, but Sasuke brushed it off. Thoughts of pinks and greens, lively smiles and boundless skips kept annoying him while he let his heart drown in unforgiving thoughts.

No matter what, he always pushed away important people and let things get out of his grasp. He had a goal to kill Itachi, something he came close to when he was younger, but again, it slipped from his grasp because he wasn't strong enough and he didn't hate him enough.

The searing pain of scalding tears pricked at the backs of his eyes once more, and before he knew it, hot tears fell to his damaged and bleeding skin. He sniffed roughly, fighting back the hurtful thoughts and irritating memories. Everything he had ever done in his life was for Itachi; whether it be to gain his acknowledgement or kill the man, it was a never ending cycle.

"I fucking hate you," he gritted through clenched teeth, while his fingers removed another shard. "I'll never forgive you."

[kuriquinn]

If Naruto and Sakura ended up together in the series, would you have continued to write about SasuSaku?

Probably not. I would have still shipped SasuSaku, but I feel like writing anything that runs contrary to the canon kind of disrespects the original author. I write in the Naruto fandom because I feel there’s a lot of stuff that was left blank that needs to be elaborated on, and so whatever I contribute is still in the spirit of the original work. It’s an homage to the original creator, not me throwing a fit because what I wanted to happen didn’t happen so now I’m gonna write my own version (which, admittedly, is what got me into fanfiction in the first place, but I’ve since changed my view of the whole thing).

It’s why, despite shipping Ginny/Draco or Katara/Zuko or Buffy/Spike or Heero/Duo or any number of non-canon pairings...I won’t write fanfiction for them. 

As it is, I knew from the beginning that Naruto and Sakura would never be a thing. It was right there in the first chapter, where Hinata was watching Naruto and wishing him luck in passing his exam, even while everyone else kind of looked at him like he was nothing. It takes a special kind of girl to like the kid no one else does, especially at such a young age. Preteen kids can be sociopathic little assholes.

And it was kind of obvious to me that Sakura and Sasuke would be a thing from the beginning too, although I didn’t see any actual connection between them until their encounter with Zabuza (Sasuke blushing when he asked what Sakura had told Naruto? And the absolute devastation when Sakura thought Sasuke was dead?). The moment that sold me was, of course, the Forest of Death incident. After that, I knew without a doubt that Sakura and Sasuke were end-game. Before I took my break from Naruto, I had actually started writing a few SasuSaku fics --- long before we got the official end of the manga - because I had such a strong feeling about them being canon. 

But yeah, if I wrote them and then they turned out not being canon, I would have stopped.

It’s sort of why I stopped writing for SPN, to be honest (other than getting into a new fandom). I ship Destiel, and I just got so tired of the queer-baiting, and every season getting farther and farther away from the possibility of canon (which was already pretty damn small because Jensen Ackles isn’t comfortable with the notion and the writers would never risk alienating their male viewers by having a main male character be in a same-sex relationship...). 

I guess I just don’t have it in me to get invested in relationships I know are going to fail. I mean, that’s what real life is all about, right? A lot of failed relationships, and if you’re lucky, you get the one that lasts.

[endowrites]

WIP Day #1

WIP Week: Day 1 - Your Oldest WIP

Title: Timeless (how’s that for a fitting name) Fandom: Naruto Rating: T Characters: Minato

Start Date: 10 July 2016 Last Touched: 19 March 2017 Word Count: 3.8K

It’s not technically my oldest WIP, but it’s definitely the oldest writing project I’ve got that I’m still planning on finishing and publishing someday. 

The tl;dr of this fic was that it was an attempt to give Minato’s Hiriashin some introduction and background. Essentially, I turned it into a time loop jutsu, because I hate every time loop fic in this fandom but still thought it was a cool concept. It’s also canon compliant, which is a feat unto itself.

Here you can find a more detailed description I wrote up of the idea that eventually became this WIP. I modeled it after those “Twenty Times” style fics you’ve probably seen out and about (most famously this one), so that’s why it reads the way it does.

I’m just going to dump the whole thing, because it’s long and difficult to split into pieces and maybe by having a majority of it up on the web I’ll finally get the motivation to finish it. Enjoy!

Timeless 

The first loop Minato didn’t consider a loop at all. It was his prologue - the beginning of his beginning.

Minato became a soldier in the first loop, as was expected of him. Dull wooden kunai were replaced by their sharp, deadly, real equivalents. Childhood was replaced by reality. Art was replaced by war.

But more often than not, Minato found himself daydreaming about new jutsu and seals and the almost magical properties of a well timed technique, rather than brute force and physical strength.

Minato was just as much a creative as he was a fighter. It was just his luck, then, that there existed the perfect combination of the two.

All of the studying, all of the work, all of the sleepless nights - Minato tucked them away under the veil of the first loop - the loop of life.

The loop that started it all.

-

The second loop was short, confusing, and sent Minato half into a tree.

He wasn’t aware at that time why they should have been called loops, however, so he simply referred to them as various failed experiments. Because that’s what they were - failures.

Failures in a never-ending struggle to tame time, no less, but still failures. No one ever accused Minato Namikaze of being anything less than ambitious.

The Second Hokage was a genius: a truly gifted shinobi. His ideas, however, were loose and scattered - much like the leaflets of paper filled with bizarre jutsu he penned (and then subsequently shoved into drawers that Minato later found in the Hokage’s library, after pestering the Third about it for so long that the man gave up and handed him the key).

Minato supposed, in hindsight, that it took one to know one.

Perhaps that was why the Hiraishin jutsu stood out to him above all the others. It was a technique that was so close to being something, that Minato could not rest until it was.

And that, after several months of endless experimentation, was why Minato found himself lodged in a dense patch of foliage.

He had overshot the calibration, and wound up freezing time for all of three seconds. Just enough time to trip, fall forward, and end up with a leg pierced on a stalk of sheared bamboo.

Kushina had not been happy about that incident.

Minato spent the brief period of time after the second loop tweaking his adjustments to the Hiraishin even further, perfecting what the Second Hokage had deemed imperfectible.

Time travel itself was impossible, that much had been proven to him by Tobirama’s extensive notes on the subject, but Minato wasn’t interested in time travel.

No. Instead, he found himself pouring hours of his time into the study of time dilation - the means by which to stop time, rather than wrestling with it. It was the path of least resistance, and still yielded the same effect: allowing him to move about in a bubble, out of phase from the rest of the world. Vast distances could be travelled in mere fractions of a second. Enemies could be struck down effortlessly, as if frozen in solid ice, and would die before ever seeing their killer. The world would pause for him, and wait at his beck and call.

He would be a god.

But it was all still theory. An impossible feat, for certain, but not impossible enough for Minato Namikaze.

The long, sleepless nights between loops Two and Three were spent under the quiet embrace of a desk lamp aside a pile of weathered old books from the Third Hokage’s personal library, and copious amounts of lukewarm tea.

As with all things Minato pursued, he found what he was looking for.

The next loop awaited him.

-

Loop Three proved to be just as much a failure as Loop Two, but no less important.

Having determined that simple concentration wasn’t enough to prevent himself from disengaging from the Hiraishin’s effects, Minato found himself locked in a bubble of space-time for nearly thirty-six hours. He sat alone, waiting for the jutsu to expire, the world around him frozen in motion. He had gotten so bored, in fact, that he had begun to count the leaves in the trees - and from that point on, Kushina bragged about the fact her boyfriend was fast enough to count entire trees worth of leaves in what seemed like a split second to anyone that would hear it. “That’s the power of the Hiraishin,” she’d brag.

Minato let her. They didn’t need to know the hows or the whys.

-

Loop Four was frustratingly similar to the one previous. Minato had managed to reduce the offset by a considerable amount - but that meant he still was forced to sit in a sphere of frozen time with nothing but himself, the pebbles at his feet, and his own unpleasant thoughts for nearly three hours.

The next time, he would bring a book. Or, at the very least, a stick to draw in the dirt with.

-

Loops Five and Six experimented with the diameter of the sphere. He still found himself stuck in what was, essentially, an isolation chamber for a far too long amount of time, but now he could stretch and move a bit - at least, as much as he was able to before chakra exhaustion began to eat away at his senses, eventually knocking him out the farther he pushed.

He woke up after Loop Five with a concerned Kushina shaking him to death, and woke up after Loop Six to an enraged Kushina shaking him to death. There was no middle ground.

He promised, rather half-heartedly, he would “be careful”; but he suspected Kushina saw through the ruse as soon as the muttered, sheepish promise slipped past his lips.

The way she shook her head and looked at him told him just as much.

-

Loop Seven tested the boundaries of the sphere. He purposefully left the diameter up to as much as ‘winging it’ would suffice, and began walking.

He found that he could move the sphere with him as he went, but it was very draining. Many factors, it seemed, cut away at his chakra reserves, almost to the point only a jinchuuriki would be a worthy wielder of the technique.

Minato realized soon after that Tobirama wasn’t being ignorant in dropping the project and focusing on his library of others with far more potential. Instead, he was simply being economical.

Minato was anything but. He had his heart set on the Hiraishin, could feel the potential power coursing underneath the lines of each page in Tobirama’s notebook.

No, Minato wasn’t economical. But he was determined.

-

Loops Eight through Fifteen proved fruitless, and it was only in Loop Sixteen that Minato discovered the missing link.

Kushina.

After several consecutive days of coming home tired and exhausted, Kushina demanded to observe Minato as he trained.

She watched him as he activated the Hiraishin, only the slight tilt in her eyebrow showing she was impressed. Once firmly settled in the cockles of near-frozen time, Minato had the chance to simply watch her - frozen in place, eyes bright as diamonds, her posture ragged and daring.

Minato bent over and plucked a small yellow flower from a bush to his right, feeling the tug of his jutsu extending to the flower’s space in the universe. His chakra encapsulated it in the grasp of the Hiraishin, moving it along through time parallel with Minato.

He reached over and tucked the knotweed between Kushina’s hair and her ear, smiling for a moment, before he disengaged the jutsu.

After he came back from under the influence of the space-time technique, the redhead clucked her tongue and waggled her finger at him.

“Seals,” was all she had said. “You need to focus your chakra so you don’t waste it all? Use seals. That’s what they’re there for, y’know.”

Minato’s eyes widened. Was it really so simple? Seals?

She blinked, reaching into her hair to grasp at something that wasn’t there before. She lowered the knotweed, smiled, looked up at Minato in surprise. “Wait, when did you do that?”

Minato was already gone.

-

Loop Seventeen was long delayed. Seals were the key, Minato realized that now.

The Second had used a basic seal when he first created the Hiraishin, that was certain, but Minato had dismissed the idea almost without a second thought. But he may have thrown the baby out with the bathwater in doing so.

Minato sat in the library at the desk that all but bore his name at this point, pouring over scroll after scroll, detail after detail - anything and everything he could get his hands on regarding seals, sealing arts, and just how he might be able to pull something off.

He started with Tobirama’s seal, attempting to decipher the strange, cryptographic means by which the man had crafted his art. He truly was a visionary, Minato had to admit, but the Second Hokage had many neurotic tendencies that made using his notes as reference next to impossible.

And then when Minato returned home that evening, angry and disappointed in himself, it was Kushina (again) that brought him out of his slump.

“What is it, exactly, that you’re trying to do?” she sighed with an eyeroll, murmuring ‘do I have to do everything around here’ under her breath as she dragged him to his study, an inkwell and brush finding their way into her hands almost by means of magic. “Look, it’s not that hard. All you have to do is use your brain a little.”

Minato watched her work, memorizing every minute detail as she laid brush to tapestry.

Loop Seventeen happened three days later.

-

After the thirty-second loop, Minato felt the Hiraishin was complete enough for an exhibition.

He had done all the testing - the seals did a fine job of localizing the sphere of the Hiraishin’s influence to an area on its own, and a small bit of flourish Kushina had taught him as he was completing it allowed for the bubble to extend to his location regardless of where he was, pulling upon little to no chakra in doing so.

It was around the time that he demonstrated the technique to both his sensei and the Hokage himself that Minato truly realized the extent of what he had accomplished.

“Tobirama was an inventor,” Sarutobi had mused that afternoon, from between lips gripping a pipe. “But you, Minato, are an innovator. Far too few shinobi have this skill. And it is one that will carry you far indeed.”

“Sensei’s right, kid,” Jiraiya smiled, crossing his arms across his chest. “You managed the unthinkable. The Second created more jutsu that is probably natural in his lifetime, and I’d be hard pressed to call any of them, save for maybe the Shadow Clone jutsu, complete.”

He was right. Minato had reduced the chakra costs from astronomical to hardly a drop, made a somewhat inconsistent technique that relied on the caster’s concentration and chakra potency into something based around seals and numbers, and created something that had the potential to devastate. Destroy.

Minato only nodded. “I certainly hope the Hiraishin’s complete. At least, complete now.”

Jiraiya let out a barking laugh. “Brat, you’ve spent more time researching for that technique than I did for any one of novels. Hell, all of my novels. I’ve seen what you can do with it. If it’s not finished, I’ll eat Gamabunta.”

Minato paled at the proclamation, but before he could respond in some sort of timid manner, the Third spoke up.

“I have a mission for you,” Hiruzen hummed, plucking a sheet of paper from his desk and sliding it forward. “Well, rather, a mission for your certain subset of skills. You say the Hiraishin allows you to… stop time?”

“Slow it,” Minato corrected. “And it requires a base. Tobirama used force of will, but that was far too unpredictable, and nearly impossible to use in battle. Not to mention how draining it can be. Instead of that, I’m using seals. But that means--”

“We get it, Minato,” Jiraiya interrupted, waving him on. “Spit it out.”

“I… yes. But only around markers I’ve already placed.”

Hiruzen paused, uncertain.

Jiraiya spoke again. “What about kunai?”

“Kunai?” Minato asked. “What about them?”

Jiraiya shrugged. “I dunno. Can’t you attach your seals to kunai and throw them?”

Once again, Minato found himself back at the drawing board.

-

Loops Thirty-Eight, Thirty-Nine, Forty, and Forty-One were forgotten in the heat of battle.

Minato swerved to the right, slashed his kunai at a shadowed figure, and ducked back as the foggy forest swallowed him.

He had just assassinated the military commander of the Hidden Mist. It was understandable that they would send their best men to return the favor.

Minato ducked, rolled, and slammed his elbow behind him as the hunter-nin stumbled forward. The movement carried Minato forward, and he dove out of the way of an explosive blast that rattled the surrounding clearing like glass in a windowframe.

He saw the blade before the shinobi that held it, tucked aside like an afterthought, forgotten in the heat of battle.

His body moved faster than his mind did, flaring chakra, molding it in a way that had become something short of second nature to him.

Time slowed. Flickered. Stopped.

Minato blinked again, his own body caught in the technique. He was hung in the air like a cloud, dangled above .

But he was safe.

He could have used a shunshin, or even a kawarimi. But instead, for some inexplicable reason, his body moved first - and here he was, caught in the throes of life-threatening battle, his most imperfect, most unrefined jutsu keeping him alive.

He smiled. Fitting.

Minato landed on the ground with catlike grace, his neck angling upwards, analyzing the battlefield. He leaned forward, grabbed the kunai from midair, and used it to slice the Mist ninja’s throat in two, quickly and without emotion.

He froze for a moment when the blood didn’t come pouring out. But then he remembered: time dilation. For some bizarre reason, the sensation of killing without blood sickened him. It made the job more... surgical, almost.

He plucked a basic kunai from his pouch, a seal - temporary - tied around the handle with thin white string, and launched it across the clearing, watching as it pierced the bubble of the Hiraishin’s influence and trailed its own path through time. The blade landed, and the two points connected.

The bubble expanded, grew like a small pocket of air trapped underwater, and Minato vaulted across the clearing to the other Mist ninja.

Another bloodless murder, and Minato disengaged the technique.

The job was done.

Minato took two steps forward, listening with a grimace as his actions out of time began to catch up with him, and the two ninja gurgled and moaned as they bled out.

Another step.

This time, he heard another sound.

It took him a heartbeat, then another to realize it was coming from his own mouth.

He looked down at himself, at the blade of the kunai that was piercing through his chest like a tumor, and the way blood, black as coal, began to trickle past his flak jacket and seep into the earth.

His heart seized.

“Heh,” the third Mist ninja said from behind him, cockiness bleeding into his words, “you may be fast enough for those two, but you’ll never be fast enough for me.”

He didn’t remember why he did it - why he felt compelled to use the Hiraishin. Perhaps Minato wanted a moment to kill his killer before the man could watch his death, or perhaps he wanted a moment of carefree silence to mourn himself… for the life he was undoubtedly about to give up from simple inattentiveness.

An image of Kushina flashed through his mind, bedecked in white and surrounded by the vibrance and beauty of color and marriage and love--

He roared, enraged. The jutsu flared, bubbling up past his skin like boiling water, flickering through the air, far more powerful than any time Minato had used it before.

The forty-second loop was the loop where Minato died.

But it was also the first loop - the first real loop. The first loop where time really did go back on itself, change itself, become anew.

He watched with disbelieving eyes as the blood spilled on the grass between his feet began to move, travelling up his body until nested within his chest once again. He watched as the kunai dislodged itself from his chest, and watched the fabric in his jacket stitch itself back together. He watched the leaves in the trees, as they retraced their steps in time and danced a familiar dance.

The bubble expanded past his skin, chasing time away like a skittish animal, until it returned to the way it was every other time - a shimmering sphere of impossibility, hovering just outside of his reach.

Minato turned, and saw red. The red of blood, the red of anger and rage… the red of the hair of his wife on the wedding day he so nearly missed.

Hiraishin had given him another chance, and he wasn’t about to soil it. The forty-second loop was where Minato died, but was also the loop where Minato was reborn.

-

The previous forty-one times Minato had used the Hiriashin, he realized later that month, were all loops. Every single one of them.

Sure, he hadn’t noticed it at first. But calling the forty-second ‘loop’ the first of its kind wasn’t accurate.

The Hiraishin twisted time more than just by freezing it. That was merrily because Minato hadn’t been pushing it as far as it could go, for fear of depleting chakra reserves and leaving him stranded, locked out of time.

In the heat of the moment, death on his doorstep, Minato had thrown any and all caution from his mind. He pushed everything he had into the technique, and it had delivered.

Minato could cheat time. He could cheat death.

“No shinobi, regardless of title, has ever held within them the power of a god - the true power of a god,” Sarutobi had said one lazy afternoon, after Minato had revealed his discovery, chest still heaving from returning to the village following another round of tests. The Hokage twiddled with his beard a little, staring out past the tall, imposing pillars that adorned the top of the Hokage’s Tower and down into the village he oversaw.

He turned, looked at Minato’s wide-eyed face, and gave him a look of fierce honesty - of expectation. “But you, Minato, are the first to truly wield it.”

Minato could cheat life. He could cheat chance, and reason, and calculation.

He turned, leapt from the rooftop, ran all the way home. His hands shook as he landed in front of his doorstep. A mix between terror and gratitude, adrenaline-bolstered fear locked them in place above the handle to the front door, and Minato just stood there.

He stood, and quivered.

Kushina had jumped when she opened the door to come looking for him an hour later, only to find him inches away. She pulled his shellshocked body inside, held him as he took massive gulps of air, rubbed the tension in his shoulders away with the soft pads of her fingertips.

“You’re alright,” she whispered to him as he stared, dazed, out the window into the fading light of early dusk. “You’re fine.”

Minato could cheat life, cheat death, cheat time. He had become a god, wielding that which had never before been wielded by man alone.

But Minato could not cheat the weight of the world on his shoulders, pinning him to the earth like the mortal he was.

-

“You should try teaching,” Jiraiya told him over dinner, two weeks after loop number one hundred and fifty-two. “It suits you.”

Minato froze. “Sensei?”

“Exactly,” Jiraiya winked, leaning his forearm across the table. “You’d be a fantastic sensei, kid. You’ve always had a knack for explaining the unexplainable. You would be a fantastic role model.”

“He’s right, you know,” Kushina said with a sly smile as she walked by, a bowl of ice cream in her hands. She slid into the seat in between the two men, and watched with a cocky grin as Minato floundered under their combined scrutiny. “What’ve you got to lose?”

He met Kakashi, Rin, and Obito three weeks later.

War followed not much longer after that.

-

He remembered the four hundred and ninety-sixth loop very well.

Everything was routine. Everything was supposed to be routine.

But war was war, and not even Team Minato, led by a god, could survive unscathed.

Minato had used the Hiraishin, just as he had many times before, as a means of traveling across continents - and the four hundred and ninety-sixth loop was no different in that regard.

But Minato quickly realized just how wrong he was, and how life changing Loop Four Hundred and Ninety-Six would become.

After Obito’s death, Minato receded into his jounin shell. Life dulled, drifted past his glazed eyes like beads of water dripping down stained glass.

He failed as a teacher. He failed as a shinobi. All of his uncertainty came flooding back, and more often than not Minato found himself marching towards the Hokage Tower, hands clenched into fists, to hand in his resignation. It was Kushina, only Kushina, that held him back, reminding him of his obligations.

But then Rin died too.

Kakashi took it harder than Minato did at first, but Kakashi’s pain fed into his own. He felt like a father would, struggling to stay strong for someone when he needed someone strong himself.

But still he powered onwards, simply because he had no alternative. Minato was a logical man by nature, and he knew his own strengths and weaknesses. He knew how his mind coped with loss.

So he buried himself in his research, studying seal after complex seal, mastering the art in a manner that few before him had ever accomplished.

He discovered the Reaper Death Seal after Loop Five Hundred and Twelve by accident.

He poured through several old Uzumaki tomes that Kushina had dragged up from the basement, long forgotten. He pieced together the archaic technique after weeks of backbreaking, exhausting research, and in the end, even after testing the jutsu’s less lethal components with rigorous valor, Minato still wasn’t certain the jutsu would work.

And then he became Hokage.

And his life went from stressful to chaotic with the snap of the Third Hokage’s fingers.

-

Loop Five Hundred and Thirty was a simple trip to the Hokage Tower - a summons.

“So you say this jutsu allows you to split… souls?” Hiruzen asked, scanning through the large ream of paper Minato had composed on the Reaper Death Seal.

“Well… yes.”

“Teach me,” the Third said, and his eyes were steeled and resolute.

Thanks for reading! It definitely is a bit rusty and reads more like my old style than my new, but I still really like it and the concepts it introduces.

I’m gonna cheat and use this as my response to the WIP Meme I was tagged in last night by @blackkatmagic (because otherwise I won’t have enough WIPs to use for this week!). the first line is:

The first loop Minato didn’t consider a loop at all.

...which is 10 words long. I don’t really know that many people here that write regularly, so instead I’m leaving this as an open tag to anyone that wants to participate themselves! And join WIP Week - it’s super fun and has done a great job of reminding me of projects I had completely forgotten about!

[nashifics-blog]

Enter: Naruto Uzumaki! (And Nanashi Yamamoto)

Nanashi Yamamoto’s adventures in the Naruto series; Chapter 1.

“I’m at the end of my rope, Naruto. You failed the graduation test last time, and the time before that. Tomorrow you’ve got another chance, and you’re messing up again!” Nanashi lifted her head from her desk, wiping a bit of drool from her chin as she heard Iruka-sensei yelling. Again. “Fine! Because you missed it, Naruto, everyone will review the Transformation Jutsu!” The dark haired girl groaned with the rest of the class, slowly trudging over to get in line next to Sasuke.

“Alright, Sakura here, let’s do it,” the pink-haired girl said, stepping forward. “Transform!” In a poof of smoke, another Iruka stood in front of everyone.” As Iruka recorded the results, she turned back to the others, “Yes! I did it! Sasuke, did you see that?”

Nanashi flashed Sasuke a crooked grin as Sakura got back in line, “Yeah, Sassy, you were paying attention, weren’t you?” Her friend just rolled his eyes, stepping up when Iruka called his name.

Iruka glanced up from his clipboard, “Uh… Good.” With another poof, Sasuke transformed back and walked off. “Next! Naruto Uzumaki!”

Shikamaru glared at the blond, “This is a total waste of time, Naruto…”

“We always pay for your screw up!” Ino chimed in, hands on her hips.

Naruto grumbled under his breath as he stepped forward, “Like I care…”

Nanashi gave the boy a sympathetic smile as he prepared to transform, only to burst out laughing as he suddenly transformed into a naked woman. Iruka’s eyes widened, “Huh?!” He was sent flying back as blood shot out of his nose. As soon as he recovered, he started screaming at Naruto, “Cut the stupid tricks! This is your last warning!”

“This sucks. Loser…” Naruto muttered under his breath as he got to work, cleaning the stone faces he’d desecrated earlier that day.

Iruka sat farther up on the mountain, his arms crossed, “You’re not going home until you’ve cleaned up every drop of paint!”

Naruto stopped scrubbing, turning his attention to Iruka, “So what? It’s not like there’s anyone waiting at home for me…” He turned back to continue scrubbing, only to find Nanashi standing beside him, sponge in hand. “What the—When did you get up here?”

Nanashi grinned, shrugging, “Just now! I saw you up here, and I thought I could help. Y’know, move the pace faster.”

Iruka smiled softly, watching the scene for a moment before calling out to the two students, “Naruto! Nanashi!”

Naruto looked up, pouting, “What do you want now, Sensei?”

“Well, I was just thinking. Maybe after you clean this all up, I can take you out for some ramen. The good stuff! What do you think?”

A huge grin crossed both of their faces, and Nanashi nodded excitedly. Naruto turned to Nanashi, “Now that’s some serious motivation! We’ll have this cleaned in no time!”

“Naruto?”

“Hmm?” Naruto barely managed a reply, his mouth full of noodles.

“…Why would you do that to the Hokage faces? I mean, you know who the Hokage are, don’t you?” Iruka questioned.

Nanashi shook her head slightly, ‘Here we go…’ She shoveled ramen into her mouth, trying to keep her mouth shut during the conversation.

“’Course I do!” He quickly slurped the rest of his ramen broth before finishing, “Everybody knows! They were the greatest shinobi of their time, right? The best of the best – Undefeated ninja champs.” He looked up, as if picturing something, “And the fourth Hokage’s the one that saved the village from the Nine-Tailed Fox. He was the most amazing!”

Iruka frowned, arching a brow in confusion, “Then why did you...”

“’Cause I’m going to be greater than any of them! Me. Naruto. The next Hokage!” He pointed his chopsticks at Iruka dramatically, “A ninja legend!” Nanashi applauded him, still trying to swallow the noodles she had stuffed in her mouth, “Then everyone will have to stop disrespecting me. Believe it!” He paused, suddenly turning sheepish. “…Uhh… By the way… I kinda wanted to ask a little favor, Sensei…”

“…You want another bowl?”

Naruto shook his head, “Nuh-uh. I... Wanna try on your headband.” Nanashi stifled a laugh as her friend put his hands together, bowing politely, “C’mon, pleeeaaase!”

Iruka looked up at his headband, “Uh… Oh, this? No way. You can only wear the Leaf Headband when you finally graduate from the academy and become a Ninja. You’ve gotta pass the test tomorrow.”

“That is so uncool!” Naruto pouted, crossing his arms.

Nanashi giggled, “So’s that why you took off your goggles, Noodle Boy?”

Iruka laughed loudly as Naruto turned red from embarrassment, yelling, “S-So what if it was?! I want another bowl!”

Iruka stood at the front of the classroom, clipboard in hand. “We will now start the final exam. When your name is called, proceed to the testing room. The final test will be on… the Clone Jutsu.”

“Nanashi. It’s your turn, get up already,” Nanashi opened her eyes, only to see Sasuke standing in front of her, arms crossed. “If you don’t go, you’re going to be failed, you know.”

She sighed, standing up from her desk, “Yeah, yeah, I’m goin’ Sassy. Keep your pants on.” She ignored the glare he was giving her, making her way to the testing room.

Nanashi bounced happily next to Sasuke as she secured her new headband around her waist. She adjusted it so that the plate sat on her right hip, “Look, Sassy, we did it!”

“…Yeah.”

The black-haired girl rolled her eyes, “Wow, don’t sound so excited…”

A new voice sounded from behind her as her father and brother arrived to congratulate her, “Look, Dad, we now have a convenient handle for when she gets into trouble!” She turned to face them, just missing the glare Koukatsu had sent a few women that were gossiping about Naruto.

Nanashi pouted, but that was quickly erased with her father’s words, “Why don’t we all go out to celebrate? You too, Sasuke! And Naruto can come if he wants to!”

As Sasuke nodded in agreement, Nanashi started looking around, “I’ll go get hi—Where’d he go? He was just over at the swings…” She frowned, turning back to the guys. “Weird. I guess he went home…”

           Nanashi sat in a booth at Yakiniku Q, wiggling and rubbing her hands together excitedly as she got ready to dig in. Sasuke sat next to her, a look of amusement on his face. “It still amazes me how excited you get over the smallest thing. Are you ever calm?”

“When she’s sleeping,” Both men across the table responded in sync.

She just grinned, taking a piece of pork off of the barbecue in front of her. The guys followed suit, Koukatsu and Shinji both shoveling food into their mouths.

The meal was interrupted, though, when a messenger came up to Koukatsu, frantic. “Mr. Yamamoto, I’m sorry to interrupt your meal, but Lord Third needs you immediately!”

Koukatsu pouted, face stuffed as he tried to answer, “Mmmhkay, gimme a minute…” He stood up, placing the money on the table. “If you order anything else, Shinji, you pay for it.” He got a muffled ‘Yeah, yeah,’ in response. “Sasuke, you’re staying the night, right?”

Sasuke looked up, slightly surprised, “Oh, uh… Yeah, if that’s alright.”

Koukatsu flashed him a toothy grin, “Great! I’ll see you guys later!” With that, he was gone.

Shinji watched as his father ran out the door, “Wonder what that’s all about…” He shrugged, turning back to his food, “Oh well. More for me!”

Nanashi groaned as light suddenly flooded the room she was sleeping in. She opened one eye, rubbing the other as she looked for the person that woke her up. Her train of thought was broken when she felt something shift under her, and suddenly Sasuke’s voice was heard in the otherwise silent room. “I know you’re awake, now get off of me.” She opened the other eye, turning her head toward his voice.

She had fallen asleep on top of him, their bodies creating an ‘X’ on the floor of the living room. “Oh, mornin’, Sassy…”

“Do you have to do this every time I stay over..?”

The only reply he got was a tired “Hmm…” so he shoved the girl off of him. She sat up, pouting, as she turned toward the third occupant of the room. “…Dad? What’s goin’ on?”

Koukatsu grinned tiredly, “Oh, y’know. Little of this, little of that. Naruto’s a Genin now. Yaaay…” He fell to his knees, exhausted. “Oh, and Mizuki’s evil. Surprise!”

Both Genin sat up quickly, now fully awake. “What?!”

[raendown]

Pairing: MadaraTobirama Chapter: 15/18 Word count: 2253 Summary: When Tobirama is exiled from the Senju clan without warning, without even the chance to plead his case, it feels like his life is over. What does he have to live for now without his older brother to believe in him? Captured by the Uchiha in his moment of weakness, Tobirama slowly learns to live again with the last people on earth he would have ever expected to care for - or to fall in love with.

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

KO-FI and commission info in the blog header!

Chapter 15

“You seem distracted, husband.”

Hashirama jumped, the sudden motion knocking his chopsticks out of his hands and sending them spinning across the table to land in front of an empty chair farther down. Ironically it was that empty chair he had been mindlessly contemplating for most of their meal.

Although, to his credit, he was able to say that for once he wasn’t thinking of the one person that should have been there to fill it. While Hashirama did still spend a large portion of every day wondering what had ultimately become of the brother he still refused to give up on, today his thoughts had been a little closer to home as he imagined another person he would have liked to join them for dinner. Clinging to one problem did not mean he couldn’t also think about another. Despite what some people believed he did know how to multitask.

When the first missive had arrived from Madara all those months ago he’d noted the strange tone to it, demanding peace even while making the whole idea sound somehow detestable. He recognized that something was off at the time but after looking in to the matter and coming up with nothing he’d mostly chalked it up to the other man’s unique style of communication. As things progressed and each meeting spawned more and more incredible ideas from all sides he had thought things would improve between them and this strange hostility would fade. He’d thought things might go back to the way they once were, that living in the same village would give them a chance to rekindle their lost friendship and grow together the way they had been denied when they were twelve, standing on opposite sides of a river bank while their fathers dictated their paths.

Yet here they were more than a full month after moving in to the newly coined Konohagakure and not once had he been able to tempt Madara over for dinner. The man refused all offers to come meet his wife or even do something as simple as meet for tea on their lunch breaks. Every day their interactions in the office left him more and more confused about where they stood with each other.

Some days the way they fell in to easy conversation left him hopeful that their friendship was finally rebuilding itself. Other days Madara was nothing but business and refused to let himself be distracted by personal conversation, finishing their meetings and then leaving the moment he was able to do so without giving Hashirama a chance to ask so much as a single question. It was never easy to predict which Madara would be coming to work on a given day, the happy friendly one who was willing to engage in distracted conversation or the standoffish closed one who seemed to want nothing to do with anyone outside of his own clan and especially not Hashirama. At times it felt like he was dealing with someone suffering from a split personality.

It was possible that he was just having trouble adjusting like many still were. Hashirama had seen countless near-incidents out on the streets and not all of them were the fabled Uchiha-Senju tension. Just last week he had witnessed a Yamanaka women stop in her tracks and immediately seek shelter when she saw a group of Senju shinobi returning from patrol in full gear, blood spattered on their clothes and weapons in full view. It was an automatic response built from years of living in a blood-soaked environment of shifting alliances. It was understandable.

But it was still saddening every time.

Retrieving his chopsticks, Hashirama hummed quietly to himself and made a snap decision. The day’s work was done and Mito would survive one evening without his company. It was time he did something to clear up this mystery on his own since sitting around and wondering clearly wasn’t getting him anywhere.

“You wouldn’t mind terribly if I popped over to the Uchiha compound for a while, would you?” he asked. His wife lifted her head to regard him quietly.

“Are you positive he will welcome you?” A frown touched her lovely brow. “The behavior you describe from him is worrisome at best.”

“Oh I’ll be fine. It’s only Madara! He would never hurt me, I’m positive of that.” Hashirama sat up a little straighter with his own confidence boosted. They had been dear friends once, surely Madara would honor that bond. Even if the other man didn’t quite see them as friends at the moment Hashirama was certain he could find a way to rekindle things between them.

Mito did insist that he stay behind long enough to help with the dishes as he usually did but that wasn’t exactly a hardship. He would never understand why other men didn’t enjoy spending those few quick minutes every day doing something together with their wives like he did. The cooperation, the closeness, the chance to flick bubbles at a beautiful lady. What wasn’t there to like? Doing the dishes after supper was one of his favorite parts of the day and he was as glad he ever was to partake in such a pleasant ritual.

After he had dried his hands off Hashirama bussed his wife on the cheek and stepped out of their home with an enthusiastic spring in his step. Today was the day he set everything back to how it should be!

Several of the people he passed along the way waved to him cheerfully and he waved back to each and every one of them. It just filled his heart with so much joy to see all these clans living here together in peace, working side by side harmoniously despite the little hiccups along the way. He still woke up some days hardly able to believe that this dream had come true. He couldn’t wait for the day he finally found his absent brother so Tobirama could share in this joy as well and then absolutely everything would be right in the world.

Oddly, something in the air seemed to change when he made his way past the entrance of the Uchiha district. He couldn’t quite put his finger on why but the air felt somehow chillier. Maybe it was the way the people he passed on the street had stopped smiling and nodding or waving in a friendly manner, although he supposed that was just the way they were. Not everyone had to be as open as he was. None of them tried to stop him or asked him to leave, though, so he figured he was welcome to continue on his way. If only he could remember where Madara and Izuna had said they were building their home. The two of them had been oddly secretive about the whole thing.

When he looked around to catch someone’s eye, hoping to ask for directions, he noticed suddenly that all of the nearby adults were giving him a wide berth. None of them looked directly at him, making it impossible to catch their attention without marching right up to their faces and interrupting the many whispered conversations he could see going on. Strange, he thought, to whisper when they were safe inside their own compound. Undeterred, Hashirama waved at a young child passing by who was peeking at him with an undeniably curious expression.

“Hello there,” he greeted the boy. “Would you be able to tell me where Madara’s house is?”

“Perhaps I could assist you?” a voice interrupted. Hashirama blinked at the woman who seemed to have materialized from nowhere. When he offered her a smile she stared back with absolutely no expression.

“Yes please! I’m looking for your clan head’s home.”

“Back that way,” she told him with one hand gesturing vaguely to her right. “Go east for three blocks then turn north and you’ll find what you need.”

The way she spoke had strange overtones of forbidding but before Hashirama could question it they were both interrupted by the child tugging on his sleeve to insist, “No! That’s not where Madara-sama’s house is. You got it wrong, obasan!”

“Oh? Can you tell me where it is then?” Hashirama asked him politely. The boy paused to eye him with increased curiosity while the woman, strangely enough, looked frustrated.

“Uh, I don’t know if I’m supposed to.”

“That is excellent vigilance! It’s alright though, I’m a friend of his. We built this village together!”

He was satisfied to see the boy light up and grin. “Oh! Cool! I’m not supposed to let any strangers find sensei’s house but if you’re a friend then that’s probably alright! Madara-sama said we would all be safe here in the village and he was right so I’m really glad we came – come on, it’s this way – ‘cause I really like it here and it’s nice to be able to play outside without running drills for if we get attacked and–”

The boy chattered like an unending fountain of words as he turned around and led Hashirama off down a random street that he had almost walked right passed. It was so cute watching those dark curls bounce with every step and that brilliant smile flash over the boy’s shoulder every few feet. His energy sort of reminded Hashirama of himself but it did make him wonder how such a happy child had come out of such a reserved clan. Every other Uchiha he’d met since the village was built tended to be cold and standoffish, refusing to make conversation and only speaking to him when they were absolutely required to. None of them had been rude, precisely, but they certainly hadn’t shown themselves to be friendly the way this little boy was.

“Right here!” came the announcement when they stopped in front of a sizeable yet otherwise unremarkable home. “I live right next door so sensei helps me learn my kata sometimes because he’s almost always home and I don’t know if the other two are home right now but you can knock! Mom says it’s polite to knock first and wait for someone to let you in!”

“Thank you very much for such excellent directions,” Hashirama praised him before he could go off on another tangent. The child beamed. “What’s your name, little one?”

“Kagami!”

“Ah. Well thank you very much Kagami, you have been an invaluable help.”

One more smile and then he was gone in an instant, flying down the street on the wings of youth before it occurred to Hashirama to wonder why it had sounded like there were three people living in Madara’s house, Madara, Izuna, and whoever Kagami meant by ‘sensei’. As far as he knew neither of the brothers were married. Did they have a relative staying with them? That wouldn’t make much sense; the village had only just been built and it was Madara himself who had brought up the idea that they should build more housing than they currently needed to make room for expansion and growth. Unless it was someone who had been injured or an older relative who couldn’t live alone. Really the possibilities were endless when he thought about it. Perhaps one of them had even decided to take on a protégé.

Setting the question aside for later, Hashirama shrugged and headed up the short path to the front door. He would find out soon enough so there was no sense worrying. No answer came when he knocked the first time. Or the second time. He could hear voices inside, distorted by the protective wards around the home, yet it seemed they were laughing too loudly to hear the sound of a guest arriving.

But it was only Madara, Hashirama reasoned to himself. Surely his best friend wouldn’t mind if he let himself in to say hello. The wards had yet to respond negatively to his presence and that was about as close to a warm welcome as any shinobi could expect from another.

Izuna’s voice was the first thing to wash over him when he opened the door, halfway through what appeared to be some sort of impersonation of another person. By the way he kept sprinkling his words with a very distinctive clearing of the throat it seemed he was imitating the current Nara clan head’s husband. He was a good man but he did tend to get lost in his own thoughts halfway through a sentence and trail off without finishing whatever he’d been trying to say. Having a conversation with him was often an exercise in frustration even for someone as patient as Hashirama.

Someone else down the hall murmured a question, voice too low to be properly identified, and Izuna broke off his impression to have a snickering fit.

“He does!” the man cried. “Oh kami he does sound like Elder Fu! Fuck me, I never even noticed until you said something!”

Not wanting to startle them too badly, Hashirama announced himself even as he popped his head around the corner, cheerfully calling out, “Hellooo! Is Madara home?”

Then he froze, just the same as the two men in the kitchen did. Izuna recovered after a handful of seconds but he moved only to shift his own body in front of the other man standing behind him who wore an expression that should have been as familiar as the one wearing it – although if they were as shocked as he was then they had never experienced anything quite this surprising.

“To-…Tobirama?”

[raendown]

My very first commission story! I went a little over what you paid for @uintuva but that right there is my own fault. I got excited! :p

I had this formatted to look so nice in Word and forgot that I only have limited functions on AO3/tumblr. How rude. 

Pairing: TobiramaKakashi Rated: G Word count: 2540 Summary: Kakashi takes shelter from a freak blizzard in a cave that looks relatively harmless. What he finds within is anything but.

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

KO-FI and commission info in the blog header!

Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost

Kakashi’s fingers swirled through the air absently as he peered around the inside of the cave. Most people didn’t have the imagination to think you could do anything with lightning magic other than the obvious use of shooting bolts of it around willy-nilly. People with an actual brain in their head – people like him – were able to find other ways to utilize the gifts they had been born with. Sure it would have been much easier to warm himself in this surprise blizzard if he had been a fire wielder but he had made due in the past with his lightning and he would survive again with it now.

Separating the heat from his lightning was a delicate business but it was a trick he had learned to do when he was barely in to his double digits and it took very little of his attention, leaving him free to scout the unexpectedly spacious area in search of wood. Magic could only keep him warm for as long as he was awake to maintain it, after all. Kakashi was many things but a master of runes he was not.

To his dismay, however, there was precious little wood to be found, barely enough to scrape together a small mound that would probably sputter out before he managed to fall asleep if he lit it now. With a sigh he hunkered down and prepared to stay awake for as long as he could before lighting it. Hopefully the worst of the snow would have abated by tomorrow; staying awake half the night to keep himself warm would leave his magic stores seriously depleted, which would make staying here another night dangerous indeed.

He was kicking at his pitiful collection of sticks when he dropped his head back against the wall of his shelter and let his eyes stare aimlessly upwards, only to narrow them in interest. Why was the ceiling covered in scratch marks?

Actually once he looked a little closer they weren’t scratch marks at all. Gouged in to the rock, protected by a thick layer of accumulated ice, the entire ceiling was covered with ancient sigils. The closer he looked the more mesmerizing he found them. Whatever hand had carved them was steady and artistic with an eye for beauty, confident and bold. Not a single stroke was out of place in any of them and each sat a perfect equal distance from the others around it. It was beautiful.

It was glowing.

Kakashi jolted and scrambled to regain his feet when he realized that the sigils had slowly begun to gather a soft blue light while he sat there staring mindlessly. He’d had enough encounters with the weird runes that Obito sometimes dug out of his massive family treasury to know that glowing was not a good thing, glowing usually meant that one should begin running quickly and immediately. And he did try. His sad little attempt at preparing a fire scattered when he crashed through it hurrying towards the entrance, ignoring the sound of wood cracking underfoot as he reached the entrance only to be thrown back when he encountered an invisible barrier.

“Maa,” he mumbled under his breath. “That can’t mean anything good.” Banging a fist against the barrier proved it to be solid so he turned around and swept his eyes from side to side as he tried to figure out what was going on. A trap of some sort, perhaps, meant to capture unwary travelers. What for he didn’t know.

His ruminations didn’t get much farther than that. All thoughts in his head jangled to a terrified halt when he heard something rumble from deeper within the cavern, down the dark passageway that he hadn’t explored because it somehow hadn’t even registered on his mind. Now that his attention was drawn to it he realized he hadn’t even seen it until now. Only seriously powerful magic could have concealed something as massive as a giant tunnel from his senses, keener than most as they were.

Swallowing thickly and pressing back against the barrier, Kakashi prayed to the Five Temples as he watched the shadows in the passageway shift and sway. There was something massive hiding in there and it had clearly noticed him. And he just as clearly had no way to escape it. Suddenly he regretted leaving behind that ‘emergency teleportation rune’ that Obito had tried to press on him before he left home. It hadn’t seemed safe at the time – most of Obito’s gifts weren’t even if they were always well intended – but at the moment even getting caught in the void between spaces seemed like a better option than getting eaten by whatever the fuck was about to come out of that darkness.

“YOU SMELL OF HUMAN.” The voice rumbled through his very skull when it spoke and Kakashi could not have said how exactly he knew but immediately he became aware of three things: the creature was a male, he was ancient, and he was more curious than angry at being disturbed. None of that managed to completely abate the fear clutching at his chest though.

“Makes sense,” he murmured in to the cold air. “I was human last time I checked.”

“WITH A SENSE OF HUMOR IN THE FACE OF DANGER. HOW NOVEL.”

Kakashi resisted the urge to pull nervously at his collar. In part because it would only make his fear even more obvious to a creature who could probably smell it on him and in part because doing so would dislodge his tightly wound scarf. He didn’t want to die cold, after all.

“TELL ME, WHAT BRINGS YOU TO MY NEST, LITTLE ONE?”

“Well you know...if not warmer it just sort of seemed…less cold in here. Just trying to survive and what not. And what reason have you to, uh, kill me? Any chance I could…talk you out of that?” He offered a winning smile before realizing that it was covered by the scarf pulled up over half of his face.

Smoke drifting out from the shadows. Or rather, he realized after a moment, not smoke but steam, massive white clouds of hot breath steaming in the cold air as the creature chuckled with a rumbling sound he would have compared to rock grinding together thousands of feet beneath the earth. He wasn’t sure where that comparison came from but once the thought was there he couldn’t shake it.

He staggered a moment later when the ground shifted under him, shaking with the force of massive footsteps as the creature moved at last. When he looked up the shadows were just parting and his first impression was of white purer than snow could ever hope to be. Millions upon millions of glittering scales covered the sinuous body, all lean muscle and graceful movements despite his size. His eyes were the same deep red as one of Kakashi’s own, the same as the three slashes equally spaced around his snout which also matched to the line going down Kakashi’s face, and if not for the ceiling of the cavern being so low it was clear that his head would been held three times the height with pride.

“Well aren’t you something,” Kakashi breathed, only half aware he’d said anything. The dragon parted its lips to reveal fangs as thick as his arm and just as long. Steam rushed out in another rumbling chuckle but when he spoke his jaw moved not at all.

They were speaking in each other’s minds.

“YOU DO NOT HAVE THE MARK OF DEATH, HUMAN.” Between one step and the next his form began to shift, shrinking and changing shape, until within moments there was only a human man striding across the snow clad in nothing but mere wisps of cloth draped loosely around him to preserve little more than his modesty, held in place with what looked like his own scales. When he spoke this time it was at a much more normal volume – but it was still only inside their heads. “You are marked for something far more precious than that.”

“Ah, you’ll have to forgive me if that just sounds more ominous.” Kakashi chewed on his bottom lip as he watched the dragon in human form cover the last few inches between them, grinning to reveal that his teeth were still just as sharp in this body.

“I will not hurt you. Tell me your name.”

“Maa, will you talk normally if I do? Can you talk normally?” The creature looked more amused than offended, giving him the confidence to go on. “You just…it’s weird, your mouth not moving when you say something.”

Nodding, the creature tilted its head to look at him from another angle. Something about his eyes made Kakashi feel as though he were being pursues despite the fact that they were both standing completely still. Even stranger, the thought sent a thrill down his spine that was either fear or excitement and he couldn’t tell which.

“My name is Kakashi,” he said, adding a curious lilt to the last word in the hope that his possible doom might return the favor in kind.

“Kakashi,” the dragon creature rolled his name through his mouth as though tasting each syllable. “Welcome, Kakashi. My name is Tobirama and by ancient rites you have been marked.”

That certainly didn’t sound like anything good.

“Marked how? By what?”

He nearly leapt out of his skin when the creature, Tobirama, lifted a hand and brushed the side of his face with one finger tipped by a nail that tapered in to something more like a claw. This time when he felt the sensations sparking through him he recognized one that had absolutely no place in this encounter, something that hadn’t plagued him outside of his favorite forbidden novels in a long time. Why in the Temples’ names he should find this beast attractive was beyond him but by the Sage he did.

“Okay. Touching. Sure. Any chance we could get back to the part where you said I was marked? By what exactly? For what purpose?”

“To be mine,” Tobirama told him, teeth bared eyes shining with a dangerous sort of satisfaction. He peeled Kakashi’s scarf down with the tip of one claw and cupped his cheek. Then something in the air grew bright and close and in the next moment they were gone from the cave – or rather they had reappeared in what looked like a different part of what must have been an entire system of caves.

Usually it took several hours of preparation and the right combination of crystals to complete a teleportation spell and here it had been done without any of that, not so much as a single gesture or word, seemingly with barely even a thought. Kakashi would have been boggled if he hadn’t been so distracted with his new location.

So this is a dragon’s den, was all he could think. Above him the ceiling was coated in glittering ice protecting the same web of glowing sigils, blue and white and so beautiful it made him ache to look at them. The room they were in was massive and yet mostly filled with a bed that could have easily fit a fully grown dragon. It was a wonder when he found himself pushed down on to one edge of the mattress only to feel the surface under him as soft and springy as though it had never cradled a creature three times the size of a house. More magic at work, undoubtedly.

He was just thinking of how he wasn’t sure how many more surprises his poor heart could take when Tobirama pressed him down and gracefully spread out across his lap like a great white cat. Or perhaps a very small dragon, as it were. Kakashi held his arms out awkwardly until Tobirama huffed and drew them back in to set them atop his own head.

“Maa…so when you said…yours…”

“Mine,” Tobirama rumbled without moving or opening his eyes, a languid grin of satisfaction practically taking up his whole face. “My mate, come to me after all the years of lonely waiting. You are late but I will forgive you this transgression.”

“How kind of you,” Kakashi mumbled faintly. “Am I stuck here?”

Tobirama opened one eye to watch him very carefully. “Is the thought abhorrent to you?”

Something in his tone had changed, for the first time afflicted with the slightest hint of uncertainty, and as they stared at each other Kakashi recalled his vague memories of the elective he had taken at the University where he studied his lightning abilities, the class on ancient beasts that he had chosen on a whim. Kushina-sensei loved kitsune above all else but even she had spoken in a reverent tone when teaching them all she could of dragons. The one lesson that came back to him with sudden clarity was that dragons, like many other mythical beasts of unknown origin, had very complicated yet very sacred mating rituals.

Watching the tension slowly grow in Tobirama’s shoulders even as he remained deceptively at ease, Kakashi determined that this creature who could tear him limb from limb without effort was actually nervous for his opinion. Tobirama wanted him to stay. More than that, he wanted Kakashi to want to stay. Something in his deep magic had told him that Kakashi was the one he had been waiting for – presumably for decades, dragons’ lifespans were unbelievable – but no matter how ingrained his own instincts were he could not force them upon a human.

Probably the most important decision of his entire life, this should have been something he asked for a little time to think about. He had always been someone who showed up late and jumped in with both feet though.

“Are you going to sleep on me like this a lot?” he asked. Tobirama blinked once before the tension released and his entire body began to rumble with a purring noise.

“Yes. All dragons slumber upon their most treasured possessions.”

“Well isn’t that sweet.”

Tobirama snorted and Kakashi dared to pet the hair that his hands had been forcefully set upon. He was rewarded with an even louder rumbling purr, almost enough to echo off the walls in this great cavern. It was lucky, he supposed, that he hadn’t been on any sort of official errand. Asuma would forgive him if he happened to show up late for his visit. He could always claim the weather had held him back and he wouldn’t exactly be lying.

He wondered if Tobirama would be open to going out in to the world with him. Either way, life as a dragon’s partner sounded like a grand new adventure. Kakashi closed his eyes and laid back on the furs underneath them with his fingers still idly carding through his companion’s beautiful hair. He was just happy to have stumbled upon this adventure without having to go look for it.

[raendown]

Pairing: MadaraTobirama Chapter: 3/7 Word count: 2372 Summary: Now attending the university here in their hometown as he begins his Master’s, Tobirama develops a problem with falling asleep in the strangest of places. Madara, poor innocent never-deserved-any-of-this Madara, gets mistaken for a mattress one too many times. All he wanted to do was focus on his career but instead he finds himself forcibly tasked with herding his secret crush towards better sleep habits. It’s driving him up the wall.

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

KO-FI in the blog header!

Chapter 2: Acceptance and Denial - A Madara Special 

“Again?” Madara very much hoped everyone present could hear just how much exhaustion he was projecting in that one single word. Because he was. He was exhausted of this entire stupid game.

Tobirama shrugged, looking entirely too comfortable on his bench inside the holding cell. Asuma was holding in a fit of giggles as he unlocked the cage door and swung it open with a flourish that Madara felt was just uncalled for. He made sure to send his coworker a venomous glare before he stormed inside and took hold of Tobirama’s arm, dragging him away from the actual criminals milling around inside.

“What was it this time?” he demanded. “Another bench? Some poor old lady’s front stoop?”

“Neither. I was sleeping on the front steps of the library – quite uncomfortably, I might add.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake.” Without looking Madara paused to shove his fist in the gut of another officer passing by when they laughed openly at the sight of Tobirama. The man was infamous around the station now. No one really bothered to try and charge him with anything but his fellow officers found a great deal of amusement in picking Tobirama up off the street wherever they happened to find him sleeping and then calling Madara in to come get him.

It was nice getting off work early so often but it was galling to know they were all laughing at him behind his back. Tobirama didn’t seem to care one way or another. All he cared about was whether or not his schoolwork came with him when he got taken in. Apparently the research he was doing for his thesis paper was more important than his reputation or the fact that Hashirama was clearly beginning to worry for him.

“Here’s the plan. I am going to take you back to your own apartment. Then you are going to lie down in your own fucking bed and sleep on an actual mattress like a regular human being. Did you get all that or do I need to break it down in to simpler sentences?”

“They shut off the heating in my apartment,” Tobirama mentioned casually. Madara paused in his steps to look at him in horror, to which he only shrugged. “My building manager says if I am never home then he might as well not waste the money since my rent is all inclusive. Apparently he doesn’t like heating empty homes.”

“He can’t do that!” Madara screeched.

“Well he did.”

“But it’s so illegal! I should – UGH! Come on.” Resuming his steps, Madara pulled Tobirama along behind him like a dog on a leash. “I’ll buy you a space heater if I have to. I’ll arrest that asshole if I have to. But you are going home to get a god damn good night’s rest!”

His own stomping footsteps seemed to echo all the more loudly in comparison to the serene way Tobirama floated along behind him but Madara was shamefully used to it so it didn’t bother him too much. Since it was clear he wouldn’t have much luck shaming Tobirama in to feeling guilty for his part in all this stupidity he kept himself reined in to just muttering darkly under his breath as he packed the younger man in to his personal car and wished he hadn’t promised Shisui that he wouldn’t take the squad car home again. The seats in his shitty sedan were much less comfortable.

The ride over to Hashirama’s was filled with bickering. Tobirama sort of wanted to go back to the library but Madara would hear nothing about it, not when the idiot clearly needed some more rest. Neither of them even bothered to suggest the apartment without heat again. Hashirama still had a bedroom set up for Tobirama to stay in when he could make it all the way passed the couch and Madara very much intended to see him tucked in to it before he left.

No one was home when they walked in – not surprising since it was the middle of the day, both occupants were still at work. Madara ignored his companion’s grumbling as they marched upstairs together and engaged in a quick staring contest at the bedroom door.

“What are you gonna do, throw me under the sheets?” Tobirama asked sarcastically.

“If I have to,” Madara snapped back. The other man paused to think of something to say to that. Evidently he couldn’t come up with anything because he ended the pause with a huff and stormed in to the room, dropping down on the mattress and pulling the blankets over himself with an irritable flourish.

“There. Happy?”

“Ecstatic,” Madara drawled. “Now fucking sleep. Who knows how long it will be until my fellow officers stop finding this funny and actually hit you with a charge for vagrancy? Get some rest before I pop a vein over you!”

He had to close the door quickly to avoid Tobirama’s eyebrow of judgement, pausing in the hallway to roll his eyes and then hurrying downstairs to his car so he could get back to work. His shift wasn’t over yet. If his Captain found out how much time he was spending away from work lately just to deal with this recurring problem he could get suspended or reassigned. After finally working his way off the nightshift he really didn’t want to go back to it.

Driving back to the office was too quiet now that he had no one to argue with and took too long without the squad car and the lights that got him a free pass through every stoplight. He did manage to slip back in to his desk chair just before the Captain stepped out of his office to hand out a couple new assignments. Madara let Shisui grab theirs and quietly followed along, trying not to look like he’d only just got back from an unauthorized personal errand. It earned him a funny look because he’d never been all that great of a deceiver, too emotional is his own stunted way to put much effort in to lying, but the Captain didn’t ask him any questions so he counted that one as a win.

The assignment given to them turned out to be a false alarm so Madara and his cousin spent the last half of their shift out on the streets for foot patrol. After the seventh little old lady who told him he was a sweet boy for serving his city he started to feel a little bit better, like his mood was finally turning around.

“So, tell me something,” Shisui said while they were paused on a street corner to keep an eye on some suspicious characters across the way. “Are you ever going to do something about him?”

“About who?”

“Oh, you know, that guy you have a massive crush on that keep showing up at the station.” Shisui stuck his tongue out between his teeth and grinned. Madara made sure no one was watching before he reached up and flicked that exposed tongue.

“Mind your own business,” he growled.

Shisui had to pause and flap his hands in pain, unable to soothe his tongue in any way, but when he was finally calm again he went right back to sniggering. “No way! Don’t you love your poor cousin enough to share some gossip?”

“Alright, how’s this for gossip: I’m fairly sure that was Sakura who dropped you off at work this morning, which means you did not stay at your own place last night.”

“Woah, hey, I meant gossip about you.”

“Mhm. I know you did.”

His cousin subsided with a pout which Madara echoed without realizing. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t like to do something about his feelings for Tobirama. Certainly he found the younger man fascinating, not to mention deliciously attractive, but he was all too aware that Tobirama’s views on him didn’t extend much farther than a walking hot water bottle and occasional Sibling Distracter.

A hand bopped him on the shoulder and Madara scowled, wiping off the imaginary dirt transfer.

“For real, though. You’re really not going to ask him out?” Shisui tilted his head in question. Everyone in their family knew Madara wasn’t usually the type to be hesitant about the things he wanted.

“There’s no point,” Madara huffed. “He’s not interested. Now drop the subject.”

“Alright, alright, fine. You wanna take one last swing around Central Park before heading back? I think those kids had something on them when they went in there; we should check it out at least.”

Shisui’s instincts were at least right about that. They ended up arresting two young punks for possession and calling backup on the third who tried to do a runner when he was caught selling. It took a while to get them all down to the station and make sure they all understood their rights because the two buyers were so out of their minds they hardly seemed to understand what was going on. Obviously they had been sampling the merchandise as they bought it.

Finally the kid that was selling got fed up and demanded his lawyer, at which point they were required to stop talking to him. Madara was almost grateful enough to thank his cousin when Shisui offered to stay after shift to wait for the counsel to get there. He managed to resist the urge but it was a close call.

He was just filling out the last bit of paperwork and getting ready to head home for dinner when his phone went off and he answered it without thinking, not even bothering to check the caller ID or see if it was a recognized number.

“Madara,” he grunted.

“I didn’t sleep,” Tobirama’s voice announced.

“Seriously!? I put you to bed hours ago!” When he noticed the dangerous grip he’d taken on his pencil Madara made sure to set it down carefully so he didn’t stab the paperwork he’d just spent so much time preparing.

“Well I couldn’t sleep.” If he listened hard enough he could probably hear Tobirama’s uncaring shrug. “I find an empty bed to be both cold and not soothing. I’m sure you know why I called.”

Madara dropped his face in to his free hand. “Yeah. I know.”

“Good. Then come over immediately. I’ve had an amazing increase in productivity each time I slept on top of you and I have a very important paper due soon that I would like to recreate those effects for. When should I expect you?”

“Just…ugh. I’ll pick up something to eat on the way, give me twenty minutes.”

“Acceptable.”

Tobirama hung up and Madara dropped the rest of his upper body on to the desk in defeat. He stirred when someone patted him sympathetically on the back but shook the gesture off and stood up to shoo his partner away. Getting upset about it wasn’t going to help the fact that he knew he was going to cave this easily every time Tobirama asked him to do this – and he also knew that the man had no idea the havoc and inconvenience he was causing. It just wasn’t in his nature to notice things outside of his immediate focus.

Feeling like a man walking to his own doom, Madara slumped back down to the garage and flopped back inside his sedan, heading for the nearest fast food place that sold something he could eat with one hand while driving. Technically he was breaking the law by doing so, engaging in distracted driving, but he knew the people currently on shift and he knew none of them would ever bother to pull someone over for possession of a burger.

When he arrived at Hashirama’s house for the second time that day he sat in the driveway for a couple of minutes, parked beside Mito’s stylish little compact, and let his head rest against the steering wheel while he gave himself a little pep talk.

He fully expected to find Tobirama still in bed just staring at the ceiling or to be met at the top of the stairs and dragged in to the same room he had deposited his favorite idiot in to earlier. Instead he was surprised to open the door and find two haggard eyes staring balefully at him from half a dozen feet down the hall, like a vulture lying in wait. He barely had time to strip off his jacket and belt before Tobirama had claws in his arm dragging him in to the living room.

Since there was no point in doing so he didn’t bother to offer any protests while he was shoved down on to the couch and pushed over sideways. The only reaction he offered was a sigh as he made sure he landed on his back and looked around to ensure the TV remote was close enough to reach this time.

“I can’t sleep with you every night, you know,” he grumbled. Tobirama melted over his chest like liquid human.

“Quiet, couch. You can and you will.”

Madara rolled his eyes. “Wonderful. Now I don’t even have a name.”

“Shhhhhhhh.”

He shushed because he was a smart man unwilling to incur the wrath of a fledgling mad scientist but he didn’t have to like it. Madara spent the half hour it took the other man to fall asleep himself trying to decide if it was worth asking Hashirama to interfere. Which, he thought, should have been a great indicator for how desperate this situation made him feel.

No matter what happened, he had to stay strong. This absolutely had to be the last time this happened.  

Hashirama wandered in to the room at some point, clearly with the intention of watching television, but he stopped and assumed a blank expression when he spotted them lying on his couch yet again. Madara wasn’t sure he had even realized they were both in the house.

“Is this a thing now?” he asked plaintively. Madara would have shrugged but it would have disturbed the man on top of him.

“Apparently.”

Then he dropped his head back, closed his eyes, and settled in to wait for sleep to claim him as well.

[raendown]

Pairing: MadaraTobirama Word count: 1809 Summary: Just because he's not supposed to doesn't mean he's not going to. With results like these, how could he resist?

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

Strictly speaking, Hashirama had actually forbade him from performing experiments in the kitchen. On the other hand Tobirama figured he was a grown man and he lived in the house too – for now – so he would do what he liked in whatever public room he wanted to. It wasn’t as though this one were a particularly dangerous experiment like that last one had been; there wasn’t even any acidic components and therefore no reason for Mito to nag either of them about the state of the antique kitchen table. As long as he was tidy about things and managed to clean up before Hashirama returned from where he had gone to meet with the head of the Nara clan then no one even had to know what he was up to.

He should have known just thinking that was practically begging for trouble of the worst sort. The pot on the stove was merrily bubbling away and he had only just lifted a flask to add the last reagent when the back door suddenly flew open and slammed against the wall. Instinct had him jumping, dropping the flask and reaching for the kunai holster he was wasn’t even wearing at the moment.

“Where’s Hashirama?” Madara demanded. Tobirama growled at him.

“Fuck you,” he snarled back.

His flask, once filled with green liquid, was now splashed all across the kitchen counter and the stove top. Without enough to add to the rest of his concoction the entire experiment was rendered useless – and now he had a mess to clean up as well. None of this endeared him whatsoever to the man standing in the doorway, whose feet he laid the blame at.

“I’m not certain you could be more of an oaf even if you tried.”

“Oh stuff it, prissy-pants. Where’s your brother?”

“Not here,” Tobirama replied shortly.

“I gathered that,” Madara snapped back. “He doesn’t appear to be anywhere and his stupid useless secretary doesn’t seem to know where he went either.”

Dodging under the sink for a rag he could wipe up the spill with, Tobirama had to agree with that. “She is rather useless.”

Before he could forget to, he made sure to turn off the stove. The last time he’d left it on he’d been trying to make soup and burned the broth to the bottom of the pot when he got distracted by reading his book instead. Hashirama tried to ban him from the kitchen altogether after that incident, although it worked about as well as the other ban had.

“Alright, well? Do you know where he is, then?”

“I do,” Tobirama admitted, petty smirk forming.

“And?”

“Why should I tell you? You’ll just bother him. Besides, you’ve ruined my experiment so I might as well entertain myself by frustrating you instead. I do so love to frustrate you.”

He sent the other man a mockingly coy look, enjoying the way his face scrunched up and his already black eyes seemed to darken even more. With his hair nearly bristling with indignation and arms flexing as his fingers clenched, Madara never looked more attractive than when he was angry. Tobirama might have had some ulterior motives for picking so many fights with him all the time. The way he saw it, Madara would never so much as look at him as long as he bore the Senju name, so he might as well take his fun where he could get it.

“This is important, you asinine cad!”

“It probably seems so to your tiny brain. Unfortunately for you, I don’t care.” Not even trying to hide the smirk on his face, Tobirama bent down to search for another rag. The spill had spread out a lot farther than he thought.

“Could you just not be you for five damn minutes?” Madara demanded. “It is important but I don’t see why I should have to prove that to you!”

“You know, I do believe I mentioned the fact that I don’t give a fuck?” Cleaning his mess was going by a lot faster with the older man here to amuse him. Tobirama was actually a little grateful he’d stopped by, although he certainly wouldn’t be admitting that out loud.

The sound of stomping footsteps drew his attention as he mopped up the last of his spill. Tossing the rags in to the sink, he looked to one side to see Madara there, getting in his personal space the way he always did once Tobirama really got him going. Mentioning how very little he actually minded the close proximity would likely result in him stopping this delightful habit, so Tobirama usually kept that little nugget of information to himself as well.

“Where. Is. He?” Madara growled each word as a separate sentence. Possibly his manner was supposed to be taken as intimidating. Tobirama just found it sexy. Already close together, their faces nearly touched when the younger man leaned down to emphasize his point.

“Go. To. Hell.”

“You are infuriating!” The other man exploded. “I need to speak to him and no one but you seems to know where he is!”

“I believe you are underestimating how little fucks I have to give, Madara. Do you know how many fucks I give about that? Negative six. You owe me fucks to give, that’s how little I care.”

“And I will gladly fuck you later if you just tell me where the – shit!”

Madara slapped a hand over his own mouth in shock at the same time Tobirama’s eyes blew wide. Both of them stared at each other in silence as they tried to process what had just happened as well as questioning whether or not it actually had.

Realizing how close they were standing, Madara reeled back with his arms wheeling in small circles. He could not have been more obvious about how awkward he felt and that more than anything told Tobirama something he never expected: he’d meant it. It was more than just a flippant insult gone wrong; it was a slip of the tongue, his true thoughts coming out when he hadn’t meant to let them.

“Interesting,” Tobirama purred. Madara scowled at him.

“You shut up. I said nothing. Nothing happened. Just…just tell me where you brother is or I swear–!”

“You swear what? That you’ll fuck me?”

“Ugh!” Madara scrunched his face up in anger again and a little thrill ran down Tobirama’s spine. If he could just get the man a little more angry…

“Tell me Madara, how do you picture it? I imagine you think enough of yourself to suppose I would bend over for you. One wonders if this is what you’re really thinking about when you glare at me during council meetings. Don’t think I don’t see you doing it.” With every sentence he slowly closed the distance between them again, a predatory look on his face.

Far from allowing himself to be cowed in to a corner, Madara straightened his spine and attempted to glare him down again. “I wouldn’t be so crass,” he insisted.

“No?” Stepping in to the man’s personal space the way the other had done to him, Tobirama raised one eyebrow. “Go on then. Look me in the eye and tell me you’re not imagining me bent over that table as we speak right now.”

At first Madara did nothing and they hung suspended together for what felt like an eternity contained in just a few seconds. Then it appeared as though the Uchiha had been pushed passed his breaking point as he lifted himself up the couple of inches that separated them and crashed their mouths together. Tobirama met him with a pleased groan.

Teeth sank in to his bottom lip and he heard Madara growl around his flesh, “Fuck. You.”

“As you like,” he gasped in answer, hands reaching around to take double fistfuls of his companion’s ass.

Groping turned in to tugging and then they were grinding against each other as their mouths waged what should have been the gentlest war they’d fought between them. It wasn’t. In between kisses they bit and licked and sucked with no intention towards tenderness. Fingers scrabbled at each other’s chests, pulling clothing until the cloth tore and the skin underneath was scratched red.

Feet tangled as they stumbled back against the counter, Madara pressing a thigh in between Tobirama’s legs and grinding it upwards to elicit a groan that echoed throughout the room. Before either of them knew it they were both shirtless, pants hanging low and hands roaming freely. Madara arched his back as nails scraped down his spine and Tobirama hissed when teeth sank in at the juncture of his neck. Their hips moved in tandem with a rocking motion that was more enthusiasm than finesse.

Their mouths had only just crashed back together in yet another violent kiss when the door swung open for the second time and both of them froze, staring each other in the eye with matching sparks of panic. Slowly, they turned their heads to see Hashirama standing in the open doorway. His face was rapidly draining of color and the cheerful smile he’d been wearing was already long gone. Slowly, his eyes narrowed, his mouth turned down, and his brows furrowed to complete a murderous expression.

“I’ll just give you two a moment to compose yourselves,” Hashirama said in a deadly quiet voice, backing out the door and pulling it closed behind himself. He pointed one finger at Madara as he did so. “And when I get back you will still be here. I have some questions for you.”

One narrowed eye watched them through the crack until the door shut completely with a muted click. Both of the men in the kitchen turned to look at each other again, taking in their appearance as it might look to an observer: half naked, swollen lips, and bloody imprints of teeth in some interesting places. There was certainly no question as to what they’d been doing.

“I suggest you run,” Tobirama advised. Madara nodded frantically.

“Pick this up later?”

“Run.”

Grabbing his shirt, Madara took off towards the front door in the hope that Hashirama was still at the back. Tobirama leaned back against the counter and watched him go with a mildly dreamy expression. Even when Hashirama stormed back in to the room and shouted with anger at finding Madara gone, his expression didn’t change.

“Why always in the kitchen!?” His brother yelled, passing by to chase after the escaping Uchiha.  

Tobirama laughed as he turned around to finish cleaning up the mess his experiment had made. Possibly getting banned from the kitchen again had definitely been worth it this time. Today’s experiment may not have answered the question he’d meant it to but the results were still some of the best he’d ever achieved.