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Chapter Text

“There better be a good reason I’m here at seven fucking am, Naruto.”

Sasuke walked into the non-descript apartment building feeling grumpy. No longer being forced to be a morning person meant he’d gotten used to sleeping well after midnight and waking no earlier than ten if he could help it, a routine he loathed having interrupted. Especially when it involved meeting a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Naruto in some random apartment near the center of this god-forsaken village. 

He loved the man, he could admit that without a crisis now, but god Naruto could make it a little easier sometimes.

“It’s Kakashi.”

His heart stopped and his panic must have shown on his face, because Naruto rushed to reassure him.

“He’s fine! Well…he’s alive and not injured.”

He let out a breath and then frowned at how strongly he’d reacted to the initial fear.

“And yet this couldn’t wait for a decent hour?” he said, surveying the building. 

Nothing looked amiss, but the blonde rolled his eyes at him and Sasuke felt annoyed being on the other end of that gesture for once.

“Trust me asshole, it’s pretty concerning.”

They walked into the apartment unit they’d met in front of. It looked exceedingly normal. Sakura was sitting further in looking tired but otherwise unharmed. 

Sasuke sighed, “I swear if this is some dumb team building thing, Naruto-”

He scowled when Naruto turned to him and raised a finger to his own lips, shushing him like a child. He was about to tell him off when the blonde frantically pointed to the couch in the living room. Sasuke stepped closer slowly before he stilled.

There was a little silver-haired child sleeping on the couch, covered by a blanket. With how Sakura was sitting beside the boy, a syringe and empty vial resting on the table in front of her, Sasuke didn’t think this sleep was natural.

“Had to sedate him,” Sakura said with a frown, “He was panicking.”

“Wow. So Kakashi fucked around and now has an illegitimate kid? Sucks to be him, what does that need me for?” Sasuke sighed, ignoring the pain in his chest at this revelation.

“Idiot,” Shikamaru drawled, appearing from one of the rooms further in, “That is Kakashi.”

* * *

This Kakashi was six years old and apparently quite the plucky little thing before Sakura put him to sleep. 

“He doesn’t need a babysitter,” Sasuke said, eyeing the slowly breathing lump on the couch, “wasn’t he a genin at like, five?”

“Maybe not but I thought we were trying not to let orphans raise themselves now,” Naruto replied with a frown his way, and he still had that ability to make Sasuke feel guilty like no one else. “And he can’t be walking around the village, people will recognize him. He needs supervision.”

Why that supervision had to be him remained the question.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I’m not exactly the friendly neighbourhood nanny.”

Sakura snorted, “Yeah, you haven’t really met tiny-sensei yet - do not tell him I called him that by the way - but he doesn’t exactly need to be coddled. You’ll be fine.”

“Then why can’t one of you do it?”

“Because we have jobs , Sasuke!” She reminded him with a glare. He was happy to see her let more of her normal personality out around him now, the fangirl mode having faded, blessedly. “And he should be with someone that knows him and can protect him while this sorts itself out. He is still the Hokage.”

Sasuke wanted to argue the point that he knew Kakashi at all.

Yamato had shown up shortly after Sasuke and he pinched the bridge of his nose listening to them argue, in a fashion Sasuke had taken to be part of his usual stance in dealing with Team 7. 

“He’s asleep, can we keep it down? Look, from what I can gather this is probably Kakashi a few weeks after Sakumo’s death so...tread lightly.”

They all looked pointedly at Sasuke at that, he didn't bother looking offended just sighed and nodded. It would be nice if people stopped acting like he was actually out to hurt the people he cared about. More than two years since the war and he was trying, no matter how ill-equipped he was.

When Kakashi finally woke up - bleary eyed, confused and glaring at them - Sakura took him aside and calmed him down, speaking in soft dulcet tones. He might be a shinobi, but he was also a small, recently-orphaned child and Sakura’s presence must have soothed something in him, if the way his frown melted when she brushed through his hair was any indication. Soon, she had him sitting at the table and eating something, facing away from them so he could tug his mask down without being self-conscious.

“Well,” Shikamaru drawled, “That’s an improvement from the barrage of shuriken I got. He nearly decapitated Yamato with a lightning strike. They really did make them different back then…” 

“Are we sure this is Kakashi? He’s rather docile…” Naruto whispered.

“He’s six,” Sasuke said flatly, sitting on the now vacated couch, “And he’s an exact mini-replica of him.”

“Do we tell him who we are?” Sakura asked, sitting beside him. “There’s no protocol for this…”

“We shouldn’t say anything that might distress him or add confusion,” Yamato said then, “It’s a lot to take in. No mention of him being a sensei or Hokage, or either of the Team 7s for that matter. For now, you’re just jonin here in the village assigned to help him. You don’t exist in his timeline yet so no need to hide who you are.”

They’d determined it wasn’t time travel or anything quite that cumbersome, Shikamaru had explained, but Kakashi had been working on a complex seal that had backfired, essentially regressing him to an earlier age, both in mind and body. They were sure it was temporary, at least, deciding to wait it out for the time being rather than experiment on forcing it back. 

Eventually, they all had to leave and that was when Sakura and Naruto introduced Sasuke to the boy formally.

“Why can’t one of you stay?” Kakashi asked, looking at him suspiciously with his brows furrowed.

Well, that stung. 

Even a Kakashi that didn’t know he tried to kill him and his fellow teammates didn’t want to be in his presence. Though he supposed he couldn’t blame the boy for not preferring him, dressed head to toe in black and gray and sporting a no doubt dour face, over his comparatively friendlier looking teammates.

Naruto ruffled Kakashi’s hair and Sasuke ignored how sweet it was to see that happen in reverse.

“Aw, will you miss us? We’ll come back later! Sasuke’s just on a break from missions at the moment, so he has time. And he’s really strong, oh and he has lightning nature too! I’m sure you guys will get along great.”

Kakashi accepted this without further complaint like a true shinobi, still looking at Sasuke with apprehension. 

With that, they are gone with a promise to return for dinner.

Shikamaru had brought some books over, not Kakashi’s usual reading material of course, but other titles both fiction and not. Kakashi had taken one last unimpressed look at him before curling up on the couch with a novel and ignoring him for the rest of the morning. Sasuke was okay with this, his last encounter with Kakashi before this mess had been less than pleasant and he’d been dreading seeing him, unsure how to bridge yet another gap he’d been the cause of. For Sasuke, a Kakashi who didn’t remember the last twenty years let alone the last day was a blessing in disguise.

Sasuke had picked up his own selection of a volume on the history of kendo and they’d spent hours like that, not talking. It was somehow not completely uncomfortable. He’d peeked at the boy though, curious despite himself. The last time he’d seen Kakashi he’d been in his early thirties and just as stern though for entirely different reasons.

This Kakashi still had a wild thicket of silver hair flopping charmingly over his forehead and bored looking eyes set above his ever-present mask, though in a much smaller package. He somehow seemed more intimidating this way and Sasuke wanted to smack himself for thinking that of a child but something about this Kakashi seemed very self-assured in a way his elder self wasn’t, more arrogant than confident, and more willing to cut.

When noon finally rolled around, Kakashi set his book aside and strode up to Sasuke.

“I’m hungry. What are we eating?”

Sasuke blinked, then shrugged, “I have some rations. There’s a guy that makes onigiri downstairs, too. I think Naruto brought over a bunch of cup ramen too, if you’re into that.”

Tiny Kakashi looked at him like he was an idiot. 

“There’s a fridge full of actual food here, Sakura brought it over. Why would you ever eat rations outside of a mission?” he tilted his head at him and crossed his little arms, “Don’t you know that’s bad for you?”

Sasuke tried not to laugh at this and failed, and Kakashi’s small hands moved to settle on his hips then, as he unknowingly scolded one of the most powerful shinobi in the world on his eating habits. Well, the kid might not have known it, but he was probably the only one left who could scold Sasuke on such matters.

“Guess I have a habit of wanting things that are bad for me,” Sasuke finally said.

“That’s stupid.”

Yes, it was. Seemed this Kakashi and his Kakashi shared that opinion.

“You’re very judgemental, you know that?”

The small figure sighed heavily before he proceeded to drag a foot stool over to the kitchen and stood over the stove with a critical eye.

“Bring me a pan, four eggs, whatever vegetables we have, and herbs, salt, pepper, oil, and a knife and cutting board, then put some rice in the cooker and sit…over there.”

“And bossy. I don’t think I should let you use a stove,” Sasuke said, standing anyway. He was curious what the kid would whip up. Everything he cooked at that age was inedible. Maybe it would take him down a peg.

“I’m a chunin - I can use a fucking stove.”

Ah. It figured that a six year old Kakashi still outranked him. 

He slid over the requested items and stared expectantly. It was finally Kakashi’s turn to impress him.

“Aren’t you going to tell me not to curse?” Kakashi said after a few minutes of deft chopping that admittedly was kind of impressive.

“Why the fuck would I do that?” Sasuke responded, watching in fascination as Kakashi tossed the neatly cut veggies in a skillet.

That got a snicker out of Kakashi and Sasuke mentally patted himself on the back at this achievement. He was great at this damn babysitting thing. 

When Kakashi finished, he plated up two servings of eggs over rice and a sauce to go along with it, setting down one plate in front of Sasuke on his tip-toes as though he was doing him some great favour. Which, to be fair, he sort of was. Sasuke had been prepared to make do with dehydrated soup but Kakashi didn’t need to know how inept he was in the kitchen. He hid his smile at the way Kakashi had to hop up to get on the chair. So even the infamous copy ninja had been an adorable little boy at one time.

“This is good…why is it good?” he said accusingly after his first bite.

All he’d been able to cook at that age was toast and after his parents died he’d only added a few more recipes to his repertoire out of necessity, but none actually tasted all that great.

“Can’t cook?” Kakashi said flatly, and not very sympathetically he noted. Little bastard. “Dad could only make a few things. So I started learning. He’s dead so now I make everything.”

Sasuke felt his chest tighten with immediate guilt.

“I’m sorry.”

“Why? It’s not like you did anything.”

Not yet, he thought wryly. 

It saddened him how matter of factly Kakashi said this, knowing he’d only just experienced the first of the many losses he would soon encounter. He didn’t know how to apologize to a Kakashi that knew him all too well, never mind a younger version who couldn’t even be able to fathom the direction his life was going to take and the role Sasuke would have in it.

“I’m sorry anyway.”

Kakashi paused, his plate already empty (and Sasuke marveled at that too, thinking maybe he’d finally get to see Kakashi’s face) and shrugged.

“Thanks.”

Naruto arrived first later that evening and Sasuke tried not to feel wounded at how Kakashi perked up at the sight of the blonde.

“Hey buddy! I brought you some more clothes, it’s my old stuff so it should fit. Don’t worry, the underwear is new.”

It was surprising to see them get along so well; though their Kakashi and Naruto certainly did, this Kakashi didn’t have the same soft spot for him yet. When he noticed how Naruto’s eyes looked more sad than anything as he watched him, he realized the other man was seeing himself in the lonely child, left alone and ostracized by the village. 

Naruto had also brought a wooden board they used for target practice and soon the two of them were occupied by a game of toss the shuriken, Kakashi’s small face set in a determined frown as he threw his blades with more skill than any six year old should have. His smug little eyes were somehow more charming than anything else anytime he bested the jinchuriki. They roped Sasuke in soon enough and as Kakashi poked at his arm gently with a point when he missed his turn, Naruto teasing him about daydreaming, he thought maybe this wasn’t so bad as far as missions go.

Chapter Text

It was a few days before anything changed. Sasuke actually started to get along with Kashi-kun, as Naruto and Sakura had taken to calling him, much to the boy’s annoyance. They would stop by every day, enjoying getting to know this version of Kakashi. This despite his surly temper and penchant for fighting dirty during playful spars they began to help him release pent up energy from being held in the dull apartment all day. Sasuke could see how he’d risen up the ranks up so fast, even if it had been during wartime. Kakashi was a much more ruthless and stoic fighter than they were even at such a tender age.

Despite those things Kakashi was pretty adorable, Sasuke could admit. His ideas of children included that they were loud, uncouth things that needed far too much coddling and attention. But Kakashi spent most of his time with his big eyes glued to books or watching the stray dog that lived across the street from the window, completely self-sufficient and already sticking to a little routine he’d set for himself during this imposed break. It wasn’t lost on Sasuke that they were both the products of the terrible things they’d gone through and that it probably wasn’t something to be celebrated, but he couldn’t help but respect the boy’s ability to conduct himself, to find it more relatable than that of anyone else he’d known.

That didn’t mean he didn’t feel hurt for him.

Sakura looked about ready to cry when Kakashi stopped in front of her one night before heading to bed, his hands folded neatly behind his back like he was standing at attention, and said with his characteristic bluntness, “I don’t know much about moms, but I think you’d be a good one.”

“Do you think it would be so bad if he stayed this way?” She said jokingly later with a little smile, as she dried the dishes Naruto had washed, “Not that I don’t miss sensei, but god I had no idea he was so cute. And he could use a little love, it’s so much easier to give like this.”

“You know I kind of like that he listens to me at least 50% of the time this way,” Shikamaru added with a grin at the shogi board they’d been playing at before Kakashi won and left with a yawn, “Clever little jerk too.”

“He’s basically your brain and Sasuke’s skill,” Naruto contributed.

Neither he nor Shikamaru seemed to know whether to be offended at that or not, so they decided to glare at each other instead.

“He’s tolerable,” Sasuke said finally, resolutely refusing to compliment the tiny judge of his every waking move, “But I don’t want to be stuck here forever so how much longer is this going to last?”

And how much longer until he remembers?

“I don’t want to have to expand the circle if we don’t need to, we’ve managed to hide the situation thus far…if he’s not back to normal soon we’ll have to bring in some allies with better sealing corps,” Shikamaru said with a sigh.

Naruto stayed over with them that night, excited at the prospect of a sleepover even though they couldn’t get drunk like he wanted to since they’d become the mini-Hokage’s unofficial guard. Still, Sasuke woke up feeling hungover and with the blonde’s head on his belly and a sore back as thanks.

He rolled out from under Naruto with a groan as his back cracked, ignoring the whine from the other man when his head hit the rug.

When he sat up, a boy was standing in the hallway in front of him, wrapped in a bedsheet. Only unlike the shoulder-height child he expected, he had to look up slightly from his spot on the floor to meet a familiar-but-not masked face. The voice that spoke was also deeper and there was a tightness around this boy’s now single uncovered eye that wasn’t there the day before.

“I think I need bigger clothes.”

* * *

“So you have all your normal memories up to this age and what happened the last three days when you were six again?” 

“That’s what I said,” Kakashi replied flatly, arms crossed and posture defensive.

Shikamaru didn’t rise to the bait, which was why he was doing the questioning and not Sasuke, who wanted to strangle the kid, or Naruto, who was always a second away from hugging him to death.

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Minato-sensei had been announced as the next Hokage.”

Shikamaru left soon after to update Yamato, looking every bit as frazzled as Sasuke probably should be, and Naruto and Sakura were.

It was fascinating, if he was honest, to see the Kakashi he knew fall back into a child before jumping forward to a moody teen. He frowned at the boy’s perpetually furrowed brow and wondered idly which of them had been worse at this age. Kakashi caught his look.

“What?” The teen snapped.

This Kakashi was infinitely more prickly than the last had been who, while a brat, had been sort of sweet after they’d gotten used to each other.

“You’re very…small still,” he settled on, mostly to be a dick. 

Kakashi had brushed off both Naruto and Sakura’s stilted attempts at affection and it had broken their little hearts, having gotten used to a younger Kakashi. No one was allowed to be that much of an ass to them except Sasuke and maybe future-Kakashi, who had at least earned the privilege.

“Yeah?” The silver-haired teen scoffed, “You’re very insufferable still. Where were you raised, the Mist?”

Sasuke blinked several times as Naruto and Sakura cackled from the side.

He rolled his eyes. He’d let them have that.

“Kakashi, I know this is hard and you’re probably feeling out of sorts but let’s try to make this as easy for Sasuke as possible?” Sakura reached out cautiously and brushed through Kakashi’s hair when he didn’t immediately shift away, something she’d noticed he seemed to like. Sasuke wondered if she’d keep it up when he was back to being Hokage and stressing over budgets. “I know he’s an ass, but he’s also not a bad guy and believe it or not he doesn’t want you to be miserable.”

“I don’t know about that.” 

They both said it at once, glaring at each other at the same time before their expressions dissolved into smirks.

“Wow. Uncanny,” Naruto murmured, looking between them.

Kakashi’s eyes wandered over to Naruto then, like they had several times since his age-up. It was obvious he was wondering at the resemblance of the man with his now sensei but was trained well enough not to ask.

“How far into the future are you?” he questioned instead, after some time.

“Technically, we’re not in the future. But it’s about twenty years since you last remember,” Sasuke answered.

“Twenty…?”

Kakashi looked both awed and devastated.

“What’s wrong?”

“You mean, besides the obvious?” The teen let out a humorless laugh, “Well…I guess I just never thought I’d live that - this - long.”

Well, there wasn’t really a guidebook on things to say in response to a statement like that. He looked at Sakura with a raised brow, the equivalent of begging for help from the likes of him.

“You’re a tough shinobi, Kakashi,” she said, patting his arm, “Come on. I had Shikamaru drop off some more books you might like.”

* * *

Kakashi asked how they knew each other at dinner the next day. Yamato had joined them and gave a subtle shrug as if to say this is all you guys, just don’t fuck it up. Naruto gave an abridged and heavily edited version of their tale, Sakura adding bits here and there while Yamato cleverly steered them away from anything too telling.

“Well, things are different now. We get along like we probably should have back then, but someone still has to keep this one in line,” Naruto said with a laugh and a playful elbow to Sasuke’s side.

Sasuke shouldn’t have reacted or lashed out, it was a damn joke and one that normally wouldn’t have bothered him much but he was on edge with being cooped up inside and both longing and dreading for Kakashi to return to normal.

“Keep me on a leash, why don’t you?” he said with a scowl.

“Come on, Sasuke,” Naruto pouted, “You know that’s not what I mean.”

It should have ended there, forgotten among a lifetime of playful jabs but it didn’t.

Kakashi scoffed to his side and it set Sasuke off.

“Oh, what?” Sasuke said, voice hard, “You want to chime in on this, too?”

Sakura reached out a hand to placate him but he shifted his arm away.

“He’s not trying to control you, he loves and cares about you - you’d have to be a moron not to realize that after that story, I’ve read enough books to know. Just because you were too up your own ass to see it, doesn’t mean he didn’t try.” Kakashi snapped.

Sasuke’s glare cut to the boy sat across from him and for a moment he didn’t see the fourteen year old who was probably still mourning the deaths of his squad, one by his own hand no less, who was probably not even talking about Sasuke so much as his own self.  Instead, he saw the adult whose home he’d stormed out of just over a week ago, and unleashed words at him just as cutting as the first time he’d said them.

“What would you,” he sneered, “know about love that isn’t in those ridiculous books?”

The silence that fell over the table then was heavier than any cloud, though Sasuke swore he could feel a storm gathering, fuelled on by the crackle and spark of both their chakras. He was expecting a bite back, it was what the older Kakashi would have done, he always did have to get the last word. After all, Sasuke had never been able to get a scratch on him and he wasn’t expecting to then. But this Kakashi wasn’t as battle worn as his Kakashi, and while that should have been a good thing, Sasuke wished to hell he was as thick-skinned when he saw the way something sliced across the grey eye in front of him, like a crack in a piece of glass.

Instead, Kakashi stood up and walked out of the room and then the apartment without a word.

A glaring Sakura tossed a glance at him before following Kakashi out. Yamato just sighed, standing to clear his plate away.

Great, he’d done it again. He didn’t know why he couldn’t help himself from wounding those he cared about most. He looked to his best friend, still seated at the table with him and looking down at his empty plate.

“I didn’t mean to-”

“I know, Sasuke,” Naruto cut in, and his tone was the definition of disappointment. Sasuke hated it, wished he’d yell at him instead, “But you can be a real jerk sometimes.”

* * *

Sasuke waited a bit before he followed Sakura outside. He didn’t need to go far, he could sense a sparking chakra up on the roof and he climbed the stairs to get there. Trust Kakashi to remain responsible even when livid, obeying his orders not to leave even then. The heavy door made a loud clanging sound when Sasuke pushed it open but it was mostly drowned out by the wind that was picking up, ruffling the trees that surrounded the Hidden Leaf like a protective embrace. 

He noted Sakura looking back to see him before she said something to Kakashi and patted him on the back. She stood, walked towards Sasuke and gave him a pointed look as she passed. Sasuke sighed and headed towards the corner of the roof where Kakashi sat, looking out across the village with a lost expression. This was one of the tallest rooftops in the rebuilt Leaf so he’d remained hidden. Sasuke realized then this might have been the first time the boy was seeing the changed village and felt a stab of sympathy for he had experienced the same disorientation upon his return. 

Sasuke didn’t speak immediately as he sat down beside Kakashi, gathering his thoughts. When he finally did speak he was interrupted quite swiftly.

“Look, I was out of line. I know how you feel-”

“Really? You ever been responsible for your whole team dying because you took them for granted and you weren’t good enough?”

Kakashi’s voice was hard as flint. 

“Might have been,” Sasuke answered softly, “Lucky it didn’t happen, in the end.”

“How about waking up in a pool of blood ankle high, floating in it surrounded by body parts like a stew, with no memory of it happening? Seeing your teammate dead beside you in that hell with a hole through her chest and remembering you did it?”

Kakashi did always have a way with words, wielding them as deftly as any weapon.

“No…but I imagine that’s a terrible thing.”

“It is. You have no idea.”

I found my dad bleeding out on the floor of our home, too. I knew and loved his killer, like you.

It was what he wouldn’t say, because he actually had learned to be less caustic over the years.

Still, it was familiar. Too familiar.

What makes you think you know anything about it? It’s easy for you to talk, you have no idea! Maybe if I was to kill the most important people in your life, everyone who’s ever meant anything, maybe then I’d listen to you. Because maybe then you’d have some idea how I feel.

“You’re right,” he said instead, “I won’t ever know what you felt when those things happened. But I don’t need to, to know you didn’t deserve to experience any of it. And that it’s never going to fucking go away.”

There was an acknowledgement in Kakashi’s eyes when they exchanged glances again.

“You’re right, too,” Kakashi offered, as he looked back out across the rooftops, “I don’t know anything about love. I’ve read about it. Every iteration of it. But that’s not quite the same, is it?”

Love will drive you mad, Sasuke wanted to say, I should know. But that was the dramatic Uchiha in him talking. He should probably keep that side to himself for now.

“I think not knowing and being afraid of it are two different things.”

Kakashi stilled, the only sound between them the wailing of the wind through the many alleyways and trees.

“Sorry, that was another rude thing to say-”

“No. You’re right. Again,” Kakashi laughed then, gently, “You’re fucking right.”

They sat in silence for a few more moments and this time it felt like it had before, comfortable and companionable.

“You ready to go back down?”

Kakashi nodded.

“Naruto will want to hug you, just so you know. He’s emotional like that.”

“Guess I could let him,” the teen said with a put-upon sigh, “You know, for his benefit.”

“Of course.”

When the blonde did tackle Kakashi as soon as the door opened, the teen looked bewildered as expected, but his arms came around the taller man eventually and Sasuke spied him resting his chin against Naruto’s shoulder, still too tall for him to do without straining. 

Sasuke stopped back at the compound the next morning to pick up more clothes and some personal effects, leaving Shikamaru at the apartment. When he returned the other man walked out with a wave, grumbling about meetings with nobles and what a drag it would be to convince them Kakashi was still working at home through a bout of the flu. 

Kakashi was eating breakfast at the table, eyes running quickly over the lines in a book opened out in front of him.

Sasuke set down the squirming thing in his arms by the other’s feet, watching with barely concealed amusement as it brushed up against Kakashi’s bare feet and caused him to jump.

“Who’s that?”

Kakashi dropped his fork and picked up the little grey ball on the floor, burying his nose in the fur of her back. The cat mewled and nuzzled up at him, excited at the new face. For a dog person, the boy seemed surprisingly good with felines. 

“That’s Ash. She started coming around the compound so I fed her and let her sleep inside.”

“So…your pet cat.”

Huh. He guessed she was. When did that happen?

“I know you like dogs, but I don't have any of those,” he said by way of explanation as he looked awkwardly into the fridge to avoid making eye contact, “And I figured I shouldn’t leave her alone. So.”

“She’s sweet,” Kakashi scratched behind her ears and she purred, comfortably settled in his arms, “Thank you.”

Sasuke nodded, looking for something to eat to avoid having to say anything else.

“Here,” Kakashi set a plate in front of him, piled with pancakes and a fruity looking syrup, “Don’t worry. The berries are tart and my batter is light on sugar. Naruto told me you don’t like sweet stuff.”

Kakashi had been doing most of the cooking since he refused to eat the one dinner Sasuke had made. He must have asked his teammates what Sasuke liked. The thoughtful gesture made him feel guilty because he wasn’t confident he would be thinking of such things were their places to be reversed, and Kakashi’s cold exterior hadn’t hinted that he would either.

“Thank you, Kakashi.”

“Anytime.”

Chapter Text

Sasuke had been sleeping on a futon on the floor in the one bedroom while Kakashi took the bed. He woke up to find Kakashi wasn’t there but felt his chakra nearby and went through his morning routine as usual, figuring Kakashi was already making breakfast as he’d taken to doing. It wasn’t unusual for the other to wake up earlier. They’d come to a better understanding over the last couple of days and had been getting along well since the spat they’d had.

When he walked into the kitchen, towel around his neck to catch the drops from his still-wet hair, he stopped and stared at the sight that greeted him. His mouth dried and then promptly watered because the person in the kitchen was definitely not any kid.

This Kakashi was as tall as he was, taller maybe, and apparently didn’t feel shirts were a requirement in this home, though masks apparently still were. He was wearing pants at least, (Sasuke’s pants, he noted) a tad bit tight on him, not that Sasuke was complaining. The back turned to him was broad but leaner than the one he’d been used to before this whole fiasco, Kakashi’s body was toned and cut, not quite as filled out as his older self. When he turned around his face seemed less surly behind the mask than it had been the past few days though it remained guarded, with something of a glint in his eye.

An elegant brow raised at him.

“Finally awake, huh? Too bad, I was about to do the honours.”

That voice had dropped several octaves from yesterday’s too, and was much closer to the drawl Sasuke had been used to, had missed if he was honest.

Oh no, Sasuke thought as he watched the man lean a cut hip against the counter, looking every bit like a centerfold in one of those ridiculous shinobi-themed calendars, this is troublesome.

It wasn’t like he didn’t know Kakashi was attractive, he knew that very well - hell, it was a big part of his problem actually - but their Kakashi wasn’t quite this distracting about it. He certainly didn’t go around half-dressed, ever.

“You don’t mind do you?” the other man, for that was indeed what he’d grown into from the boy Sasuke had just gotten used to, asked, “I’m not used to sitting still for this long.”

He proceeded to settle on the floor of the living area and went into a set of crossbody push-ups that seemed to highlight every dip and shapely curve of his musculature. Sasuke preferred taijutsu practice or katas for exercise himself. He’d even taken to doing some climbing on occasion, made harder and all the more valuable now with his one arm (mostly due to Kakashi's own influence during their chuunin exam training if he was honest). Kakashi had always taken spare moments on missions to work out, even using them as weights when they were bored as genin, piling on to his back to goad him on. It was a fond memory and not one he should sully with stray thoughts of climbing onto the other man’s back now , when they are both very much adults.

He ate with his back to the display and distracted himself with mediating after breakfast, something that forced him to keep his eyes closed seemed to be a good idea at that moment.

Kakashi was doing sit-ups when Shikamaru walked in. The normally stoic brunette blinked rapidly several times at the sight of a very toned Hokage’s abdomen flexing in front of him.

“Hey, Shikamaru,” Kakashi said nonchalantly, voice strained as he sat up.

“Yeah…” the man said, setting more groceries down on the counter, still staring.

Sasuke felt satisfied with this. If Shikamaru was rattled then surely no one could blame him .

“Okay…well. This is progress, I guess.” Nara sighed, “How old are you now?”

Kakashi stopped his movement and reached over to steal the towel right off Sasuke’s neck as he stood up, wiping the sweat off his brow.

“Nineteen.”

“And the last thing you remember?”

“That’s classified.”

“Right. Can you tell us anything?”

“Well. I was on a redacted mission in redacted , ran in to some redacted and had to redact them-”

“Good to know you’re still as annoying as ever,” Sasuke rolled his eyes, finally standing from where he’d sat crossed-legged on the couch.

Kakashi crossed his arms cooly, regarding him with a narrowed eye.

“Look, there’s not much to tell. Lord Third’s been back in power for about five years, nothing has really happened since.”

He shared a look with Shikamaru, neither had missed the fact that Kakashi completely glossed over the nine-tails attack and Minato and Kushina’s deaths.

The door was unlocked again and Yamato walked in with Naruto, who stopped short and sputtered.

“Sen- I mean. Kakashi?”

The pause that followed was heavy.

“You…you’re, wow- sorry. I realized it when I woke up, that it had been you all along, but I hadn’t seen you since,” Kakashi said, his eye slightly curved in a smile, “It’s just good to see you grew up well, Naruto. I’m glad.”

The blonde looked touched and for a second Sasuke worried he would cry or something equally embarrassing or confusing, because Kakashi still didn’t really know why Naruto was so attached to him. But instead he nodded, lips pursed and then strode forward to pat Kakashi on the shoulder.

“Thanks. Wow. You’re…sturdy. Not that you aren’t now! Or is it before…Well, you know! Before this. Just. This is good. You look good!”

Sasuke repressed a laugh, only wincing slightly when Naruto proceeded to punch him in the shoulder in retaliation as he walked past. 

So Kakashi recognized Naruto then, Sasuke supposed the whiskers were unmistakable of course and he really did look so much like Minato. The man also blinked several times at Yamato before his eyes softened. 

“Hi, Kakashi,” the brunette greeted with a warm smile.

“Tenzo…”

“It’s Yamato now, actually.”

“Ah, sorry,” Kakashi rubbed the back of his head in a familiar sheepish gesture, “Did I-?”

“No, they all know already. You never could get used to it.”

They got to catching up, as much as the situation would allow, and Sasuke settled in the chair beside Naruto in the kitchen, listening to his updates on what had been happening outside the four walls of the apartment. By Sasuke’s estimation, Kakashi wouldn’t have met Itachi for another year at least, meaning he still didn’t know who Sasuke was, nor Sakura or Shikamaru, though he likely guessed who the Nara was by way of Shikaku and their uncanny resemblance.

When he turned his head to survey the other men, Kakashi was already looking at him, his single visible eye intense.

Suddenly the apartment felt a whole lot smaller.

* * *

They danced around each other for the rest of that day and the next. Sasuke didn’t really know how to approach this Kakashi. He was just as witty though in a less snarky way, but more secretive as well. His expressions were typically muted and he was much harder to read than the younger versions of him had been. It didn’t help that he looked almost exactly like the man he’d known, though without all the shared history. It threw him off balance, less able to separate the two in his mind. 

For his part, Kakashi looked at Sasuke like he was trying to figure him out and didn’t attempt to hide that, forcing Sasuke to resist the urge to squirm under his gaze. When Sasuke emerged from a shower the second night, he found the other man drinking straight from a bottle of sake he’d somehow gotten his hands on in the kitchen.

“Should you be drinking that?” he asked, not particularly caring.

He swiped the bottle anyway and dug through the kitchen cupboard to find two cups. They could at least be civilized about it.

“If I can kill someone, I should be able to drink to forget about it.”

“Fair enough,” Sasuke slid over a filled cup before he downed his own. “Bad mission?”

“Objectively, no.”

They all knew bad for the shinobi wasn’t always bad for the village or vice versa. 

Kakashi looked at him for a long moment before he pulled his mask down to finish his cup, declining to pull it back up, and Sasuke couldn't help staring. Of all the words he could use to describe Kakashi he never thought pretty would fall among them. 

He was, though. Sasuke had seen many gorgeous faces and hardly any he’d been interested in taking a second look at. But Kakashi was handsome the way a blade could be beautiful, sharp and designed to intimidate. His features were shapely and perfectly set in a chiseled face. His eyes were sadder though and his posture more suspicious. He looked as hard as glass and just as likely to crack. He didn’t look away from Sasuke, consciously allowed him to take his fill, and he couldn’t help but think Kakashi was using his face much like a weapon, too. 

Get a grip, Sasuke thought to himself, refusing to look away or indicate he was affected, he’s just a man.

And that was true, only not to Sasuke. He was just a man, sure. Just a man that he’d bared his soul to, just a man who had the power to crush it as easily as breathing, and - as far as Sasuke was concerned - who had done just that. Even if he didn’t know any of that yet.

“You okay?”

He realized he’d been silent too long.

“Yeah. Just thinking.”

Maybe he should have let Suigetsu make out with him after that one evening out in Kiri. Or actually convinced Naruto to sow his bicurious oats with him before he settled into it with Hinata. Surely that would have satiated something in him so he wouldn’t be so distracted by Kakashi's mouth. His eyes. The dimples in his cheeks.

“You an Uchiha?” Kakashi suddenly asked.

He considered how to answer this. The massacre hadn’t happened yet, Sasuke could be any number of clan members.

“Yes.”

Kakashi nodded but didn't pry further into his family lineage. Although Kakashi wouldn’t have known him yet, he didn’t want the elder to realize he was Fugaku’s young son prematurely.

“You have the eyes. I don’t mean the Sharingan, just the colour. Like the sky at night. And intense.”

That sounded less than casual.

“You know many from the clan?” he asked then, curious.

“A few. They kind of like to keep tabs on me,” Kakashi said then winking, his somber mood receding behind a flirtatious guise, “I guess I must be hot property for some reason.”

They get to talking and he supposed it wasn't that odd that Kakashi knew Shisui fairly well and Fugaku in a formal capacity. He didn’t mention Obito. Sasuke hadn’t considered the man’s proximity to the clan much, not when by the time they met there was no clan left. 

“We should spar,” Kakashi said then, “Would be good to practice against another Sharingan user. Shisui is really the only one that’s willing to talk to me.”

Sasuke laughed softly into his drink.

“I think you’re underestimating me.”

“Not at all. I never ask a weaker challenger to spar. There’d be no point for me.” 

Kakashi turned fully to face him then, eye roving over his frame. Sasuke suddenly felt self-conscious in the slightly too small shorts and threadbare t-shirt he slept in, neither of which had been a problem when Kakashi wasn’t his age and hadn’t been looking at him like a wolf considering its prey.

“You looked very slim, but you favour loose clothes so you’re actually packing quite a bit of muscle under there. You move fast, even doing benign things. Smooth. And very silent. Your lack of visible scarring on your arm and legs indicates you don’t often get injured much in battles or at least not very severely, so it must be hard to land a good hit on you. You’re an Uchiha at jonin level, so you definitely have a Sharingan, fully developed at least but you wouldn’t hide that. So your other eye must be something special indeed. Last but definitely not least, you’re missing an entire arm and have seemingly refused a prosthetic like Naruto’s which is either stupid or confident. I’m leaning towards the latter given not only are you still an active shinobi it would seem, but a rather highly ranked one - by reputation if not officially.”

“You glean a lot,” he said, trying to act bored.

“Mhm. I also know you’re sweeter than you look or act,” Kakashi added, a pointed look thrown Ash’s way, sleeping curled up on one of Kakashi’s shirts. They’d been able to bring over his own clothes now and the kitten had taken to his scent like nothing else after spending the afternoon crawling all over him as he read. Sasuke would feel jealous if it were anyone else, of whom he wasn’t entirely sure, but instead he only felt warm at the prospect of his cat getting along so well with the man.

Sasuke didn’t know what to say to that though, to being called sweet after everything. Especially by Kakashi.

“I also get the sense I shouldn’t ask why someone of your caliber is guarding little old me, especially when I'm more than capable of protecting myself.”

Kakashi had always been astute. 

“Good call. And as much as I’d be interested in sparring, we’d have to leave the apartment to do it and we can’t.”

“Hm, too bad. Having all this pent up energy is driving me mad,” Kakashi blinked then, titling his head, “Can I see your eyes?”

Sasuke mulled it over. Their keeping of information from Kakashi was more for his benefit than theirs, so as not to overwhelm and confuse him. It couldn’t hurt. He activated his Mangekyo and brushed his hair back from his other eye.

The other man must have recognized the unique pattern, different from the usual Sharingan because his expression grew sympathetic. He blessedly didn’t comment on it. His eye widened though as it moved to take in the Rinnegan. 

“Well, aren’t you full of surprises? Just like I said. Powerful,” Kakashi breathed, and tilted his head as he took in Sasuke’s full features, “You’re beautiful, too.”

Sasuke had been called many complimentary things over his appearance but beautiful was more rare, too sincere and raw for most. He felt the moment he flushed at the unexpected compliment. He’d been trying to ignore the fact that this same-aged version of his sensei, who looked like danger and smelled like a summer storm was most definitely flirting with him and leaning into the mutual tension with a vengeance. Kakashi didn’t seem to want to do the same.

“That’s new,” he said, getting up from his chair. He dropped the empty cups into the sink and pointedly removed the bottle of sake from the counter, determined to at least try and push past whatever the fuck this was.

“I find that hard to believe.”

Charmer. Like their Kakashi, but more forward, this one. There was more than one way to be lethal.

“New from you,” he amended, “I should sleep.”

He turned to leave the room. 

“You were a beauty from the first moment I saw you,” Kakashi followed him from the kitchen down the hallway and into the bedroom they’d been sharing. Sasuke wondered if it would be weird for him to decide to sleep in the living room. “I just didn’t absorb that fact then, my young self was a little oblivious and self-centered. Not that I could have done anything about it then anyway. Also, you were being a dick.”

“Yeah,” he said with a laugh, pretending he hadn’t heard that first half, “I can be.”

“It’s okay. So can I.”

Sasuke’s palms were clammy, heart thudding against his chest when he turned to see Kakashi unmoving there. The other man leaned against the door frame, looking at Sasuke.

“Something you need?”

“Do we know each other in my future?” Kakashi asked bluntly.

“I know of you,” he replied neutrally. I wish I knew you, wish I knew what you were thinking. Then and now. “Why?”

Kakashi walked further in, shrugged as he sat at the foot of the bed. Sasuke resisted the urge to stand from his own spot in the middle, where he’d subconsciously landed. He would not run from Kakashi again, he decided, not from a fight and not from this.

“Just wondering if I’d fuck anything up if I kissed you, because I can’t think about doing anything else and I haven’t been able to since yesterday.”

Sasuke’s breath hitched at that. He would hate Kakashi for making him feel like a protagonist in one of his books if the lines weren’t actually working on him. Kakashi reached out and touched his hand gently, and it was only then that he noticed his fingers were clenched in the fabric of the sheets.

“You with Naruto?”

“What?” That startled him. “No…not like that.”

“But you want to be? I just mean, there’s a vibe. I’m not trying to step on any toes.”

There were many things he wanted from Naruto, things he missed about their relationship before , things he was working on getting back, but that was not what this Kakashi was implying. He’d been a little heartbroken, sure, when he’d learned the blonde was with Hinata, but he’d gotten over that finally. Gotten over that and fallen head first into something else entirely, something that had made that feel like child’s play. 

“I don’t think you know what you want, Sasuke.”

“No,” he said, firmly, because although this wasn’t his Kakashi he was speaking to now, his would remember this, “Not like that.”

When Kakashi reached out to touch his cheek, hand curving along it so gently and thumb brushing its softness, Sasuke failed to stop himself from leaning into it. 

“We’ve both been cooped up here for too long, and I saw how you looked at me yesterday, before you could reign it in. It’s harmless, right?”

Kakashi hadn’t pulled his mask back up and Sasuke was distracted by the heaviness of his gaze, the way his tongue ran across the edges of his teeth, sharp canines on display and the slight quirk of Kakashi’s grin as he watched Sasuke. He sucked in a breath and before he knew it there were lips on his neck, leaving gentle kisses and nips up the line to his jaw. His eyes fluttered shut. They moved to speak against his cheek.

“Is this okay?”

It really wasn’t. 

He really had to put an end to it immediately before they did something neither of them could come back from. Sasuke was the one with more information there, he knew who he was and who they were to each other, and the last things they’d said to each other before the universe decided to fuck with them one more time. He couldn’t know how bad it might mess things up for Kakashi to wake up tomorrow or the next day and know what he’d done and with whom. But he was sick of dancing around the other man, too.

He’d always been good at hurting those he loved, and himself.

He tugged Kakashi closer by the neck and poured every ounce of his frustration with the man into the kiss. This Kakashi liked how he looked at least and the way his body felt, if his roving hands were to be believed. Even if maybe his Kakashi didn’t like much about him, even if maybe there wasn’t much else about him to like.

He was rough in his kissing, rougher still in the way his hand gripped Kakashi’s head and his thighs cased him in as he settled over the other man and crawled into his lap, but Kakashi pulled back and forced him to slow. Teasing, gentle. He didn’t want to accept this softness because Sasuke didn’t think he could live with knowing how sweetly he could be kissed by the man, not if it would never happen again. 

Once he took the step, it was easy to decide he was going to milk it. He’d always been good at being single-minded, at drowning out everything else to relentlessly go after what he wanted, consequences be damned. This Kakashi was ravenous, his hands and mouth relentless in their quest to pull every sound and reaction out of him and it was easy to give in. Sasuke had never seen hunger on the other man but he liked how it looked, especially directed at him. This Kakashi was not delicate with him, not careful, and most of all not riddled with a guilt about him that was useless to them both.

“How do you want it?” 

Kakashi’s voice was rough, hands reverent against his ribs when he pushed Sasuke’s shirt up past them, tossing him back onto the bed and crawling over him. He didn’t wait for an answer while he pulled off the garment before going down to his shorts and tugging them off, too. Sasuke shivered in his underwear, legs coming up to wrap around the torso he’d been admiring. Kakashi nipped at the skin on Sasuke’s hipbone, sucked a mark into the skin there that had Sasuke arching up to his mouth.

“I don’t care, I just want you,” he said honestly, fingers tangled in silver hair. He regretted it, thinking it would make Kakashi change his mind when he paused at that. He hoped the other man thought he meant because he was unbearably hot and not because he’d been longing for him for years now, for any scrap of affection thrown his way. That even though he didn’t feel he knew Kakashi, he certainly didn’t only know of him and they were more to each other than the other could fathom at that moment.

Instead, Kakashi tilted his head and kissed Sasuke’s thigh softly, a gesture so loving it almost undid Sasuke right then.

“Then, what do you want me to do?”

At least this Kakashi seemed to be willing to let him make his own mistakes.

“Everything.”

* * *

He was sore but he guessed not as much as he could have been. 

He’d learned Kakashi hadn’t been a patient boy, but he was certainly a patient man though Sasuke had always known that. His grips were hard but his mouth was unbearably soft, words wicked but spoken so gently. He’d looked at Sasuke like he was a gift, albeit one he had no problem with ruining in the best of ways and he’d taken great pleasure in doing just that. Sasuke had, too.

He also decided he’d never again make fun of Kakashi’s Icha Icha obsession, not when it surely contributed to his ability to leave him feeling so blissed out he was still seeing spots in his vision, minutes after he’d reached heights he didn’t think were possible. He tried not to think about the fact that this Kakashi was a good ten years behind his normal self in experience, too, and what that might mean their Kakashi was capable of.

The man was also shameless, given the way he was still eyeing Sasuke’s spent body up and down. He’d been so used to being coveted when he’d been younger, but since losing his arm it hadn’t felt the same. He’d never concerned himself with his own looks but even he felt the sting of being different, incomplete. Thinking he deserved it didn’t make it any easier. Kakashi hadn’t missed a beat though, never made him feel awkward at his lack of a limb or like he was any less attractive for it, adjusting to him seamlessly. 

He was lying on his front, while Kakashi was on his back beside him, heads turned towards each other. The sheet was haphazardly thrown over their lower halves more for modesty than anything else, though modesty was miles away after what they’d done over the last hour. He would need a shower, maybe two, to wash him away. He wasn’t in any hurry.

“You’re good at that,” he said, still catching his breath, because everything else seemed too big or small, too awkward for the moment, including silence. 

“Lots of practice.”

It was dumb to let the apparently many conquests of Kakashi - who won’t even meet him for another seven years in his timeline, who wouldn’t know this Sasuke for another eight after that - bother him. But it did. He wondered if this was what Kakashi had done when he left that night, after he’d yelled himself hoarse, to someone else. It must have showed on his face because the other man laughed softly and leaned over to kiss his bare shoulder.

“Jealous? Relax, not like I can walk out there and find anyone else right now. I’m not very popular in this village, either. I’m all yours.”

You are , he wanted to insist, you’re loved . And most definitely not mine. But that was not what this Kakashi would want to hear.

“ I like you just fine.”

“You know, I like you too,” the silver-haired man said with a grin, “you’re much nicer like this. Should I just keep you tired out all the time?”

Kakashi leaned over him, pressed his mouth to the top of his spine and followed a path down, down, down ...Sasuke squirmed when he reached his tailbone and the edge of the sheet that was keeping him decent. There were some things he hadn’t let Kakashi do, remembering they would in fact have to look each other in the eye later. Things that had left him straining not to come undone when whispered in his ears but shied away from when presented with the chance. Kakashi’s breath ghosted across his back as he laughed and obediently came back up but not before sucking a bite into his skin, just above the swell of his ass. He squirmed away again indignantly at that, tried to bat Kakashi away with his hand but the other just turned him onto his back and pinned his arm down with ease, leveling his senses with a kiss.

He could certainly get sex somewhere else when this all came crashing down if so inclined, probably even good sex, but he didn’t think he would ever find a gaze that matched this one, that looked at him quite the same. He wondered if on some level Kakashi knew they must mean more to each other than he was aware of at that moment. He belatedly realized the Sharingan was spinning in Kakashi’s eye and thought with some bitter satisfaction that the other man would never be able to forget this. Let him try. He leaned up to kiss him again and tried to let it say everything he couldn’t.

When he pulled back, Kakashi was looking at him knowingly.

“Why do I get the strangest feeling it’s not me you’re kissing?”

He couldn’t touch that with a ten foot pole.

“It’s okay,” the other man added, lying on his side beside him and propped up on one arm, “This is a weird situation. I don't expect us to ride off into the sunset together. What’s he like?”

Sasuke played at ignorance, “Who?”

“Please. Give me some credit, I am a shinobi. The man, I’m assuming, that you’re in love with.”

It hardly mattered anymore, how much he revealed.

“Stubborn. Infuriating. Too smart. Protective. Forgiving.”

“Hm. And he’s not receptive to you?” Kakashi asked, brushing aside strands of his hair, “Is he insane?”

Sasuke had to laugh at that. What irony.

“Maybe. But he’s probably sane about this.”

Kakashi’s eyes filled with something else then and Sasuke had to look away. He didn't want to see it, not for a second time.

“But you still want him.”

“Yes,” he whispered, “I do.”

When they settled down to sleep, it was back to back and Sasuke was grateful Kakashi hadn’t put up a protest when he’d turned to face away. Then again, to the other man this was nothing but a harmless fling. A bit of fun. Sasuke was free to spiral on his own. He clutched the sheets between his fist, teeth worrying his lip. He felt the warmth of Kakashi’s weight against his back and remembered the sureness of his hands, the way he’d moved, over him and in him, his mouth and his eyes that somehow made him feel like he was the be all, end all. 

Now that it was over, the full repercussions of his heated actions fell over him, crushing the endorphin high he’d been riding.

What had he done?

Chapter Text

Sasuke couldn’t sleep.

Lying naked beside Kakashi and waiting for the sky to come falling down was not doing him any favours. There was no telling when the other shoe would drop and he felt like a prisoner waiting for execution, strapped into a guillotine. He certainly didn’t want to face the possible music in nothing but a bed sheet and littered with the evidence of his crime. 

He slid stealthily out of bed, pulled his clothes from where they’d been discarded on the floor and slipped them on as he walked into the living room and sat numbly on the couch in the dark, his feet pulled up beside him. Ash sensed his arrival and curled up at his feet. He absentmindedly petted her as she settled back into a sleep he could only dream of.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Maybe it wasn’t supposed to be at all but if it were to happen, he’d never imagined it would be this . 

He was still covered in the other man's scent, could still taste him in his mouth, feel him on his tongue, could still see broad hands running up his thigh resting on a shoulder. He could feel the tender sting of sensitive blood vessels at the bruises he knew were forming on his hips and the bite marks on his thighs. 

How was it possible to feel so good and so terrible at once?

He didn’t know how long he sat there, watching the dawn approach and painting the apartment in the shades of another day. 

It was still early when he finally heard rustling from the other room and he sat impossibly still. He wouldn’t run, he owed Kakashi that much. He prayed it would be Kakashi as he’d been the day prior that would walk into the room. That he could have one more day of playful domesticity, one more day of living in a fantasy. There was a prolonged silence from the other room that he didn’t know how to interpret before movement started up some more.

Kakashi's steps sounded heavy and he walked in already fully clothed. His mask was back on, and that was telling enough.

Sasuke had never been lucky in life.

His heart froze as he looked up into a tired eye that to his horror was wet with unshed anguish, at hands rougher and more scarred than they were yesterday held in shaking fists by the sides of a body larger than the one he’d left scratches on. 

“Kakashi-”

“Don’t.”

He swallowed.

“So you do come back,” the man whispered.

“Eventually.”

Kakashi stepped closer and reached out as if in a trance, touching the stump of his arm before he pulled back as if burned immediately when he felt skin. Sasuke’s nerves felt lit up at the sensation, gone too soon.

Kakashi’s hands flew up into his own hair, shakily running through silver strands like he didn’t know what else to do with them. When they dropped, Sasuke could see the figurative mask fall back over him as he breathed out, the tremors exiting his body with the action. When he spoke his voice was the steady tenor of a commander, the voice Sasuke had known as a genin and again when Kakashi had become Hokage.

“I have to go.”

Sasuke stood abruptly.

“Where? You can’t be seen. Please, I know you’re angry but you can’t leave.”

Sasuke reached out intending to touch the man’s shoulder but he was stopped.

“Don’t,” the other man said again. He had closed his uncovered eye tight, hand curling into a fist against Sasuke’s chest, firm as it pushed him away, “Don’t touch me. Please.”

Sasuke dropped his hand listlessly and watched, feeling helpless as the now older man stepped back. When Kakashi reached the door he took another deep breath before leaving Sasuke heart-broken for a second time. 

* * *

Sasuke forced himself to shower, hissing as his hand ran over sensitive spots on his skin, cleaning Kakashi off from on him and in him. There would be no hiding the marks though, not for a good long while and he dug through the clothes he’d brought to find a long-sleeved turtle neck shirt to wear over pants, feeling like the flimsy armor might protect him. He dropped the clothes on the sheets before thinking better of it and draping them on a chair in the room instead. 

He couldn’t look at the bed. 

He toweled himself off and paused at the sight of an especially dark bruise that had bloomed inside his thigh, high up enough to cause him to flush a dark red as he remembered lips and teeth and tongue against the sensitive skin, the words Kakashi had spoken against him.

Was Kakashi so passionate with all his lovers? Did he tell all of them how perfect they were, how he adored the sounds they made and the feeling of them around him? Had Sasuke been special at all? He felt as though his mind could be wiped and he’d still know Kakashi even if he didn’t know him, would feel it in his soul even if his mind was missing the pieces of the puzzle they made.

Surely now he would be an encounter not forgotten, in all the worst ways. His hand shook as he tugged on his clothes.

Here it was, the mere beginnings of the fallout of something he’d pursued in desperation, yet again. He’d made a terrible, horrible mistake and as usual the consequences weren’t limited to him and this time to someone he’d just been arriving on the right footing with after so many years of pain and the tentative steps they’d taken to having a better relationship. He could have come back from the argument they’d had, it would have been painful for him and awkward, sure, but things could have been repaired. He wasn’t sure he could still say the same and all indications pointed to no.

Ash was curled in his lap as he sat stiffly at the kitchen table feeling unmoored. When a knock sounded and the lock on the door turned, he schooled his expression into the mask of nonchalance he usually wore. 

Yamato, Naruto, and Sakura filed in. Their resident medic looked excited before her face fell.

“Where’s Kakashi?”

Sasuke forced himself to shrug casually.

“He left for a bit. He’s…well he’s almost himself again, he remembers us all and he was feeling restless, so. He needed air and I couldn’t stop him. Figured he knew enough for it not to be too much of a breach.”

His put upon air of unconcern fooled most everyone but the blonde was too in tune with him not to realize something was terribly off. Naruto’s face was carefully neutral, something Sasuke had been surprised he could manage but a lot had changed over the years. 

“I can’t believe I missed hot-Kashi,” Sakura sighed, “Don’t look at me like that Captain, it was Naruto’s name for him!”

Yamato shook his head at her with a grin, “Well, I trust he knows enough to keep himself hidden but we need to find him. Where in the timeline was he, Sasuke?”

“After being assigned Team 7 and after I left but before I came back.”

“Oh! So he got to know that you returned! That must have been great, he’d have been so happy to know that, I wish I could have seen it.” Sakura said with a genuine smile.

Sasuke felt his heart shatter all the way then.

He’d taken so much with one reckless, cruel act. An act that hadn’t even served to satisfy him as much as it had left him feeling hollowed out. It hadn’t been the Kakashi he’d wanted, the one who knew and cared for him, who’d seen him at his worst and best, who’d felt pride in him and given so much of himself to him when he hadn’t even realized the value of what he’d been given, not until it was almost too late. Who Sasuke knew loved him, even if it wasn’t the way he’d come to love the elder man, even if he’d scorned the other's ability to feel that emotion at all. He wasn’t sure Kakashi could ever love him now. He’d cheapened what might have been a wholly different experience had he held some semblance of self-control. 

“Well, we still can’t just let a Hokage that doesn’t know he’s Hokage wander around no matter how good he is. Naruto, do you mind?”

“Right!”

The blonde took a few moments to go into sage mode to locate Kakashi and relayed his location to Yamato, who immediately headed out. Sakura left for the hospital as well. Sasuke clenched his hand on the table, unmoving, torn and unsure what to do with himself. 

“Sasuke,” Naruto said after the apartment had emptied, face still unbearably serious, “can we chat?”

He shrugged.

Naruto stepped towards him carefully and then Sasuke felt a bandaged hand fall to the back of his neck.

“What’s wrong? You can tell me.”

He trusted Naruto, but he couldn’t dump this on him and he couldn’t betray Kakashi’s trust more than he already had by telling his friend what had happened.

“What makes you think something is wrong?”

Naruto looked at him for a long moment, a furrow in his brow. Sasuke had wholeheartedly believed in Naruto’s dream to become Hokage but he’d wondered in moments if his friend could carry himself with the gravitas required in some moments. He’d learned with some shame that Naruto was more than capable of being subdued, was more than the village prankster, and he felt that keenly now.

“Sasuke…well you weren’t here obviously, right after. When you left and all. And I just think that a Kakashi whose last memory in his time was of you leaving for Orochimaru…he…”

Naruto paused, lifted his hand to rub the back of his head in a gesture that was so like their shared sensei it hurt to look at.

“Just say it, Naruto.”

Naruto sighed and looked him right in the eyes then.

“I don’t think that Kakashi would be able to leave your side so easily.”

That was enough to get his eyes to water despite his rapid blinking and for Naruto to see his distress before he could turn away. 

“Sasuke-”

“Tell me where he is.”

* * *

Sasuke arrived at a small, modest house with a large yard. He could sense two chakras nearby - both familiar. One the solid, grounding feel of Yamato and the other that unmistakable charge that sent sparks through him even at a distance. He knew Kakashi would recognize his chakra and scent but he didn't sense any attempts to evade him.

When he entered the home Yamato looked at him warily from where he’d been seated in the genkan.

“He was very clear on not wanting to be interrupted.”

“I’ll take responsibility. You can’t stop me, anyway.”

Yamato frowned at him, “No. I suppose I can’t.”

He stepped in, padding down the hallway to where the feeling of lightning is strongest, calling to his own chakra like a flare. He stopped at the slightly ajar door to a small sitting room near the back of the house. Kakashi was sitting against the wall, legs bent at the knees with his bare feet on the floor and his arms resting against the tops of his knees. His head was resting against his arms, hiding his face more than it already was. He didn't move when Sasuke stepped inside and shut the door behind him. 

“Why are you here?”

Kakashi’s voice sounded gruff, deadened, and Sasuke spared a moment to hate that he was the cause for it.

“I came to apologize.”

Kakashi didn’t move or say anything so he forged on.

“I’m so sorry, I know it must be disorienting but…there’s eight years between us that you aren’t aware of-”

The elder man’s head lifted then to glare at him.

“Oh? So you’re telling me I would be okay with what happened, or will be, once I’m back to normal?”

Sasuke’s ashamed silence said enough.

“Given what I’ve been thinking about myself for the last few hours, I don’t know whether to be happy or angier. You crossed a line, Sasuke. Did you think I would be fine with it?”

“Kakashi…” he started, faltering as the elder turned his head to look out the window, “Sensei-”

“No,” Kakashi’s eye snapped back towards him, “Not now , you don’t get to call me that now of all times, damn it Sasuke…was it just some joke to you? Something to amuse you because you were bored, to fuck me up? Do you hate me that much for trying to keep you here? For trying to get you to see reason?”

“Whatever you’re feeling for me now, you’re confused…”

Sasuke dropped to kneel at Kakashi’s feet, desperate to get him to understand.

“I don’t hate you at all. I never did.”

“So it was just something convenient to get your mind off the man you spoke of? I don’t much appreciate that either. You could have picked anyone else.”

He didn’t want anyone else but there was no way Sasuke could dump the truth of that on him now, it was already too much. He’d never recalled seeing Kakashi so distraught. The elder laughed suddenly, though it didn’t sound anything close to happy.

“Why would you let me kiss you? And then let me…” he trailed off, unable to voice it.

“I think I kissed you. Not everything is your fault, you know.” 

Kakashi scoffed, “That’s new.”

“You were a perfect gentleman.”

“That’s not what I remember.”

“Well, as I recall, I definitely did not mind that,” Sasuke breathed in before letting his next words fall, “You didn’t do anything I didn’t want. Did you hate it? Or do you feel so terrible because you didn’t and you wanted it, too?”

He wasn’t being fair to Kakashi, he knew. The elder’s mind was likely plagued by the warring images his Sharingan had burned into his mind; of Sasuke in his bed at twenty and Sasuke nearly a decade prior, under his care and vulnerable. Sasuke tainted with the curse he couldn’t save him from and leaving him for another mentor, into hands meant to hurt him, and Sasuke here now.

He tried not to be upset, he had no right to be. This Kakashi still didn’t know what had happened the day before this whole mess started, let alone the memories held over the last eight years he was still missing. What Sasuke really felt. It didn’t make what he had done right but he hoped it would serve to get Kakashi to understand why he’d done it, that it wasn’t revenge or cruelty. Maybe it would earn him forgiveness if nothing else. If only the elder didn’t have to stew in more self-hate until he would get there again.

“That doesn’t matter. You knew we’d end up here. Did you think or care at all about that? That you aren’t the only one you can hurt? I thought I taught you better than that at least but I guess that didn’t stick either.” 

That hurt.

Sasuke closed his eyes, hand clenched against his thigh as he sat in seiza, ready to supplicate.

“I know you don’t remember everything that got us here but you remember yesterday. That you felt something there since that morning. You’re many things and one of them is smart and regardless of how you seemed then, you weren’t reckless without reason. What you said to me…”

He knew the other man could remember it as clearly as he could, probably clearer as Sasuke hadn’t used his Sharingan, something he wasn’t sure if he should regret yet. 

“It feels like you were made for me, Sasuke…”

Kakashi made a sound that was audibly wounded, face buried back in his palms. He stood and paced the room.

“Please just go,” Kakashi said, sounding more broken than Sasuke had ever heard him, “I can’t hold these two versions of you in my head. Looking at you right now hurts , Sasuke.”

Sasuke rose from his knees and stepped closer, desperately wanting to take away the pain that lined every movement of Kakashi’s body.

“I don’t want to leave things like this,” Sasuke tried again, voice a whisper.

“You want to know what I want? Does that factor in at all?” Kakashi turned on him and growled, backing him up against the wall and intimidating in a way he usually held in reserve. 

Sasuke had never felt so small.

“I want nothing more than to just be happy to see you here and not with Orochimaru or fucking dead . But I can’t. And do you want to know why?”

This time Sasuke did see tears fall from a grey eye that shifted from hurt to angry to confused and back.

“Because you’re right, I keep thinking there’s no way I didn’t know that you weren’t a stranger. And what kind of teacher did I turn out to be that I would ignore that, that I made you think that would be okay? What did I do ? What else did you have to go through that I failed to protect you from, that achieved that? That left you with a Mangekyo and without an arm? I might not know everything that happened to lead us here but I don’t want to look at myself in the mirror, as if that wasn’t hard enough already, and I certainly can’t look at you right now.”

Sasuke had never felt the need to touch someone so badly but he knew anything like that would be unwelcome now, with Kakashi reacting like a wounded animal at any of his attempts to get close.

Kakashi walked past him, out the door of the room and the privacy seals that had kept their conversation away from prying ears. Sasuke followed him with lead in his chest.

“Tenzo, give Sasuke a break from today. I don't think I need the same level of security at this point. I’m not even sure why I need it at all…can’t I just wait it out at my place or here?”

“No…” Yamato said cautiously, looking between them, “We’ll go back to the safe house, but yes, one of us can take over for Sasuke at this point.”

“Good,” Kakashi said, turning to him and sounding every bit the Hokage he didn’t know he was yet, “Sasuke, why don’t you head back first and clean out your things.”

He knew a dismissal when he heard one.

Chapter Text

Kakashi was six and he woke up swimming in his clothes, in a giant bed in a room much too nice to be his home. He was sure he’d remember moving into what appeared to be a fancy penthouse in the middle of the village. He’d just managed to scrape enough money together a few days ago to replace the squares of bloody tatami in the centre of their home and pay the bills, so unless he had fallen into some alternate universe, he was not where he was supposed to be. 

He could see what seemed to be Konoha outside the large windows but it looked different too, the same-but-not and he felt around for a weapon when he heard footsteps approaching from the hallway. Whoever lived in this room sure hadn’t skimped on the shuriken and kunai hidden just where he also kept them, tucked under the bed roll, or in this case mattress.

There was a perfunctory knock on the door and then a man with a spiky ponytail walked in, holding a bunch of papers. He didn’t know him.

“What the fuck-”

So he did what he had always done, he fought.

He was six and he was alone in the world and that was fine, he could handle it. Only suddenly he wasn’t.

There was an overly enthusiastic blonde man with eyes too sincere and a pink-haired lady with gentle hands, and two other dark haired men who looked serious but equally as concerned for his well-being. He couldn’t imagine why, they were strangers and he was just a random recently promoted chunin, one who apparently was being placed on leave for an indeterminate period. Great, so he’d messed up already. He’d been hit with some jutsu that posed a security risk to the village and they needed to monitor him. 

He felt fine but they talked to him and he decided to trust them for the time being. They hadn’t tried to hurt him and they mostly just wanted him to stay inside. The smaller apartment they moved him to was still much nicer than his home and warmer, too. It was boring but the village didn’t look like it was in distress and he wasn’t in a genjutsu either. They let him keep a weapons pouch on him loaded with the ones he’d found in that room and he thought that was dumb of them, that it must be nice to be so trusting.

Then there was another shinobi and he wasn’t exactly like the rest. He kept his distance and looked generally miserable about being there so of course he was the one that got assigned to stay with Kakashi. He didn’t take it personally. He’d probably be miserable if he was missing an arm and had to make do with seeing out of one eye, too.

Over the next day he grew not to mind them. They all seemed too emotional for proper shinobi, especially over him, but they weren’t so bad.

He was six and he still had to cook because the shinobi they saddled him with was hopeless in the kitchen but his smile was kind of nice to look at, even if rare.

* * *

He was fourteen and Rin and Obito were dead, just like dad.

His visits to the graveyard and memorial stone were getting longer.

Minato was too busy to spend much time with him and he didn’t have a squad anymore so he got sent on missions with a rotation of different people, none of whom wanted to work with him and all of whom spoke viciously behind his back. At this rate, he’d die because his call for backup would go ignored out of spite but he couldn’t bring himself to feel too upset at the idea.

It was only a matter of time, really.

The team of jonin that were still looking after him on the other hand seemed close. They seemed like friends and not in the passing sense Kakashi was used to, but in the lay-down-my-life-for-you kind of way Kakashi had read about in books. It was in the little things, like the way they moved around each other like they knew just where to fit. The countless inside jokes. Shinobi weren’t soft, shouldn’t be in his opinion, but they looked at each other softly. Naruto draped himself all over Sasuke’s back as he stirred the meat in the pan as Kakashi had assigned him and the dark haired man didn't shrug him off even as he sighed at him. Yamato made a wooden bowl for their salad, adding a cherry blossom pattern to its sides just to show off, much to Sakura’s delight as she chopped veggies. And where the hell did he get that wood style from? Kakashi was sure this was some long dream and he might actually be in a coma. Maybe death had come after all.

It was a little weird how easily they made room for him too, like he wasn’t some bitter teenager they didn’t know that was probably keeping them all away from whatever fun plans friends have. He didn’t really understand it, there wasn’t much about him that was interesting but they seemed to be very taken by everything he said and did and especially his recipes for dinner. It wasn’t like he had much else to do there so he didn’t mind cooking, especially since Sasuke’s food tasted about as flavourful as generic soldier pills. It was kind of nice, considering he’d been drowning in missions before this, waiting for his last. He supposed he could enjoy this small respite for what it was.

Sasuke was still kind of awkward around him but he was sure the man would say the same about him. He didn’t mean to snap at him but Naruto reminded him of Gai and he’d felt guilty about his own lack of receptiveness to the other boy’s genuine, if unrelenting, affection. He certainly wasn’t expecting the sharp rebuke he got in return, an insult so personal it felt weighted.

What would you know about me ? He’d wanted to ask. Instead, he removed himself from the situation. He only ever brought the mood down.

Sakura found him on the roof and sat by him quietly. She brushed his hair back a few times. He liked that, it felt nice and he didn’t feel much of anything lately so he drank her casual affection in.

“Listen, Sasuke, he can be-”

“He’s an asshole.”

He wasn’t very socially graced but he immediately felt bad for insulting her friend, though she only laughed.

“You’re not wrong.”

He thought back to what had made him scoff at the table, to the obvious hurt in Naruto’s eyes and the frustration in Sasuke’s. If he was honest, he could understand the raven-haired shinobi better than the sunny blonde in that moment.

“I don’t understand how he and Naruto are friends.”

Sakura nodded with a smile.

“They make an odd pair…but you know there’s something those two have in common. They both love harder than anyone else. Sasuke’s just very picky about who he bestows it on.”

He sensed the presence of a chakra uncannily similar to his own before she did.

“Just hear him out,” she said before standing up.

* * *

He was nineteen and his list of graves to visit was longer.

He remembered killing four missing-nin and washing the blood off in a nondescript inn yesterday at the same time that he remembered playing with Ash as Sasuke watched with a smile from the side. He remembered a week prior and being small while scolding Sasuke about eating rations even though he tended to live on them now himself. He remembered making him a special soup he’d bugged Shikamaru to get the ingredients for when Sasuke had made an offhand comment about liking tomatoes and he’d felt bad about him being forced to be his roommate. He didn’t know why he cared, only that it was nice to come home to someone again - even if he technically never left the place.

Kakashi really had no one. 

He had Gai, sure, but he refused to drag the cheerful man down with him. Trying to get the other shinobi to give up on him was easier said than done, though. Gai deserved better friends, not someone who forgot his birthday, left him waiting for hours in favour of the dead, and hardly ever checked in. He wasn’t even sure why the other man wanted to be his friend, he hadn’t done anything to earn it really and most people realized pretty quickly he was shit company on the best days.

Sasuke didn’t seem to think that, though.

Sasuke was also an Uchiha which was both surprising and not. Surprising because while many people wanted him dead, perhaps none did more than many of the clan. After all, what was worse than a friend killer, but a friend killer and bloodline thief? Kakashi had come to credit his steel nerves for living alongside one of the most powerful clans that wanted his head on a pike on a day to day basis. It was not surprising on the other hand because Sasuke looked like the classic Uchiha poster boy, all dark untamed beauty like the jaguars said to live deep in the old forests of the east and just as graceful.

Kakashi kind of liked playing house with the other man. Splitting chores he normally did alone, if at all. Sharing tips for jutsu and training. Joining him in meditating after Sasuke plucked an especially explicit volume of a series out of his hands and tossed it into a corner with the faintest blush after reading one sentence. Trying to teach Ash dog tricks as she looked at him in confusion and Sasuke bit back a smile from the corner as he read. 

He couldn’t help flirting when he noticed the other man looking. Standing a little too close or stretching a little too long. Refusing to hand over the spoon when he asked him to taste test the soup and watching his cheeks light up a gentle pink as he took it into his mouth, then turned away abruptly with a request for more salt. In all likelihood Kakashi would die before he would ever get a chance to even consider shacking up with someone cute who would also put up with him or even go on a proper date, so he decided to enjoy this strange sojourn. Allegedly maintaining Konoha’s security was only a side bonus.

Maybe he had finally died after all without knowing it and he’d somehow been accidentally let into heaven.

Sasuke didn’t feel like a stranger despite only meeting him almost two weeks ago but he was still pushing boundaries more than was appropriate. Kakashi wouldn’t be Kakashi if he wasn’t a little bit of a rebel though, dancing along the lines if not crossing them. Maybe he was being too casual with his assigned guardian but could anyone blame him?

He was nineteen and Sasuke was the loveliest creature he’d ever had the pleasure of laying eyes on, a spot of beauty in the kaleidoscope of nightmarish images that his Sharingan made sure he would never forget. Maybe the cheesy books he’d taken to reading were getting to him but Sasuke’s skin looked backlit by the moon and his visible eye and hair were as dark as the velvet of the midnight sky. And then there was the ruby red pattern of his Mangekyo and the soft lilac of the Rinnegan he revealed, something of legend. 

Was Sasuke human or a god hidden among them, he’d wondered, so disarming and otherworldly he was. He was beautiful and Kakashi couldn’t stop himself from saying so. He’d never been a possessive person but Sasuke seemed so unattainable that he wanted to leave his mark on him. 

Shinobi were never guaranteed another day and so he took his shot.

Sasuke touched him with a tad too much reverence for someone who didn’t know him all too well and allowed Kakashi past almost every boundary he tentatively crossed. Like it wasn’t Kakashi he was seeing. He didn’t take that personally, most did the same, the mask making it easy to replace him with any number of fantasies. Then there were those who wanted the anonymous shinobi experience anyway. But he hadn’t kept it on with Sasuke. He took his time, indulged in things he normally never did with his largely anonymous partners, with whom he mostly enjoyed quick encounters with, something he had down to an art at this point. He didn’t want that with Sasuke though. He wasn’t so sure Sasuke had been entirely honest with him but he also didn’t care to find out. He was past the point of being able to stop himself when a slender hand curled around his neck and into his hair, and a deceptively lithe body arched up into him. A strong leg curled around his own for leverage and a high gasp of his name ghosted past his ear. The Hokage himself couldn’t pry him away.

Sasuke certainly wasn’t the most experienced lover he’d ever had, not the most uninhibited or vocal, but there was still something about him that stood above the rest in his mind. Kakashi was a bit of a romantic, even if he would deny it to anyone who asked, even if he didn’t expect anything close to romance in his life. He just imagined that if he were ever to let someone into his life that way, he would have to be head over heels indeed to be willing to make the adjustments, to compromise, and that simply hadn’t seemed likely. Something about Sasuke made him want to imagine him in that place, a truly cruel trick of the universe considering the strange circumstances they were meeting in.

And of course there would be someone else for Sasuke, someone like him must have many after him. The strange thing was that it was not a reciprocal love, as he told it.

What kind of fool, he’d thought, playing with dark strands, would let you get away?

* * *

He was twenty-six when he woke up alone in bed with the scent of Sasuke and the sweetest sin he’d ever committed all around him.

To say it was jarring was a vast understatement. His memories jumped from bandaging Sasuke’s wounds in the Land of Waves, sharing rations on the mountain top they’d trained on for the chunin exams and being blessed with little smiles and quips, the inexplicable feeling of loss at his desertion, to what it felt like to be cared for by him even for a short time over the last couple of weeks, to the whirlwind they’d shared the night before. 

He felt robbed.

He should have been elated to wake up knowing the man he’d been living with was his long lost student and to see the ease of his and Naruto’s affection for each other now, their trust, his bond with the team. He should have been able to laugh and reach out, ruffle his tangle of dark hair, maybe even gather him up in the hug he hadn’t had a chance to give before he slipped out of reach.

But none of that could happen, not when he remembered that skin under much different circumstances.

He felt sick, wrong, scrambled.

Had he unknowingly pushed Sasuke into it? Had the younger man only given in because he’d been worried about rejecting his younger self’s advances? 

But Sasuke wasn’t one to pull punches, never had been, and this Sasuke seemed more powerful than Kakashi could fathom, certainly more powerful than he was, had a Rinnegan of all things. What on earth had happened for him to acquire that? 

This Sasuke had been more than willing and had initiated much of what followed himself, sweetly curious, lips brushing his ear as he pleaded his requests. And the things he’d said in return…He shut his eyes to no avail against the images his Sharingan had effectively burned into his mind.

He couldn’t think about that, it left him spiraling.

He dressed numbly and steeled himself before stepping out. That was hard enough, leaving felt like ripping a part of himself off.

He had so many questions.

Half of which had to do with why he was suddenly re-aging and in need of a guard, made up of his own students no less, why he couldn’t go outside and drink himself silly at a bar or decimate a training field, anything to distract himself, but he could only go through one crisis at a time.

Sasuke came back .

With a missing arm, a Mangekyo, and a Rinnegan, and yet looking softer than he would have expected, more gentle than when he’d left. And a willingness, eagerness really, to tumble into bed with his former sensei, something so alien to the reserved genin he remembered. Of course, Sasuke was far from that genin now but it didn’t make it any easier for Kakashi to accept. 

When Sasuke found him again at his old family home, he was tempted to flee. If he’d been stronger, he would have.

He’d never been verbally aggressive but he wanted to yell. Only held himself back as much as he did because he would see a younger face in front of him when he did meet Sasuke’s gaze, looking cowed in a way that was rare even when he’d been twelve. 

Was it a joke? A vengeful impulse? A ploy to reveal just how weak Kakashi was? Or just a truly careless act?

He didn’t know which would break his heart more.

But Sasuke wasn’t looking at him smugly or with condescension, and despite everything, he couldn’t imagine his Sasuke, the one he knew, being that cruel. But then, the boy hadn’t been his for a long time from the looks of it and he couldn’t know how the years had changed him in ways that weren’t visible. Still he saw nothing but sadness in his mismatched eyes and he knew as he sent him away that he'd hurt him, but he just couldn’t deal with it then. It was just as hard for him, when his instinct was still to protect, to shield. Maybe that was what he was doing regardless, but from himself this time.

He had to remind himself that Sasuke was an adult now and if Kakashi had to live with the consequences of the night prior, then so could he.

He was twenty-six and he hated himself twice as much as he thought he must have the first time around.

* * *

He was thirty-four and both past and present hit him like a tsunami.

Chapter Text

Kakashi looked deceptively softer by lamplight just like he had by the campfires on missions way back then. It didn’t matter how much blood he’d shed earlier in the day or how viciously he’d done it, at the end of it he was always their safe harbour. As with most things, Sasuke only learned to appreciate that once he’d lost it. 

His mission was nothing out of the ordinary but he’d been staying at an inn owned by a couple that had thrown into stark relief something he’d been pushing aside to a corner of his mind. He didn’t know the years between the two men, only that it was clear it was more than a few. He also didn’t know much else about them except that they’d owned the establishment together for over a decade and he didn’t think he’d ever seen two people look so effortlessly in tune with each other. He almost couldn’t even tell they were a couple at all, if not for the small, subtle notes of intimacy.

That was how easy it should be, he’d thought, that was how comfortable. 

And then he’d thought of a trust he didn’t have to think twice about, an attraction that simmered soft and slow to steadily heat him from the inside out, and the kind of understated love that ran deep like the calmest lake, it’s depths unknown to anyone only passing by.

And after that he found himself here because he could live without a lot and he had, but he still yearned for more.

“Sasuke, I wasn’t expecting you. Team dinner’s tomorrow,” Kakashi said in greeting, still tapping his pen on the desk as he frowned at a letter. It wasn’t a dismissal, he knew, the other man never turned him away.

Kakashi was alone in his quarters, in the office he had there too, because the work of Hokage was nothing if not constant. Sasuke had learned that if Kakashi wasn’t at the Tower he was most often working here instead where he wouldn’t be interrupted by the many people who wanted his attention. It was late but Sasuke felt more comfortable under the cover of night. The Hokage was dressed down, in his usual pants but just the sleeveless top he wore under his shirts sometimes, connected to his mask. 

“Mission was straightforward,” he said, setting a scroll down on the desk, “Didn’t want to wait to report in until tomorrow…the ANBU said you were still working.”

Kakashi nodded to the couch and he took a seat, helping himself to the tea set out there and patiently waiting as the elder finished up what he was doing. When Kakashi stood and stretched, wincing at the crack that sounded and walked over to sit beside him, his frown morphed into a more relaxed expression.

“You should stop working so late,” Sasuke said wryly, taking in the dark circles under grey eyes and the way the elder’s body slumped against the couch, somehow looking more tired than he did after an actual mission.

“Hm, and you should go home and sleep instead of reporting in so late.”

A hand reached out and brushed his cheek softly then and he winced at the small sting as the fresh cut there was disturbed.

“Who?”

“Not who,” Sasuke said with a sigh, but enjoying the touch and concern, “One of my hawks. She was tired and miscalculated where my shoulder was. Or maybe she was annoyed at having to cross the desert twice in two weeks.”

“And this is why I always keep your summons on my good side.”

There was a small tingle that ran through him as Kakashi’s fingers lit up with green healing chakra.

“So,” the silver-haired man said, low voice soft as he stitched the small cut closed, leaving behind only smooth unmarred skin, “What couldn’t wait?”

Sasuke looked at Kakashi then, at this man from whom he could ask so much from and who would give what he could and sometimes what he couldn’t. Things had changed in the last year, for both of them individually and together. He laid his hand over the one on his face when the chakra receded before it could pull away.

“Kakashi…what am I?”

The elder didn’t pull his hand away from his own but did drop it from his face, and tilted his head.

“What do you mean?”

Kakashi was still Kakashi, and of course he wouldn’t make this easy for him. Sasuke swallowed.

“To you. What am I…to you?”

The other man didn’t answer right away, gaze shifting and a sigh leaving his body, and Sasuke grew impatient. He leaned in, lips brushing the line where mask met skin, the slightly cooler feeling of the fabric contrasting the heated skin beneath. He laid another kiss higher up on a defined cheekbone and a third by the elder’s temple. When no resistance was forthcoming he pressed his mouth to hidden lips.

Kakashi didn’t exactly kiss him back, couldn’t with the mask still on, but he didn’t push him away either and he felt the elder’s mouth part slightly under the fabric. He pulled back when Kakashi’s hand found his cheek again, his thumb so close to his mouth that he was tempted to take it between his teeth.

“Sasuke…” Kakashi’s voice was impossibly gentle, “what are you doing?”

“Isn’t that obvious?”

The thumb brushed his jaw softly, lovingly even, and grey eyes considered him with a furrow set into the brows that framed them. There was a cast to them Sasuke might have called guilty, if he weren’t puzzled at what the elder was thinking.

“I think there’s a line longer than Ichiraku’s for you if you’re looking to blow off some steam.”

His mouth turned down and the hand did drop then. 

“That’s not what this is,” he answered, affronted. He shifted, looking up at Kakashi again, “I don’t want just anyone. I’m- I thought I made it kind of obvious. I thought you knew by now…”

Kakashi looked away.

“You do…but you don’t feel the same,” he guessed.

The elder looked at him helplessly and for the first time it seemed Kakashi didn’t actually know what to say.

“You can say it,” he sighed.

“I don’t think you know what you want, Sasuke.”

That wasn’t a confirmation that he wasn’t interested, Sasuke noted and it only served to anger him.

A flat out rejection, he could take. It would have gutted him but he’d accept it. You couldn’t force what wasn’t there. An apology that Kakashi didn’t want a relationship, didn’t swing that way, or found it inappropriate, he would deal with. He could respect his feelings and lick his wounds in private, and eventually he’d get over that too or learn to live with it. But not this, this attempt to make him question what he was feeling at all, to deny what he was sure he’d seen. Kakashi had always been prone to martyrdom, a trait he’d hoped he’d seen the last of, though it seemed he was mistaken.

“You sure it’s me that doesn’t know?”

Kakashi stood then, walking a few paces away. Sasuke let him because this wasn’t unlike other kinds of fights, and this was the elder reaching into his weapons pouch, counting his shuriken.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“It means does it always take you so long to get out of kisses you don’t want? It means do you let everyone get so close?”

That was Sasuke letting his own weapons fly.

Sasuke didn’t let people in easily, not physically or otherwise, so he was very conscious of the sanctity of his space. He knew Kakashi wasn’t all that different, his affection reserved and metered out sparingly. It was what made it so impactful when you were on the receiving end of it. And yet he also knew, from the ninken who Kakashi had often sent out with him, that the elder carried Sasuke’s scent on him more than any other and vice versa, despite his periodic time away from the village. He wasn’t so naive as to not know what that meant to a Hatake. Knew that to Kakashi’s ninken Team 7 as a whole was like his pack but Sasuke might have been categorized as something just right of that. That such primal creatures could see easily what it meant when their master stood so close to another, subconsciously left traces of himself on him constantly even if only via the briefest touches, to the point that they began to share a mark.

He knew that he was the only one Kakashi hadn’t ever turned away from his office or home, that no matter the urgency or Kakashi’s schedule, he was always at least led in to wait when others would be asked to come back another time. That he had more access to the Hokage than even his advisors or successor or closest friends.

He could not have misread that.

Because Kakashi was the consummate professional when it came to these things and he did not play favourites. He knew that Sasuke as a member of Team 7, as a subordinate, was equal to the rest, but Sasuke as something else was a different story.

He could not have misread the expression on the elders face when daring suitors tried their luck with him when they were out together. The way his eyes had begun to linger on Sasuke or the look in them when he noted Sasuke’s lingering on him.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Kakashi answered calmly, now from across the room, “You know how important you are to me, how important all three of you are-”

“You don’t treat me like you do them. Not for months now.”

“That’s not true, I care about you all-”

“That’s not what I mean, and you know that. I think you’re the one that doesn’t know what you want. I may have been misguided about a lot… but I’ve never not known my own heart.” 

His voice had risen in frustration and Kakashi’s hand rose as well, the privacy seals pulsing yellow as they were amped up with his command.

“Sasuke…whatever you’re feeling for me now…you’re confused. Maybe that is also my fault.”

He recognized the look in Kakashi's eyes. Pity. He would prefer almost anything over that, even anger.

“Don’t try to twist my emotions because you aren’t man enough to face your own.”

There it was, that spark in the elder’s eyes. 

Kakashi approached every confrontation from a step behind, always assessing and never revealing his cards until the last possible second. Sasuke had learned this was as true of dust-ups both personal and professional. Kakashi needed to be pushed to be rattled, even now he remained too guarded to reveal anything too soon.

“You might not want to hear it, Sasuke, but I’ve been around longer than you. And that counts for something. You’re young yet. It’s not hard for lines to blur and things to get unclear.”

“I tell you I might love you and you-”

“You don’t love me, Sasuke,” Kakashi cut in, “Not like that.”

It hurt. Almost more than a normal rejection would because why did Kakashi want to convince himself so badly this wasn’t real? Was the idea so unappealing, the concept so unwanted? Would he react this way to anyone, or was it just Sasuke?

“I will concede you know me better than most,” he whispered, voice rough after being strained when he’d spent weeks prior alone, “But you don’t know me better than myself.”

“You’re right,” the elder said seriously, “And you know even less about me. And if you did, you wouldn’t think this was a good idea. You would understand where I’m coming from.”

It was the final nail, hearing Kakashi speak to him about this of all things in his teacher’s voice - like it was a lesson to be learned. 

“That’s rich. Trying to lecture me on this,” he was aware his voice was back to growling, unsure if he was grateful for or annoyed by the seals that would keep their conversation private, ensure that it died here. “Want to give me a reading assignment, too, sensei? What would you know about love, really, that isn’t in those ridiculous books?”

He’d inspired a lot of expressions on the other man’s face, something most couldn’t boast about considering how unflappable the copy nin was known to be. Anger, disappointment, surprise, disdain, pride, worry - he’d seen all at varying points and been the cause for them, too.

But he didn’t think he’d ever seen hurt quite like this across his features, clearly visible despite the mask.

Good, he thought spitefully, let him feel it too.

“Fine. I clearly imagined it. Wishful thinking, I guess, that you wanted me. Wanted to kiss me. Touch me…” he tilted his head and decided to throw salt, “...fuck me.”

Kakashi's gaze turned stormy but he didn't move, arms still crossed in front of him and not on Sasuke like they should be, like he’d hoped they’d be by this point. But his fingers were digging into his biceps and his knuckles were unmistakably white. Every interaction between them carried the potential to devolve into a stand off; as subdued as he was it wasn’t as though Kakashi was any less intense or not as strong of a personality as he was, it just hadn’t happened in a while. But Kakashi hadn’t told him he was wrong, that he really was imagining things, and this was the impasse.

But then Kakashi swallowed and reigned in his expression, tucking it carefully behind the fabric he’d always worn as a shield. His eyes shifted then briefly and Sasuke could read the apology there before a steel curtain fell over them.

“If I’m responsible for any misunderstanding, then I apologize.”

Sasuke turned on his heel and walked out of the room, letting the door slam shut behind him.

* * * 

Naruto was still waiting in the apartment when he’d gone back, pacing. He watched Sasuke collect his things for a few moments, at a loss, before darting forward.

“Sasuke…are you leaving? What happened?” A frown cut across his face when he grabbed Sasuke’s shoulders to get him to pause and he still couldn’t look him in the eye. “What did he do ? Hokage or not I will go over there-”

He stopped him with a hand. Naruto’s unwavering faith in him had never felt so undeserved.

“Nothing. It’s- I fucked up. Again. Let’s leave it at that.”

“How, what did you do?”

He divested himself from the blonde’s grip and walked back to his bag, stuffing the last few things in it.

“What I do best.”

“What does that mean?”

He sealed his bag away and picked up Ash, who whined as he tugged Kakashi’s shirt out of her paws. He set her on his shoulder and walked to the door.

“Yamato will bring Kakashi back here, one of you will take over.”

Naruto stopped him again just as he was about to leave. The blonde still looked like he wanted to ask more questions but held himself back. He’d learned when to step back and when to push, and Sasuke clearly couldn’t take any pushing right then. Still, he was clearly uncomfortable with letting him walk off like this. Sasuke took pity on his friend and reached for his hand, squeezing gently.

“I’m fine. I’ll be at the compound. But if you’d give me a couple days, I’d appreciate it. Just…let me know if anything changes. And just don’t mention anything okay? Please. He’s not…he didn’t do anything wrong.”

Sasuke knew he was asking a lot, Naruto hated it more than anyone when the people he loved were at odds with each other. It was in his nature to try to mend every fence.

“Okay. You’ll tell me if you need me, yeah?” The blonde asked, squeezing back.

“I promise.”

He spent most of the day at home in bed, listless. He felt drained but unable to fall asleep, eventually climbing off his futon and walking into the kitchen. His fridge and cupboards were mostly empty but he had enough to make some noodles and toss on some seasoning to make it palatable. It was the kind of meal he’d slapped together as a kid, serving only to stop his stomach from growling at him. 

He missed Kakashi’s cooking. 

He just missed Kakashi. Everything about him.

“Everything, huh?”

Kakashi grinned and proceeded to leave soft, open-mouthed kisses from his belly to his neck before finding his lips again. Sasuke squirmed and tilted his head back when sneaky hands slid down his back and past the band of his underwear, skirting across sensitive skin and tugging him up against a hard body.

“You sure about that?”

He bit his lip to avoid whimpering - Sasuke Uchiha did not whimper and Kakashi was going to have to try a lot harder to change that - and nodded. Kakashi’s face morphed out of the smug smirk he’d been wearing to something softer.

“You know, for a scarily powerful shinobi, you’re kind of adorable.” 

Predictably, it wasn’t the more carnal elements of their night together that he had trouble pushing aside, although they were also seared into his brain and body and he was sure they’d be keeping him company on many a lonely night. It was the words just slightly too sweet, the touches too gentle, and the kisses too soft. Those treasured glimpses of everything he couldn’t have. Previews of things that might be even better with the version of the man he knew. 

If the copy nin treated all his partners that way it was a wonder there wasn’t a longer list helplessly in love with him but Sasuke had gotten the sense that wasn’t the case. Whatever had occurred between them in that liminal space was new for them both in different ways.

He barely slept for the next two days but only left his futon to eat, bathe, and force himself through katas. When he sensed a familiar chakra speed through towards him and land in front of him in his garden in the form of a sunny blonde, his breath hitched. 

“He’s back.”

Sasuke swallowed and forced his heart to slow down.

“How is he?”

“Hard to say…it’s been two hours and he won’t let anyone examine him yet,” Naruto sat beside him on the grass, fiddling with the blades absentmindedly, “Probably weird, all the memories.”

Weird was one way to put it. He had kind of hoped that as soon as Kakashi came back to himself, he would have sought him out, as unfair as that was to expect. Sasuke didn’t bother hiding the crestfallen look on his face, nor his hand coming up to brush at his eyes. He didn’t need to put up a pretense, not around Naruto. The blonde shuffled closer, touching his shoulder.

“Sasuke, I don’t know what happened…but Captain Yamato said he asked about you before literally anything else. He wants to see you.”  

“Did he say that?”

Naruto frowned, nudging him with his foot until Sasuke finally looked at him.

“You’re being difficult.”

“Maybe I just don’t want to see him right now.”

He’d thought that when he’d gotten his Kakashi back, he’d waste no time in heading over. But now that idea seemed daunting. And he really hadn’t gotten anything back , he reminded himself, that remained to be seen. He could have lost what little he had instead.

“I know that’s not true, you want to see him more than anyone these days.”

Sasuke’s head snapped to the blonde before he could help it.

“Come on Sasuke. I know you, remember?” Naruto said with a rueful grin that soon faded into something more sympathetic, “And I know him. Whatever it was, Kakashi-sensei’s never been able to hold a grudge against anyone . Well, except for a certain sannin. I wonder why that is.”

One look at Naruto said he knew exactly why that was and Sasuke’s shoulders sagged. He wasn’t entirely convinced though. Naruto shuffled over again, perching his chin on one of Sasuke’s shoulders. The blonde pet Ash in his lap gently as he spoke, his voice soft and goading.

“We’re talking about a man who bridal carried demon of the mist Zabuza so he could die beside his most precious person when they’d been going at it to kill right before that! And you think whatever you did will get him to cut you out? You? ”

He hadn’t forgotten that bit of humanity and the others Kakashi had displayed in the time before he left the village. It had plagued him in many moments after, when he tried desperately to shed his own. 

“What’s he like?”

“...Forgiving.”

“Fine. I’ll go.”

* * *

They arrived just in time, shuffling into the Hokage’s home office to stand behind Yamato and Shikamaru.

“We just started, he needed some time and Sakura had to treat him for a migraine that almost laid him out,” Shikamaru sighed, “Guess having eight tumultuous years hit you at once isn’t easy.”

Sasuke felt like a man waiting for the gallows as he settled against the wall at the back. Returning after the war had been less terrifying. When Sakura stepped aside, Kakashi's eyes found him immediately. He felt pinned in place and it was only Naruto’s hand on his arm that kept him tethered. 

“What’s the last thing you remember before being six?” Yamato asked, as Sakura continued a scan of his chakra paths, moving around him.

There was a moment where they couldn't look away from each other, but then Kakashi looked out the window, as if thinking.

“Thursday night, two weeks ago.”

“The day before you regressed,” Sakura dropped her hands, “Seems like everything is as expected. The jutsu has run its course. I’ll come back each day for the next week, just to be sure. But you should be all good. It’s good to have you back sensei, though I wouldn’t mind seeing your mini-me again, I miss that little guy.”

She ruffled his hair then and Sasuke could see Kakashi’s cheeks lift in a grin as he rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment.

“Ah well…thank you guys, for looking after me. I hope I wasn’t too much trouble.”

“No way,” Naruto said, darting forward, “And now I know you can cook so don’t ever try getting out of team dinners when it’s your turn to host again because you couldn’t get reservations!”

“Well, let’s just hope you don’t wake up forty years old tomorrow,” Shikamaru cautioned.

Kakashi groaned.

“Mah, don’t even joke, Shikamaru.”

“Take the day, senpai,” Yamato said, “I’m sure it’s a lot to take in. We can sort everything out tomorrow.”

Sasuke was pondering how to approach the elder man as the others started to leave when Kakashi saved him the trouble.

“Sasuke, can you stay?”

He hung back and waited as the others filed out, Sakura and Naruto each giving Kakashi tight hugs before leaving. Naruto threw him an encouraging smile as he shut the door behind him and then they were alone.

Sasuke was prepared for anything and he would take it. 

There was only the length of a room between them but it felt like an ocean and might as well have been for how unsteady Sasuke felt. The setting and situation were too familiar.

Kakashi was leaning against his desk, arms crossed and his face gave exactly nothing away. There were only minute physical differences between this Kakashi and the last one he’d seen, at the moment the most obvious that this one didn’t seem shaken, didn’t look close to a break down. His eyes were the calm grey of an overcast day at sea and not the stormy depths they’d been then. Sasuke wasn’t sure if that was good or bad for him.

“Come here.”

It was the commander’s voice that sounded, not the one Sasuke was used to. He wondered if this was the only version of Kakashi he’d be getting from now on. He walked closer and stopped a few feet away. Kakashi inclined his head and gestured for him to speak.

“What do you want to say?”

He didn’t often obey a chain of command, he didn’t ever really, but he would offer submission where earned.

“I’m sorry. I should have been more honest. I should have stopped it,” he looked away, ashamed, “I didn’t do it out of spite, or hate, or whatever you thought the other day. But it doesn’t matter why…I still took advantage of you.”

Kakashi would know why by now, though it was possible he still thought it an act of pettiness borne from his rejection earlier. He didn’t want to think Kakashi would consider him so hurtful. Not to mention the embarrassment of being aware that the elder could not mistake the strength of his want anymore. Every card Sasuke had was completely laid out on the table, he’d bared himself in more than one way.

Kakashi’s hands dropped to his pockets as he straightened and strode forward until he was right in front of Sasuke. The man still had a few centimeters over him that he wondered if he’d be able to cross over the next year or so, but for now it was enough for the elder to be able to look down at him with narrowed eyes. He tried not to react to their proximity, to the scent that he still wanted to breathe and wrap himself in.

“Not that I imagine this will be a routine occurrence, but,” he leaned down and Sasuke could see the lightning flash behind his eyes, could see why Kakashi’s commands were easily followed. He was the first man that had taught him that strength did not always come from power alone, after all. “Don’t you ever withhold something like that from me again. Understood?”

He didn’t take for granted the way Kakashi had phrased that. Of all the ways he could have said it he’d chosen not to highlight what they’d done, nor how it had hurt him, but only that Sasuke hadn’t been honest. He wanted to allow that to give him hope but Kakashi’s expression hadn’t changed, his brows drawn together in something that wasn’t a glare but wasn’t forgiving either, not yet. 

Sasuke tilted his head down in another rare show of deference, eyes pointed to their feet. He would buck under it instinctively more often than not, but he did need a strong hand on occasion and Kakashi had always given him that. Not that he was likely to accept it from anyone else.

“Yes, Lord Sixth.”

Kakashi shook his head, “Try again.”

Sasuke felt lost for a moment until he realized and felt the heat rise to his face. He had little respect for the weight of a title of any kind but Kakashi’s hold over him was far more than that. Of course the elder hated being called by his most formal title anyway but that wasn’t the issue here. It wasn’t his authority as Hokage Sasuke had violated but something far more intimate, so he chose the most reverential and personal form of address he had for him.

“Yes, sensei.”

Kakashi nodded and turned away from him looking out through the window on the other side of the room. He kept silent and Sasuke felt himself grow restless with it, lifting his head.

“I do mean it, I-”

“I know, Sasuke,” Kakashi’s voice had softened with his gaze when he looked back, “I trust you.”

He let out a breath, some of the tension leaving him.

“Thank you.”

Sasuke waited for a dismissal, but it didn’t come. Instead, Kakashi regarded him for a moment longer before he sighed deeply and strode back over.

“Now that that’s out of the way…”

Sasuke stiffened, genuinely unsure what to expect, before he felt arms come around him and a hand settle in his hair, holding him against a sturdy shoulder. 

“I’m sorry I hurt you.”

Sasuke let out a shuddering breath, shock slowing his movement before his own hand reached up to clutch the back of Kakashi’s shirt and his eyes fell shut. Relief coursed through him. He’d felt no better than filth since their coupling and the disastrous aftermath. If nothing else, he could live with this, with forgiveness. Kakashi’s hand stroked up and down his back when his grip tightened and he only realized then how much he’d needed it, to be held by the other man after how intimately he’d let him in only to be left feeling cold, no matter how justified Kakashi pulling away had been.

He spoke with his head still hidden against the elder.

“You don’t have to apologize for that…I can’t imagine what it did to you, or what I would have done if it were me.”

“That’s not the only time I hurt you in the last couple of weeks,” Kakashi answered, voice knowing.

He knew this conversation was coming, he just didn’t know where it was headed. In one way or another their relationship would be irrevocably changed after he left this room.

“I thought you’d hate me for what I did, and then nothing else would matter,” he mumbled into Kakashi’s blue shirt, his cheek flush against it.

Kakashi lifted his head and met his eyes steadily, “I’ve never hated you and I certainly don’t hate you now. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you this…but I don’t think I can.”

“You sound thrilled about that,” he said dryly, unable to hold back his usual sarcasm for long. It was as much of a shield as the cloak he’d thrown on before coming, despite it being the height of summer.

A slight curve appeared to the grey eyes he’d so missed. There was a rough hand on his cheek then and he noted the gloves were missing. He knew what Kakashi’s bare hands felt like intimately now and he wanted to be the one to put distance between them then, because he couldn’t keep hurting himself this way. But then that hand was brushing his hair back from his eyes and Sasuke just wanted to be able to remember it all later. These were the same hands that cupped his own as he wielded lightning for the first time, so much larger than his were then, their assurance keeping him steady. One of the first things Kakashi had taught them was to treat anything or anyone they held with the respect deserved, whether a dangerous jutsu or even an enemy shinobi they’d just cut down.

Sasuke wound his arm back around the elder again before he could change his mind, hiding his face by Kakashi’s neck before he gave too much away. His eyes never could stop talking. The older man was so warm, so sturdy, and he smelled just the same. That touch of forest air and ash that he’d come to associate with reliability and safety. Kakashi didn’t pull away, just turned his head into Sasuke’s hair and spoke gently by his ear.

“This is all I wanted to do when I woke up that day. I couldn’t believe you’d found your way back to us.”

He didn’t need to specify which day and the moisture from Sasuke’s eyes seeped into the fabric of Kakashi’s shirt. He wasn’t one to cry often, he had taught himself not to. Not until the task at hand - whatever it may be - was done and sometimes not even then. Now he felt the weight of the last few days fall over him, only Kakashi was there to shoulder it, too. 

They hadn’t even gotten a chance to take this tender moment after the war. It had been a blur from battle ground to hospital to prison and then freedom, and by then so much time had passed it hardly felt like the right time. Sasuke never could pinpoint his place with the man who was suddenly his commander in chief, regardless of his lack of official allegiances.

He eventually did pull back, feeling embarrassed and wondering if he’d overstepped again, but Kakashi looked at him kindly.

“I had an idea,” Kakashi began, “of what was okay for us. It seemed dangerous to disrupt that. Then things started to change and I was careless and that’s on me. It seemed harmless…but when you actually confronted me with it. I realized, I thought , I should draw a clearer line and stop indulging us. To protect you. But it was too late and I shouldn’t have told you that you weren’t feeling what you were feeling.”

Sasuke tried to step back, feeling more pressure behind his eyes, but Kakashi’s hands dropped to his sides without letting him go. 

“We can forget the whole thing,” he breathed, eyes shifting away. Couldn’t Kakashi make this easier for him? Soothing him now was as much of a balm as it was a hindrance. “I won’t make this hard on you, I promise. I can leave for a while. I was just…I can move past it.”  

“Can you? Do you want to?”

He knew what Kakashi was thinking, it was unlike an Uchiha to simply move past anything. 

“If that’s what you want me to do.”

The hands dropped to his hips then and he swore he felt the fingerprints still on his skin burn beneath them. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from making any noise. At this rate, he’d only embarrass himself again. Kakashi’s eyes followed the slight twitch in his jaw.    

“Don’t kid yourself,” Kakashi said then with a soft laugh, but it wasn’t unkind, “Doesn’t work that way, Sasuke. Not for me, and definitely not for someone like you. I can’t forget it. I don’t want to. So I’ll ask again, do you want to?” 

What was one more admission?

“No, I don’t. But you didn’t seem to want this at all before so what does it matter?”

Kakashi tugged his mask down and Sasuke drank in the sight of the face he’d seen as it was over a decade prior. Kakashi was still as handsome as he had been then, though this face was missing the Sharingan and carried the beginnings of laugh lines by his now gentler eyes. Sasuke couldn’t help but reach out to touch the long scar bisecting Kakashi’s eye, the end of it mid-cheek. 

He’d kissed that very spot.

He dropped his hand abruptly as he remembered himself but Kakashi caught it and looked down at it as he spoke, his thumb brushing over Sasuke’s knuckles.

“You took the difficult step of being honest with me but you’ve always been braver than I am. I should have done the same. And the honest truth is that I would walk into any battle and not think twice…but I’m terrified about what it might mean to love you differently.”

Sasuke’s breathing paused, because that sounded close to an admission of its own.

“Why?”

“It’s true that I didn’t think you knew what you were asking for, or getting into. You know a little better now…because you know me a little better now. But I don’t know what kind of partner I’ll be, I’ve never had to be one really. Not for the long haul, and I wouldn’t consider anything less with you. And I don’t know what you want in one, either. But I shouldn’t take that decision away from you, even if I see more reasons against than for.”

Kakashi looked vulnerable and Sasuke felt better about it, knowing they were both essentially clueless when it came to this, despite Kakashi’s experience over him in other areas. He felt some of his confidence from that night return only this time it was really his Kakashi and there wasn’t anything left to hide or any guilt to mar it.

“You once told me I didn’t need a reason to love. But as it happens, I do have many when it comes to you,” he said then, leaning in closer, “I know enough. I know what matters. I just want you. Just as you are…and I hope you want me the same way because I don’t know how to be anything else. Even when I try.” 

He tilted his head, eyes darting around the elder’s face. He preferred it like this, the slightly more defined jawline marked by just a couple more scars, just a little rougher from stubble Kakashi hadn’t shaved away over the last couple days. Lips quirked into a grin now that wasn’t meant to cover up anything else. Most of all though, he preferred these eyes that knew him. All that he was and then became. He tugged off the hitai-ate too and silver hair flopped down, falling around those eyes that were then lit up with curiosity. He traced Kakashi’s lips with a thumb. 

“I want more of this, too.”

Kakashi’s mouth was just as soft and mischievous as he remembered it being and it wasn’t long before he was no longer the dominant one and his head tilted back as the elder put him in his place. He wouldn’t be outdone now that he knew how the elder liked to be kissed though, and he came away with his teeth tugging at a full lower lip as large palms moved up his back.

“A quick study as always,” Kakashi murmured.

Sasuke, pleased at this, leaned in again and for the next several moments it was like he was back in that bed and in the heat of the moment. There was no need to wonder about chemistry at least, they had that in spades. When they managed to separate for more than a few seconds, Kakashi put a hand on his chest and looked at him seriously.

“I’ll probably piss you off.”

Sasuke rolled his eyes.

“You already do that.”

“This won’t make me assign you any peachier missions.”

“Don’t want them.”

“I can’t cook every meal.”

“I’ll learn.”

Kakashi smiled and Sasuke drank it in, he almost wished he could bottle this for the rest of Team 7 but he was also content to keep this to himself forever, too.

“Stay with me tonight. Just to sleep,” the elder added gently, “You look like you haven’t in days and…well, I’m not keen on letting you go far just yet, if it’s alright with you.”

Sasuke didn’t need to be asked twice.

He showered and changed into a yukata Kakashi left for him on the bed, sitting on it’s plush surface as he dried the ends of his hair. The Hokage had promised to join him after reading through the briefs Shikamaru had left for him, catching him up on what had been going on during his weeks away from the office.

He sensed Kakashi before he felt the bed dip behind him and hands grabbed the towel from around his shoulders like his younger self had, only this time he gently toweled Sasuke’s hair dry. The elder tossed it into a hamper and ran his hands through Sasuke’s hair, coaxing out the tangles though Sasuke knew it would still dry in it’s characteristic spikes. He felt a kiss pressed to the knob of his spine at his neck before Kakashi slid away to change for bed. Sasuke slipped under the covers, feeling drunk and warm on the affection after having lived without it for so long. 

“You really are beautiful,” Kakashi murmured, settling against him, “I meant everything I said.”

Sasuke rested against the elder’s chest, enjoying the calm atmosphere of the lowlight from the bedside lamp and the steady beat of Kakashi’s heart against his ear. The sounds of the village below were kept out by seals and Sasuke could trick himself into believing they were the only ones around for miles.

“Hm. So you also thought I was an ass?” he teased.

“Well, yes. You were. I was. We’re perfect for each other, actually. Don’t know why I ever doubted.”

Sasuke propped himself up on his arm and looked at the elder mischievously. 

“So I was right after all. You do want to kiss me. Touch me,” he leans in to whisper against the shell of an ear, “ Fuck me .”

Kakashi hummed and indulged him with the kiss Sasuke had been not-so-subtly angling for ever since they got into bed.

“All of the above and next time with all my memories intact. But you’ll need your strength because I’m going to make it up to you and punish you for the days of mental torment I went through.”

He curled in closer to Kakashi at that, hand wandering. He felt touch-starved and wanting but could save his baser desires for another day, enjoying the gentle motion of Kakashi’s hand up and down his back. He’d always been tactile, it was only that there were so few he wanted to allow so close since the massacre. He would drink his fill now. This was easy, this was comfort, but he knew it would take more than this for them to work.

“I’m not nineteen anymore,” the elder said suddenly, looking self-conscious, watching as Sasuke mapped out the criss-crossing scars on his chest that hadn’t been there when they were together before, his own souvenirs from the war. 

“You know I was a goner for you before that now, or long after I should say,” Sasuke reminded him, leaning up into his neck to find a comfortable spot to settle. 

Sasuke wound his arm around Kakashi and pressed close. He recognized then the gift they’d been inadvertently given over the last couple of weeks but now it was time for them to do the work on their own.

“I learned a lot, but I still want to know you.”

He saw Kakashi’s smile in the dark, that flash of canines and dimples he would use as markers for his morning greetings from then on.

“Let’s get to know each other, then.”