Work Text:
Moonlight
There were many reasons Kakashi chose to slink off by himself. The search for Sasuke was exhausting, as was the constant presence of his team-mates. Even in this cold northern country, his warm bed lost its appeal when it was in a common bedroom shared with four teenaged boys.
He hadn't had a quiet hour to himself for weeks. And so, with a wink at Lee and a quick flash of his brightly-jacketed novel, he quietly shut himself out of their room. He grinned to himself as he ambled down the hallway.
The three-quarter moon reflected off a thick blanket of snow, and cast an otherwordly, peaceful glow on the path that led from their inn. Bare branches made strange shapes against the hazy sky, and beckoned him deeper down the tree-lined path.
With a sigh, Kakashi settled his back against the trunk of an ancient tree about a mile from the inn. He shifted his leg to get his balance just right on the thick branch he'd chosen, and he pulled his cloak tighter around his body.
He closed his eyes and listened. All around him, he heard the creaking of limbs, the soft pat pat of snow shaking down. To the east, a horse whinnied, and then trotted a few steps before it stilled. Kakashi sighed again and opened his eye, and he flipped his novel open in his lap. The light was perfect - even in this sparsely-wooded forest, thick, icy shafts of moonlight provided enough illumination to read by.
So, here he was, swaddled in his cloak, resting comfortably in a tree with a book in his lap, a mile away from the overly-energetic boys who'd been his constant companions for these few weeks. And there was no part of him that felt even the slightest bit relaxed.
He flipped a page and sent out a tendril of chakra, an outrunner - a welcome, if he was lucky. Or maybe if he wasn't lucky; he wasn't entirely comfortable with his biggest reason for being here, now. But it had been an instinct, and while a lot of his instincts had been wrong with Sasuke, so long ago... more than a few of them had been right.
This one felt right.
Kakashi took a deep, steady breath when he heard a deliberate footfall a stone's throw west of his perch. He sat still, his posture slumped, his attention firmly on the book in his lap as he felt Sasuke draw near. The boy approached slowly, but not tentatively; his steps were measured, unafraid.
Sasuke came to a stop a few feet away, at the edge of Kakashi's peripheral vision.
"There's something I need to say."
Kakashi was silent for several seconds, and then he turned to face his old student. Sasuke stood in the shadows, just outside the glow of a column of moonlight, and the blacks and whites of his clothing blended well enough with the landscape that Kakashi felt the sudden, inexplicable urge to praise him for it.
Kakashi took another breath. When Sasuke still didn't speak, Kakashi unfolded himself from his seat on the tree branch and dropped neatly to the ground. His feet crunched through the upper layer of snow when he landed.
It seemed that that was what Sasuke had been waiting for; as soon as Kakashi was on his feet, Sasuke took a step forward. The left side of his face and his shoulder were now in the moonlight, and melting snowflakes shimmered on his cheek and in his hair.
"I'm listening," Kakashi said, trying and failing to read any hint of emotion in Sasuke's face.
"I'm going to let Naruto take me home." The fog of Sasuke's breath was a thick, obscuring cloud in the column of light that draped over him.
Relief flooded Kakashi's system, and he clenched his fists under his cloak to take some of the edge off the surge of adrenaline it carried along with it.
"I need you to know that I chose this. That I wanted it, for myself." Sasuke's delivery was flat, but Kakashi thought he saw a crack in Sasuke's glass-smooth facade, the subtle softening of his hard features.
"I understand," Kakashi said quietly. He did, and it gladdened his heart to know it. It was almost unbelievable, after all these years and all this distance, and everything that they had heard, that Sasuke would still have the capacity to show this bit of humanity.
That he'd let Naruto have his moment.
But that he needed Kakashi to know the truth of it.
Smiling gently under his mask, Kakashi asked, "When will you come back?"
"Tomorrow. I just... " Sasuke trailed off, and Kakashi felt another hard spike of anxiety when he saw Sasuke's brow crumple in a deep frown, saw the boy tighten his hands into fists.
"What is it, Sasuke?" Kakashi asked, his stomach in his throat. He took a step forward, his hand outstretched, and was shocked speechless when Sasuke was suddenly pressed tight against him, so fast that his body didn't react to the threat until after Sasuke's face was hidden against his chest.
"I... " Sasuke said, and he took a deep, gusty breath.
Kakashi patted his back awkwardly, and then slowly, he draped his arms around the boy. Who was shivering, he noticed, and breathing unsteadily just under Kakashi's chin. Kakashi held him closer, his awkwardness melting away as the warmth from Sasuke's body seeped through their clothing.
Kakashi still didn't know what to say. This wasn't anything like what he had predicted might happen, when he'd set out from the inn less than half an hour ago.
"Kakashi," Sasuke said quietly, and Kakashi felt the warmth at his throat disappear when the young man tilted his head back.
Kakashi looked down, and was shocked into even deeper silence by the way Sasuke looked up at him, his eyes big and dark and tortured.
"I need," Sasuke said, but he didn't finish - instead, he reached up and placed his hands on Kakashi's cheeks, and stretched upwards, and kissed Kakashi square on his fabric-covered lips.
The kiss shocked a little grunt out of Kakashi. The second kiss was much the same, only a few seconds longer, and throughout it Kakashi's mind whirled. Had this been three years ago, and Sasuke still so young, and under his charge, Kakashi would have deflected him, distracted him. Annoyed him away. But that wasn't an option now; Kakashi feared that if he rejected Sasuke, that would ruin everything.
With a sigh Kakashi reached up, curled his fingers around one of Sasuke's wrists. Not to stop him, only to feel the pulse beating under the skin, quick and shallow.
"Sasuke," Kakashi said quietly when the boy pulled his face away. And then Sasuke's fingers were at the edge of his mask.
Kakashi closed his eyes.
"Just this," he heard Sasuke whisper, and then their bare lips met, and Kakashi's breath caught unexpectedly in his throat. Kakashi's fingers still gently encircled Sasuke's wrist, and he used that hold to pull Sasuke's arm around his neck.
It wasn't as if Kakashi wasn't aware of the dangers of this. He was open and vulnerable to an enemy in a way that was entirely inexcusable, and Kakashi would never have let it happen, had the enemy not been Sasuke. Sasuke, his wayward protege, his lost boy, Obito's last living relative. Sasuke, who wanted to come home. So when Sasuke parted Kakashi's cloak and reached inside, unfastened his flak vest and slipped his arms in, around Kakashi's ribs, insinuated himself inside Kakashi's warmth, all while their lips still moved together, soft and slow - Kakashi couldn't stop him.
It was unbearably sweet. It was a forgiveness that Kakashi didn't think he deserved; he'd been such a poor teacher for the boy, he could have helped him so much more, could have given him more reasons to stay, could have kept him there, if only he were a better man. And yet here Sasuke was, melting into him, kissing him gently, almost innocently.
It was almost enough to break Kakashi's heart.
And so he kissed Sasuke back, uncertain of what else he could do, unsure how to end it. Or if he wanted to end it; he realized, when he felt Sasuke lighten the pressure of his lips, that he wanted this to go on a little longer. He wanted to hold on to this moment for just a little longer, before... whatever awaited them, once Sasuke allowed Naruto to take him in.
He left his hands at Sasuke's waist when they broke the kiss, and Sasuke looked up at him, his eyelids heavy now, his face slightly flushed and glowing in the moonlight.
"I want you," Sasuke whispered, and suddenly blood was pounding in Kakashi's ears. "Before..."
Sasuke didn't finish it, but he didn't have to. Kakashi understood. Before they went back, before the chaos that would surely ensue, before Sasuke lost his freedom for an unknowable amount of time. He hesitated, though, unsure if he could cross that final line.
His mind may have been in disarray, but his body told a different story. Sasuke shifted, clutched Kakashi's body against himself, and it was painfully obvious what effect Sasuke had on him.
And then Sasuke's mouth found his again, and the kiss was deeper now, hungry, and Sasuke's body was lithe and hard and hot in Kakashi's arms, even through the thick clothing they wore, and Kakashi groaned quietly when Sasuke's hand crept around to cup his arousal.
"Is that how you see me?" Sasuke asked from the other side of the clearing.
Kakashi gasped and staggered, and he reached back to steady himself against the tree. He shivered, immediately chilled, and frowned at Sasuke, who stood with the left side of his body in a shaft of moonlight. Melting snowflakes shimmered on his cheek and in his hair.
Pale light caught the edge of Sasuke's iris, and it gleamed, shockingly blood-red. Kakashi felt his covered Sharingan pulse and swirl, and he reached up to uncover it.
"Of course it's not," Kakashi answered. As he watched, the color in Sasuke's eyes bled out, and with a final blink, they were once again flat black.
"But you just couldn't help yourself, could you?" Sasuke asked, contempt plain in his voice.
Kakashi snorted softly. "I couldn't risk pushing you away, now could I?" He watched intently as Sasuke stepped back into the shadows. "Is that why you came here, tonight?"
"No," Sasuke said. "But it's good to know."
--end