Work Text:
Hi everyone!! Happy Valentine's day!
***
She was here, quite simply, by complete accident.
It was Naruto’s fault, Sakura decided as she marched angrily down the moonlit road towards the village. It was his fault, and maybe Kakashi’s too, because he had had the bright idea to step down as hokage and bestow all those secrets onto Naruto, and he'd been in the office with them when this had happened—
And now she was here, teleported outside the bounds of the village all because Naruto had dropped a scroll that should’ve been labeled super-extra-extra-EXTRA-forbidden when Sakura had come by his office to give her evening report on the hospital.
It was Naruto’s fault. And Kakashi’s. And when she made it back to the hokage’s office, she would—definitely—kill them both.
The village was darker now than it had been when she’d left the hospital earlier. The streetlights were dimmer, somehow. She’d tell Naruto they needed the bulbs changed after she killed him. And she’d tell him that whoever had designed that scroll needed their head examined, because what was the point of teleporting someone just outside the village gates? Annoyance?
Sakura grumbled. She would kill him, she decided, by punching him directly in the face.
She wasn’t sure when she got the sense that something was wrong. Maybe it was when she walked by a building that felt different, somehow, than it ought to have been. Maybe it was when she glanced at the apartments that should’ve been old but looked new, crisp and shiny. Sakura thought the defining moment was when, on a hunch that felt so far-fetched she nearly laughed at it, she turned to look at the mountain that towered over the village, to count the faces carved upon it.
One - normal.
Two - hot. Crazy, but hot.
Three - old.
Four - also hot. She would never tell Naruto, but the fourth hokage was hot—
And then Sakura froze, because there were only four faces carved into the mountain instead of seven.
She counted them again. And then again, just for good measure. She felt her pulse, which was alarmingly quick.
That scroll, she thought blankly, should absolutely have been marked super-extra-extra-EXTRA-forbidden.
***
There were a lot of tactics a ninja could employ when stuck in a village that was not her own. Surveillance, for one.
Check, Sakura thought numbly. She’d surveilled the mountain, and decided she was fucked.
What was the second? Surveillance, and—
Allies, said a voice in her head that somehow resembled Kakashi’s. Sakura snorted. There were allies here; a whole village of them. But they would be allies to whatever young version of herself existed in this time, and not to the current version of her, huddled in a booth at the back of a bar that (judging by the date the confused bartender had told her when she’d asked) most certainly didn’t exist in her time.
Sakura took a sip of her drink. It wasn’t good, but she drank again anyway.
Okay, so no allies. Not even Tsunade would be here yet, which inexplicably hit her like a punch to the chest.
Sakura drank again. Escape was next on Kakashi’s list of tactics, and maybe that held some promise. Maybe future Naruto was working now to bring her back to the present, somehow. Maybe he would appear soon, and yank her back to her own time. Or—maybe she could get back to them from this time. Maybe there was a companion scroll sitting in the current—the Third, Sakura had learned—hokage’s office now, just waiting for her to use.
Sakura groaned. That felt like a bad idea. She put escape reluctantly on the back burner, and turned back to allies.
Surely, there was someone here she could trust. Surely there was.
The idea came to her slowly, courtesy of the drink in her hand and the persistent voice in the back of her head that sounded so very familiar.
He could be an ally. Kakashi. He’d be teaching her past-self now, if the date the bartender had told her was correct, and if there was a past-version of herself that even existed. He’d just be teaching her, because of course nothing would’ve happened yet—
Sakura tipped her glass to her mouth and swallowed the last of her drink. Maa, Sakura. Drinking is for after the mission.
Shut up, Sakura told Kakashi’s voice. But she smiled a little, because maybe she had an ally here after all.
***
She was halfway down the street to where he lived in the present day before she realized that he, of course, wouldn’t live there now. And so it was with aching familiarity that she made her way to the apartment he’d lived in when she’d been young, long-destroyed now after Pain had come to Konoha.
Was it her responsibility to—stop that? Or to warn people? The weight of the questions settled heavily down upon her shoulders. There were people here, Inoichi, Neji—god, Sakura thought suddenly, wildly, there were so many people—
She kept walking, but a little slower now. Blood seemed to stain her hands, even though they were clean. She could almost feel the wetness of it on her fingers, but the glow of the dim streetlight overhead showed nothing at all on her skin.
She was glad, almost, for the nerves that twisted in her stomach when she reached Kakashi’s apartment building. They made more sense than the thoughts in her head, because she was used to, in her own time, feeling nervous around him. Nerves and a restless heartbeat, and a flush on her cheeks she’d hoped for a long time he wouldn’t notice.
Thankfully, he hadn’t noticed. Not for a while. Ino had, and had decided immediately that mission: Get Sakura to Ride Kakashi’s Dick was firmly in motion. Sakura had told her absolutely not, because she was done with failed relationships, thank you very much.
Except the nerves hadn’t gone away, and neither had the restless heartbeat every time she saw him. It happened when she gave him report at the end of the night when he’d been hokage. Every time. She’d walk to his office late after her shift and he’d be there, sitting behind his desk with a mildly irritated expression and his hokage robes slung over the back of his chair.
“You’re late, Sakura.”
Sakura hadn’t been late. Or maybe she had been. He’d always waited up for her, so she’d never known the difference.
It had continued like that, for a while. Too long, really. It started to burn at her, some raging desire to tell him about—whatever it was she felt for him, because she’d never been able to keep her feelings buried. Sakura thought it was ironic, sometimes. She was a ninja, and she’d always worn her heart on her chest.
There was one night that had been different. Sakura couldn’t explain why. She walked to his office like she always did, report in-hand. And he’d been there, half-hidden behind a stack of paperwork that he seemed to be deliberately looking away from, like it would disappear if he ignored it hard enough.
“Sakura-chan,” he murmured.
Sakura eyed the paperwork to keep the heat from rising to her cheeks. It didn’t work, of course. She was, probably, bright pink from head to toe. “Kakashi-sensei.”
He laughed softly. Sakura raised an eyebrow at him. “What’s funny?”
Kakashi shrugged. His eyes were dark above his mask, studying her—curiously, maybe. Which Sakura had thought didn’t make sense, because there was nothing to be curious about. He’d known her for years, after all. She was the one who ought to be curious. She’d known him for as long as he’d known her, and yet she’d never seen the shape of his face without a mask to cover it.
It had been years since she’d last asked him to show her. Years. She’d still been a child, and she’d asked on behalf of all of his students—or, really, on behalf of anyone that had ever known him—to take off the mask. Just once. Just to see if he really did have buck teeth. (Which, she was pretty sure, he didn’t).
He’d winked at her, and said no. And then he’d vanished with a pop of smoke, only to reappear two seconds later to snatch up the book he’d forgotten before he disappeared again.
She really wasn’t sure why, on this night, it had been different. She hadn’t even been planning to ask. It had been a crucial part of Ino’s get-them-to-fuck plan, but Sakura had never thought it would actually happen.
“Kakashi,” Sakura said, as she sat down in the seat before his desk.
Kakashi’s eyes flickered to her immediately. “Hmm?”
Sakura steeled herself. “Can you—I want to know what you look like,” she said, determined.
He stared at her for a moment. Sakura thought she saw surprise flash somewhere in his gaze, but then it shifted to some other, deeper emotion she didn’t recognize.
She had expected him to say no. His hair was messy like always and his mask fit closely to his skin like usual, and that was the way she expected to always know him. It wouldn’t be a bad thing, she told herself, to only know him this way. Certainly, it was the safest option.
But his eyes, suddenly, were burning, and his hand was reaching up to pull down his mask like he hadn’t needed to think about it.
That had been the start of it. That night, when she had learned that he in fact did not have buck teeth, no matter what Naruto had always said. He had a wry smile, she learned, a little self-deprecating. His burning eyes tracked the flush on her cheeks, and the way it spread downwards to her neck as she studied his features.
“Sakura,” he said, and shook his head slightly. He stood up, and gripped the edges of his desk.
Sakura crossed her arms. “What?” she said, defensively.
Kakashi clenched his jaw. He didn’t say anything, for a moment. He only looked at her, with his mouth slowly softening and the fire in his eyes growing deeper.
“You shouldn’t be looking at me like that,” he murmured, but he spoke softly, like he was on the losing side of some invisible battle in his head.
Sakura laughed, because it was too late for that. Much—much too late. “I always look at you like this.”
His lips parted, like he was surprised. Sakura would’ve rolled her eyes at this, because really, she had been so obvious, but—
“Pakkun,” Kakashi said suddenly, which made Sakura’s jaw drop open.
Pakkun—?
Pakkun appeared on Kakashi’s desk with a small puff of smoke. “Hey, Boss. Hey, Strawberry Thunder.”
Sakura bit back a smile. Kakashi rolled his eyes. “Tell the ANBU guard to leave me for a night, would you?”
Pakkun’s tail wagged once. “Sure, Boss. Should I tell them why? Nice face, by the way.”
“No reason,” Kakashi said mildly, but his eyes met Sakura’s again.
Pakkun glanced at Kakashi, and then at Sakura. Sakura waved sheepishly at him. “Y’know Boss,” Pakkun said, “I’m pretty well-versed in mating, an expert some would say—”
Pakkun vanished with another small puff of smoke, but Sakura was already laughing. Kakashi shook his head, and muttered something under his breath that sounded awfully like mating.
That had been a good night, Sakura thought now as she stood outside the door of what she hoped was Kakashi’s apartment in years long-passed. He’d walked her home under the glow of the streetlights, and kissed her at her door. He’d followed her inside, and kissed her again. And again, and again, until they were naked and breathless and mission: Get Sakura to Ride Kakashi’s Dick was a success.
She loved him. She’d wanted to tell him that next morning, when he’d awoken beside her with a still-bare face and still-burning eyes.
She hadn’t said it, for some reason. She almost had, but the words had died on her tongue.
Just do it, some part of herself urged, but Sakura hadn’t done it. She remembered the last time she’d confessed to someone, and it had ended in heartbreak and silence and confusion after that.
Later, Sakura had decided. She’d tell him later, because maybe it was too soon to say it now. That made sense.
Later. Except later had never come, because the days in the hospital were long and their moments together were confined to quick nights or quicker lunches, and then he’d stepped down as hokage, and now she was here—
Sakura raised her hand, and knocked on his door. She smiled when she heard a muffled bark ring out, and the low tones of Kakashi’s voice groaning in irritation at having a visitor.
“Gai, I told you I told you I wasn’t going to the Land of Snow for bobsled racing until the morning—”
The door swung open, and he abruptly stopped speaking.
“Um, hi,” Sakura said weakly, staring, because he’d opened the door with sleep-mussed hair, in nothing but a sleeveless black shirt that fit closely to his body—and a pair of…pajama pants patterned with little ramen bowls. And, of course, his mask. “You have ramen-themed pajama pants?”
Kakashi blinked at her with one eye. His other, of course, was closed. Sakura’s stomach ached at the strange familiarity of it—she’d forgotten, almost, how he’d looked before he’d lost his sharingan.
Kakashi blinked again. His left eye, blood red and full of spinning tomoe, slowly opened. He studied her critically for a moment, gaze flickering over her hospital uniform and her hair, shorter now than it must’ve been at this time in the past.
“Well,” he said carefully. “You look different, Sakura-chan.”
Sakura’s shoulders slumped heavily in relief. “So do you,” she said, a little shakily.
He raised an eyebrow. And then, slowly, he stood to the side, and jerked his head to motion her indoors. “Come in.”
She sat in his kitchen at the barstool he’d pointed to while he stood, arms loosely crossed, just across from her. There were dishes in his sink, scraped clean like he’d only just eaten dinner. A book lay facedown on the counter; bright orange, with a bright red adults-only warning printed on the back and a cheesy couple on the front.
Sakura smiled, a little. He’d always been such a dork.
“So,” Kakashi said, leaning back against his fridge. “You’re not my Sakura, so who are you?”
His sharingan flickered over her again.
“Um—” Sakura started. “Your Sakura, but…from a different time?”
Kakashi knit his brows together. She could see his mind working, racing to put pieces together. “Jutsu gone wrong?”
Sakura nodded. Kakashi closed his eyes for a moment before opening them again. “Of course,” he muttered. And then— “Tell me what happened.”
She told him. She left some details aside, like how it was definitely Naruto’s fault and how she’d be murdering him if she ever made it back, but she told him. There had been a scroll, and now she was here. Kakashi listened intently, fingers drumming restlessly against his thigh.
“And then I came here,” Sakura finished. Her head ached, soft pain in her temples. “It seemed like the—best choice.”
Kakashi hummed. “Tell me something only you and I would know.”
Sakura blanched. “What?”
“Identity-testing, Sakura-chan. Tell me something only you and I would know.”
“Um—” she glanced around his house, which was frustratingly empty besides a bookshelf crammed full of Icha-Icha books, and a hallway that must lead to his bedroom. “Your bedspread has shurikens on it.”
Kakashi raised an eyebrow. “Too easy. Try again.”
Sakura huffed. Nobody knew that. She felt certain he was messing with her. “Your favorite Icha-Icha volume is the second one, when Haru and Koyuki fuck in the rainforest—”
Kakashi choked. “Next,” he coughed, even though definitely nobody knew that one.
Well, she thought, I’m in love with you. Also, we’ve been sleeping together for months. Which was entirely unimportant and certainly not pertinent to the moment, but she thought it anyway.
Sakura frowned at him. “You have a mole,” she said, and put her finger on her chin, just beneath her lips. “Here.”
His eyes—both of them—widened. Sakura smiled, triumphant.
“Correct,” he said, in a tone of surprise.
He stood very still for a moment before he moved, and came to sit at the barstool beside her. Sakura, suddenly nervous, leaned slightly away from him.
Silence settled. Or—almost silence. Her heart thundered in her ears; at his proximity, maybe, but also maybe because she’d given too much away. Was that a thing in time travel? Don’t go find your old sensei, and don’t give away secrets? There should’ve been rules that came with that scroll—
“You’re you, from the future,” Kakashi said carefully.
“Yes,” Sakura whispered.
“Look at me,” he murmured.
Sakura turned—slowly—to look at him. He reached to slide his thumb beneath her chin, to tilt her face up enough to meet his gaze. His skin burned against hers.
“You know my face.”
Sakura looked at him. He didn’t move his thumb, holding her still.
“Yes,” she whispered again.
His eyes closed. “Don’t—tell me anything else.”
Sakura nodded. Kakashi’s hand fell down to grip her shoulder. His skin still burned.
“What do I do?” she asked him, because, out of anyone, surely he would know the answer.
He was silent for a long while before his eyes opened again. The gaze of his sharingan roamed over her, moving along her jaw and the dip of her collarbone, and the grip of his own hand upon her shoulder. “He’ll figure out a way to get you back,” he said, finally.
It took Sakura a moment to understand that the he he was referring to was himself.
Hope flickered, somewhere deep inside her. “He will?”
Kakashi laughed roughly. “Of course he will. What’s the rule, Sakura-chan? Those who—”
“Abandon their friends are worse than scum,” Sakura finished for him, as he nodded.
He was right. It happened slowly, only a few hours later. First, a tug behind her navel that felt like an itch. Then her vision grew foggy, and Kakashi—who still sat beside her in his kitchen—snapped his attention to her.
“Maa, told you,” he said mildly, but his sharingan was open again, fixed quite firmly on her eyes. “See you later, Sakura-chan.”
***
Sakura’s woke to the flat discomfort of hard carpet beneath her, and two pairs of concerned eyes staring down at her.
“Sakura!! Oh my god, thank the third hokage’s left elbow, I thought we’d lost you forever—”
Naruto. His eyes were the wide, frantic blue ones to her left. She turned her attention to the other pair; different, slightly, than the ones she’d just left in the past, but Kakashi’s eyes all the same. His hand was gripping her somewhere—her thigh, she realized. He was gripping her thigh with one hand and rubbing at his own forehead with the other.
“Are you okay?” she asked him, because his chakra was flickering like the way it did when he was hiding an injury.
Kakashi raised an indolent eyebrow. “Am I okay?”
He helped her sit up slowly, while Naruto asked rapid-fire questions about where she’d been that Sakura pretended not to hear.
“Does your head hurt?” she asked, because he was still rubbing incessantly at it.
“Mm,” he nodded. “Feels strange. I think I…met you?”
“Hey, how come nobody’s answering my questions? Sakura—that scroll—did you go back in time—?”
Sakura stared at him. Kakashi, a mirror of his younger self, slid his thumb beneath her chin, and tilted her head back. His eyes burned, just like the night when this whole thing had begun.
“Say it,” he murmured.
Her heart felt like it stopped, but she said it anyway. “I—love you,” she whispered.
Naruto’s voice echoed from above. “Sakura, you have to tell me—wait, what?”
Kakashi kissed her, skin blazing through his mask. Sakura leaned into him desperately, uncaring, even, that Naruto was there.
“I love you too,” he muttered, pulling back enough to see her face.
“Hey, um, guys? Guys? I think I’m hallucinating. That’s gotta be it—”
It had happened, Sakura thought, by complete accident. Some scroll tucked away that definitely, definitely, should’ve had a warning attached to it, had somehow…helped?
She would’ve thought more about it, but a finger poked her sharply on the shoulder before she could. “Naruto—”
“Sakura,” Naruto said seriously, kneeling down to be at eye-level. “D’you know you’re kissing Kakashi-sensei?”
Sakura sighed. Beside her, Kakashi’s cheeks were red above his mask.
“Sit down, Naruto,” Sakura said, because she had a feeling they would be here a while. It was, after all, quite a long story to tell.
***
:)