Forbidden Fruit - Kakashi/Sasuke

Warnings for this part: language, mentions of bondage, short. Not connected to previous parts.



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#4 - Hate





There were a lot of things to hate about Hatake Kakashi.



Take, for instance, the habit he had of surreptitiously groping Sasuke as they walked down the street. Or while they waited for their meal to arrive. Or in the middle of an important meeting. And it's not like anyone saw him do it; he was too good for that, of course. What they saw instead was Sasuke looking flustered and pissed, for no apparent reason.



And then there was the way he called Sasuke "cute." Sasuke knew he was a lot of things, and cute wasn't one of them... especially not when he was pissed. But that's when Kakashi was most likely to taunt him, with that staid, clichéd old phrase even.



"You're so cute when you're angry," Kakashi would interrupt Sasuke's fuming to tell him. Didn't he understand that that just made him angrier?



Sasuke suspected that he did. And that just made it worse.



And it was just that sort of aggravating dismissiveness that really got to Sasuke. Kakashi couldn't take anything seriously. It's not as if their life was simple... it's not like they got along all that great, either. And it's not like it was an easy thing to actually talk to Kakashi, about things.



But Kakashi always had something clever to say, or some blasé rejoinder, or some way to derail the conversation and dismiss everything Sasuke was saying. Like Sasuke was having hysterics, or something.



That wasn't all. Sasuke felt like every week that went by, he found something new to dislike about the man. Just last week, he had been digging for a clean pair of underwear (because of course, Kakashi had forgotten to do the laundry) and he came across a sheaf of wrinkly papers, clipped together. He would have ignored them, but for a phrase that caught his eye, detailing the way the light shimmered on blue-black hair and pale skin. Eyebrows furrowed, he had delved deeper, and as he suspected, the second party was older, taller, and had a head of prematurely-gray hair... and he dominated his younger, dark-haired lover at every turn.



He'd burned the papers, and he wasn't at all sorry.



Further investigation a few days later had turned up something even worse, however. Underneath a few filthy magazines he'd found a handful of photographs.



Among them were photographs of himself. Photographs of Uchiha Sasuke, naked and bound, and, by the hardness of his cock, by the fluid arch of his back, absolutely fucking loving it.



Wood cracked when Sasuke slammed the dresser drawer shut. The photographs crumpled in his fist, he stormed out of the apartment. He cursed Kakashi's laziness, his stupid sense of humor, his depraved mind. He cursed whatever misguided impulse had convinced him that letting Kakashi tie him up was anything resembling a good idea. He cursed himself, for ever thinking that Kakashi's mannerisms and flaws were... endearing.



He spat in the street and took a deep breath, let the fog of rage clear enough for his senses to pick up Kakashi's chakra.



He found the man on the edge of a practice field, lounging in a tree with one of his ever-present books in his hand. When he glared up at Kakashi, a grey eyebrow tilted upward, and Kakashi stared back for a few long seconds before he gracefully hopped out of the tree.



"What the hell, Kakashi?" Sasuke demanded, and he hurled the cumpled-up photographs. When they bounced off of Kakashi's chest, Kakashi didn't even have the grace to look contrite.



He looked fucking amused.



"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Sasuke growled, and he wanted to punch him, wanted to throttle him, but he choked off that urge a bit. He couldn't do nothing, though; he fisted his hands in the front of Kakashi's vest and shook him. It helped, a little.



"Mah, Sasuke-kun," Kakashi said in a bored tone, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender, and fuck if that didn't just make Sasuke angrier.



"I fucking hate you. You're an asshole." Sasuke pushed Kakashi back hard enough that his back fetched up against the tree.



His eyes narrowed, Sasuke pointed at his probably-former lover. "Find somewhere else to sleep tonight."



But Kakashi couldn't even get that right.



Around two in the morning, Sasuke was shifting restlessly in the bed they shared, overcome with alternating rage, embarrassment, and a sense that maybe he had over-reacted. Self-doubt wasn't a familiar feeling, and experiencing it now just served to make him that much more irritated. He rolled over and punched Kakashi's vacant pillow, and sighed.



And felt Kakashi in the other room.



He bit his tongue against the instinct to yell. They did have neighbors, after all, and subjecting them to domestic disputes at two in the morning wasn't a thing Sasuke could allow himself to do. So he pushed out of bed and padded into the living room, and he stood against the door jamb with his arms crossed, and stared at Kakashi, all stretched-out and comfortable-looking on the couch.



"I told you to sleep somewhere else tonight." Sasuke's jaw hurt, it was clenched so tight.



"I--" Kakashi stopped after that one word, and Sasuke's eyes went wide. In his mind, could hear the reply that Kakashi had been ready to make - I am sleeping somewhere else - and he almost couldn't believe that Kakashi had actually held that back. Kakashi's eye slid over to him, and in the dim light filtering in through the windows, Sasuke couldn't decipher what little expression was visible.



But just because Kakashi held back one of his stupid one-liners didn't mean he was in the clear. It only meant he was being smart. For once.



"Why did you take pictures?" For all that Sasuke's voice was low, it still carried enough venom to likely poison the whole village. "I let you do that to me because you wanted to. I trusted you. Why did you do it?"



Kakashi pushed himself up into a sitting position, for once looking weary instead of lazy. He took a deep breath, then let it out and glanced up at Sasuke again. Apparently, he didn't like what he saw, because his shoulders slumped infinitesimally before he spoke.



"Your face wasn't in them," he said quietly.



As if that would make it okay.



Sasuke made a hissing noise and dug his fingertips into his arms to keep from lashing out and breaking - a wall, a window, Kakashi's face. "Answer the question."



"Because of... what you said. Because you let me do it." Kakashi rubbed the back of his head, his shoulders tensing up now. "Because you trusted me."



Confused, Sasuke wanted nothing more at the moment than to turn his back, to storm out and slam the door. It didn't make sense - Kakashi would break his trust because Sasuke trusted him?



"Sasuke," Kakashi said quietly, and the clouds shifted outside, and Kakashi's dark eye was clearly visible. The sadness in it, the unease, these made Sasuke take a mental step back to reevaluate the situation.



Kakashi... was being serious. Kakashi was actually answering Sasuke's questions, and not deflecting them, not unless you counted that little diversion at the beginning.



But was it really a diversion? Sasuke scowled and leaned hard against the door-frame. His face... hadn't been visible. Kakashi had been careful to keep the photos anonymous. The only ones who would know for sure who the bound body belonged to were Kakashi and himself. And they'd been thrown haphazardly into Kakashi's drawer with all his other porn... the only reason Sasuke recognized them as being anything significant was because he knew the exact shape of his own body.



"...Because I wouldn't have done it for anyone else," Sasuke said, his voice gravelly.



Kakashi's head dropped, and Sasuke finally saw the way he was gripping the couch cushions. It was only foam and upholstery, but Sasuke almost felt sorry for the old couch. "I'm sorry," Kakashi said softly, and it made Sasuke's throat tighten up. He could only remember once, in all the three years that he'd been back, that Kakashi had ever apologized to him.



Sasuke shook his head, though Kakashi couldn't see it. "No. I'm saying... I think I understand."



Kakashi looked up, his expression blank.



"Because." Sasuke had to swallow. It was an undeniable part of their life, but it was always in the background, and he rarely had to think about it so hard, or in such an emotional context. "Because we're not going to live forever. Because you wanted something to remember."



Sasuke scowled to keep from being overcome. It made perfect sense, when you considered the man who took the pictures in the first place. How could anyone but Kakashi make pornographic pictures somehow...sweet? But crazily, it was. Because it wasn't Sasuke's body he was documenting... it was his trust. The trust he had in Kakashi, that he would never, could never have for anyone else.



Kakashi just nodded, and Sasuke was suddenly struck with another realization; this was hard for Kakashi. This was really hard, almost impossible, to actually talk about emotions and problems and things like trust and fear of loss. This was why he always changed the subject.



Sasuke let out a disgusted sigh and crossed the room, and dropped down on the couch beside Kakashi. He let their knees touch. "You're an idiot. And you're still an asshole. But you don't have to sleep somewhere else."



Sasuke could see Kakashi's grin even before the man turned to look at him. It was in the way his shoulders slumped differently - lazy once again, instead of dejected. They were back on comfortable territory.



"I'll, ah... I'll try to..." Kakashi trailed off, and Sasuke rolled his eyes. Really, it was pathetic, seeing Kakashi reduced to this. And Sasuke took pity on him, and felt a touch of warmth, too... because he had begun to remember, at some point in this conversation, that despite all the things there were to hate about Kakashi... there were a lot of things to like, too. Maybe even a few things to love.



"Forget it," he said. "Unless you're saying you're going to make it up to me."



Kakashi looked a touch confused. "How can I make it up to you?" he asked, and it wasn't desperate, only curious.



Sasuke stood and held out his hand. "Come to bed, and I'll show you."



Kakashi grinned and let Sasuke help him off the couch.







--END



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A/N: In the comments to the picture with this same title (http://yaoi.y-gallery.net/view/598207/ if you've got a y-gallery account) lots of people amused me by suggesting reasons for Sasuke's anger. And suddenly, I had to write about it!!!



So thank you Ezriee, DirtyOldLady, sestet, theablackthorn and ash365, for fueling my brain and making the poor overheated thing pump this out in like, an hour XD