Of Blue Sheets

AN: here's a little bit of background information to clarify the premise of the story(if you don't really care for plot the good stuff begins somewhere between 1/2 and 2/3 of the way down): Sasuke has finally exacted his revenge on his brother Itachi and killed him at last but he never ran away with the sound ninja, nor joined Orochimaru to complete his quest. At first he faced and defeated Orochimaru and then when Itachi came after the village Sasuke killed him as well. But he had spent too many years focussed singularly on the task of killing his brother. He isolated and alienated himself from the rest of his friends and was slowly replaced in their hearts by Sai who came to team seven after the collapse of the Anbu roots and because Sakura and Naruto's new pet project.

Sasuke now lives in the old Uchiha sector of the village which had been damned by the elders nearly a decade ago following the massacre of the Uchiha Clan. A new mission comes up and under the pretense of having no one else to send, (with most of the other qualified ninja's of the village off on diplomacy missions) the elders send Sasuke on what is essentially a suicide mission.

To their surprise Sasuke returns to the village having completed the mission and seemingly in decent shape. After Sasuke makes his report Tsunade offers to heal his injuries for him and he refuses....


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'Am I free to leave yet?' Sasuke's voice was sharp but monotone and deviod of any trace of emotion.

'Those injuries are nothing to scoff at....after the mission you just completed it's a miracle that you're still standing and in one peice!'

Sasuke's eyes, black and hollow fickered down briefly to fix on the fifth hokage where she sat behind her heavy wooden desk.

'Ah but I am still standing aren't I? And as for the mission, you knew percisely how fatal it was when you sent me out...' Sasuke paused letting the truth saturate the realtive silence and hang in the air for just a moment. 'Your only miscalcution was the assumption that I would actually die.' Sasuke hissed, his eyes glazing over slightly as they trained on the backdrop of the village under the cover of night and a heavy sheet of rain. His expression was detached...dead.

Tsuade opened her mouth even as her eyebrows furrowed in anger but all that prevailed was a ringing silence.


Sasuke dipped into a half-bow and turned, walking out the doors without being stopped.

Outside the rain came down in a fierce downpour that soaked him to the skin in moments and where the wet and cold should have fatigued him further considering the state he was in but Sasuke ony felt regenerated by the buckets of water that cascaded down on him from the charcoal clouds above.

'I want you to go check on him Kakashi.' Tsunade muttered with a scowl.

A thin silver eyebrow raised in surprise. Kakashi had been certain that the Hokage had summoned him for more official purposes than keeping tabs in his former student turned half rogue ninja. But whatever her initial intention, it was clear that now her concern was singularly focussed on Sasuke.

'He may act tough, but hes not fooling me. He's more gravely wounded then he let on and if I had even for an instant believed that I could get him to the medical ward without a fight then I wouldn't have let him walk out those doors. But as it was I was more concerned about the damage he would do to himself in the effort to escape proper medical attention. And as it stands I don't believe that short of having him pass out that we could get him the medical attention he needs.'

Tsunade shook her head despairingly. Certainly Sasuke was a troubled young man and the mysterious circumstances surrounding his murder of Itachi did nothing to put her at ease but neither did she feel the loathing for him that the village elders so openly expressed.

'If his injuries overwhelm him then it's up to you to bring him to the medical ward.' Tsunade said with a final nod and a closing of the eyes that indicated her dismisal of Kakashi. He was out of her sight before she could open her eyes. Shizune laid a sentimental hand on her shoulder.

''You're doing the best you can for him, but I'm afriad that boy simply wasn't fated to lead an easy life. You'd best stop worrying over him, Tsunade-sama, you've done all that you can for him and there is much work to attend to.'

Tsunade laughed mirthlessly, steepling her hands infront of her as she leaned her elbows on the heavy wooden desk behind which she was seated.

'I've done nothing for him! I couldn't even protect him the wrath of those two senile bats, or Danzou before that. It's he who has done so much for us, for this village that he no longer calls a home, for comrads who no longer look upon him as a friend, and for people who no longer even recognize his face, for the sake of ties that he broke so long ago.

'He killed the man that even the Third gave his life in an effort of simply crippling, Konaha's single greatest threat, Orochimaru. Then Itachi and his Akatsuki partner, two of the most dangerous criminals in the book...

'And now to single handedly take down Pein? The man that killed even Jiriya! How could I ever be anything but eternally indebted to him? How can anyone in this village not owe him their very lives? But he steadfastedly refuses to bear the mantle of a hero and instead walks the path of an outcast and rogue.

'So tell me Shizune....what about that shouldn't I feel wretched about?!'

The reverberating anger of Tsunade's voice was absorbed by the silence within and the thrum of the rain without.


Kakashi skidded to a stop under a tree just outside the once abandoned Uchiha district. The only part of him that wasn't chilled to the bone was his torso which was soundly protected by his vest.

With his one good eye he could see that the Uchiha district which had been returned to some semblance of it's once grand splendor spanning out before him and Kakashi caught himself wondering idly whether Sasuke had done all the repairs himself. He chased the rather irrelevant thought from his mind and took the leap that would plunge him into Uchiha territory. He wondered why he felt like he was diving headfirst into a snake's den.

It wasn't as though he hadn't been there before. On more than one occassion he had been the one that Tsunade had sent to fetch Sasuke for the purposes of some dangerous new mission or another. However all those instances had been during the day, and now it was dusk, and there was a heavy darkness enforced by the storm clouds above. It was silly in truth but Kakashi had to admit to himself as he flashed from one foothold to another through the narrow streets that there was a sense of forboding about the place at night.

He knew where to find Sasuke. At least, he knew where Sasuke should have been. Kakashi stopped on the outskirts of the Sasuke's old house. It had been restored magnificently to the point where it look inhabitted. Or least that was how it looked under the light of a noonday sun. But now, under the cover of rain the house look malicious and abandonned, if not for the fact that the wood of the house was soaked to a gleaming black, then for the fact that Kakashi couldn't see a single lit light in the entire building, at least not from his viewpoint from the Northeast corner.

Kakashi considered for a moment the option of simply knocking at the front door and asking to be let in. A direct approach. But he highly doubted that Sasuke would appreciate the sentiment of being coddled by the Hokage as the act would indicate. No, Kakashi was certain that Tsunade had intended for him to carry out his mission with the utmost care given to discretion.

Kakashi uncovered Obito's eye. It was hard not to think of it as such in the midst of the Uchiha district and Kakshi felt a distrubing tingle run down his spine at the uncalled for labelling of his spare body part. It almost felt taboo but Kakashi was yet unfamilar with the layout of Sasuke's house and he would need his vision to be crystal clear to track the Uchiha.

One full circle of the house's perimeter revealed no sign of life from within. Kakashi was fairly certain that Sasuke's room was on the south side and spent an extra two minutes in a tree facing the south wall trying to pick up a sign of movement.

Off course he felt it was a fruitless effort because if Sasuke had been home then surely there would have been some lights on in the house but he felt uneasy leaving after such a shallow search of the place.

He stepped in closer, pressing himself against the one of the support beams that held up the roof as it hung over the deck that spanned around the entire house. He circled the house, going from one support beam to the next, peering into the darkness of the house one window at a time and finding nothing more than the empty shell of a house. By the time he made it back to the South side he was feeling rather down all together. Not only was the atmosphere discomforting but Kakashi also had no clue as to where to look for Sasuke next....

The soft grind of wood on wood as a door slid open, then shut reached his ears. Kakashi instantly moved to press himself against the wall of the house, his hair pushing up against the underside of a window sill even as his ears strained to pick up any other sound.

A low sigh.

Cloth on cloth. Ruslting.

The slide of wood again. A smaller sound though. Perhaps a drawer being opened.

The chilling clink of metal on metal.

Drip, drip, drip. Kakashi realized the last sound was his own soaking form dripping water onto the wood of the deck.

He strained to hear more. Slow even breathing. Deliberate. Then an almost silent crunching sound. Kakashi realised belatedly that it was the grind of teeth, the back molars shifting against each other.

A small grunt. Kakashi furrowed his eyebrows. The rain picked up. Kakashi closed his eyes, trying to pick up any sounds at all. It was odd, Kakashi suddenly thought, that even closing his eyes there wasn't much difference. The dark still prevaded.

It was then that Kakashi recognized the fact that Sasuke hadn't turned on any lights at all. That the house, if he looked then, would look as dark and abandonned as ever, excepting off course his once pupil who was now in his room, sleeping most likely. Kakashi wondered what could have possessed the young man to wander about in the dark in his own house. An interesting query but that was besides the point. He strained to listen again.

Though he couldn't be sure how long he was crouched there under the window ledge there was no more sound from within the room. The patter of rain, on the roof, on the wood, in the grass prevailed. And after that all Kakashi could make out was the steady pounding of his own heart in his ears. He refrained from sighing. He let resolved to let himself wait for a further count of half an hour before moving to visually confirm that Sasuke was in fact in his room, just to make certain that, as he suspected, Sasuke had fallen asleep.

'Did you honestly believe I wouldn't notice....Kakashi?'

The sound startled him to the point where he rolled out and flashed to a crouch on the horizonal bar on the railing on the outside of the deck, half a dozen feet from the window. The roll of thunder was distinct in the background but there was no lightning.

It took a moment for Kakashi to decipher what his shargingan eye was seeing.

Sasuke was sitting on his bed, one leg folded under him, one leg braced up so that he could rest his left arm on it. There was a needle that was half pushed into the flesh of his arm around a still bleeding wound, his right hand was posed holding the needle still halfway-embedded in his skin and with seemingly no intention of continuing the act of stitching his own wound. Blood trailed down his arm, almost black in the darkness, but gleaming red where stray strands of light caught the wet trail.

Crimison eyes met his glance locking Kakashi's gaze in place and making him shudder with a cold familiarity.

'Well?'

Kakashi snapped back to himself.

'Should I have so little faith in my own skills as a ninja then?' Kakashi asked, more to buy time than anything.

'The sharingan. I know the feel of it's chakra anywhere....you have no hope of ever sneaking up on me.'

Uderstanding and resignation came to him at once and Kakashi slowly felt his whole body untense. He slid from the railing and landed on the wood of the deck with a soft thud. He walked over to the window and leaned against it idly, hoping he looked at least half his usual aloof self.

'What do you want.' Sasuke's head turned to his arm as he continued with the task of closing the gaping wound on his arm. Kakashi couldn't help but wince as Sasuke pierced through his own flesh again and he wondered how many times Sasuke must have patched himself up like this to not even be flinching at the act of stitching his own wound.

'Now now, is that any way to be talking to your sensei?' Kakashi asked. He felt a sinking sense of disappointment when the lightness he had hoped for in his words failed to surface.

There was a cold snicker and Kakashi thought for a moment thay perhaps he had imagined it but the chill in Sasuke's eyes when he looked up confirmed that the sound had come from the other man.

Kakashi stayed silent for the span of time that it took Sasuke to stitch up the gash on his arm. When Sasuke finally knotted the string and stood up Kakashi went to open his mouth but his voice died in his throat when the pale light from the outside world showered on the black blood that glistened down the length of Sasuke's torso. There was a thin towel around his hips and his hair was lank and damp, clearly still wet from a shower. Along the left side the ragged cloth of the towel was clearly soaked with blood to the point where Kakashi's eyes caught it dripping black even in the darkness.

'Surprised?' The query had no real interest in it, only a lack of attachment all together.

'Sasuke...the wounds you have-'

'Are nothing. Kakashi I think it's about time you made yourself disappear.' Sasuke muttered. His hand was steady as it threaded the string through the surgical needle. Kakashi didn't budge. For a moment he considered leaving....his former pupil clearly wasn't in a cooperative mood and Sasuke was the last person who could be forced into accepting something he didn't like but there was a tug at his conscience that kept him at the window.

Sasuke tugged the edge of the blood soaked towel up to dab at the edges of the cut that tore from the bottom of his left pectorial muscle to just just a few inches above his navel. The wound was clearly still gushing blood and the sugical steal gleamed with it in Kakashi vision.

Tentative words broke the silence and Kakashi couldn't explain what had him talking before his mind could even come up with what to say.

'I think I'd have a steadier hand at that.'


Sasuke recoiled at hearing the voice. He had been trying hard to simply focus on his breathing as it didn't require him to think about what he was doing. The pain of stitching himself up was easier to endure that way since he wasn't exactly expecting it so long as he could successfully clear his mind after each and every time he thrust the needle through his flesh. Kakashi's voice disturbed him from that saintly state of numbness and he ground his teeth against the sudden tenseness of his body.

'Don't pressume I need help from the likes of you.'

'Tsunade then, she could have you patched up in no time...'

A mirthless laugh rumbled through him as he processed those words, perhaps a little belatedly since he was still attempting to block the other man out.

'You can go back to her and tell that useless old hag that I'm not about to kick the bucket so she can stop wasting her precious resources on the likes of me.' Sasuke muttered after putting in a score more stitches. His body was too cold from the chill rain and the shower which had been colder still to sweat for the pain that trembled through it, but he was beginning to feel a little bit sluggish from the blood loss and he really didn't want to show it in front of the other ninja.

'Ah but I'm not one to condone lying.' Kakashi's voice floated in through the window with the soft patter of the rain, all of it to Sasuke's back. Usually he did this type of thing with the window open and facing it so that the light streamed in but in truth his sharigan eyes didn't need the help of any significant light source and it was nearly as pitch black outside as it was inside.

'Fine.' Sasuke spat as he finished up the last of the stitches and cut the string with a slice of chakra tipped fingers. 'Go tell the bitch I'm fucking dying and you couldn't do shit about it, crow.'

Kakashi was stunned at the fierce loathing that pierced him, almost akin to a killer aura even with Sasuke's back turned to him. To think that the Uchiha had such deep seated resentment for him felt almost unfathomable

'I'd like to put some clothes on before I get into bed...so if you wouldn't mind kindly removing yourself from Uchiha soil.' All cold demeanor as Sasuke turned to him then. Kakashi noted with an unwavering eye the pale prickles of gooseflesh that the cold wind raised on Sasuke's paler skin. The man himself may have been more unflinching than a granite mountainrange but his body was clearly betraying him.

'You're in no condition to be ordering me around Sasuke.' Kakashi said softly. He slid up and in through the window, practically gliding across the sheets of Sasuke's bed which were a faint pale blue colour speckled dark in places with drops of the Uchiha's blood.

His feet hit the wooden ground and he stood in front of Sasuke, noting that after so long of not having been close to him that his former pupil had grown quite a bit.

Now at the age of eighteen he stood nearly as tall as Kakashi himself and his body was chorded with muscles that were thin but firm and it was clear that Sasuke had trained his body to have exceedingly high endurance and speed over power. Kakashi couldn't help but feel ashasmed at the notion that Sasuke had changed so entirely without him ever noticing.

Sasuke had returned to the Uchiha district at the age of thirteen and Kakashi had initially attempted to keep tabs on him but it had been hard when his rank as a jounin had him away from the village on missions for months at a time. And while Sasuke had remained civil to his teacher at the age of thirteen he had made it clear that he held no more value in the ties of his former life.

Then Kakashi had gone on a month long mission that took him to the Land of Wind to rescue Gaara and his three man team was filled with the newly returned Naruto, the freshly trained medic-nin Sakura and the anbu roots cast off Sai. And like Naruto and Sakura he had been drawn in by Sai to the point where he had forgotten about the sullen young Uchiha that Sai had replaced.

Once he had averted his eyes it had become an easy task to shed his worry for Sasuke but while his back had been turned the young Uchiha had grown into a man that Kakashi now couldn't even recognize. It made him shudder....if only....

'Those eyes of yours. They're saying...."if only I had done a better job with him, then maybe he wouldn't have ended up such a twisted soul." Well let me put your worries to rest. You were my sensei once. The boy that you taught is long gone. The man that I am now has nothing to do with you and you will never understand the currents of life that have shaped me so you can stop thinking that you could have done anything at all to change me.' Sasuke paused. His eyes were staring off out the window and his left hand was flexing reflexively.

'You stopped me once from leaving the village, from going to Orochimaru. You told me that revenge would get me nowhere. That I should give up my quest to kill Itachi. Perhaps then you should have seen that I could not simply be weaned off the one thing that had reared me. Once my parents died, once my whole clan was murdered I lived for nothing but to kill. You said that I would be reduced to nothing if I lived only for revenge.' Sasuke paused. Kakashi was certain that if he listened hard enough he could hear the gentle 'drip, drip, drip' of blood on the wooden floor.

'I am a weapon forged by the actions of my brother. And I killed Itachi as he intended me to. And then what do I have left? If I was a creation of hatred and anger, if I was singularly motivated by vengence then what remains after I have exacted my revenge? The answer is simple Kakashi and I'm surprised you didn't see it.' Sasuke laughed again. The soung was haunting. 'I am the perfect weapon. All the skills and blood of the Uchiha resounds untainted in me and I have no motivation. I am a weapon and I destroy all that I am pointed at.'

Kakashi half lidded his eyes. He had no question that Sasuke's words were the truth. The Uchiha was nothing more than the perfectly crafted shell now. A weapon to be weilded in defense of the Land of Fire. It was sickening though to see Sasuke so empty.

'Don't you find that even the least bit sad? Isn't that a lonely outlook on life, Sasuke?'

'Do you have any right to be lecturing me on the art of lonliness? And what is this great life that you've built up Kakashi? You shed you're vengence, the one thing that could have made you strong and for what? So you could watch the next generation growing up around you and reminiss about the old days....imagining that it was you and your friends growing up and expriencing the world? Isn't that a bitter reality to feed yourself Kakashi?'

It was almost funny how Sasuke so suddenly seemed capable of seeing right through him. Kakashi wondered when he had gained such insight. Sure he had been a child prodigy but the Sasuke he had known had been just as hot headed as Naruto when pushed in the right way. The man standing in front of him was calculating beyond measure and far too put together as though he was aware of the fact that he had nothing left to lose. It was....terrifying.

'Sasuke...the life I have built for myself isn't nearly as hollow as you seem to think it is.' Sasuke didn't make any indication of having heard him.

'Doesn't it irk you that you have only come so far on the merit of the Uchiha blood. That all your skills are entirely dependent on the fact that you have the Bloodline Trait of a comrade. The great copy ninja is merely the shadow of a man that could have been if not for a childish folly so long ago.'

Kakshi gritted his teeth and a violent tide of hatred flashed through him, white hot like a blaze that is fed on kerosene and oxygen. Red eyes caught him in their tide and Kakashi was rooted to the spot as Sasuke watched him with an unperturbed gaze, and his anger was powerless in the face of those eyes. Kakashi recognized then that Sasuke was trying to chase him away. That wasn't to say that he didn't mean the words he said, but simply that the words had been clearly calculated to wreak havoc upon his emotions. Kakashi shuddered again in recognition of the stranger of a man standing before him.

Sasuke's eyes glinted even in the dark.

'Caught on, have you?'

Kakashi resisted the urge to smile.

Sasuke vaguely wondered why Kakashi hadn't walked out on him yet. A chill had crept into him and he desperately wanted to get some clothes on and lay his weary body down to bed. He knew there was no kindness in his eyes, in his demeanor, in anything he had said or done so far. Anyone in their right minds would have given up and left by now but Kakashi was still standing in front of him, his eyes locked with his twin shargingan gaze as though it was air to a drowning man.

Glancing briefly to the bed he saw the wash cloth that he had wetted and thrown on his covers earlier. The water had been warm when he had soaked it but in the time that he had taken to stitch himself up the cool air had chilled it and now when he leaned to grab it the chill made him tense. He slowly wiped his arm down, rubbing the blood off methodically.

When his arm was clean he turned a clean part of the cloth to the skin of his torso. A hand slipped the cloth from his nearly limp grasp and Sasuke barely held himself back from shivering as the brush of cloth against his skin took on complete unpredictability.

'Why are you still here.'

'...' Kakashi sighed, wondering when this fear had entered him. Unknowingly he had begun to falter in his answers to Sasuke because all the words that came into his mind seemed cheap and fake. He kept his mouth shut.

The grip on his wrist was painful.

'That's enough. You think you can just shove yourself into my world with a few arrogant words? You have no idea who I am anymore and you can stop trying to figure it out. Our worlds are separate now and you can go back to your silly little fantasies, playing at living a normal life.'

'I never forgot them....the people I really cared about...everyone I lost. It changed me. I can't deny that it made me a darker person.'

'Not good enough.' Sasuke bit out. His hand was still holding a mortal grip again Kakashi's wrist, he squeezed tight. 'This is a joke Kakashi. You don't want to have anything to do with me. Take the warning and leave. Even lonely and delusional is better than what I am....'

Red, cold as flint and Kakashi had never felt so much like he couldn't breathe even when he had been trapped by Itachi's eyes. There had been the intent to kill in the older brother but in Sasuke there was only an all consuming emptiness like a black hole that threatened to swallow him whole if he didn't draw away. Something in him was sympathetic to the hollowness of the Uchiha in front of him because he felt hypnotized by crimson eyes even knowing that there was nothing even akin to genjutsu ensnaring him at that moment.

He wondered when the tables had turned, when Sasuke has grown past him so that Kakashi was left feeling like he could only stare at him from behind. Watch his back, the broad shoulders and the muscles chorded in tension and never know the thoughts that went on in Sasuke's head as he had once been able to do.

Once he had believed that Sasuke was like him. Now he felt as though Sasuke was something he could never understand. So he was left wondering why he was still standing there, in front of Sasuke, his wrist being crushed by the younger ninja, his heart beating like a drum in his ears, being glared down by shargingan eyes and feeling like he couldn't have moved an inch in that moment if his very life depended on it.

'Leave Kakashi.' Sasuke's fingers twitched but he didn't let go. It was his left arm and it's strength surprised him considering the wound. Kakashi drew his hand up slowly as though to make a point.

'You think I'm unsympathetic to you.'

'No. But I think if you knew what was good for you, you would be.' Sasuke bit out, his back was straight and his shoulders were braced, challenging.

'What are you living for? If this emptiness is all you have then where's the proof that you're alive?'

'My body goes on living. It's a habit. The feelings. The pain, the ache, the physical sensations those are proof that I'm alive...' Sasuke breathed out a slow controlled breath. 'Does it scare you how close you were to becoming like me?'

Kakashi narrowed his eyes. That wasn't it. But it hit too close to home for comfort. Kakashi caught him shaking his head. He was suppose to be in control but Sasuke was stringing him along like a rag doll.

'You only need proof that I'm alive right?' Sasuke jerked his hand up and pressed right above the line of stitches along his torso. 'There. My heart's still beating. Good enough isn't it? Now will you leave me in peace.'

Something gave out. Kakashi wasn't sure what it was. But reality seemed to be an echo in the background and he was stepping in, his body millimeters from Sasuke's lithe and near naked form.

Kakashi let the lone echo of fear slide away into the back of his mind. His left hand slid over Sasuke's bare right shoulder and the crimson glared flickered for a moment. Kakashi slid his hand over the pale alabaster skin, feeling like an apparition, a dream as he leaned into the chill body in front of him.

His mouth was at Sasuke's ear and he could smell the crisp smell of a smokey citrus bodywash.

'And what if I do this? Doesn't that heart beat faster?'

Sasuke didn't flinch but the body under his touch was tense, clearly resisting but Kakashi was fairly certain that Sasuke didn't have the strength left to hold out the granite composure much longer. Suddenly Kakashi felt a ravenous hunger for the fire that slept in Sasuke. The emptiness was still there, always, in those haunted eyes but he was beyond the point where he feared the headlong plunge into whatever it was that pervaded in Sasuke's eyes.

'You think this will change anything?' Sasuke muttered, his voice disbelieving or more accurately mocking.

'Yes.' Kakashi said with all the conviction of his unthinking body.

And then Sasuke was pressing solidly up against him, unheeding of the freshly stitched wounds. Sasuke's left hand never moved from his wrist and Kakashi knew he would have livid bruises to show for it later but that throught was driven from his mind as an arm cradled he back of his neck and he felt his mask being dragged down by the scrape of teeth and the thick cord of a tongue pressing, licking, sucking at the tendons of his neck.

The zipper on his vest dropped in an instant and Kakashi didn't even know how it fell to the ground without Sasuke even losing contact for an instant. The cold brush of air against his chest was startling, exciting and the press of Sasuke's body closer to his was heady in so many ways.

Sasuke nipped at his jaw. A low chuckle rumbled through him.

'You know, Kakashi I never expected this of you.'

Kakashi didn't respond.

'There are others that would approach me like this, but you, it's surprising.' He said the last word as though he was savouring it. Sasuke's mouth was thorough as it dragged over his skin. Sasuke hooked the thumb of the hand that had his wrist under the hem of his skintight black shirt and drew it up. Sasuke's mouth glazed over his chest, the tongue dipping in against the crevices of his muscles then darted up to trail over a dark pink nipple.

Sensations he had forgotten trailed through his body. Sasuke's mouth never left his skin for an instant. In all that it took a moment to recognize that he was now sporting a decently throbbing erection. Sasuke's thigh was pressed against it, unmoving like a column of stone but providing agitating friction none the less.

Kakashi let his hand tangle in the back of Sasuke's still damp locks and yanked up his head. He got a growl and a glare in return but the hand on his wrist finally fell away. It was no less painful as it ghosted over his erection and pulled his pants from his hips. Kakashi slowed raised an eyebrow.

'No hesitation?'

Sasuke smirked. 'A gift.' he muttered dryly. Sasuke took his now heated erection against the palm of his hand and stroked the shaft languidly. His body was still covered in goosebumps and Kakashi let his hand explore the exposed skin, jolting a little when it tread over the rough rail of stitches. Sasuke never paused. He pushed hard with his body and Kakashi matched the force as Sasuke melded his body against his own. Kakashi's pants were halfway off his hips and his shirt he divested quickly when he was given the opportunity.

Then suddenly Kakashi was pushing against air as Sasuke took a step back. He didn't stumble but the arm around his neck dragged him down none the less. Perhaps he should have been concerned about the freshly injured body beneath his own but he was too far gone to be thinking of such menial things. And when Sasuke himself seemed unheeding of his injuries Kakashi found that the carelessness was contagious.

The body was on top of him, pressing him into the blue sheets of Sasuke's bed. The hand against his cock was gone but in it's place was the delicious friction of Sasuke's towel clothed erection pressing against his own. The grind of their hips was mere foreplay. Kakashi knew that it would go much further than that. It wasn't Sasuke's words, or eyes but rather the way he held himself back that told him that. Kakashi wondered how he would feel about the whole affair if he could think straight but that was the last thing he could do when Sasuke was panting against the base of his ear, his tongue and teeth sensitizing the skin that stretched over his collarbone in a way that Kakashi hadn't even realized was possible. He couldn't ever remember feeling so wonderfully out of control. Kakashi wondered mildly when he had ended up below Sasuke since he clearly remembered falling on top of the Uchiha. The through was stricken from his head as his wandering hand brushed against the blood crusted hem of the towel that still clung resolutely to Sasuke's hips.

Kakashi untucked the corner that held it in place and slid the towel out from between them. Even Sasuke's reaction wasn't contained when their erections met, heated skin against skin for the first time. Kakashi could feel the muffled groan through the vibrations of Sasuke's teeth against his collarbone.

For a brief moment the man on top of him seem to entirely lose his purpose. The rutting thrusts of his hips were more forceful, needy and uncontained and Kakashi felt pleasure surge through him at the unbridled force that was pressing against him. It was almost desperate. And then the body on top of him tensed, a low growl in his throat. Kakashi gasped as he caught his breath and drew his fingers up to skim across Sasuke's skin. The muscles trembled under his touch and Sasuke was panting harshly into his shoulder.

With one hand Kakashi shoved himself up and gently flipped himself and Sasuke over so that the Uchiha was then splayed across the pale blue covers. Kakashi tried not to see the specks of blood on the sheet, he didn't need any reminding of the fact that what he was doing was as far from right as he could get.

Sasuke wasn't exactly complacent under him but neither was he trying to do anything to reverse their positions. Rather it felt as though there was a sense of urgency about the way he moved his now free hand to their cocks together and stroked them as one.

Kakashi bared his teeth in a low snarl of a moan and brought his lips down to tease Sasuke's skin as the other had been doing to him previously. When his teeth scraped over one nipple Sasuke nearly barked in frustration, his body arching tenuously off the sheets.

'Quit playing, Kakashi.' Sasuke bit out. Sasuke moved his hand lower purposefully, craddling Kakashi's balls and rubbing them gently making Kakashi freeze up instantly, trying to avoid the urgent heat that shot through him at those gentle caresses of the pad of Sasuke's thumb. Sasuke spread his legs and Kakashi couldn't help but settle between them as Sasuke bent his knees and bucked his hips a little, enough to be considered needy.

Sasuke wasn't exactly keen to submitting but though heat and yearning flooded him at the touch of skin on skin, his strength was nearly non-existent. It was almost all he could manage to concentrate enough to keep himself from passing out considering the circumstances. There was the option of calling the whole thing off, he didn't think Kakashi would thing much of it if he decided that what they were doing wasn't acceptable but he yearned for the sensations that Kakashi's body drew from his own and he felt an insistent hunger for the heat of another body moving against his own.

Bringing his other hand to his own cock he began to stroke himself, letting the heat ebb away the darkness that was trying to claim his exhausted body. It was made easier when Kakashi finally took the initiave to bring his hand down between Sasuke's legs and explore. A gently slicked finger probed at his entrance, almost haltingly while Kakashi's heated breath cascaded into his ear as teeth bit tenderly along the shell of his ear.

With teasing fingers Kakashi coaxed a digit into the pliant body beneath him, his whole body hesitated and then he gasped as a contricting heat thrust down on the single finger, Sasuke's eyes were blazing with unrestrained lust and longing.

Kakashi drew his head back as he worked another finger past the clenching vice of Sasuke's sphincter, the body under him was perfectly complaint in that it relaxed and tensed with a sweet harmony towards his own movements. Draw his head back a little he placed a tentative kiss on the side of Sasuke's lips. He nipped and bit at the bottom one, wanting desperately to claim the Uchiha's mouth but not at all prepared to face the wrath it might invoke if he chose to be so intimate.

Sasuke pushed up in an instant and clenched one hand in Kakashi's silver locks, ripping away the restraint of the headband as he did so and tossing it to the ground where it landed with the distinct thunk of metal on wood.

The mouth on his was hard and demanding, and the tongue and the teeth at pushed against his were unyielding and powerful and it left Kakashi struggling to keep his breath and coordination. Insistent hips thrust down on his fingers as if in reminder of their positions, a silent urging for him to quit stalling.

Kakashi curved his fingers and stroked the heated flesh of Sasuke's insides and was rewarded with a flickering moan that slid down his throat and reverberated in his ear. It seemed to give the mouth on his pause, and then Sasuke was sucking tenderly on his tongue, breathing steadily through his nose as though to gather himself. Sasuke's lower hand changed positions so that it was now stroking Kakashi's throbbing erection and he felt the slickness of precome that was not his coat him as Sasuke's hand worked over the length.

In a moment Sasuke's fierce, comsuming kiss was back, and the tongue that caressed over his own was almost enough to make him drown for lack of breathing. Sasuke finally yanked away as Kakashi added a third finger with one last nipping brush of lips and scraping teeth.

Kakashi panted, and watched Sasuke's through his now sweatsoaked fringe which was falling in his half-lidded eyes. He was having a hard time keeping himself contained with the way that Sasuke's hand was moving so expertly on his cock.

'Get on with it.' Sasuke rasped, his eyes sharp as flint.

Kakashi shifted his hips slightly and braced his hand against the bed on either side of Sasuke's prone body and allowed Sasuke's guiding hand to position himself against the tight ring of his entrance. Sasuke let his hand slip away and up to Kakashi's hip, while his free hand buried itself in the sheets.

With a steady thrust Kakashi pushed against the solid form against him. At first Sasuke was tight an unyielding and then the hand of his hip tightened immeasurably even as the body beneath became perfectly relaxed. The sensation of sliding into molten heat was perhaps the most anxious, grating feeling that Kakashi had experienced.

Sasuke let out a low grunt and his back arched up, pushing his hips down until Kakashi was covered to the hilt and he found that he was having the hardest time just holding himself together. In comparison to Sasuke's hand the steady pulse of Sasuke around his engorged member almost rendered him incomprehensible.

It took a long moment before he couldn't get use to the overwhelming feeling that conquered him in waves and Sasuke looked more impatient than anything. Kakashi heaved a deep breath, watched sweat drip off a lank of hair and onto the covers beside Sasuke's ear and then gave an experimental thrust. When his entire world didn't threaten to give out under him once more he picked up the pace and settled into a more pleasing and regualr rhythm.

Sasuke's eyes fluttered for a moment and his body rung with a pleasure and Kakashi gave a brief smile as he clenched his hands in the sheets with the way Sasuke constricted around him and resolved to make the Uchiha surrender that delicious expression once more.

Kakashi was struggling to keep his breathing halfway to regulated as the body under him twisted and clenched with every thrust that he managed to push against that bundle of nerves that was buried inside. Bending his head he went to taste the skin of the sweatsoaked, twisting body under him, marvelling in the way the chorded muscles stetched and bunched beneath the thin layer of pale skin that covered them.

The bulge of ribs through skin was prominant as the Uchiha arched up with a low moan. The hand still on Kakashi's hip tightened inexorably as though Sasuke was trying to keep his grip on the world simply by holding onto the other man. Kakashi let his sharingan eye drink in the sight before him and felt his heart thud hollow in his throat as he saw the gleam of slick black that was beginning to spread over the left side of Sasuke's torso. Kakashi froze and he felt the chill of crimson eyes on him even without having to remove his gaze from the stain of blood that was painting over Sasuke's pale skin, gushing black between the near clinical stitches that pulled at the torn ends of Sasuke's wound.

There was a sensation akin to absolute burning, like low voltage electricity as Sasuke's hand finally dropped from his hip. Long fingers, a hand pressed flat against the bleeding stitches just a little ways up from where Sasuke's hip bone was. It wasn't nearly enough to cover the gruesome sight of a torn apart body and Kakashi felt rooted with horror at the realization of his own stupidity and selfishness. Those fingers, that hand, was a blotch of white in the field of black, like the pale reflection of the moon on the sea.

Kakashi swallowed hard as he watched the slick coated muscles ripple.

"Don't stop....not now...just...' Sasuke's words were hard but gasping and filled with a bitter undertone, as though the Uchiha was hating himself for being so weak. But he couldn't possibly want to continue, not when his body was in such a state and really-- Kakashi groaned...Sasuke's body shifted under his, down and up, a shallow thrust against his unmoving form and it sent fresh waves of pleasure crashing through him.

Sasuke's free hand locked in his hair and dragged him in for a hungering kiss and then Kakashi lost every last shred of reason or properity that he had left in him. He was only a man after all, not a saint. He couldn't help the way his hips thrust recklessly then, matching the yearning strum of the body beaneath his.

He noted that Sasuke's free, unbloodied hand unlocked from his hair and went to his jutting cock, stroking it hungrily but Kakashi's slipped his hand between them and drew away those talented fingers. Sasuke's growl of frustration was music to his ears and the sound was sweetened almost unbearably by the keening moan that he drew from the Uchiha as he canted his hips up and pushed directly against that spot. The fingers of Sasuke's left hand, laced in his own from when Kakashi had pulled them away from the act of self-servicing tightened and spasmed as Kakashi continued to thrust into his maddening body.

Kakashi had never felt anything half as delicious. He suspected that he would have to release his grip on Sasuke's right hand to allow the other man to come but was surprised to find a slickness that dripped heavily from the slit of Sasuke's throbbing member to coat the skin of their tangled bodies, a sign of exactly how close Sasuke truly was to coming. Sasuke was panting hard, and Kakashi could tell that he was riding hard on the edge of pure exhaustion and the precipe of pleasure.

Leaning down he began to bite and suckle the milky white skin of the Uchiha's neck, seeking the one thing that would send the other man over the edge. Almost too late he realized he couldn't exactly hold out himself. In all that wonder he had forgotten just how close he had been to his own orgasm from the very moment he had first pushed into Sasuke. When it crashed down on him it took him entirely by surpise and overwhelmed him. Sasuke clenched around his stuttering thrust as he came hard, pressing his body closer to Sasuke's and pinning the Uchiha's straining erection between their heaving abdomens.

Sasuke rutted up against his dead weight, straining for his realease, his breathing ragged beyond reason, and Kakashi bit down hard on the skin of Sasuke's neck a little ways below the junction of his left ear and brought the fingers of his right hand down to stroke one rough stroke up the underside of Sasuke's cock, nails scraping over tender skin, fingers pressing, curving around heated velvet skin. He was rewarded with a deep hiss of satisfaction and sudden burst of wet heat between their sweat slicked stomaches as the body under his trembled with a final wash of pleasure.

When he finally gathered the strength to do so he drew away, removing himself gingerly from within Sasuke, a little more aware now that he had practically taken the Uchiha dry, not to mention the fact that he had already been seriously injured before the affair.

Kakashi struggled to maintain his sharingan eyes as he scanned his gaze over the Uchiha who lay unmoving on blood soaked blue sheets. The rise and fall of his glistening chest was encouraging where the black of the blood failed to be. He looked almost completely debaunched, lying there in disarray, with his legs parted, and his hair a mess, still gushing blood through splayed fingers on his abdomen.

Swiftly pulling his pants up his hips, and ignoring the discomfort of the slight wetness that entered the cloth Kakashi tried to find his shirt. He was not going to have Sasuke bleed to death....that just wans't--

'Stop thinking noble thoughts.' A quite voice hissed. Kakashi turned to see crimson eyes glaring at him, slightly narrowed but alert none the less.

'You're going to the medical ward.' Kakashi muttered, but he made no move towards Sasuke.

A hollow laugh rang out. 'After what we did? In this condition? I don't think so.'

'If you think--'

'Kakashi forget it. I'll live. Just....'

'What?'

Sasuke grimaced and let his legs slide shut. 'Get me a warm washcloth...' Sasuke heaved at last, his gaze moving past Kakashi to land on the bloodied rag that lay on top of his wooden side table.

Kakashi furrowed his eyebrows but the look in the Uchiha's eyes was nothing if not resilient to any conviction Kakashi might have had about getting him proper medical attention. With a heaved sigh, a sedated pleasure still winding through his viens Kakashi stepped past the side table, grabbing the washcloth on the way to the bathroom.

It took Kakashi a short instant to wash away the slick mess that still coated his abdomen. It took him nearly five minutes to wring all the blood from the ragged cloth. He watched with a half lidded gaze as the water slid first red then pink then clear down the drain with each subsequent twist of the cloth. Silver locks of hair hung in his eyes but Kakashi ignored them and rung the cloth out lightly one final time before heading back into the cool warmth of Sasuke's bedroom.

Kakashi walked silently across the room, his gaze travelled slowly over the pale, bloodied body that was Uchiha Sasuke's lying admist blood speckled covers. He placed one knee on the bed and leaned over the body but a hand darted out and snatched the outstretched washcloth from his hand before Sasuke's eyes even snapped open.

'Get off my bed.' An irratated voice snapped at him. Kakashi had wondered when he'd be chased away. He backed off, his knee sliding off his bed as he put some distance bewteen him and the agitated Uchiha just as Sasuke had asked of him. He felt as though he was dealing with a beautiful feral animal that scared far too easily; just as likely to turn tail and bolt as it was to tear his throat out.

Sasuke propped himself up on his left elbow and began to wipe down the blood. By the time he was done, stitches gleamed bright back against pale white skin once more and the washcloth was dyed red to the point where it left behind a thing sheen of blood no matter how hard Sasuke wiped.

Finally the stength seemed to leave him and he flopped back down on the bed and tossed the bloodied cloth out of sight. Sasuke sighed and ruffled his leadened bangs before dragging a corner of the sheets over his bare body, managing to cover the lower half with an exhausted gingerness before setting his eyes to glare at Kakashi. Or rather the direction he knew Kakashi was in because his body had finally given out and his eyes had deepened back to a solid coal.

'Why are you still here?' Sasuke's voice asked, almost as soft as the still pattering rain.

Kakashi heaved a sigh. 'I was supposed to watch you and make sure you received proper medical attention.' Kakashi muttered, feeling a strange throb of his heart as he said it.

There was a long silence in which coal black eyes continued to watch him despite the fact that Kakashi knew they couldn't possibly see in the dark of a moonless night. Finally Sasuke closed his eyes. 'Stay if you like then. That satifies your mission doesn't it? So long as you can watch over me and make sure I keep breathing...that's enough isn't it?' The words were more defined then, challenging, as though Sasuke meant for him to say something stupid in response, something for which he could legitimately send him away.

Kakashi walked over to the window and climbed up on the ledge, resting his back against the flat wooden frame and letting his sharingan eye close as last.

'Yes, that's fine.' He whispered into the rain.

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AN: Sorry no editting has been done for this work. I'm just too plain lazy. Maybe I'll get around to it eventually. Let me know if you see any glaring errors and I'll fix them.

Other than that please leave a comment/review.

- Incessant_Darkness

Edit 02/01/09: I fixed some glaring errors of my own accord after finally getting some sleep so hopefully it's marginally better now.