Ebb and Flow

It was necessary, when you had as many things going on in your life as Kakashi Hatake did, to compartmentalize your life. All the various parts and pieces that made up the whole of his day to day existence were neatly ordered into rows and columns that made them easy to maintain and monitor. Especially since his agile mind was always analyzing and categorizing anyway. When he’d been a child his IQ had tested in the genius level and his ability to expand and increase his knowledge and self-awareness hadn’t stopped since.

Growing up the way he had, as a second generation assassin, would have been difficult for Kakashi if he hadn’t developed the ability to separate one part of his life from another. This skill had allowed him to remain detached and in control during the worst moments of his life. He valued his ability to compartmentalize and reinvent himself in different situations above all else. He needed the separation of his different responsibilities; otherwise, he would lose his calm and control. The ordering and cataloguing of his life was the only thing that allowed him not to carry his job home with him.

It was a system that had worked well for him throughout his twenty-eight years of life, but it wasn’t without flaws. The neatly ordered and clearly labeled compartments in his mind occasional to bled over on one another, and it was starting to wear on Kakashi.

The bleed-over had started as a slow leak nine years ago and Kakashi hadn’t been able to stop the flow. He’d thought he had it well maintained, but he’d been wrong. The few drops from one side that had found the cracks in the seals Kakashi had placed around the different areas of his mind and heart had gathered together to form a puddle, and if the assassin wasn’t careful, the growing pool would cause him to slip and fall.

Kakashi liked the tangible image of liquid being sectioned off in his head. It was the compartment he’d chosen to place the inner workings of his mind in. The only problem was that his brain had latched onto the image and it was now bleeding over into his dreams and haunting the few hours he managed to get sleep.

In his dreams, the anonymous liquid went from being something innocent and unidentifiable like it was in his waking thoughts, to something darker and emotionally encrypted: blood. He watched, unable to do a thing about it, as the parts of his mind that housed thoughts and concerns about his job and life as an assassin filled with red pools drained from his targets. Sometimes the dreams ended there, but sometimes they kept pulling him below the surface.

There were other dreams where the seals and carefully crafted walls housing the blood he’d spilled burst and the viscous, crimson liquid flowed outward, coating other areas of his life that he’d been so careful to section off and protect from being soiled in just such a way. Far too often, he’d woken up with the image of Sasuke covered in blood spilled by Kakashi’s hands still scraping at the backs of his eyelids. It was enough to make him grateful for his frequent bouts of insomnia.

Logically, he knew that all of the images in his dreams were merely symbols. They were a result of feelings that his job and lifestyle made him unworthy of being a father figure to Sasuke and fears that he’d only made the boy more unstable instead of helping him out of his misery. Every time he would wake from such a nightmare, his mind was quick to break down each image and symbol within the dream and evaluate its hidden meaning. But even knowing that Sasuke had been far from innocent when he’d met Kakashi, and that the boy would have ended up in this lifestyle even if they had never met, it still didn’t help to alleviate any of his guilt.

Now Kakashi laid awake, staring at the ceiling with sweat dripping down the sides of his face. His mind was scrutinizing the hidden meanings and symbolism behind the latest dream that had him gasping awake with the urge to call Sasuke and make sure he was alright. As his brain ran through the familiar litany, he heaved a sigh of frustration.

In these moments Kakashi was vulnerable.

In his dreams he couldn’t control his thoughts and feelings; it was the one time in his life that he couldn’t place people and events into neatly labeled bins. In the moments immediately following his waking, it took his mind a few seconds to fully conjure and summon all the restraints and compartments and to file things neatly in their places. These moments, where everything was mixed and jumbled and frighteningly overwhelming, made Kakashi feel exposed and raw.

But it was only a few moments. As Kakashi cycled through all the reasons that he was a good, healthy part of Sasuke’s life, the walls began to reform and grow together; the liquid in his mind sloshing around, threatening to become a whirlpool and suck him under, separated and yielded to the seals spreading across the expanse of Kakashi's brain. The part of him that was just a man concerned about his son and waking from a nightmare was filed away and he once again became Kakashi, the genius assassin who was always in complete control.

Kakashi continued to lie there, even though he had no intention of going back to sleep. He preferred to control and order his thoughts to letting them run rampant, as he was forced to do in his dreams. Still in bed and awake, he watched his ceiling fan make slow, perfectly symmetrical, evenly timed circles overhead and planned the events of the day that was now fast approaching. The last of his thoughts about Sasuke and their fucked up father/son relationship were forgotten as he recalled tasks that had to be completed and possible outcomes for decisions he had to make.

When he rose from bed hours later, Kakashi felt stable and no longer vulnerable. All of the liquid in his mind that always seemed to be bubbling and sloshing, looking for a way to expand and drench every corner of his mind, was tightly reined in and under control.

If the moments when Kakashi had just woken were the moments when he was vulnerable, then these were the moments when he was invincible. When Kakashi reformed his seals and was able to keep the liquid from leaking from one compartment to another there was nothing he couldn’t handle.

***

[i]What the hell was with the fucking trees?[/i] It seemed like every time he got sent out these days it involved perching his ass in a tree for an ungodly amount of time. [i]For the love of Christ, wasn’t it possible to get a standard break-into-a-factory-and-kill-thirty-guys mission anymore?[/i] They were supposed to be routine if one believed the movies. [i]That would be a nice cushy job.[/i]

[i]Too bad real-life assassins actually have to survive the missions…and are subject to the whims of the people paying for the hits. [/i]

Assassins like Kakashi didn’t have the luxury of having high priced Hollywood writers and choreographers working on their life stories. This was his everyday life, not a snapshot of action and violence captured for the amusement and entertainment of others. There was no arrogant director yelling cut at the end of each scene in his life or any make-up artists powdering his nose between jobs. Instead he received pain, loneliness, and an ungodly amount of money for his efforts.

The assassin snorted. The pay was probably the only thing he had in common with the actors.

Kakashi both loved his job and hated it. Sometimes he longed for the normalcy of a nine-to-five desk job and mundane hobbies that other people seemed to take for granted. He wished sometimes that his best friend, Ibiki, wasn’t an anti-social freak of nature with deviant sexual tendencies, who by the way, was also a highly skilled assassin and interrogator. He wished that his ‘son’ wasn’t teetering on the edge of a psychotic break down and was capable of giving and accepting love.

But at the same time, a normal life would be dreadfully boring. And he wouldn’t have Ibiki and Sasuke. For all their fucked-up flaws, he loved them both dearly. Ibiki was always there for him, stoic and silent, whenever Kakashi needed him; he was the brother Kakashi never had. And Sasuke soothed some part of his soul, the part that remotely mourned the loss of a normal life where he might have had a son of his own. They might have been fucked up, but at least they were fucked up together. And the kid really did him proud.


Of course, he’d also be lying if he said he didn’t like the action. True, sometimes he had to take the life of someone who appeared to be innocent or people who were married or had children, and that haunted him, but for the most part, he got to rid the streets of thieves, murderers and all around awful people. Most days he craved the danger and the excitement, even if he wouldn’t admit it.

But there were still drawbacks. Like the fact that he hadn’t gotten laid in longer than he cared to admit. Being an assassin didn’t really leave him much time for dating. And he wanted to date, not just fuck. When he’d been younger, it had been fine to have random, meaningless sex whenever he could, but now he longed for something deeper. He could admit, at least to himself, that he was lonely. Still, he hardly thought it was fair to bring someone from outside his world into the middle of it without warning.

It wasn’t practical or possible to tell someone that he was an assassin on the first date (he had a very vivid mental image of that going over well), so it would be necessary for him to lead anyone along. It was also unlikely he’d ever find a civilian willing to accept what he did for a living without qualms. And then the chances of that person being strong enough—an assassin’s world was a dangerous world to have close ties to, after all—so that Kakashi wouldn’t worry his lover would get killed every time he walked out of the house…Right. So basically, he’d need to find an apathetic sociopath with more than decent fighting skills whom he was attracted to. And of course, men like that were just so plentiful.

He rolled his eyes. Seriously, where the fuck was he going to find a man pretty and psychotic enough to fit the bill?

It was beyond frustrating for Kakashi. Besides, even if he did find a man who was willing to accept his job and lifestyle, Ibiki would skin him alive for developing romantic attachments. Especially for the part where he told someone that didn’t work for Ibiki the truth about his job. But that really wasn’t a major concern anyway; you actually had to [i]have[/i] a lover before you could piss your boss off for having a lover.

As he continued to sit and internally bitch about the sad state of his love life, the light in the house he was watching went off. [i]Time for some action.[/i] He’d had enough of feeling sorry for himself anyway.

He instantly folded up and put away all thoughts of his personal life and took out the mental blueprints he had prepared for this mission. Swiftly and silently he made his way out of the branches and down the tree trunk. By the time his feet were touching the ground, he was no longer the Kakashi of moments ago, the lonely assassin looking for a mate. He was a different Kakashi, ruthless and ready for action.

Stealthily, he crept along the wall outside the house. He felt the gun tucked into the waistband of his pants and frowned. Usually he hated using guns; he just thought it was a slightly unfair advantage. But he was supposed to make this look like a robbery gone wrong, so the gun was a necessary evil. Besides, he was an assassin; fairness didn’t really play a large part in his day to day life.

He’d stolen the gun off some crack dealer; if he had to throw the cops off his trail later, he could always plant the gun where he knew it would be found and traced back to its former owner. He doubted the cops would be trying too hard to find him though, they had paid for the hit after all.

This guy was a serial killer. The FBI was sure that he was guilty, but they didn’t have any evidence that would stick in court. The arresting officer had let his anger get the best of him and he’d assaulted the man before searching his home. Therefore, all of the evidence they’d collected had gone right out of the window, including finding the decaying body of one of his victims inside.


Plus, the killer actually had the audacity to sue the agent for police brutality and now he was living off the settlement the bureau was forced to pay to keep this from going public. To say that the higher-ups within the bureau were pissed was a gross understatement. So one of them had taken matters into his own hands an called in the hit.

Kakashi lived for missions like this. The chance to make the world a somewhat better place and right some of the wrongs committed by not only him, but the men he worked with, was a rare occurrence indeed. He normally had faith in the justice system and would hate the idea of anyone issuing vigilante justice (even though he had absolutely no desire to get caught and see the inner workings of the justice system personally). However, he was willing to make an exception in cases like these. The thought that this creep could keep kidnapping and torturing women at his leisure because of some technicality that was meant to protect the innocent—not enable the guilty—was just maddening. Particularly since he did so with federal money sitting in his bank account.

He didn’t blame the officer who’d assaulted his target. He’d simply succumbed to his emotions. It was easy to do if you didn’t have practice controlling your more extreme, guttural reactions like an assassin did. Now that wasn’t to say he suggested that everyone try to become emotionless and feel nothing. People were never meant to be machines. If you locked away all your emotions and didn’t allow yourself to work through them in some way, they would build up and overtake you eventually anyway.

Just look at Sasuke.

But that was a whole other line of thought that Kakashi just couldn’t acknowledge right now. He couldn’t think about Sasuke while on a mission. Forcibly, he pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind locking them up to be analyzed later and brought his thought process back around to his mission. No, he couldn’t blame the officer for what he’d done, but it had created a very unique situation. A unique situation that required some very specialized skills to correct.

Kakashi entered the house through a window in the kitchen. The house had a funny design and for some reason the window in the kitchen was the closest to the ground and the easiest to use to gain access. He’d barely made it inside when he realized he wasn’t alone.

As soon as he saw the man, he stopped being James Killian who lived at 1187 Guillory Drive. He’d only been James Killian that lived at 1187 Guillory Drive in the first place so that Kakashi could find the man and locate his house. But now, with that particular objective met, his mind conveniently stopped supplying him with the man’s name and replaced it with ‘the target.’ The target stood in the doorway, bathed in darkness, with only the moonlight coming through the windows silhouetting his figure.

The small amount of light limited Kakashi’s vision, but not enough to prevent him from seeing the gun leveled at him. [i]Fuck.[/i] He had his own gun of course, but he’d never get to it and get a shot off in time. Quickly analyzing the possibilities, he decided to go with a classic move. He straightened from his crouch with his arms outstretched to show his surrender.

The guy began stalking toward him. As he passed through a beam of moonlight, Kakashi saw a smug smirk adorning his face. [i]Oh thank God.[/i] Apparently, the guy was an arrogant prick. Kakashi was used to those; he definitely knew how to manipulate them. While his target was basking in the glow of his apparent victory, Kakashi was busy calling up battle scenarios in his mind and entering in information about the variables in those equations. Like the layout of the room or items that could possibly be used as weapons.

He was almost done with the internal inventory when his target began to speak. “I’m glad you finally decided to join me. I was wondering if you were going to spend all night in my tree,” the man said, breaking the silence. When Kakashi just continued to stare, the man snorted and continued. “I’d appreciate it if you’d drop your gun and kick it over here next to me.”

[i]Of course you would,[/i] Kakashi thought to himself as he pulled the gun out of his waistband and dropped it to the floor. He kicked it away from himself as instructed.

The target looked down at the gun on the floor with an extremely self-satisfied smile, but made no further movements.

[i]Talk[/i]. Kakashi needed this guy to talk. If he kept him talking and stroked his ego a bit, then it would distract him enough to allow Kakashi to rid him of his gun. The assassin knew better than to let the cold, hard determination that he felt enter his expression and kept his pose relaxed and unassuming. He began speaking in the laid-back drawl that had fooled more than a few of his opponents into thinking that he wasn’t a threat. “Hey man, don’t shoot. I didn’t want no trouble, the gun’s not even real. Just a good enough fake to scare somebody if I had to.”

His target smiled again in a way that let Kakashi know that he accepted the unspoken story that this was a simple robbery and Kakashi was an idiot.

[i]Gotcha![/i] Kakashi thought and resisted the urge to smirk in satisfaction. Clearly this guy was power tripping big time and thought himself superior to everyone, including the assassin standing in his kitchen. It was obvious that he had absolutely no combat training and that he’d never been in a life or death situation where he wasn’t in complete control of everything that had happened. Unfortunately for the target, it had made him cocky enough to fall for Kakashi's trap.

The target continued to walk closer to Kakashi and while the moron was studying Kakashi’s face, Kakashi's eyes were trained on his gun. [i]How fucking stupid was this guy?[/i] He didn’t even stop far enough away from the assassin to prevent himself from being attacked. But that was alright with Kakashi, he didn’t mind when other people made his job easier for him.

The kick was lightening fast and perfectly placed. It caught the target’s hand at just the right angle for the top of Kakashi’s foot to strike his knuckles, preventing the arrogant fool from pulling the trigger as the assassin lashed out. The platinum blonde noted the clattering sound of metal on linoleum as the weapon slid further into the darkness of the house. But Kakashi didn’t stop long enough to see exactly where the gun ended up, he’d already launched himself at his target and caught him around the middle before the man even had time to realize that he was now without a weapon. There was a dull thud as the back of the target’s head hit the edge of the kitchen table.

Now they were on an even playing field. Well, not really even, considering Kakashi was highly skilled in various types of martial arts and killed people for a living. [i]Oh, wait, so does this guy.[/i] Still, Kakashi was more skilled at hand to hand combat and that thought made the assassin smile brightly.

The two of them crashed to the ground and Kakashi allowed the impact to separate them. He rolled on his side and got back to his feet quickly, settling into his fighting stance. He definitely preferred not to grapple on the floor if he could help it. That just took too damn long and Kakashi just wanted to get this mission over and done with already.

As he popped back up, the assassin noted with some surprise that the target was still smiling widely despite now being unarmed and having cracked the back of his skull against a very unforgiving surface.[i] Whatever[/i]. But then his target started speaking. [i]Oh great. He’s going to tell me why he’s still smiling. What a stooge.[/i]

“Well, well…You’re not nearly as dumb as you look,” the target said.

Kakashi decided to let the insult slide. He supposed the point of the comment was to get him to react irrationally. He refused to let himself rise to the bait. He simply smirked, clearly saying ‘fuck you’ without ever opening his mouth, and crouched low in preparation.

The fight began then. Punches and kicks were traded with neither of them landing many blows. Kakashi felt a little burst of adrenaline at the thought that this guy might actually be able to keep up with him long enough for this to be somewhat of a challenge. It had been a long time since anyone had really challenged Kakashi. He and Ibiki often sparred for fun, but they had quit being serious long ago and he honestly didn’t know who was more skilled nowadays.

Kakashi could see his target’s anger rise when he was incapable of landing many hits and decided to use that to his advantage. Anger equaled sloppy. Kakashi subtly switched from being on the offensive to taking more of a defensive stand. With each blocked kick or punch, he could see his target’s anger spike a little more. This was perfect; this was exactly what Kakashi wanted.

The civility of the fight was quickly disintegrating. The fact that the contest was becoming a bar-room brawl didn’t bother Kakashi in the slightest; he’d been in quite a few of those as well. It changed the rules, however. Everything and anything was game now and the only object was to inflict as much pain as possible.

The fact that the whole scene was taking place in a kitchen changed the dynamics slightly. Kakashi was feeling a little claustrophobic but it wasn’t really a major concern, just a minor annoyance. He became infinitely more annoyed when his target picked up a chair and hefted it like a club. [i]A chair. A fucking chair, was this guy serious?[/i]

They had circled and maneuvered until they ended up back by the table they had started at. The target started swinging then and Kakashi was minimally impressed by the man’s ability to swing such a heavy, clumsy weapon with any accuracy at all. Not that he came anywhere close to actually hitting Kakashi, but the fact that he was in the general area at all was pretty notable.

The assassin’s analytical brain quickly supplied him with the information that the best course of action would be to try and take the target’s legs out from under him. He dropped low to the ground and swept out with his leg. Damn it! He missed and almost had his ankle broken in the process when his target stabbed downward at his leg with the chair.

Thinking quickly, the blond let himself be backed up against the wine rack on one of the counters. Kakashi’s fingers closed around the neck of a bottle and, just as the target was swinging down with the chair, Kakashi spun and swung up with the bottle of wine.

Several things happened simultaneously. The wooden chair was smashed into the countertop behind him instead of crashing down onto Kakashi’s head. The force of impact shattered the poorly made chair and sent pieces of wood flying. One of the smaller splinters arced upwards and the shard imbedded itself into Kakashi’s cheek. Pain blossomed across the sensitive nerve endings in the assassin’s face, but he figured he definitely made out the better of the two.

Kakashi’s strike had been flawless. The nauseating, wet ‘crunch’ that resulted from the bottle striking the target across his nose and cheek was lost within all the noise of the chair exploding against the formica. It wasn’t like the bar fights in the movies where the bottle breaks and there’s a musical shower of glass. The thick glass remained intact and from the look of the new indentation his target was sporting on the left side of his face, it had shattered the cartilage in his nose as well as destroying the zygomatic and nasal bones.

A very vulgar, yet creatively diverse string of curses exploded from the target’s mouth after the blow was delivered and Kakashi was once again amused by the observation that people who inflicted pain on others usually couldn’t tolerate it themselves. A look of pure unadulterated rage settled on his target’s face then and Kakashi knew that they were getting to the heart of things now. The man was transforming before his eyes.

Here now was the serial killer. Here was the sadist who’d raped and killed eleven women. Here was the man who’d carved up bodies in gruesomely painful, completely horrifying ways. This man was capable of things far beyond what the man who had previously been here was. He drew strength from his rage and the need to inflict pain. The joy of watching others in agony was calling to him now, and pride and self-preservation were no longer factors. He was out to make Kakashi suffer.

The blond wished there was something he could have done about the target picking up a broken piece of the chair leg, but there wasn’t. The damn thing had just been lying there on the counter right by his target’s fingers. His only options now were to react or get hit with the thing. So he chose to react. With his target swinging wildly and with little coordination, it was easy to do. He avoided the first several blows with relative ease and minimal effort, while at the same time swinging out again with the wine bottle still clutched in his fist. But he’d not noticed his gun still lying on the floor where he’d tossed it earlier.

In the middle of a spin move he was using to dodge yet another of the clumsy attacks, he stepped right on the discarded weapon and lost his footing. He went down on one knee at the same time that the gun skidded away under the cabinets. Surprise that he’d forgotten to factor in the position of the gun into the layout of the room while he was fighting was surely to blame for the fact that he didn’t even bring up a hand to deflect the blow his target struck to his temple.

Pain rocketed through his body as the target attacked him with the chair leg. [i]Damn it.[/i] It was a costly error, and it hurt like a mother fucker, but nothing Kakashi couldn’t handle. He ducked to avoid another blow, and rolled over putting his back against the island in the middle of the kitchen, losing his wine bottle in the process. The blond hated being backed up against anything, but dinner had obviously been prepared on the island and there were several utensils that he could wield as weapons if needed.

But the first order of business was to get him to drop that chair leg. Man that thing had hurt like a bitch. If he could avoid getting hit with that again, it would definitely be a good thing. Kakashi kicked out as his target advanced, but this time it was much less effective in separating the man from his weapon. So another try was warranted. When the target tried to strike at him again, he was close enough for Kakashi to close his fingers around the man’s wrist.

He used the hold on the man’s wrist to bring the target’s hand down on the edge of the countertop with quite a bit of force. That made his target let go of the chunk of wood. It also had the added benefit of making the man release another string of those curses Kakashi found so amusing. But now was not a time for amusement, it was a time for action. He head-butted the target at the same time he let go of his wrist.

The target stumbled backwards and Kakashi used the time to pick up the first thing off the countertop that he could get his hands on. [i]A cutting board?[/i] Well, it would have to do, at least it was solid wood and now Kakashi knew personally just how much that could hurt. He advanced with his new weapon and his target backtracked.

Kakashi had the unfortunate disadvantage of this not being his kitchen. While he’d perfectly mapped (or at least he thought he had before the whole gun incident) all the visible elements of the room. He had no knowledge of the details hidden from view. He couldn’t know what was in all the drawers and cabinets, but he could damn sure guess what it was that his target was going after when he opened a particular drawer he had been making his way toward.

A knife. Luck seemed to have turned her back on him that day. His target had managed to come up with a knife, and all he could get was a cutting board. Well at least he was comforted by the fact that the knife looked pretty dull as he swung the solid chunk of wood in his hands at his target’s head. The target ducked the swing easily and Kakashi lamented the fact that this weapon wasn’t nearly as aerodynamic as the wine bottle, it made for much slower strikes.

The fight was back on with full throttle intensity. The target lunged at Kakashi, slashing away like some underpaid actor in a low-budget horror film while the assassin deflected blows and tried to land a few of his own with his makeshift weapon. They continued on this way for several minutes with neither gaining the advantage.

Kakashi definitely considered himself a patient man. He knew to be composed and calm when fighting, to wait for an opening instead of forcing it. So consequently, he was ready for immediate action when the man staggered forward after having a particularly savage blow deflected. Kakashi raised the cutting board and brought it down on the top of the guy’s head. Hard. There was a sickening crack and a howl of pain as the guy fell to his knees under the onslaught. But the target didn’t let up on his grip of the knife and he didn’t go down for good.

Before Kakashi had time to react, the asshole slashed upward wildly. It held no grace, no style, and normally would have held no chance of actually injuring the assassin, but today was just not Kakashi’s day.

The wild arc caught the blonde right under the ribs. Pain lanced through him as he dimly realized that this was going to be one bad gash. He ignored the fact that he had almost been gutted like a fish and followed the man’s momentum to step and roll behind him, avoiding yet another erratic swing of the knife. He pulled the cutting board back again and swung down, connecting with the back of target’s head. This time, the blow knocked him unconscious.

Taking a deep breath he looked down at his torso. [i]Fuck. It was bad.[/i] Blood was already soaking through his shirt. The gash looked to be about five to six inches long and he could feel that it was deep as well. He walked over to the counter and picked up a dishtowel, a ridiculously frilly thing with apples or some other random fruit on it, and pressed it to the wound hoping to abate the blood flow some.

Having attended to his wound somewhat, Kakashi kept an eye on the unconscious form and located the gun he’d kicked from his target’s hands earlier. Picking it up, he walked over and calmly placed two shots to the back of the man’s skull. [i]How’s that for untraceable, shot with his own gun. [/i]

He let his eye do a quick sweep of the area; things had definitely not gone according to plan, but at least now he didn’t have to do any fake ransacking. He wanted to make sure he didn’t leave any evidence that would ever be traced back to him. He picked up the knife and stuck it in the waistband of his pants. Not that his DNA was in the system and could be traced back to him, but you could never be too careful. He also located the gun he’d brought into the home, and retrieved it from under the cabinets. Fingerprints weren’t an issue because of his trusty, ever-present gloves.

Satisfied that everything was as in as much order as it could be at this point, Kakashi made his way up the stairs and to the man’s bedroom. It was hard to rifle through drawers and shoe boxes in the closet looking for valuables while pressing one hand to the gash in his side, but he made it happen. When he was sure that he had taken enough items for this to look like a credible robbery, he left exiting the same way he entered, hoping he made it back to his hotel before he bled to death.

***

Kakashi’s hands were slippery with his own blood when he heard his cell phone ringing. The Machine Head song could easily be heard over the silence in his hotel room. The blond frowned, what was Sasuke doing, calling him now? He was supposed to be in California on a mission. He set down the needle and thread on the bedside table and grabbed the roll of gauze he’d set there, hastily pressing it against the wound on his side.

The call was already going to voice mail by the time he retrieved his cell, but he dialed the number from memory immediately.

“Uchiha.” The voice on the other line was smooth and familiar, but Kakashi had never heard it laced with such vulnerability before.

“Yo,” Kakashi responded while trying to figure out a way to hold the phone and the gauze that didn’t open his gash and cause it to bleed even more.

“You could have at least let me leave a voicemail before you called back.”

The comment was so typical of Sasuke and said with his usual amount of bored arrogance that only someone who knew him really well would have noticed the slight tremor in his voice. Kakashi noticed it; he just didn’t know what to do about it.

Not for the first time, he wished he and Sasuke had a typical father/son relationship. That way he could just ask what was wrong and Sasuke would actually answer him. Then he could give advice and comfort like he was dying to, but none of that would happen with the type of relationship they had now.

He probably could tell the teen that he viewed him as a son, but he was incredibly afraid that Sasuke would reject his feelings and refuse to acknowledge him in that role. After all, it wasn’t like the brunet had never known his biological parents and he was definitely old enough to remember them before they had died. He probably wasn’t looking for anyone to fill in those roles and Kakashi didn’t want it to seem like he was trying to replace the late Uchihas.

Kakashi pulled more gauze off of his nightstand and continued pressing it to the wound. “If I’d done that, then I wouldn’t have gotten under your skin. You know I have to annoy you every time you call.”

“True, which is why I rarely call.” Kakashi could hear rustling in the background but it was impossible to tell what Sasuke was doing as he talked.

In the silence that followed Kakashi could just picture Sasuke kicking himself for that remark. He’d just admitted that something was going on and he wanted to talk to Kakashi about it. Kakashi wished that Sasuke was calling because talking to the older man soothed him and made him feel better, but more than likely he just needed Kakashi’s expertise about something.

“So why did you call?” Kakashi prompted when it didn’t appear that the brunet was going to offer any details. There was a long pause before Kakashi heard a shakily indrawn breath.

“I…I don’t know.” Sasuke finally answered, sounding so small and wounded and far more broken than Kakashi had ever heard him.

He was instantly on high alert. “Where are you?”
Sasuke’s voice dropped to a whisper. “California.” .

“Fuck.” Kakashi muttered. Sasuke was out on a mission. A complicated one, he remembered, instantly calling up the specs he’d secretly read, and he was in the midst of a total meltdown.

“Okay. Okay, calm down. Tell me what’s going on.” Kakashi said. He sat down on the bed, completely forgetting about his cut, and promptly grunted in pain when his actions pulled at the wide slash.

“What was that?” Sasuke asked instead of answering the older man.

“Nothing, just trying to sew myself back together,” he answered flippantly, trying to lighten the mood and instantly regretting it when Sasuke drew in another one of those shaky breaths that gave Kakashi the ridiculous urge to hit something. With everything that Sasuke apparently had going on, he didn’t need to add worrying about Kakashi to the list.

“Bad?” The concerned note in his voice wouldn’t have been clear to anyone who didn’t know him well.

“No. I’m doing the repairs myself kiddo, which ought to tell you that the damage wasn’t too bad.” Kakashi again tried for light and teasing.

“Too bad. I thought someone had finally done you in,” Sasuke tried to achieve the same level of teasing indifference that Kakashi had, but failed miserably.

Kakashi wished he’d never opened his mouth about getting hurt in the first place. It certainly made things easier. He knew the boy cared about him as much as he was capable of; the problem was Kakashi had no way of knowing just how much Sasuke was capable of. “So what’s up?” Kakashi asked trying to sound bored when really he was anything but.

“It’s too much to go into right now. I don’t even know why I called.”

The answer was vague and evasive, but Kakashi was used translating Sasuke-speak. In the teen’s voice, Kakashi could hear the desperate need for him to understand what he was really saying. And he thought he got the message. Sasuke just wanted to talk to him. Ok, he could do that. “Read any good books lately?”

The highly uncharacteristic nervous snort of laughter Sasuke released let Kakashi know that this was the right course of action. “Actually, yeah. I just bought the newest in the ‘Make out Paradise’ series and finished it last night.”

It would never fail to amuse Kakashi that Sasuke had eventually come to love the erotic novels that he himself read religiously. They chatted on for a few minutes about the various books they’d read by their favorite author. At the end of the conversation, Sasuke’s voice had lost that wounded, broken sound and Kakashi was feeling well pleased about this newest development in their relationship. It was nice to offer something like that to the boy. He’d wanted to comfort and take away his pain for so long…it was nice to finally be given the opportunity.

They said their goodbyes and hung up. Kakashi allowed himself a few moments to enjoy the warm glow that bonding with Sasuke had given him before shuffling together and forcing those thoughts into the bin labeled ‘Sasuke- father/son stuff.’ Kakashi the paramedic, who had disappeared when Sasuke had called, reappeared then and the blonde resumed the task of stitching himself up. He really would like to complete the job before he bled to death.