Poison

by Umechaw

Maybe he was sick, and wrong, and he ruined that pretty little innocence of hers. Maybe his touch was like poison.

Author's note: A dark Kakashi/Sakura— it is also my first time writing anything within the Naruto fandom and for these characters, so criticism is entirely welcome.

Warning for sexual themes

Edit: Thank you to those who pointed out that there were a few typos in here. I have gone through and given it a bit of an edit, though I'm sure I've missed many mistakes and created quite a few more. Some things have been changed, as well as a new scene, though I'm not sure it fits entirely well. Opinions?

Edit #2: This story bugs me. I'm never happy with it. More changes!

I'd also like to apologise for changing it so much. It is very different from when I first posted it, most likely causing the original likers (totally a word) to dislike it, but I apologise. I don't think I'll change it any more.

And thank you so much for the reviews, I love every single one of them!

Poison

It was a gradual thing. Like a slow death. A slow, irreversible poison. It felt like it had started at his fingertips and moved, numbing as it went. He thought of her innocence being peeled away layer by layer, and maybe he was sick, and wrong, and he could have taken it away from her sooner. And maybe he would have taken such cruel satisfaction from it.

During those times when she was younger, and wouldn't have understood anything beyond the fairytales that had been fed to her, wouldn't have understood the notion of fucking that often had the adults around her breaking, he stayed away. Determined not to become a monster. But his hands itched and his mind left whatever woman he had pressed against a surface in his rooms and strayed to that blossoming girl. He imagined less curves in his palms, slender, callus hands that always sought to be strong and reliable. And pink, pink swallowed his eyes. And he wanted to give into the temptation of taking young and impressionable Sakura to his bed and hear something other than the cheap, repetitive moans.

She had seen him one night, after a mission that took them out of Konoha for weeks on end, making his way back to his room at the lodging with a woman already undressing herself beside his door. He couldn't explain why he would do something so irrational as to bring a woman into this place with thin walls, with his three wards so close. Sakura's pink hair had been tousled, her eyes heavy as she rubbed them. The intoxicated lady didn't notice the girl's presence but he did, he saw her staring at the way his mouth and his hand moved. She was positively curious, and he realized his mask was halfway down his throat and she probably saw the hints of a face considered infamous. And curious, at how that woman could sound so distraught and yet drag him closer because of it. It was a reminder that she had no idea. She was just a little baby, and he cared for the pink-haired baby of their group too much. He knew it wouldn't be a pleasure for her— he would be hurting, ruining the sweetness that the girl had. Ruining everything that was Sakura. She was left in the face of something dark and wholly nefarious, a world she wasn't supposed to be in, not yet. One that belonged to him. That set boundaries for them.

He watched her bask in her youth, yearning to snatch it up and crush it in his palm. He thought himself so wrong and disturbed for it, and was very aware that others would think similarly had he ever lunacy to tell anybody. He had been given the expectations to protect her, teach her, not destroy her, and Kakashi began to realize he couldn't fulfill that duty.

And it only became harder.

One day, she suddenly wasn't a baby. One day she wasn't a little fawning girl anymore, bent on an equally little boy who wouldn't know emotions if he pulled it out of his ass, unlike him. He knew emotion, he saw it in her, and he saw it in himself whenever she was near. She was suddenly dangerous; she was suddenly catching up to him. Maybe it was the hardships she had endured, the things she had seen as a kunoichi, because the change was hardly physical. All supple and thin, with only her bright green eyes hinting at that strange maturity. She presented herself with naive accuracy and careless sentiments, which somehow made such perfect sense.

And then there was the one night that changed things again. She came across him, sitting at a lonely stool, at a bench looking out at the streets, illuminated with the loud voices of a social Saturday night. He was watching people, families, those that held hands and glanced at each other in such ways. Even those surrounded by friends, and so easily. She addressed him with her usual perk, while he cradled the alcohol in his hands. Instead of carrying on her way she came around the entrance of the bar and sat beside him, all of sixteen, ignoring his arguments towards the legality of the situation. In the moments of silence she took it, when he said something cold or sarcastic she laughed, when he spoke she listened. Where he usually hated sharing anything, he found he didn't notice, or pretended not to, when she stole sips at his drink.

While he knew happiness was a fickle thing, in those short hours he was sure he felt something comparable to it.

'Sometimes I think you can't stand being lonely.'

She had to say things like that, at the worst of times— times like these, when alcohol made him vulnerable, and they found themselves alone and all his futile attempts to leave her behind continued to shatter. When he realized she made a considerable effort to counteract his loneliness by giving him the attention not many others cared to give. For some reason she always had an awareness and consideration of him, even in a crowd. For some reason, he hadn't scared her off, and he was sure her stubbornness and that motherly way she cared for her team had something to do with it.

But he didn't understand why she wasted her time.

'What makes you think I'm lonely?' He couldn't bite back the laconic edge to his voice.

The truth was he was very, very lonely. And the greater truth was that she made him feel less so.

She shrugged. Such an annoyingly neutral action that left him unsatisfied and curious. 'I saw you looking at those people. Friends and couples,' she told him factually. 'Sometimes I think you want that.' There was nothing scolding in her voice, nothing that was indicating the way he lived in his solitude was a bad thing, or that she wanted to change him, like somebody else might have. Sakura was simply stating it as it was.

Kakashi placed the bottle to his lips and took a large swallow, when he retreated he gasped through his words, slurred. 'Maybe I look at them and I think that they're wasting their time with petty sentiments,' he muttered, refusing to look at her. 'Some people don't need that, Sakura.' He never said he was one of those people.

Sakura smiled gently, and lowered a hand on his shoulder with all the cautiousness in the world. He glanced at her then, from the corner of his eye, the bottle wrapped tightly in his fingers. The way she looked back made him feel naked, like she could see right through him. And he knew this had not always been the case— it had taken years for Sakura to get under his skin, to even attempt to understand him, but yet she took the time.

'Well when you need it, I'm always here for you, sensei. I promise.' Again, like a cat in her discretion, Sakura leant forward and pressed her lips to his face, managing to catch the small patch of bare skin just beneath his right eye. In a second she was gone again, and so was that specific moment that changed things. She bid him good night, and continued on her way.

It was only the next morning that he found out she had skipped her friend Ino's birthday celebration to spend the night beside him.

He stopped looking at her in such a self-absorbed way and began to notice things. The beat of her heart or the gentle pink on her cheeks when he experimentally touched her in passing. A simple brush to her shoulder or a smoothing of her hair. "You've got food on your face" and a wipe to the chin.

Kakashi was not stupid— you didn't waste that much time on somebody for friendship, and the amount of time she wasted on him grew exponentially. For a while after the recognition, Kakashi thought she was crazy for loving such an old, callus man. What girl would want to be stuck with someone like him, whose eccentricities often crossed lines? And then he realized, or remembered, that Sakura wasn't like the other girls. At least, not anymore.

She was far more defined then that. Sharper.

Everything was so strangely beautiful, everything down to the physical attraction he had for the girl, to the plump curve of her bottom lip. A new devotion for him came out of nowhere like a calamity, so powerful. Why would something as lovely as she want to surround herself with him, this tainted grey mass? He should have found it unbearably annoying that her attempts to blackmail the mask from his face doubled and intensified, that she began to dig deep into his untouched past, but he didn't. He reveled in it. He secretly imagined what her reaction might be if he were to show her his face, if she would think him handsome or attractive. Kakashi imagined she would listen to him, were he to tell her every little piece of history that made him who he was. She would put aside her giggles and teasing, he knew. While most of the other women he had ever been with had barely sent him above the clouds, Sakura sent him down in a completely different direction, down to the very bottom, so heavy and hazed with everything that was her, that was forbidden.

And then after years of fascination and self disgust turning to a few delicate, however drunken kisses, boundaries were overstepped. The poison had reached his heart.

She returned from that mission changed. For a long time he was sure he would never see that annoyingly endearing smile again, or have her drag him home after a heavy night of drinking, or deal with his stupid jokes and his tardiness and his porn, and his pathetic friendship.

Kakashi still remembered the feel of her warmth and her body and the way that she looked at him.

She had been a dead thing with aimless eyes. He had wanted her so badly, from years of aching graciousness. It was no selfless act. She was so frail, and his impulse grew with seeing her for what she was, naked and nearly as pale as himself. And he wanted to be inside her, moving, burying the horror that he had nearly lost her.

'I don't understand how she's even here.'

He moved into that hospital room with hate for the fear that was coursing through him, the words Tsunade had murmured. That door had snapped against the side of the wall and held on uselessly to its hinges, swinging back, and he didn't even remember shutting them.

'Kakashi, she should be dead. The rest of them were dead.'

The air in that room seemed to be smothered in red, in blood, and it left a trail, he saw the handprints of blood from the bed sheets, to the walls, to the floor. And sitting there was the most wounded creature he had ever seen.

'She's refusing the medics. They're all afraid she'll punch holes through them. She doesn't want to see anyone.'

He had seen her shaking, and he felt his own rough eyes itch, when the naturally stable and vibrant girl in his life glanced up at him from the floor with those silent green eyes, bleeding all over the place from a reopened wound that she'd shabbily tried to close, and somehow she was still too obstinate to call for help as she attempted to heal herself with her miniscule amount of chakra.

His world had momentarily shattered. He had never felt so vulnerable in his life, and even more so when he yanked that mask down, and she looked upon that face for the very first time, he didn't get the reaction he wanted. She didn't blush or giggle or gape, she didn't do anything.

He had touched her, and he wasn't sorry, even though he tried to be. She was already so mottled and his hands did nothing but dirty her further. His mouth fought for gentleness, but he had dreamed so long for that moment of sliding tongues and crashing teeth, he didn't give her enough time to adjust against awkward, ruthless lips. She was crying, and it wasn't for the pain of him being inside her. Inside her, still clothed and shaking, nearly falling against the strain on his arms. Her fingernails ripped at his clothes just as he ripped her apart. He thought he'd completely ruined the girl, and Kakashi had never despised himself more so then he did in that moment. But then her lips quivered. Those tiny whimpers rushed from her mouth. The snapping arch of her back brought about sounds of his own. He kissed her everywhere he could, over the scars and bruises, every place he could reach. God, she was nothing like what he usually wanted. What he usually had. She was frail and tiny and would not hold the attention of a vain man such as himself, and yet she did.

He couldn't deny, those minutes were pure bliss, and those little sounds she made were better than anything he had ever heard. There had been a careful moment when the young girl grazed her hips against his and tried to match the unsteady rhythm he had set, holding onto him so tightly until he shut his eyes and let himself go in that loving, coaxing darkness she presented until he was spent and smothering her.

There was a silence that followed the look she gave him, like he was a stranger, still above her and shuddering. She shoved him away, trying to yank clothes over her small curves, curling against the wall. She mumbled at him for a while, maybe telling him to go away, but then she stopped. For the first time in years his body had vibrated with life, but the silence brought that poison crashing back over him.

This can't happen again.

He hated that bitterness in the air. She didn't want to be coddled, so very confused for that first time, when all he wanted to do was hold her. He hadn't forced himself on her, but he might as well have. She wasn't in any position to fight back. He distanced himself, thinking it was the best thing for her. He realized all he could bring was a few moments peace, and passion, and then an awful quietness that seemed to corrode everything. Those moments of her responding hips and an unseasoned mouth began to fade.

Kakashi knew that the girl loathed him for it, despite the awkward gentleness he had tried to maintain. It didn't matter because afterwards, his indifference hurt. He didn't talk to her about it, or talk to her at all. When he realized he couldn't do anything for the girl except fuck her and make her feel awkward, never letting himself into such a vulnerable, naked state again was completely acceptable. He could tell that every time she looked at him, as they attempted to coexist, she saw those specific moments of that specific night in her crowded mind, and she couldn't stand the feeling that came with it. The feeling of him. Like poison.

She hated him and he had nothing but her hatred. He told himself he shouldn't care. It wasn't like him to care. She was far too young, or he was far too old, and that alone should have been his resolve on the matter. But she wasn't there in his life before and a very noticeable hole was left in her place, and he realized how much of himself he had molded around the girl. She avoided him, and it made him snap, like she'd been his stability all this time. Snap and pour over, fucking faceless women and sometimes hurting them. He felt like he was choking from it all. She couldn't take away that newfound solidity in his life.

'Sensei.'

She had the audacity to enter his rooms without permission, grumbling over the fact that she had been the one forced to force him out of his antisocial sulk to celebrate with the rest of his team in one of Suna's festivals, that he had no aspiration of remembering. He barked at her to leave him alone, partly drunk and wholly libidinous.

'Come on, Sensei. Everyone's waiting.'

'Good for them. Now get out.' He tossed a glare over his shoulder, and regretted it.

He saw her and what she was wearing, or lack thereof, and his mind faltered. Thatdress. She never wore dresses like that. Self-conscious little Sakura never gallivanted around in tight little dresses.

'What are you wearing?'

Her chin jutted out. 'It's commonly called a dress. An attire preferable to women, but there have been many cases of men who—'

'That is not a dress. It is a scrap of material that you've managed to glue to yourself. Go put something else on.'

He tried to turn away from those legs, but they were coming towards him.

'No.'

'What?'

'No! Where do you get off telling me what to wear?' She tried to jab him in the shoulder. He grabbed her hand before she made contact with a place his teeth grinded at to be mindlessly touched— at the back of his mind he knew she knew he hated being touched there, being witness to a vigilant attempt at breaking Naruto's fingers— and he stood from the chair awkwardly. His looming height made her shuffle back. He shoved her hand to her chest.

'When I am your superior and doubly when you look like a prostitute.'

She slapped him. She had to stand up on the tips of her toes to do so, but the sound echoed in his ears, and he vaguely realized his face hurt and that he'd somehow survived one of Sakura's slaps. He managed to notice her wide, glassy eyes.

There was silence while she absorbed what she had done and what he had said, but it only lasted a moment, because she never had been timid vocally.

'You pig! You really deserved that, you know? After everything you've done—'

'After everything that I've done?'

She had to step back again. 'I've done nothing, Sensei. Nothing.'

'You came into my room looking like this.'

She gaped, and then blushed furiously. 'Y-You think I dressed this way for you?'

'Judging by the big red blotchy patches on your face, I'd assume so.'

'You know, since that night there have been plenty ofotherguys, and you're nothing compared to any of them!'

Kakashi felt numb.

She punched him squarely in the chest. 'You ignore me for months, avoid me like the plague after leaving me on that floor—' her faced scrunched up in the most oddly unattractive way. Oddly, because it still made him want to kiss her. Kiss those tears off her face. 'You— You fucked me.'

'You loved me.' he countered lowly.

Silence was creeping up on him, and reminded him of a splinter beneath the nail, just a constant, dull ache until you nudged it. The pain was about to flare.

And in the midst of it, 'You didn't… You didn't love me?' she whispered.

Kakashi's stomach twisted, teeth grinding around a reply, but nothing came. Her eyes were alight with angry tears now, making that green shine at him. Staring up into his face, hating him, regretting him. She was going to leave, probably make a mistake and find some other asshole, allow him to ruin her life for another night. He couldn't stand the thought of anybody seeing her like he did, and he was afraid too many people already had.

That silence didn't matter. She tried to leave, and probably leave him forever, but his body found its way between her and her final exit, and a hand shoved her wrist back against the wall. Shock fell over her. She thought he would have let her go.

'Take off your dress.'

'What are you doing, Sensei?'

'Don't call me that.'

'That's what you are.' she said dully, plucking the straps from her shoulders.

'A Sensei doesn't fuck his student.'

'But you did.'

His gaze narrowed.

It was different this time. She wasn't so completely defenseless. And he knew that if she wanted to, she would have already punched a hole through his head. She stood there, her chest hopelessly bare, her dress a pool around her feet.

He stroked her wrist, as tears began to fall down her face.

'Why are you doing this to me?'

A shudder ran up his spine. Because he couldn't be indifferent anymore. Because he needed her. He thought of that night at that tavern again, where she had kissed him and promised him that if he ever needed the company and affection normal people craved, she would be there.

And she was there, right now.

'Because I can't stand being lonely anymore.' his voice cracked.

Her arms came around his neck tentatively, and she wrapped her fingers through his coarse hair. His covered mouth skimmed over her jaw, soaking his mask in old tears that were dribbling down her face. His hands, shaking, touched her skin. Touched her breasts, made her whimper. He had no right, and that was perhaps his favorite thing about her. She wasn't supposed to be his, yet she was.

'We should stop, Sensei,' she said uselessly, while pulling at his hair in a familiar way.

He would not. That simple fact seemed to resolve things for her.

He slid her underwear down planes of smooth skin. Her legs wrapped around his slender hips. Her tiny hands came up to press wearily into his cheeks, brushing the dark material, and when he gave no restraint she pulled it down slowly. Over the long slope of his nose, the set of his mouth and jaw, and he felt like hiding, even as he loved the way she followed his features and her cheeks darkened. She yanked awkwardly for his vest and then his undershirt until it was pulled over his head, leaving his silver hair further tousled. And then he led her hands, making sure she was acquainted with each slope and muscle, because she wanted to learn. She pushed her open legs closer to the indiscreet swell between them, and he undid his pants, sliding them down.

'There hasn't been anyone else,' she whispered quickly against his ear. And he slowed then, realizing that in his rush he hadn't prepared to be gentle, assuming anyone else she had fucked had made quick and inconsiderate work of the pain. He brushed her hair from her eyes gently and realized he was frowning, because she was staring at his mouth, her face a cringe of guilt.

'I just... before, when I said that, I just...'

'I know. I'll be gentle, Sakura.' he murmured, brushing her cheek with his thumb. He wouldn't be anything but.

She nodded softly. 'Okay.'

He watched her face as he slowly buried himself in her, watched her brows scrunch, the way she bit at her lip angrily, the muscles of her neck constrict. And then he left a long trail with his mouth up every ridge and slant. She was shaking furiously with her head buried against his arm, already breathless.

Kakashi grunted; she tightened almost devastatingly. 'Sakura,' he said, the stubble on his chin tickling her cheek. 'Sakura. Relax for me.'

'It really hurts,' she almost sobbed.

He murmured against her ear until she calmed and softened in his arms, and began listening to him until she was riveted on his mouth and the words that brought a flex and a distinct rush of pleasure, and he started moving, shallow and careful, still talking between the brushes of his tongue against hers.

Her body was heavy against his and he liked the knowledge that she trusted him in that moment, to hold her up, to not hurt her. His thrusts were quicker now, coordinated. Out, up, straight home, bruising, but he soothed her, and she moaned and pulled her legs tighter around him.

'Say my name.'

Her already pink face turned a shade darker. 'Sensei...' Kakashi cringed and hated that word.

'No.' He shook his head, biting at the base of her neck, hard enough that she flinched. 'No, idiot girl, my name...'

'Kakash...Kakashi,' she moaned quietly, the word strange on her lips, yanking at the small hairs on the back of his neck.

'Louder,' his thumb drew patterns across a pert nipple, making her whimper.

'Kakashi,' Sakura ground out, still incredibly weak.

'Sakura.' His hand fell between them. She began to question what he was doing, but he only heard the first syllable of his name, the vowel being buried amongst her hitching breath, and then her cries.

'Kakashi!' she sobbed loudly, now breaking skin with her nails. He grinned broadly, a handsome smile that had his teeth flashing in the dim light. He hoped everyone could hear them, hear her say his name on her own accord.

'Kakashi,' she whispered, making his name sound beautiful.

He crooned wordlessly, bringing his hand up to brush the pink bangs from her cheek, feeling himself drown in her, and knew that in that moment it was everything, that his name was the only logical, consistent thought in her brain. Knew that he was the only one who could make her feel like that. He kissed her softly, which seemed so satirical to the way he was now moving inside the girl, bruising, ruining, but even that was lathered in his affection, his adoring, his obsession with her.

'I want you to come for me,' he murmured, grazing his teeth lazily across her jaw.

Despite the way her body shuddered in tune to his words, she shook her head across his steady shoulder. 'I can't...' Kakashi held her close. Pressed his mouth close to her ear.

'I've wanted you for a long time,' he murmured. 'Like this. I've wanted you saying my name like it's the only thing that matters. I've wanted you screaming. I want you to look at me,' his voice broke, when he saw her eyes, large and fixated, he felt intruded upon, felt ugly and revolting, because that's what he was. Yet he loved it. 'I want you hating every single moment you can't be like this with me. Like I have. Like I imagine every other woman I've ever been with, to be you.'

Oh, she was so close now. 'Come for me,' he whispered desperately, on the verge of spilling over. 'Please, only for me, Sakura.'

When she did, it was glorious.

When he did, in the aftermaths of her euphoria, where she was glowing and sated, he turned rigid and desperate. He finished inside her, while reveling in the sounds she made. At the way she tugged too sharply at his hair. He slumped against her, slick with the accumulation of sweat, their arousal. He kissed her neck slowly, then her mouth. Her heart was pounding, his already calm. He pulled out of her carefully, but even then she winced, the pain rushing back.

Everything melted back into reality. Already the sweat was drying, and she was shivering in his arms against the sudden chill. He remembered the window had been open; he remembered he hadn't locked his door and that anybody could have walked in or heard them, that they could walk in now and see her like this with him. Entirely naked with her legs still tight on his waist, her hands trembling from the strain on his broad shoulders. His pants were still hitched loosely on his hips, wide open.

Kakashi swallowed, unsure of whether or not to set her down or to keep her here like this. He still found himself marveling at her, at the hair clinging to her face, the pink on her cheeks. He didn't want to move, and watch her put on that damn dress and walk out the door like nothing had happened. He didn't want her walking out into that celebration smelling of sex, of him and her. And she smelt wonderful to him, and looked so banally beautiful. He hated that he thought things like that with her.

Now the feel of her sleepily running her fingers along the expanse of his back made him want to fuck her all over again, and maybe then she would be too tired to go anywhere, and she would forget about that stupid festival. She was shifting now, most likely uncomfortable from the time spent keeping her in such a position.

Kakashi sighed, lifting her off the wall, and she placed all of her weight trustingly in his arms as he drew her down and placed her soft thighs on the equally soft sheets of his bed. She looked down, confused, embarrassed, hands still on his shoulders. Maybe she wanted to go, and leave him to that silence. Something he most likely deserved.

There were so many things he wanted to say to her. Horrible, nasty things, like asking her to stay with him tonight, that she was beautiful in that very moment, that he wanted to make love to her again, and again. He didn't want that loneliness; he wanted to take her up on that promise. He wanted her to fall asleep in his bed and wake up there like she belonged, every night and every morning. Something that stressed the point that there will be no more ignoring and denying, that even though it was so wrong for him to have her like this, he would eventually make it right.

Instead it was her that spoke first. Not so much as speak as muffle something incoherently, as she reached up, pulled his head down and kissed his ear awkwardly. He did not hear exactly what she said, and for all he cared it could have been "I'm hungry", but the fact that she had broken that silence, which continually seemed to ruin them, was enough. He did not need to ask her to stay with him, because she did not refuse when he locked his door and closed his window. Nor did she object when he discarded his pants completely, pulled aside the sheets, and kissed her. She welcomed it, threw those agile legs over his shoulders at his orders, reacting to every filthy word he spoke to her like it was innate, like some kind of nymphomaniac that wasn't being fucked for only the third time in her life, that wasn't still terribly innocent and winced at the lingering pain.

Later when the silence did come, he welcomed it, because she was strewn across him like a cat, feeling safe, maybe even natural. That silence was new, and it was warm, and mottled with her long breaths that matched a heartbeat that soon lulled him to sleep.

And he lay beside her then, and weeks, months, years later thinking he would have easily taken her to his bed long before she was ready, maybe he would have been as satisfied as he was now. And knew he never would have been.

Fin.