Pre-exam stress-relieving. I'm still on LJ-hiatus for anyone wondering.
Title: Equilibrium
Summary: KakaSasu. Sometimes it's just about being together. Post time skip.
It's not a matter of love. Not even of public displays of affection or sweet nothings or hugs or kisses or memories or stolen moments.
It's not a matter of hate. Not even of scathing words or defiance or punches or sneers or glares or pain.
It's about understanding and wanting and giving and needing and taking, taking, taking. It's selfish and human. It's draining and the energy and effort sometimes doesn't seem worth it even if it really, truly, possibly might be. Kakashi's never asked if anyone has understood it, something like this.
Kakashi sometimes wonders if Sasuke understands. Is he too young to grasp onto the meaning? Kakashi isn't sure, because he's never known what too young is. He assumes Sasuke can't remember what too young is either – they're equally tired and seen things and done things that strips their body of years of life that settle instead like heavy weights in their mind – and decides he doesn't care.
What they had, what they have, what they will have; this relationship, it's about power even, possibly. It's something not love, not hate, not even in between. Mutuality. Something both physical and emotional and entirely distracting that it aches so much; sometimes, usually, always.
"It was a successful mission," Kakashi notes unnecessarily.
Sasuke slants him the usual look of indifference. This time there's a tiny bit of annoyance tightening the edges of his eyes.
Kakashi hums, tone light and unassuming – on the surface. "Are you all right?" he asks, eye closed in a crescent.
Dark eyes become flat and Sasuke's face shifts into a blank mask. "All right?" Sasuke echoes. His voice sounds so empty.
Kakashi smiles beneath his mask and takes a few seemingly careless steps that bring him within Sasuke's personal space. He leans forward, bending slightly so he's level with the slightly shorter male, and pulls one hand free from his pocket to his chin. His eye is open again but it's still no improvement with that lazy, heavy-lidded gaze.
Sasuke stares at him, irises contracting warningly around his pupil.
"Hmm." Kakashi watches curiously as Sasuke raises a hand casually and reaches out. Kakashi doesn't move away, and merely tilts his head towards Sasuke.
Sasuke's fingers grace along his cloth-covered jaw, lightly, delicately, moving down gradually to his neck. The hand lingers, trails to the side, and then it's pressed firmly to his skin. The hand is warm and deceptively free of calluses, and Kakashi's pulse is a steady, even beat beneath his skin.
Kakashi blinks slowly, eyelids lowering and staying at a point where he can only see a slit of light and colors and Sasuke. The chakra pulses soothingly from the hand and sends an intoxicating flow of power swirling around and entwining with his chakra while the thumb strokes gently at his throat. It hurts. It feels good. It's hard to breathe.
Between them there is a balance, never too much and never too little, but Kakashi never feels completely grounded. He allows himself a small purposeful moan, careful to watch for a change in the Uchiha's reaction.
Sasuke makes a small noise in response, like a scoff but not quite. "Really," Sasuke murmurs, almost like an admonishment. He leans closer.
Kakashi drops his hand down and wraps slim, half-gloved fingers around the pale wrist. He squeezes with considerable force, not enough to hurt, not enough to be comfortable.
"Kakashi," Sasuke breathes and allows his eyelids to droop in a lazy parody of Kakashi's. There's an expression on his face, slightly thoughtful, slightly something else that Kakashi's never been able to figure out. Their lips would have been touching in a whisper of a kiss if Kakashi's facemask hadn't in the way. "Are you?"
Frozen in a tableau, his hand on his neck and his fingers around his wrist, they wonder.
What is it that they have exactly?
Kakashi rests his head on Sasuke's shoulder and turns his face towards Sasuke's throat. The younger man does not tense, even as he breathes out against the warm skin and slides his rougher, larger hand over Sasuke's smaller, paler one.
"It's complicated, hmm?"
He is still smiling beneath his mask and he isn't smiling at all, because it's not that simple to understand.