Disclaimer: NARUTO and its characters were created and are owned by Masashi Kishimoto. Original characters and plot are the property of the author. No copyright infringement intended.

Title: UNDER THESE SCARS

Pairings: ShikaNeji/NejiShika, Shikaku/Yoshino, Kakashi/Genma

Rating: M / R (language, themes, violence etc.)

Genre: Drama/Angst/General

Summary: Fate's changed the game but it's not over between the players. With Kusagakure's mission as the final round, Neji's agenda is finding his freedom. Shikamaru's agenda is forgetting his fear. But when an old and unfinished game threatens to pull Shikamaru back into the shadows of his past, Neji must make an impossible choice; his own destiny or Shikamaru's darkness. NejiShika, ShikaNeji [SEQUEL to Break to Breathe]

Timeline: Shippuden. Neji and Shikamaru aged 17-18 (post-Hidan and Kakuzu arc and pre-Invasion of Pain arc) One week after the events in REQUIEM.


UNDER THESE SCARS

by Okami Rayne

Chapter Four

The lamp was extinguished, the cold blue moonglow bright upon the floor. All was silent, all was still, but for the soft rustling of paper in the breeze. Kakashi's eyes cut immediately to the open window, to the notes on his desk, then to the intruder.

His skin pebbled, blood running cold.

Sitting at the edge of the desk, clad in his old black ANBU vest and Jōnin slacks, Genma held the Team 7 photo in one hand and a bottle of shōchū in the other, the muscles in his forearms and biceps strung like wire.

Kakashi stared at the ANBU tattoo for a long moment, before speaking. "What in the hell are you doing here?"

Genma lifted his head, gazed across at Kakashi through lidded bloodshot eyes and took a weak slug of the shōchū, his voice slurring around a rough chuckle. "Everyone's asking me that question today."

"Think you'll find your answer in the bottom of that bottle?" Kakashi asked drily, his stomach double-clutching even as he fought to calm the adrenalin pitching through him.

This is bad.

Had Genma seen Mizugumo already? Did he suspect something? Did he know something?

Kakashi scanned the room again, the Sharingan tomoe spinning. No damage, no destruction. No hint of unleashed chakra. Theories went running in all directions within his mind, but the steadiness of his instincts stood their ground, reining in his panic-driven questions with an abrupt yank.

He doesn't know.

He couldn't have. Otherwise Kakashi would've been a human-pincushion in the throes of agonising neuralgia. Yet, no devastating attack, no detectable anger. No senbons. No surprises. Genma just sat there. The element of surprise had died a quick death, leaving nothing behind but this strange silence, this unerring stillness.

Kakashi watched him for a long moment, letting his instincts root out the initial seeds of panic so that his mind could harvest the facts; firstly, Genma was unquestionably hammered and in no position to win a fight even if he wanted to start one; secondly, Kakashi could sense no killing intent, no aggression; thirdly, Genma had cuts and bruises that the copy-nin didn't recall seeing on his body…and he'd seen plenty the last time.

The last time…is that why he's…?

Kakashi's eyes pinched at the corners, uncertainty edging into his voice. "Genma…what are you doing here?"

Genma's eyes were back on the picture. "Your three little crutches. Hn. Guess you only needed two. Not that you'll do them any good, right? Men like us, we're better off alone."

Kakashi drew his head back at the cruel words, silver brows furrowed slightly. He said nothing, halted the thoughts, headed off the feelings. There was no point wandering down that road. The guilt trip would garner him nothing. A wasted journey into a desolate place littered with 'what if's' and 'if only's'. He didn't have the energy for the long walk or the slow return.

Not tonight...

Genma continued to stare without focus through his lashes, probably gazing past the faces in the photos to some phantoms in his mind, holding onto the frame of a different picture, a different time. And then he spoke it, named it. "Do you remember Tanzaku? The Kurobara?"

Kakashi blinked in surprise.

Tanzaku…

Now there was an old ANBU case he'd sooner forget than recall. The Kurobara Mission. He pulled the details from the blood-stained ledger buried in his mind, the memories slotted away like mission reports: Tanzaku Quarters. The Kurobara drug cartel. Objective: identify and eliminate the kingpin.

"You were deep undercover," Kakashi recalled. "You volunteered."

Genma hummed, lips twisting. "Kaika. ANBU." Name. Rank.

Kakashi frowned, but said nothing, waiting for the rest, watching Genma swirl the bottle with a lazy spin of his wrist, as if getting ready to toast to the memory.

"Working vice was my specialty," Genma went on. "Play-acting…pretending…" He contemplated the word, then took a long swig of the shōchū. "I was the go-to guy for jobs like that…you remember the mission…"

Remember it? Sometimes Kakashi would relive it. He'd see the smoke, the fire, the charred stumps, pieces of people scattered about like broken mannequins. He remembered the fuse burning down, a shower of sparks skating across the floor as he'd dragged Genma out – the Shiranui had been laughing…then screaming…tears and madness in his eyes….

Is that what's in his eyes right now?

Impossible to tell, Genma had his head tipped down again, those dark bronze-streaked strands framing his face, obscuring his profile. He raised the shōchū but not his head, let the lip of the bottle hover...like the words, like the memory.

Kakashi shook his head. "That was a long time ago, Genma. A lifetime ago."

"A lifetime..." Genma agreed, pausing to set the Team 7 picture face-down on the desk. "You remember what I said to you? When you pulled me out? You remember."

"No," Kakashi lied, wishing to god it was true. "I don't."

"That's the same lie you told the Captain, wasn't it?" Genma muttered, his voice a mocking slur. He swayed to his feet, one arm out for balance, the other tucked close, bottle against his chest; his lifeline, his anchor, his addiction pulling him under. "Oh wait. That's not your style…you're the silent type…in the wings…" He smirked, his voice low, taunting. "Is that where you waited, Kakashi? Did you know I was gonna do it? Did you get one of your…" He waved a hand, searching for the word. "Magic hunches…did you know what I was planning, Reiketsu-no-Kakashi?"

Everything in Kakashi went abruptly still.

Reiketsu...

A cold sliver down his spine. Dangerous talk. Dangerous ground. Kakashi took a step forward. "Genma. Listen to me."

"Fuck you." Genma raised his hand, an angry swing that sent him staggering back a step; not away from the danger zone, but deeper into it. "You should've reported my ass…my little breach of code…but you turned a blind eye…" He laughed a little, dragged his thumb across his eyebrow. "The pretty grey one, not your secret weapon."

Kakashi winced almost imperceptibly but Genma caught it, his head angling sharply at the reaction. "Did you see it, Kakashi? Did you see how it should've ended? How I needed it to end?"

Confusion tugged at Kakashi's brows, but the concern playing behind his eyes was stronger. He took a half-step forward, one hand out, palm down, no threat. "Genma," he said, low and steady, trying to capture Genma's gaze. "You weren't yourself during that time. You were under the influence of powerful drugs, integrating with corrupt people…deep undercover for months. In the end you overcame it all. You did your job. You completed the mission."

"Oh yeah, don't we all know it. BOOM." A loud rush of air between his lips and Genma mimicked the explosion, fingers splayed then snapping together into a stiff beak that he stabbed at his temple, blunt nails digging into the skin. "I saw it all in my head. I planned it. I rigged that hellhole right to its core. And then I lit it up. Blew out all the rooms and took out all the trash. Except one piece…" He looked square at the copy-nin and toasted him with a bitter tilt of the bottle. "Thanks for that, Kakashi. Thanks for being such a fucking hero."

Kakashi stared at him in bewilderment, struggling to hold back the immediate anger, the immediate hurt. He found his voice with an effort, grating out the words. "Genma. You're drunk. You don't know what the hell you're saying."

"It's the same shit, Kakashi. The same shit as ANBU…the same shit from back in the days…only…" Genma shook his head, screwed his face into a contortion of confusion and pain before jamming his fingers against his temple, teeth bared and flashing white in his gaunt face. "Only the faces are fucked up…the faces aren't the same."

Faces?

Thrown by the desperation in Genma's voice, Kakashi absorbed the slurred words in silence, his own expression carefully guarded. His eyes went from the inch-long scar above Genma's right eye to the bottle hanging from its neck between the Shiranui's scarred knuckles. This was more than booze speaking; more than drugs playing psychedelic mind games. This talk, this time, it was coming from old wounds, deep wounds…wounds that should've scarred over a long time ago.

"Alright…" Moving slow now, Kakashi took a sideways step towards the bed, set the water bottle down and straightened up by degrees, palms out – no threat, I'm your buddy, we're just talking. "So talk to me about these faces…"

Genma stared at the floor, passed a hand over his mouth and laughed against the palm. "Shit. Faces…like voices in my head. Mushi would love that."

Mushi…

Kakashi's eyes widened briefly on the name. He clocked it, searched Genma's face for further clues before leading with his next question. "Who is Mushi?"

Genma didn't seem to hear. He was pacing now, a drunken figure 8. He had the bottle pressed against his brow, as if it might leech some of the heat burning off him. Crazy, considering he looked pale as ash.

The air about him thrummed.

But the room was cold, blue-white and surreal.

Following with his gaze the halting twist and turn of Genma's steps, Kakashi felt his gut knot tighter with each staggering cycle, each staggering breath. A tailspin threatening smoke and flames.

"What faces, Genma?" the copy-nin asked at length, not expecting an answer, astounded that he got one.

It crumbled from Genma's lips in a broken chant, his breath crackling like paper through his chapped lips. "Not just his face…but Raidō…Asuma…Tsunade-sama...Shizune…S-Shikamaru…" Genma tripped over the last name, his breath skating off into a shivering laugh. "It's not them…but it's the same…like Kurobara...I'm the same..."

"That's not true. You need to stop for a second."

"Can't stop..." Genma shook his head, his pace deteriorating into a sideways sway, eyes swinging back and forth across the floor. "It's the same shit…it's everything I touch…except you…because you know how to give me what I deserve..." He stopped walking. "Because you know what kind of man I am…"

Kami.

Kakashi closed distance slowly. "Genma…"

"You knew…" Those wild eyes flashed up, glassy and red, locked on Kakashi with such accusation and anger it stayed the copy-nin mid-step. "You should've left me that night…that mission…I wanted to. I needed to."

"I want to…I need to…"

The words ran through Kakashi like a blade, double-edged with memory and the same stone-cold dread he remembered at the time. He shook his head helplessly, reached out a hand towards Genma's quivering shoulder. "I couldn't let you—"

"LET ME!?" Snarling, Genma threw off the touch with such violence that the bottle flew from his grip, went crashing into the wall with an explosive smash and spray.

On reflex, Kakashi twisted away from the detonation of glass, eyes on the floor.

A fatal distraction.

He made to turn back too late. Genma swung in under his guard and latched a hand at Kakashi's throat – taijutsu shuko ken - claw fist - the nails biting deep, fingers snarled to rip out the windpipe.

Genma had always favoured that move, back in the ANBU days.

Shit.

Kakashi froze with palms up but it availed him nothing.

Lips peeling back over his teeth, Genma drove into the grip and Kakashi's back hit the wall with a wet crack, his skull booming at the impact. Blinking back spots, he found Genma's face hovering close, hell on his breath and heat in his eyes, his pupils blown. "DAMN YOU!" Genma screamed at him. "You should've left me! I wanted to go. I needed to. I'd have been finished, I'd have been—"

"Dead," Kakashi choked out, his voice a savage whisper. "You'd have been dead."

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Nothing to recover, nothing to bury.

Nothing to mourn…

Nothing at all…and god, how it all came rushing back. The explosion lighting up Tanzaku brighter than all its casino lanterns combined; a wild orange furnace, a hell mouth yawning wide; the caved floors sticking up like ribs from a burning corpse. The blood had been black. Not red. Tinctured by ash, by dust, by cinders…by death. Death. It'd been in Kakashi's hair, in his mouth, in his nose. Not even the mask could filter the stench of cooked flesh. His Sharingan had all but emblazoned the scene; tongues of hungry flame, blistered skin split open, yellow bone, crackling sinew, a slow human roast…god, such heat. Such fire. And then, more harrowing than all of that destruction – Genma's raw-throated laughter and his guttural screams, strangled and manic as he'd fought Kakashi's grip, his bronze-flecked eyes bright with drug-induced fever, filled with fire darker than the flames.

"NO! I can't…I can't do this anymore…throw me in…I want to…I need to…it's my end…it's my fucking END!"

Darkness as Kakashi closed his eyes on the scene, on the flames, on the madness. A thing of nightmares. When his lashes flicked open, he found that same fire, that same madness, burning deep in Genma's eyes.

Recognition, it shook Kakashi to the core.

The hand around his throat loosened. "You see it, don't you?" Genma breathed, the confession rasping from his throat. "You were right…I never left…I'm always gonna be there…I'm always gonna be that man…'cause that stain…that taint…it's inside me, Kakashi…" He shook his head, swallowed as if choking. "It's in too deep..."

Kakashi felt his throat tightening, filled with imagined fumes, the burning in his chest smoking out emotion that belonged to the past. Seeing Genma this way…stripped of his relaxed smiles, his gallows humour and blasé detachment…it was a throwback to another world, another time…a time where they'd played dangerous games with their demons. Kakashi knew Genma's by name; pain, punishment, pleasure and pride. But this particular demon, this creature gazing out at him through tortured eyes…he'd only ever seen this side of Genma's darkness once before, back in the undercover days. Was it really so surprising that this part of Genma, which Kakashi had thought long gone and buried, was calling again on those dark days – and specifically, that suicidal instance in Tanzaku.

Fuel on that dark fire…that dark time…

Even the ANBU team during that assignment had been harrowed by the change in him. Their ANBU Captain blamed it on the drugs, the drinks, the dirty evils Genma had been forced to commit in order to get in deep with the Kurobara cartel. Only Yūgao and Kakashi had glimpsed the impact. The crater. The knowledge that there was a deeper toll to pay in order to pass, pretend, and play the corrupt part…

Kakashi recalled the dilapidated alleyway, the seedy meeting point – as good a gutter as any. Him, Yūgao, Genma.

"It's been two weeks since you last checked in."

"Two weeks, huh? Time flies when you're high...which I am, by the way." Genma had looked to Kakashi, bloodshot eyes glassy with cold dark humour. "That's an off the record statement by the way, Reiketsu. Wouldn't wanna break any rules, or sully my stellar reputation."

"That's enough, Kaika." Yūgao had removed her mask. "The Captain thinks you're slipping. We think he's right."

"Cute. Want me to whisper the safe word, Yūgao? What was it again? Pussy?"

"I'm going to ask the Captain to extract you," Kakashi had said. "Not that I need permission."

"To what? Blow my cover? Damn, Reiketsu. You know how many people I had to blow just to get my foot in the door?"

Yūgao had looked to Kakashi, then back. "That's not funny, Kaika."

And the laughter that'd roared from Genma's throat had been more a full-throated howl, the dawning cry of a new kind of demon. Kakashi had seen it in the flesh, hungry for pain, howling for destruction…like that night in Tanzaku.

God, what's brought you back here?

It wasn't the drugs, or even the drink…it was whatever had driven Genma back to using them again. Back in the ANBU days, Genma claimed it was ANBU's 'nothing to lose' credo that'd caused him to volunteer for the Kurobara mission; for the self-destruction, the death, the damage.

"Just doing what I gotta do."

Kakashi hadn't believed him. But he'd never asked for the truth either. He'd never allowed himself to get close enough to learn the real reason Genma had volunteered to dive into the inner circle of that hell. There had been rumours – a lost lover, someone close having passed – but it hadn't seemed to matter after Genma had finally recovered, finally moved on, finding ways to help Kakashi through his own hell before finally leaving ANBU himself years later. He'd built a new life. Secured a bright future.

But now?

What the hell had dragged Genma so far back into his past that he'd sooner see everything he'd built over the last few years burn to the ground around him? What'd torn him so far away from all that he'd achieved, from all that he'd accomplished? Tokujō. Proctor. Goei Shōtai. He'd come so far, so incredibly far, from all those demons, all that darkness…all that death.

"Why…why didn't you let me…?" Genma croaked, snaking his fingers into Kakashi's hair, watching the silver strands slip through his fingers – like so much time, like so much memory.

Memory…

Kakashi's mind filled with it…cold white flashes behind his eyes…

Small hands tangled in silver hair…trying to rub out the blood…Sakumo's blood…so much blood…his father…gone…the electric shriek of Chidori…hands, young hands…cracking through chest and bone and still-beating heart…eyes, soft brown eyes…Rin…so much blood…so much blood and he couldn't wash it out…Rin…gone…Minato-sensei…gone…Kushina-sama…gone…Obito…gone…and then Genma, thrashing in his grip…so close to being gone he was almost out of reach…

"I can't…I can't do this anymore…throw me in…"

Kakashi sucked a sharp breath, his voice shaken. "I couldn't let you…" I couldn't lose you, was closer to the truth. If he'd let Genma go that night, Kakashi would never have survived ANBU…it was Genma who'd gotten him through so much...pushed him to be more than Reiketsu-no-Kakashi…the cold-hearted killer…after a time, Genma had pushed him to be better, a little less broken, even when he'd brought the worst pieces of himself to the Shiranui's doorstep.

Did I save him…just to save myself?

"I want to…I need to…it's my end…"

The old words drifted through Kakashi like smoke, passing through fire and sparks of flashing time, passing through Genma's eyes – those windows to the past. Blown out glass. Empty frames.

Hollow inside.

Kami, but Kakashi knew that feeling.

Swallowing hard, he shook his head as much as Genma's grip would allow. "There's more than this, Genma…"

"Nothing more…"

"Yes there is. You're more than this…"

"I'm nothing more than this…" Genma hissed out the words against Kakashi's mouth and the copy-nin could taste the shōchū on his breath, damp and hot through the fabric. "You know that…you know me…you know what I want…" He spoke against Kakashi's throat this time, slipping his fingers from the ruffled silver strands to stroke down the copy-nin's sides. "What I need."

Kakashi tensed against the wall, felt like he'd been clawed rather than caressed, blood rising to the surface, a rush of heat beneath his skin. Chemistry cared nothing for propriety or timing, for right or wrong, for victims or…

Or demons.

Deep within, Kakashi's beast threw back its head, howled that lonesome, mournful cry. It ripped through him, deepening as it rode up his throat, a soft husky growl as Genma rocked against him, pinning him against the wall with the full weight of his want…of his need.

Arousal purred in Kakashi's veins…primal…instinctive…powerful…more powerful than the past.

This isn't the past…

No. In the past it'd been no holds barred, no strings attached and no questions asked. No sentiment, no softness, no sense of anything beyond the carnal satisfaction of rough animal sex. Rules that Kakashi had made and Genma had broken. Or maybe Genma had just seen all the breaches that Kakashi couldn't: when the touches turned deeper; when Kakashi's mask came off and Genma's guard came down; when violence and aggression began to bleed out into something less to do with pain…less to do with punishment…

When the threat of a forbidden kiss became more lethal than the blood they'd sought to draw.

Maybe Genma had sensed what Kakashi couldn't fathom at the time; the Shiranui being older, wiser and well-tuned to the song of those dangerous strings…those dangerous attachments...

And then a single look had destroyed everything.

"The last time you looked at me that way, Kakashi, things got very complicated between us."

Kakashi had never waited to find out – to figure out – just what the hell that'd meant. Just what the hell he'd begun to feel.

Not with Genma. Not with anyone…

He'd cut. And he'd run. And he'd never looked back. Because he wasn't built for that…had no shelves for it…they'd collapsed in him too young. Snapped clean in half. Unable to hold anything or anyone. Useless. Broken. Beyond repair.

And yet the beast bayed inside him, lost and lonely and dead to the past…

Dead to the rules…

Dead to it all…death…so much death…

And he and Genma had lived it. Breathed it. Thrown another monster into the mix. Sex and Death, two animals that consume…two still-beating hearts still hungry for life…still thirsty for feeling…

Not this feeling…not tonight…

Struggling against the pull of the sadness inside him, Kakashi's eyes pressed shut then flickered open, hovering at half-mast. "Genma…"

Genma's teeth found his throat, sank in against the fabric like fangs through guarded flesh.

The thrill was instant, the response immediate.

Snarling, Kakashi bucked hard and flipped them with barely leashed violence, pinning Genma to the wall with his arm barred across the Shiranui's throat, his other hand slapping up against the wall beside Genma's head.

Their gazes crashed, held. Smoke and fire.

Panic flashed in Kakashi's eyes; bewildered and wary. He was shaking hard. Breathing hard.

Yet Genma was utterly still against the wall, his lashes hovering low, shielding whatever beast burned behind his eyes. He cocked his head, traced his eyes in a knowing drift over Kakashi's stricken face. "Is it howling inside you?"

Kakashi's eyes widened on those words.

His own whispers coming back to haunt him…the hunger prowling close behind, closing in fast on the tripping, floundering organ in his chest. And then Genma's hands were on his skin, slipping up under the thin black vest to claw red rivers from his spine to his shoulder blades, digging in until the muscles burned and the bruises bloomed. Pleasure. Pain. Power.

Kakashi's breath sloughed out, rippling the mask, deep and heavy.

"Let me hear it," Genma said. "Let me hear it…"

Cries, screams, howls…a maelstrom belonging to their monsters. Kakashi was slipping hard, slipping fast.

Not tonight…

He didn't realise he'd rasped the words until Genma's mouth nudged his brow. "You don't get to decide…I'll take this night...I'll take it all…I'll take it by the throat, Kakashi…just the way you did to me…just the way we used to…" Genma's fingers dug deep – but not as deep as the words that followed. "'Cause I know this pain's not the only thing you wanna feel howling inside you tonight…"

Kakashi screwed his eyes shut. The muscles of his forearm striped taut across Genma's throat, pressing hard enough to restrain, but not hard enough to choke off Genma's words, or discourage his touches. Ah, but words – combined with touch – had always been Kakashi's weakness. The most potent of drugs. And Genma remembered…remembered how to touch, how to talk

He shook his head, tried to shake off the feeling. "No."

"Sh." Genma cornered him, corralled him back with a whisper. "Give me a taste, Hatake…I'll rip it out of you…teeth…tongue…just the way you want it…" A savage clutch at Kakashi's nape, predatory as a death-bite, and Genma's fingers twisted into soft silver strands, yanking hard to expose Kakashi's throat. "Just the way you need it…"

Hissing, Kakashi arched into the touch, hips rocking forward even as his shoulders rocked back, body tipped to follow. His arm loosened, fell away from Genma's throat, created space that Genma closed by leaning in, dragging his mouth over a clothed collarbone, nipping through the fabric, teeth blunted by the weave; an illusion of breaking skin, of breaking rules – the wild rousing thrill of mixing textures, mixing touch…

"Talk…" Kakashi commanded, rough, breathy. "Talk…"

Those teeth bit harder.

A quiet groan rattled in Kakashi's throat.

Growling approval, Genma's hips rocked at the sound, his lips moving against the masked jaw, pinching along its tilted edge. "You keep it hidden…always did…but you can't hide it from me…and I can't hide it from you…that's how it goes, Hatake…one animal to another…" Genma tilted his head, his words rasping like a bloody tongue across Kakashi's senses, lapping at the hot wet heat trickling through him. "The untouchable, unmoveable, Copy Ninja-no-Kakashi." Bitter. Biting. "Tch. I know how to make you move in ways no one thinks you're capable of, Kakashi…I know how to touch what lies beneath that mask…beneath this skin…" Blunt nails slid south, skating Kakashi's spine like a dulled blade. "Hell, I could get you off with just my mouth…not even touching. All those times you thought you were leading?" His fingers dipped further, circled the base of Kakashi's spine, inching lower. "Taking the top…"

Kakashi snapped a hand back, grabbed Genma's wrist to halt that wandering hand, that dangerous suggestion, his throat bobbing beneath the Shiranui's lips. "Not that…"

"Why? When I've already been inside you a thousand times, Kakashi…deeper than flesh…all those hot, hard words filling you up...you remember…" He stroked his lips to Kakashi's ear, teeth grazing the shell, tongue tracing the lobe. "I owned you long before I laid a finger on you…" Claim. Dominance.

Eyes snapping open, Kakashi's anger surged, whipped by Genma's words into a race between lust and fury. Snarling an oath, he ripped Genma away from the wall and flung him to the ground in a vicious crash and roll, fragments of smashed glass spinning across the floor, firing white in the moonglow.

"No one owns me," Kakashi uttered, moving to stand above Genma as the prone man twisted onto his back. Kakashi glared down, his body backlit by the moonlight, face lost in shadow, silver-grey hair blazing white. "No one."

Leaning on his left elbow, Genma tilted his head and dragged his tongue over the trails of blood streaking his right forearm, all the while holding Kakashi's stare. The intimacy, the defiance, the promise in the look burned through Kakashi hotter than the fires of his anger, fanning darker flames.

His Sharingan glowed, tomoe swirling. "No one," he repeated; guttural, warning.

The threat rippled on the air, seemed to feed the unseen currents shifting hot and cold between them. But Genma didn't balk, didn't back down even when he went down. He never had. Not the man Kakashi used to know – and not the man he was staring at now.

Peering up through shuttered eyes, Genma raked his gaze over Kakashi's long chiselled body in a slow scorching crawl; taking in the quivering muscles beneath the flushed skin and dark vest before lingering on the prominent bulge at the copy-nin's crotch. A faint smirk hooked the corner of Genma's mouth, his eyes flashing up. "I own you tonight, Hatake."

Kakashi lunged for him.

Twisting, Genma drove his knee up, aiming to wedge the ball of his foot into Kakashi's stomach and drive him back or straight up and over – or so Kakashi assumed, too blinded by the anger tearing around his head to recognise the feints. But the Sharingan clocked them, watched Genma's arm move in slow time, the right elbow circling up to distract as the other leg lashed out and back, the foot hooked, looking to catch Kakashi behind the calf and take his balance - a move that'd allow Genma's other foot to smash point-blank into the copy-nin's thigh, taking him down the rest of the way.

Not a chance.

Kakashi threw his weight back, hips up, and twisted lithe as a cat, torso arching almost sensually as he planted his left hand behind him before swinging his right arm back, following with his legs to complete a tight back-flip. The distance bought him time to out-manoeuvre.

Or not.

Whatever drug was riding through Genma's system seemed to kick-in under the adrenalin, lending strength and speed. Skidding on his hip, the Tokujō transitioned from his failed take-down into a grounded scissor-kick, whipping towards Kakashi's knees the second the copy-nin's feet touched down.

Cursing, Kakashi predicted the velocity, jumped, kicked off the desk and went airborne, coming down hard to crack his elbow into Genma's jaw, flooring the other shinobi hard. Fisting his right hand in Genma's vest, he yanked the Tokujō up until their mouths almost touched.

"Own this," Kakashi snarled, twisting his fingers into the boshi ken sword fist, drawing his left hand back, ready to strike the tip of his thumb into the vagal nerve at the side of Genma's neck.

A starburst flash of steel.

A sharp violent pain.

Kakashi blinked wide, mouth tearing open soundlessly behind the mask.

Genma smirked up at him, panting hard. "Hurts like a bitch…doesn't it?" Old words, new pain. He drew his fist back from Kakashi's sternum – and there, sticking out from between Genma's first and second finger knuckles, two senbons; blood dribbled down the thin steel.

A choked sound caught at the back of Kakashi's throat, wet and bloody. Genma hadn't just struck a pressure point, he'd punctured it, sent the nerves into spasm. He hacked a cough, body folding, fighting collapse.

"The metasternum pressure point…" Genma explained, sadistic and unnecessary, driving his victory deeper than he'd driven the needles. "Same place you jabbed me when we last fought…dirty trick…I owe you one…now comes the electricity…"

Sure enough, Kakashi's stunned nerves snapped like livewires, sharp bursts of electric pain stabbing his chest and diaphragm, causing his ribs to heave. His legs gave out.

He didn't hit the ground.

Genma caught him, used Kakashi's momentum to spin them and drop the copy-nin unceremoniously onto the mattress, holding him down with one hand against his chest. "Lay still," Genma ordered, taking the senbon between his teeth, grinding his words out. "Tch. I'm three sheets to the wind but even I'd have seen that coming. Not the first time I've been flying high during a fight. Not that I don't appreciate you underestimating me."

Paralysed by the fibrillations firing off in his chest and stomach, Kakashi's throat jerked but no scathing words would come. It felt like there were electrodes attached to him. Zapping his heart. Threatening cardiac arrest. He wondered, bleakly, in some detached corner of his mind, what the hell Rin had felt when his hand had gone through her…

"K-kakashi…"

Pain – a different kind. His back arched off the bed, vision flashing. He was vaguely aware of Genma's hands slamming him down. "Stay down. I can fight drunk, but fixing things up is harder. Get a fucking grip, Hatake."

Easier said. Kakashi would've gotten a grip on Genma's throat if a spasm hadn't gripped him instead, holding him locked in a brief contortion of rigor-mortis stillness that allowed Genma's hands to slip up under his vest and move in a precise pattern across his sweat-slicked skin.

"Right about…there…" Genma grunted. "Hn. There."

Eyelids fluttering, Kakashi caught the glint of the needles, felt a tiny pinprick, a muscular twinge.

The pain stopped. Instant relief.

Kakashi's muscles loosened and he went slack against the sheets, panting hard.

The mattress dipped, Genma's weight shifting above him as the Shiranui straddled Kakashi's thighs, hands still on his skin, thumbs grazing the area that'd been poked and prodded with those lethal little needles. "Think my words struck a deeper nerve than these needles. Glad to know I can still get a rise out of you – in all the right ways."

Eyes still closed, the bridge of Kakashi's nose crinkled in a snarl, the sound puffing out in a weak grunt. He'd buck Genma off and win the next round in just a second…he just…needed a minute…maybe two…

Kami, he was tired…exhausted…overcome by something stronger than the physical exertion. Wincing, he grazed his knuckles over his sternum in a mindless rub, higher than where Genma had jabbed him…and felt the phantom ache…knew it had nothing to do with the pain he'd just felt zapping through his diaphragm or chest.

Rin…

Genma touched his wrist.

Kakashi's lashes flickered open, his right eye flashing like quicksilver. A wasted warning. Genma's gaze wasn't on his face but on his knuckles, on the hitched rise and fall of his chest. Frowning, Kakashi killed the gesture, curled his fingers away from his heart and made to tug his hand free. Genma simply followed the movement without letting go and pinned the copy-nin's wrist, his thumb stroking over the angular bones.

Kakashi's eyes blazed.

Genma blinked slowly, took the senbons from his mouth with his free hand and set them on the windowsill above Kakashi's head, all the while gazing down. His expression sobered, along with his words. "We're all owned by something, Kakashi...we've all got some place we can't leave…can't escape…"

The weariness behind those words trickled through the quiet, left streaks on the silence, a sorrowful rain slipping down broken mirrors, reflecting fragments of that long lost time ago. So easy to cut oneself on the edges of those memories; and there they lay, fallen from their shelves, bright and scattered and…

"K-Kakashi…"

A sharp hitch in his chest and Kakashi felt the anger bleeding out…felt the threat of pain stealing in…and then warmth – its heat damp and sudden as Genma leaned down, pressed a slow open-mouthed kiss above his throbbing heart. The tenderness and unexpectedness of the gesture threw Kakashi. He went still against the sheets, pulse beating hard as Genma's mouth skimmed over his vest, tracing out the planes of his chest, hot breath suffusing the fibres of the dark cotton, spreading warmth until Genma's lips clamped down on a nipple, sucking hard then massaging gently with his tongue.

Kakashi's breath halved on a gasp, the muscles of his stomach tightening against the sweet dark heat spiking through him. His pinned hand balled into a fist, chakra humming in his veins.

Genma squeezed his wrist, felt the pulse trip hard. "God…don't make me fight you for this, Kakashi…not this…not tonight…" he whispered, touching now with words, a soft rush across Kakashi's skin. "All I own are my mistakes…but this one night…it's all I've got…I know you know that feeling…"

I know…

God yes, Kakashi knew.

Lived daily with those jaws around his throat – fighting, always, the death-bite of the past dragging him down…fighting, always, for the false smiles and the manufactured cheer…fighting always, to keep at arm's length all the people he risked reaching out to...risked holding onto…

"K-kakashi…"

"Sharingan no Eiyū…" Genma whispered, a knife's edge to his tongue as he stroked the syllables across Kakashi's throat. "Always the last man standing...always the survivor…and then there were the times you'd come to me, one fight away from falling to your knees...wanting me to drag you down the rest of the way…like the other night…" He paused here, turned his head. "Is that why you came?"

"Yes," Kakashi answered, so quietly spoken that the confession passed like a shadow of sound.

A shadow Genma caught. Stilling, the Shiranui drew his head back, gazed down at Kakashi for a long moment, trying to catch those mismatched eyes, trying to capture something that was better left alone.

Alone…

Always alone. The last man standing, just like Genma had said.

Swallowing thickly, Kakashi kept his gaze at Genma's throat, lashes low, denying that intimacy…knowing he had no defence against it…truly, he never had. He chased after it constantly in fantasy, in fiction, in disassociated ways. Easier to dream it than to dare it. Which is why when it came to sex, violence had always been preferable to vulnerability. And Genma had never disappointed him, or denied him...

Until now.

The way Genma was looking at him, brittle and broken and bitten to the bone by his own demons, Kakashi knew he'd have to push for that violence...push for those boundaries…

Push for those rules…

He sucked a breath and tried to drag up the energy, tried to kick the miserable howling thing inside him into anger, into aggression…lashed out at it…felt it curl up snarling in his chest…not angry, just aching…aching…

God please not tonight…not with Genma…

He began to twist his wrist free, not to escape, just to fight.

Genma's grip tightened, brows drawing together. "Still with the fight? You're already down…is it really that far for you to fall?"

Kakashi lifted his gaze, answered with his eyes.

Genma's expression faltered at the contact, his head drawing further back. In the moonlight, with the shadows slipping down into the hollows of his gaunt cheeks and the silvery glow catching bright in his dark-ringed eyes, he looked haunted in ways that called…

Ways that howled...

Like the beast in Kakashi's soul.

Genma must've heard it, sensed it. One animal to another. He closed both hands around Kakashi's wrists, pinned them with his weight, leaning down to set his lips above the copy-nin's booming heart, murmuring. "It's not as far as you think…"

Crippled by the words, Kakashi stopped thinking, closed his eyes, let out a long, shaking breath when Genma's mouth began moving again, teeth pinching clothed flesh, tongue rasping over wet fabric and sensitive skin before seizing a nipple, rolling hard. The tickle-sting of pleasure burst like tiny sparks across Kakashi's chest, igniting a fuse that raced south, embers glowing hot in the pit of his belly. Arousal prowled again, wild restless circles…but the nature of Kakashi's beast had changed…he could feel it twisting inside him, turning on him, turning on itself.

Fear picked up the beat of his already booming heart…

Fear for whatever the hell this animal inside him was howling for tonight.

Not that…

His fingers snapped tight, the veins in his arms bulging.

Genma clutched harder and dragged Kakashi's wrists down towards his hips, allowing the Shiranui to scoot lower without sacrificing his grip. No easy feat. Kakashi fought him, biceps tensed in iron resistance that led to a brief tug of war – a struggle that ended with Genma surging up in frustration to slam Kakashi down, snarling against his mouth.

"Stay the fuck down, Kakashi."

Eyes narrowing, Kakashi lifted his head and nudged their lips in cruel parody of a kiss – the one thing he'd always denied the other ninja - feeling the fabric of his mask rippling beneath Genma's mouth as he uttered, "You first."

Blinking wide, Genma froze and the anger standing in his eyes crumbled, his expression tightening against the same collapse. Kakashi hadn't expected that, his slit-eyed anger cutting sharper with confusion, uncertainty.

Genma simply shook his head, loosened a bitter, broken laugh. "I'm already on my knees…why the hell do you think I'm here?"

Nothing could've reached Kakashi deeper. He went still beneath Genma, the sharpness around his eyes giving way to a pained flinch as all the other reasons why Genma might've been here scudded across his mind; Mizugumo, revenge, punishment, frustration…loneliness…

Loneliness…

That hit him hard, hit him deep, named the beast and caused the howling in his heart to keen throughout his entire body until blood and flesh were screaming out...such horrible sadness…such profound yearning. How many times had he denied it over the past few years? Buried it between the pages of books about feelings and freedoms he couldn't have. Even the other night, when he'd taken what he wanted, what he'd thought he needed.

It wasn't this…

No. It wasn't loneliness driving him then…it wasn't this long, weary night of the soul.

Just this night…

This one night…then like the madness last week, maybe this sadness would be gone with the moon. It didn't matter...not when he and Genma were just two phantoms passing through, seeking a warm body, a brief taste of life.

Was that so damned wrong?

It will be…

Just not tonight.

Searching Genma's expression, Kakashi's gaze drifted down from those dark guarded eyes to the split in the Shiranui's bottom lip. He stared for a long tense moment, listening to the breath shaking out between them.

The sound went through Kakashi like a cold breeze…

His skin prickled...ached for heat…and he tightened against the shudder that threatened.

"Shit…" Misreading him, Genma's fingers loosened at Kakashi's wrists and he made to draw back. "Like I said, all I own are my mis—"

Without thinking, Kakashi lifted his head and slanted his masked mouth beneath Genma's to halt the Shiranui's response as well as his retreat. A soft imitation of a kiss – without the mockery, without the scorn, yet far more dangerous than both combined.

Neither moved for a long moment, breaths clinging until Kakashi spoke, his voice warm through the fabric of the mask. "Own this," he said again, softer this time.

The invitation knocked Genma's head back, pulling his focus up from Kakashi's mouth to the hooded mismatched eyes; looking for lies, for reasons to doubt.

Kakashi gazed back, shook his head.

No taunts. No tricks.

The scant space between their bodies grew hotter, thicker – without the violence or aggression that'd always marked their encounters in the past. And then, with his gaze fixed on Kakashi's face, Genma ground down experimentally...exquisitely slow...

Kakashi's lashes flickered down over his eyes, head tipping back a fraction.

Inflamed, Genma followed, pulling his body across Kakashi's in a slow, cat-like stretch, clothes rustling, dragging across skin, that erotic suggestion of touch that had the copy-nin's breath shaking out on a sigh, loud and rough in the silence.

"You never made these sounds the other night," Genma murmured, dragging Kakashi's wrists up along the counterpane, letting the cool sheets whisper over the backs of the copy-nin's hands until they fisted. "Talk to me…tell me what you want…tell me how you want it…"

Kakashi shook his head, a vague, delirious movement. He wasn't lying; he honest to god had no idea what the hell he wanted…needed…just knew that these barely-there touches were causing responses…reactions…deep beneath his skin…

As if reading his thoughts, Genma crossed those pale wrists, encircled them in a one-handed grip and skimmed his free palm a hairsbreadth from Kakashi's lifted arms without contact; grazing over forearm and elbow and down the quivering triceps, just the suggestion of touch causing the skin to prickle, the muscles to pull and tighten.

"You keep yourself so damned untouchable…" Genma marvelled, shaking his head. "But look at how bad you want to be touched..." He dragged the tip of his tongue along Kakashi's arm, left a thin wet trail, so faint, yet it raised a flush against the pale skin. "Hard and fast, rough and wild…that's how we do this…we've never gone slow…never done this…why?"

Because of the intimacy…

It came immediately to Kakashi, the answer, the reason. What failed to come to him, however, was the answer to a far more dangerous concern: timing. Why now? Why, after all this time, after all these years of managing that creature inside him…why now, was it turning on him? Why now, was it breaking the rules he'd spent a lifetime constructing? All those shelves inside him, balanced in a haphazard yet functional order. Why now, was his body betraying him? Revealing all those private reactions he'd spent a lifetime trying to cover up and channel into less complicated and far more self-preserving forms.

He'd accommodated, hadn't he?

Found ways to deal.

Or deny…

All the rules he'd put in place: cool detachment and a veneer of false cheer; the rough and gratifying sex between months of celibacy; the hard training and channelled violence. All his displaced feelings and non-attachment to people, just the odd possession…namely a certain book series that allowed him to experience vicariously all those needs he had no emotional shelves for. Needs he assuaged by living through the romances and triumphs of characters in novels; experiencing without risking; participating yet pretending.

Look, don't touch.

Watch, don't take.

An imitation of life

Of living. And now that beast inside him screamed for the one thing he'd promised never to give it in exchange for complete self-preservation. But such an empty exchange wasn't enough. Not now.

Not tonight…

Tonight it wanted more than contact – it craved connection. Touch without punishment, without pain…without…

"Answer me, Kakashi," Genma said, drawing his hand feather-light back up along Kakashi's arms, his tone shifting, deepening. "Why like this? Why now?"

And there it was again. The question he had no answer to.

Shaking his head, Kakashi brushed their mouths, his body lifting slow, floating on the warm dark wave that rolled through him the second his straining erection nudged Genma's hip. "It doesn't matter…ah…it doesn't matter…"

It couldn't matter…not now, not when the pleasure playing beneath the surface of his skin urged him to move against Genma just so…and god, just slow…slow enough to feel the pull in his muscles…the dizzying stretch…the hint of body and heat through the barrier of clothes…the insinuation…the illusion of rules…and the slow breaking of them...

Something snapped, a link in a chain, and Kakashi's hips rolled up, head falling back. "Ahtalk," he rasped, words dust and gravel between his lips. "Talk to me."

Rolling with the slow grind, Genma jerked a little in surprise, his breath a hot rumble at Kakashi's ear. "Fuck, Kakashi…just from this? You could draw blood with that hard-on…" As if intent on proving his point, Genma abandoned his grip Kakashi's wrist to reach down between their bodies, lifting his hips, fingers questing until they brushed the damp fabric tenting at Kakashi's crotch. "Kami, you're dripping…"

The words only fed into the sweet hot river meandering up and down Kakashi's spine, sluggish and thick and dragging up soft breathy groans from the back of his throat. Erotic, embarrassing, uncontrollable sounds that drew Genma's head back up, inviting the Shiranui's lips to settle above the fluttering fabric of the mask. Again, that dangerous imitation, that too-close, too-personal graze of lips…that almost-but-not-quite kiss…

"Say it," Genma husked, his voice sounding oddly hoarse. "Tell me how to touch you…tell me what you want…tell me what this is…"

Brow furrowed softly, Kakashi shook his head in mute confusion, far too concentrated on those ribbons of pleasure, reaching up blindly with his free hand to skim his fingers up under the bottom of Genma's vest. He touched flesh. The skin-on-skin contact crackled like chakra beneath his callused fingertips. So used to clawing, clutching, clamping down…now only coasting, skimming slow over the ridges of Genma's stomach, feeling the muscles jump at his touch…

Genma stiffened and cursed softly, shuddering hard.

The tremor passed from one body to the other and Kakashi fed off it, his palm curving around Genma's side to glide up the shifting planes of the Shiranui's back, lean muscle ridged with bone. Too much protrusion, too many ridges, not enough to touch.

Too thin…

Kakashi's frown deepened, eyes flickering open to half-mast. Why hadn't he noticed before? Ah, but then he hadn't touched Genma before, not like this. He'd just taken from him. Used him. He hadn't savoured anything but the rapture of a quick hard release, the swift punishment of pain-edged pleasure, the assuaging of that base animal need to mix sex and death. He hadn't taken time to touch, to partake. Not like this. Not with this feeling in his hands…and this aching in his body.

"Tell me how to touch you…tell me what you want…tell me what this is…"

Again, Kakashi couldn't have named it. Tried to speak with touch alone, mapping Genma's back as if covering new territory, digging into muscle without aggression, feeling without urgency or demand. His hand snaked slowly, sensually, up Genma's spine, savouring the slow stroke…the slow roll of Genma's breath against his mouth— until the other ninja went rigid.

"Shit…" Genma hissed, hand whipping back to catch Kakashi's wrist, bowing his head with a shudder. "Fuck… I'll touch you any way you want…but don't touch me like I…" he trailed off, fingers trembling, words catching and snagging. "Don't touch me like that…like this…there's nothing tender here, Kakashi…nothing good inside…nothing worth that…nothing without…"

Nothing without pain, nothing without punishment…

Nothing but a lie.

Kakashi's frown softened with understanding. He sucked a breath to steady his heart, shook the sweaty strands of silver-white hair from his eyes and urged Genma's face up with his masked lips nudging at the Tokujō's brow.

"Genma…" he panted, calling for the man he used to know, or at least the man he'd known towards the end, the man who'd seen too much – his face, his flaws, his fragile mismatched shelves. The man who'd known sides of him, parts of him, no other did or ever would. That man…

The man I left behind…

Whipsawed between the past and present, guilt and desire, Kakashi fought again to work his throat, his voice deep and ragged around his shallow breathing. "Let yourself leave, Genma…" And then, echoing back the Shiranui's words, "If you're already on your knees…is it really that far to fall?"

Genma's shoulders tightened. "Don't, Kakashi…don't try and fuck with my head. You won't like what you find. I didn't come here for that…"

"I know." Kakashi freed his hands from Genma's clutch, settled them at the crooks of Genma's elbows, thumbs brushing over the granite biceps, tensed for hurt, for harm. "You came for punishment. For pain."

"That's what we do."

"Did," Kakashi husked, stunning them both with the rough word, the new rule…or was it the breaking of an old one?

Genma scowled, drew his head back. "What?"

Indeed. What the hell. But Kakashi wasn't calling on hell, or any of the demons he and Genma used to play with in those dark places. Kakashi might not have known what this was, but he knew what it wasn't. What he wasn't. The question was – did Genma?

Wary but certain, Kakashi looked up through a screen of dark lashes, scanning Genma's face, seeing the confusion, the anger…the fear. "I'm not the man I was the other night, Genma. The man I used to be in ANBU…" He tightened his grip on those flexing arms when the Shiranui tried to pull back. "And tonight, neither are you...you're not that man…"

A vicious smirk, all snarl but no bite. It wasn't in his eyes. "I'm always that man…"

"Not tonight."

"Always."

"Not tonight."

Hesitation now, a slow dawning in those bronze-flecked eyes, enough to haunt Kakashi for the rest of his life given the look that began to loosen the mask of bitterness stitched to Genma's face. His jaw flexed, lips tightening hard, voice a rasp. "Don't, Kakashi…don't…"

The copy-nin shook his head. "I'm not Reiketsu…and you're not—"

"Don't you fucking say it."

"You're not him."

"Yes I am."

"That's a lie."

"It's never a lie."

"It is tonight…and I'll tell you why…"

Genma cursed, made to pull away.

Kakashi grabbed his nape, yanked him so close that their noses touched, "Because I would never do this with Kaika…" And in one swift movement he reached up his hand, tore down his mask, angled his head and slanted their mouths in a kiss as sudden as it was shocking.

At first electric contact, Genma jumped and his lips parted on a gasp.

Kakashi took full advantage, easing his tongue into Genma's mouth slowly, deeply, fingers tangling in the Tokujō's hair – not that he needed to restrain him. Genma had gone so rigid, so breathlessly silent and still that for one horrible moment Kakashi felt the warmth rolling through his body threatening to turn…threatening to reject this moment, shatter this night like so many stars and cast him away…

And then Genma kissed him back – slowly, tentatively, chapped lips moving over Kakashi's with a reverence of touch that the copy-nin would never have imagined the other capable of. He'd always thought if they'd ever kissed, it would be carnal and consuming…because Genma devoured when hungry, he rarely cherished, rarely took the time to fully tantalise, to fully taste…

Their tongues touched…

A quiet, almost pained moan, and Genma's body melted against Kakashi's, the kiss deepening, tongues rolling and stroking and connecting in ways more erotic than their bodies ever had. It stoked the fire in Kakashi's belly hotter than the ravenous empty lust of the past…filled parts of him too-long starved…

A different hunger…a deeper hunger…

The cold fear of whatever the hell this meant evaporated in the heat of what really mattered…

This night…this feeling…

And Kakashi ached for it, ached so hard it hurt, a fierce pounding behind his ribs, closing up his airway with its merciless pressure. He bared his throat to it. The sweet death of yesterday and all those days before…

Just tonight…

He carved his fingers up, yanked off Genma's hitai-ate and felt the dark strands fall about their faces, swishing across flushed skin as their heads tilted and the kiss went from breathless to blistering.

Genma's fingers speared through the choppy mess of silver hair, a long sweeping caress that dragged blunt nails along Kakashi's tingling scalp, chasing shivers and firing off new ones, causing skin to tighten and hum.

Kakashi's mind reeled at the headiness of his body's response.

God, when was the last time he'd kissed? A fumbling awkward flash from his teenage years, the emptiness of that moment evaporating in light of this hot salty stroke of tongues and wet cling of lips. Against the rules, against the grain, unprecedented and unprepared…but not unwanted.

God, how Kakashi wanted

Needed.

Genma broke the kiss with reluctance, dragging Kakashi's bottom lip between his teeth before soothing his tongue over the sting, his gaze dark and deep…and there, somewhere, Kakashi watched that will-o'-the-wisp light pass behind the fog in his eyes.

His wonder must've betrayed him, because Genma shook his head slowly. "Shit, Kakashi…don't look at me like that…" Genma warned. Soft, without threat, his kiss-swollen lips tilted in the saddest of smiles. "The last time you looked at me like that—"

"Things got complicated," Kakashi cut in, growling the words into the next kiss, arching his hips in tandem with a deep thrust of his tongue, letting Genma feel the thick uncomplicated heat jutting between his legs.

This wasn't complicated. This was clear. This was certain.

The musk of sex and sweat filled his senses, thickened the air, balmy on his tongue and hot on Genma's breath; puffing at his mouth, the teasing graze of lips – then cold retreat.

Kakashi's eyes flickered open on a frown – an expression that instantly dissolved as he watched the moonlight and shadow chase across Genma's skin, rimming the sharp, muscular planes of his stomach as the Shiranui knelt back, reached behind to hitch his vest up and over his head in a fluid rustle, chest heaving hard. Scars gleamed silver in the moonglow and darkness dipped its tongue a little deeper into the grooves of Genma's body. However, it didn't swallow the bruises, all those mottled splashes of purple and yellow blooming along his ribs.

Kami, he'd taken a beating…inside and out.

Drawing onto his elbows, Kakashi would've reached out to touch, but Genma's gaze stayed him, held him down surer than any hands or words. Breathing deep, nostrils flaring, the Shiranui's eyes darkened as if he could smell the heat, the hunger, rising off their bodies like smoke and fire…and god, Kakashi needed to taste it.

"Come here…" Kakashi whispered, his voice shaken and thick, chin tipping up. "Now."

Eyes glowing with sexual promise, Genma moved on command, his movements distinctly predatory in the way his shoulderblades shifted and his arms corded. A twitch away from an attack. A hot-mouthed assault. To Kakashi's mounting anticipation and arousal, Genma stretched the moment, savoured it and leaned in slow, bracing his palms beside the copy-nin's hips one hand at a time, leaning down by degrees, his open mouth hovering above Kakashi's parting lips.

"You don't get to tell me where or when to come tonight," Genma said, dropping the soft smoky words against Kakashi's mouth in lieu of his lips. "But when I do come, you're going to feel it…and not just tonight…" And then, on a whisper. "You'll feel it for days…"

Kami…

Sharingan swirling, Kakashi emblazoned the heat in Genma's eyes and felt the throbbing in his groin like a second heartbeat. His grey eye darkened to the smouldering hue of charcoal, a low vibratory growl rattling up his throat. Genma closed his lips over the sound, drank it down with a deep savouring moan, filling Kakashi's mouth with his tongue and his taste; a carnal hint of blood, spicy from the shōchū and thick with the bittersweet sting of want.

Thirsting for more, Kakashi was too consumed by the seduction of the kiss to notice that Genma's fingers were stripping the vest from his skin, hiking it up until they were forced to break their lip-lock in order for Genma to tear it up over Kakashi's arms.

Or not.

The Shiranui stopped at Kakashi's wrists, tangled the vest into a knot that captured the copy-nin's hands in a makeshift bind. Interesting. Not as interesting or alarming as the sudden cold press of steel. Tearing his head back, Kakashi had no time to register how or where Genma had gotten the kunai before he was knocked onto his back and the cold glowing blade went hissing through the knot of his vest and thudded firmly into the sill, pinning his wrists above his head.

Looking up, Kakashi scowled at the incarceration, gave a token tug at the restraints and quirked a silver brow at Genma. "Really?"

Leaning down, Genma smirked a little. "What? You want me to bring out the old wires and chains? I don't carry those on my good person, Hatake. Not in a while. And if memory serves, you weren't as much into the pain as I was. Well, at least not towards the end..." He paused here, traced his eyes over Kakashi's face, the smirk slipping away into something unreadable. "Right about the time you starting looking at me the way you're looking at me now…"

Not having realised his expression had changed, Kakashi frowned and blinked fast to cover whatever he'd let slip. He glanced upwards to escape Genma's gaze. "This won't hold me."

"Not if you don't want it to. Not that I give a damn either way. I've got other means to keep you down…this is just a suggestion…" Genma flicked his eyes to Kakashi's gnarled fingers. "At the rate your chakra's humming? Wires wouldn't exactly serve. I'm not looking to get electrocuted tonight…"

Fair point. Kakashi was about ready to vibrate out of his skin when Genma's slick knowing tongue traced out the delineated slabs of his torso and streaked hotly across his nipples, teeth pinching, a shadow of pain and the bright hot spark of pleasure.

"Others would kill for this," Genma murmured, his breath skating in a cool stream over sweat-slick skin and hot saliva trails. "Don't think I don't know that, Kakashi…don't think I haven't noticed what you've always been oblivious to…what's always driven me wild…the way you make them want you…the way I want you now…"

The words worked their thrall, pulling on Kakashi with unseen strings, drawing him tauter and winding him tighter, his chest heaving into the touch of Genma's mouth. "Genma…"

At the rough call of his name, Genma's lips stilled, his breath feathering out in a rush. He lifted slowly, drew back onto his knees, slipped a hand beneath Kakashi's arched back and followed the curved spine down to the flexed glutes, gripping taut muscle and urging the copy-nin to lift higher, bridge deeper. "C'mon Kakashi. I've seen you bend backwards to escape a blade…show me how badly you want mine inside you…"

Sexy words…oil on fire…Kakashi's blood roared beneath his skin at the dark sultry talk; the tendons in his neck pulled hard, head falling back as he arched deeper, shoulders dropping, the muscles in his thighs rippling.

Kami, Genma knew how to speak his language, literally.

None of his few fleeting lovers had ever spoken to him with such a knowing tongue – all attempts had been the usual verbatim of boring, crude, predictable dirty talk…the kind that took the eroticism out of the moment and reduced it to the kind of dialogue rife in those porn magazines everyone accused him of harbouring. It didn't hit him, reach him or fill him the way he needed it to.

Deeply, intimately

From the first, Genma seemed to know instinctively how to talk. Knew what words could kill the heat in Kakashi's blood and what words would get it racing, as if they were wired into him. Genma knew how to talk to his mind as well as his body…knew how to touch it…how to take it for a ride…

Lips trailed the firm contours of his belly and Kakashi's stomach dipped hard, the muscles rigid. His fingers bit deep into the tangle of his vest, a static crackle of chakra dancing across his knuckles.

"Don't even think about it, Kakashi…" Genma said, moving lower still. "We're way past that. You're gonna feel every inch of what you do to me…even if I have to hold you down." He slid his hands up the backs of Kakashi's thighs and down the inner sides with the lightest caress, coaxing the taut muscles to loosen. "Even if I have to pry you open..." On those words, his hands went to Kakashi's knees, yanked them just far enough apart to keep those powerful thighs from clamping shut the second Genma dipped his head with a lusty snarl, mouth open against Kakashi's crotch.

Nerve-endings blazed.

Gasping out an inarticulate sound half-way between a cry and a groan, Kakashi's eyes rolled back and his hips rolled up, a slow surge against the blunt friction of teeth and the wet fire of tongue working him so expertly through the fabric. That thick lava trail running in sweet dark tendrils up and down his spine began to leak, dripping warm and hot from his straining erection.

"More Kakashi…give me more…" Genma spoke and pleasure fluted through Kakashi's shaft, leaking…leaking…like those words from between Genma's lips. "I'm going to drink you dry…"

A heavy undulation rippled Kakashi's abdomen, the roped muscles along his arms straining, fingers twisting, knuckles cracking – and then Genma's mouth sucked him through the fabric and his knees locked, the backs of his thighs burning. He felt the pleasure rising, rising…

And then Genma drew back, denying him the fall.

Hissing, Kakashi collapsed back against the mattress, chest heaving, sweat sheeting across his body in a silver mist, shadows clinging to the sharp line of his jaw, pooling in the gasping hollow of his throat as his head knocked back, the unreleased tension skittering through him, tiny fireflies, the beating of a thousand wings behind his ribs.

A rustle of clothes, a dip and shift of the mattress, and beyond the wild gushes of his breath, Kakashi heard Genma speaking, soft throaty words. "I don't want you to forget it…and I don't want you to forgive it…"

Somewhat delirious, Kakashi struggled to follow the words, sensed Genma was saying something of significance but couldn't grasp what the hell it was, felt too caught up in the currents shivering through his body and his blood, electric as his chakra. God he was shaking with it.

He tried to focus, tried to speak.

But then hands were on his hips, fingertips coarse against his humming skin, sliding under the sweatpants, drawing them down so slow Kakashi felt the drag of sopping material like a tongue rasping along his rigid flesh. He arched, teeth grit around a growl as his erection sprung free, riding high and hard as marble against his stomach, flushed with blood, pre-fluids leaking like hot oil.

Genma's breath caught, sharp as the click of a landmine.

Stiffening, Kakashi forced his eyes to flicker open, Sharingan spinning to sharpen his vision on those dark eyes gazing down at him…finding Genma's pupils had dilated so completely the iris was all but lost. Lost…like the look that passed so fleeting across his face.

"Don't forgive me…" Genma whispered.

Kakashi frowned slightly, made to speak.

Genma leaned down, closed his lips around the tip of Kakashi's dripping sex and stabbed his tongue through the leaking slit, cutting off any words into a virile cry, raw with lust and want and oh gods don't let this stop. A soft sawing of tongue, laving him next from seeping crown to rigid stem before Genma slid his hands beneath Kakashi's taut buttocks, kneading the muscles, sucking soft and slow before that hot mouth lowered and began to engulf him inch by rigid inch, sliding down until the Shiranui's lips enclosed the pulsing base.

Kakashi's eyes lost focus.

The compulsion to thrust was overwhelming...the last shreds of his control fluttering weakly against the overriding currents. Genma worked him into a wreck, muscles shaking, stomach clenching...and then Genma drew back, just as slow, hollowing his cheeks in a delicious pull, drawing on that white salty nectar with a deep guttural moan that sang throughout Kakashi's body in a chorus of shivers.

God, he was coming apart…coming undone…coming…coming…

Coming so damn close…until Genma's fingers closed hard around the base of his shaft and that cruel mouth retreated, drawing right up to the swollen crown. Kakashi's eyes clenched in frustration, but he didn't cry out, or curse, or call for more. This erotic torture, this cruel denial, it wasn't anything he didn't crave to suffer…

And Genma knew it. "Open your eyes, Kakashi…"

Heat scored across Kakashi's cheekbones as if he'd been struck. He didn't comply. Felt naked in ways he'd never been with Genma…naked in ways that no mask could hide…the urge to free his hands and secure that weak semblance of a barrier caused his fingers to twitch, his knuckles to whiten.

"Whether you look at me or not…you're not escaping this…" Genma murmured, the barest scrape of teeth eliciting a soft hiss from the copy-nin's lips. "I'm gonna give this to you so good, Kakashi…" A kiss to the underside of the sensitive glans, tongue flickering in a serpent caress along the bulging veins. "So deep…" He cupped the heavy sac, rolled the velvet globes with a slow dance of his fingers before he grazed the soft skin just beneath. "So slow…"

Kakashi's eyes shot open so wide the whites flashed as bright as steel in the powdery light. Red and grey orbs gazed without focus up into the shadows of the ceiling, staring but not seeing, his gaze turned inward, every fiber of his being concentrated on the exquisite rub of Genma's fingers, the rough digits slick with Kakashi's own juices, the touch circling slow, creeping lower, lower…his heart beating fast, harder, harder…

A sharp burn all the more invasive for its slow crawl…

And then that finger crooked inside him.

Kakashi's expression tightened and Genma's mouth came down softly, soothingly, over his parted lips. A slow glide of tongue and Kakashi tasted his own essence, his own need, as surely as he felt it throbbing deep in his core. Genma probed further and Kakashi's head dipped back, his breath hissing out long and sharp between his teeth.

"I know." Genma watched through lidded eyes, kissed the straining column of Kakashi's throat, nipped the tendons that stood out like cables and licked the salt that dripped from the corner of the copy-nin's jaw. "Easy..."

Kakashi focused on his breathing, on the slow breach...

"Damn, Kakashi…" Genma breathed, twisting deeper, inching another finger in, his thumb rubbing the sensitive perineum to take the edge off the pain. "You haven't done this in a long time, have you?" He blew the silver strands away from Kakashi's ear, spoke softly. "Takes me back…back to when I was the first to ever touch you this way…"

"The first…" Kakashi husked, his eyes still gazing sightlessly up at the ceiling before falling shut on his next words. "…the last."

Genma's head came up sharply. "What?"

Kakashi said nothing, his pulse roaring too loudly in his ears to have heard the question or registered the shock behind it. It was only when Genma's fingers stopped moving that his grey eye drifted open halfway, pleasure and pain glazing his focus until his vision fastened on the deep line digging into Genma's brow.

Dark eyes widened on him, scanning his face. Genma shook his head slowly. "All these years…?"

Hesitating, Kakashi gazed back wordlessly for a long moment before his lashes dipped in lieu of a nod. "All these years…" he answered, his voice hoarse around the honesty.

Something changed in Genma's face, in his eyes, but Kakashi had no time to train his Sharingan and decipher what it was. With alarming speed, Genma swooped down and kissed him with such searing heat that it vaporised whatever thoughts had tried to slip through the mist of the passing moment.

"I didn't deserve it…" Genma whispered thickly as he reached down to work his pants one-handed. "I still don't…but I don't care…fuck I don't care...I don't care…" on the last word, he thrust his second finger in to the knuckle.

Jolting at the pain, Kakashi's wrists twisted hard.

The kunai creaked in the wood overhead, a splintering crack.

Genma's free hand snapped up and drove it back, his fingers tangling around Kakashi's in a desperate, almost bruising clutch. Angling his head, his tongue stabbed deeper into the copy-nin's gasping mouth, mirroring the sudden spear of his fingers against that buried cluster of nerves.

White lightning ripped through Kakashi's veins…

A hoarse shout and his hips snapped upwards at the contact, driving his hot wet sex up against Genma's crotch, feeling the Shiranui's stiff erection grinding back against him, ribbons of cream flooding over the tumid head. "I don't care..." Genma growled again. "Not a damn bit. And you should've remembered that about me...you think a kiss can change what I am? What I've done?"

Eyes snapping open, Kakashi's body went electric with tension and the lightning in his veins brought a thunder unlike any he'd ever experienced; a crashing roll of hot and cold, panic and arousal, adrenalin and anger, sudden fear and violent fury – a tumult of wild feelings that roiled in his lower belly, pulling him back and forth in the same pleasure-pain rhythm as Genma's thrusting fingers.

"Don't forgive me."

Dread…and something dawning close behind…Genma's earlier words…

"I didn't deserve it…"

Fighting back the storm of emotions whipping through him, Kakashi struggled to get a grip on his treacherous body, his arms tensing, chakra licking across his knuckles. "Genma…"

"I don't care what kind of man you think I am." Genma tugged his fingers free from the tight channel and stroked himself in a smearing glide, slicking his length with his own seed. "I'll show you what your trust's earned you…what it's worth…what I'm worth…" Leaning down, he tightened his grip on Kakashi's tangled wrists, aligned himself until the engorged tip of his erection nudged Kakashi's entrance, cruel as a blade. "You knew it when you fucked me the other night. There's nothing more than this, Kakashi…nothing…because there's nothing left to leave that isn't already gone…nothing worth waiting on…or counting on…nothing left to save…hell, you should've saved yourself before you let me get this close…you were smart enough to do it years ago…so do it now."

Their eyes locked on those words. If they hadn't, Kakashi would've exploded into the fight; would've ripped free of the grip on his wrists and done the smart, violent, self-preserving thing. He would've felt betrayed enough, enraged enough, to believe the cruelty and the violence edging all those empty words – if he hadn't seen the torture written across Genma's face, or glimpsed the pain that burned behind his eyes.

Do it. Those eyes screamed. Do it.

Kakashi didn't. The chakra humming at his fingers cut out in a crackle, his struggle ending in the same instant. He stopped fighting, just stared quietly for an untold time, feeling the pain radiating through Genma as surely as a toxin leaking from his skin. But rather than recoil, Kakashi absorbed it, not just through skin, but through a sense not unlike the kind he'd experienced back with Mizugumo. That strange kinship...that inescapable sense of...

Empathy...

Understanding. It came without fear, without anger, and his brows drew together softly over his mismatched eyes, animal-like in their forgiveness, their acceptance. "No," he croaked.

Genma blinked at him in amazement, in despair. "You crazy sonofabitch...do it..."

Kakashi shook his head, repeated, "No."

A knot seemed to rise in the Shiranui's throat, a visible pull of tendons as he fought against the tightness. He swallowed convulsively, shook his head. "You should never have come to me, Kakashi," he whispered. "You should've left me the hell alone…"

Alone. Again. Always alone. How that one word ached through Kakashi, god how it howled through him, echoing up through his eyes, mirroring its bleak and wretched cry in the dark orbs gazing down at him.

"Maybe it's true what you said…" Kakashi murmured. "That men like us…are better off alone…"

Genma said nothing, but his throat worked hard, the pain a glowing entity in his dark eyes.

Holding that gaze, Kakashi tugged a wrist free, reached up to comb his fingers back through the bronze-streaked strands fluttering by Genma's face and the Shiranui turned his gaunt cheek into the touch like a starved animal, eyes clenching shut.

"Better off alone," Kakashi said again, before adding softly. "Just not tonight…"

Genma's eyes slipped open, gazed down at him with such raw naked hunger that Kakashi's body thirsted at the sight of it. No more talk. Drawing his leg up, he wedged his ankle at the back of Genma's thigh, tugging the other ninja closer until the Shiranui's hips pressed forward. No more trials by fire, just a taste of the flame.

Stinging heat, the burn of the wet crown inching past the guardian ring of muscle.

Genma hissed, eyelids fluttering. "Ahn…gods…"

Kakashi's heart jackhammered into his throat. His fingers fell to Genma's nape, chest lifting, neck arching, his gaze swinging up to the shadows on the wall, up to where the moonlight shimmered through the open window...his breath coming heavier as that thick velvet heat sank deeper, inch by inch, stretching, spearing…

A sudden cessation.

The throb and burn cut utterly short…

Kakashi could've groaned at the sweet torture. "Genma…" he choked out.

Genma held off a moment, gripped the copy-nin's still-snared wrist, pulled it free from the vest and linked their fingers above Kakashi's head, squeezing a plea, trembling hard. "Wait…just…I need to feel this..."

Shaken by the rough words, Kakashi tipped his head down and found his mouth instantly captured in a kiss that shook, trembling hard and wet as their bodies as Genma's hips drew back, sank forward again, bit-by-aching-bit, mimicking the slow dip of his tongue into Kakashi's mouth. They moved in slow-time, muscles rippling like sand in the wind, drawing out the deep pleasure-pain burn of penetration with a long drawn-out moan until their hips hit and Genma was fully sheathed.

The howling in Kakashi's head stopped, filled instead with the shattered sound of his breathing, the tidal rush of blood pulsing, pulsing…like Genma inside him. A blade into the beating core, pinning him down…one bull thrust away from the roughness of their past encounters…a lustful ride…a wild rush to the finish line…

But Genma didn't move, barely seemed to breathe, his mouth hovering above Kakashi's parted lips, teeth grit and brows knit, his expression one of concentrated bliss, diluted by a hint of struggle, a tightening along his jaw.

The strain of holding back.

It glistened across his flushed skin, hot stripes against his cheekbones, tiny beads of sweat tracing soft silver lines down the chords in his throat.

Kakashi watched him through lidded eyes, his breathing shallow and his body pounding tight around the hard girth buried inside him. Locked as they were, with Kakashi's shaft seeping hotly between the hardness of their pressed bellies, the fusion alone could've sent him soaring…the pressure, the fullness…the look on Genma's face…

"Go deeper," Kakashi said, loosening his fingers from their rigid clamp at Genma's nape to stroke his palm down along the strong indentation of spine, following the ridge of bone to the sensual 'v' at Genma's lower back, fingertips grazing that taut valley of muscle before gripping a buttock hard as rock, pulling harder to urge the other ninja on..and in...and impossibly deeper.

Genma's mouth fell open, a long stomach-deep groan against Kakashi's lips. His hard, lean body shifted, rocked against Kakashi in minute ripples, pressing, pressing, searching for that knot and striking with blunt force.

The lightning came again, forking out in sharp angry streaks.

Kakashi threw his head back, sighing out his pleasure in great long jets with every stab, relishing the ecstasy of a rhythm that promised...that prolonged...that ached with the deep arousing agony of almost…almost…

"Stay with me, Kakashi..." Genma whispered, dark and feverish, his fingers clamped around Kakashi's in a death grip, hips driving harder with every lengthy stroke. "God…stay with me…just like that…ahn…just like this…"

An angled thrust, a deep virile cry and Kakashi clenched hard, satin-bound muscles rippling around that driving steel, holding Genma tight, pulling him, possessing him, pleasuring him…heightening the relish, heightening the pain…filling his own body with such breathless feeling he couldn't imagine what the hell would hurt more, the thought of this moment ending or the forestall of the thunder screaming inside him….now…now…now…

No…no…no…god no...

Somewhere, lost behind the sweet rock and ripple of their rolling bodies, a tiny part of Kakashi that was still rational...still reeling in shock...quailed at the madness driving this dance of deeper…deeper…don't ever stop…don't ever leave…

God don't leave.

But they did. Together. Their eyes locked as intimately as their bodies. Kakashi arched like a wave and Genma crashed down to meet him...and in that heart-stopping instant, that breath-breaking second, there was a roaring in Kakashi's ears, not unlike the sea…and then there was the lightning...a blinding storm of ecstasy...lifting him up so high above his body that the world winked out in the blink of an eye.


TBC.

Endnotes:

Sharingan no Eiyū – Hero of the Sharingan/Copy Wheel Eye

Reiketsu no Kakashi – Coldblooded Kakashi (as Kakashi was known in ANBU – thank you recent anime instalments!)

Kaika – fire caused by lightning/fire of unknown origin (Genma's ANBU name)

Yūgao - female ANBU kenjutsu specialist, Hayate's lover.

A/N: It seemed appropriate and necessary to leave this chapter as a stand-alone moment. After all the heavy plot unfolding in the last three instalments, I thought you guys would appreciate a squeeze of lemon with a bit of bittersweet sting. This chapter was difficult to write for many reasons. These characters never behave in ways I anticipate – especially Genma, given that I wasn't back-seat driver in his POV. What a mindf*ck. Tea is needed. I hope you guys enjoyed! Thank you so much for all your feedback for the last monster chapter and for letting me know your thoughts about whether to post up shorter instalments etc. I shall give it a think as the vote was somewhat tied. Love hearing from you. Right'O! Onwards with the bunnies of almighty plot!