Contains NSFW

His first thought was: the students are going to eat her alive. His second hovered between only if I don't get there first and get your mind out of the gutter, Hatake. Easier said than done, especially when she walked into the faculty office with the friendly approachableness that only a newly-minted professor could have.

Everything from her pristine stationery to the way she fiddled with her computer and the self-conscious way she touched her beautiful hair screamed easy target, and Kakashi was almost guilty that she'd been assigned the difficult Infectious Diseases class. Almost. It was something of a rite of passage in the department; 40 students ranging from serious medical students to opinionated forensics grads to people looking to top up their science-based credits, all in a melting pot of subject matter versus learning expectations. It had been ten years since Kakashi himself had been thrust in front of the volatile lecture hall and left to sink or swim, and every semester since he'd been grateful for the quiet dedication of his current crop of students. Rather her than him, even if she looked barely older than the postgrads she'd be teaching.

Caught in his thoughts, Kakashi missed introductions and the general chatter as his colleagues all but interrogated her on what she'd done before teaching and whether or not she'd like to join them for a drink after work. He'd tag along, if only to watch poor, hopeless Professor Ebisu test his limited arsenal of charm on their pretty new colleague. Or even better, to see how long she'd put up with Genma or Asuma's antics. Probably not very long.

Soon, she'd settled down to work while the other professors procrastinated - proving his point that she was an easy mark - and Kakashi forgot her presence until he felt a tentative hand on his shoulder.

"Excuse me…" a quiet voice said, trailing off hesitantly. He turned to find himself face to face with the the new professor and he leaned back, startled. "I'm sorry to bother you while you're busy-" and here Kakashi slid his eyes to his screen, pleasantly surprised that it was not displaying his idle search for pet grooming - "but I'm having a little difficulty with accessing the student database."

The plea in her startlingly green eyes was obvious.

"It's no trouble," Kakashi replied smoothly, unable to resist a small smirk as he watched Ebisu slump in defeat out the corner of his eye. "I'll come and take a look."

Following her to the desk, it became apparent that she was quite significantly shorter than him; the height difference meant that he was staring mostly at the top of her head and its mop of beautiful, though unusual, pale pink hair. From this angle, it didn't quite hide the scar that ran almost ear to ear across the back of her head and he leaned in a little closer, curious. It didn't look as deep as the cicatrix that marred the skin of his left eye, but head wounds were always deceptive. Childhood incident? Operation? Kakashi didn't have time to muse further as she sat down and he was treated to a whirl of the scent of her shampoo.

Was that the same shampoo that he used on his dogs? And then she was speaking again with a voice soft as before, and he had to lean in to hear, confused beyond belief at this pretty young woman with candy hair and a vicious scar, who was currently reminding him of traumatising bathing days and wet scowling bulldogs.

"I'm sorry, I didn't catch that..." he mumbled, forgetting for a moment his image as the cool and aloof Professor Hatake.

She smiled. "I said, I'm Professor Haruno - Haruno Sakura. I'm sorry if I've distracted you at a busy time."

She was distracting; the sight of her small smile even more so. But Kakashi had regained his legendary composure and he crouched down beside her, taking the mouse from her hand as he flashed a megawatt smile at her over his shoulder.

"Don't worry about it. I'm kind of a daydreamer." He shrugged indolently, liking the way she raised a suspicious pink eyebrow. "You can call me Professor Hatake. Or Kakashi, after hours."

He winked, she blushed, and that was it. Somewhere in the background, Ebisu groaned.

Professor Haruno, Kakashi suspected, was drinking them under the table. The night had started ordinarily enough: Ebisu had flirted mercilessly with her through two courses before Genma had stepped in and drew the earnest man into another discussion, leaving Sakura to the tender mercies of Professor Mitarashi and her visceral descriptions of the latest fainting spells in her dissection seminar.

Kakashi had been mildly impressed as the young professor sat through it all with a faint but polite smile, asking just enough questions to sound interested without encouraging. Then, Kurenai had begged off early and the night might have ended there if Sakura hadn't mentioned the beginning of Happy Hour to the approval of the remaining group.

Two hours later and he was buzzed to hell while she still looked as peachy as the moment she sat down. He might have put it down to the resilience of youth if Asuma's nephew Shikamaru - a regular guest at their work nights out - hadn't discovered she was the same age as him shortly before being bundled into a taxi home for his own dignity.

"So how was class?" Kakashi asked abruptly, chin in hand and sake glass finding its way laboriously to his mouth. When she turned to him with a mild frown, the silver haired man blinked at her owlishly. Maybe she's already told us. Shit. Well, I'm asking again. He put the glass down and gave it a disapproving glare. She was proving harder to charm than he thought - and the alcohol definitely wasn't helping.

"Like I said, it was great." Sakura's own glass lay empty before her, so with utmost concentration Kakashi tipped the cool jug of his sake towards her invitingly. She accepted gracefully, sliding the jug from his unresisting hands and pouring a liberal measure. "Kurenai-san said they were a difficult bunch, but everyone was lovely."

There was a brief moment of silence before those still aware enough to listen chuckled knowingly. Sakura tipped her head enquiringly, the movement just enough to loosen a few strands of her hair. It had curled in the heat of the bar, and Kakashi was glad he hadn't taken another drink; a little bolder and he'd have spun its delicate twirls around his finger, and she wasn't anywhere near receptive enough for that.

Yet (he hoped).

Instead, he distracted himself by explaining the reputation of the class to her, leaving out the part where he'd spent two weeks at exam time avoiding students in ways that ranged from ducking into buildings to literally climbing trees to throw off pursuers, and all the while Sakura registered her disbelief as everyone nodded in agreement.

"Anyway, they're really difficult," he finished lamely. "If you have any hassle with them - there's some troublemakers mixed in from a class I taught last year - don't feel like you can't come get my help. I have a bit of a reputation as a hardass."

Sakura peered at him from under pink lashes and Kakashi felt himself, unbelievably, blushing a little at the way she seemed to be sizing him up.

"A reputation, huh?" Her voice had dropped a notch and this time he couldn't help but lean just a little too close. "Don't worry," she said with a mysterious smile. "I've something of one myself."

Kakashi couldn't tear his eyes away from her for the rest of the night.

Exam season was bad enough, without this.

"One shift, Kakashi. Please." The voice on the other end of the line crackled and he resisted the urge to pretend the call had dropped. Follow the chain of command. Respect your superiors. He'd been out of the army for over 10 years but some things were too deeply ingrained to ignore; Danzou just happened to know it.

"You know it's never one shift, Danzou-sama," Kakashi replied tightly. From his perch on the edge of the desk, he noticed Sakura tense up and direct a brief but intense stare in his direction, before realising she was in his line of sight and ducking back down behind her computer screen. "If I come back, it'll be weeks." He picked up the stress ball one of his students had left after a particularly tearful visit. It felt good to squeeze: better than letting the exasperation leach into his voice.

"It's exam season. I can't leave the campus."

Silence on the other end of the line. Kakashi waited it out, teeth gritted painfully. There was a heavy sigh, one that spoke volumes in its disappointed exhalation, before Kakashi's former superior officer delivered his parting shot.

"Soldiers are dying, Major Hatake." It was a power play to use his old title. A mistake; Danzou never did understand why good men left the front.

"It's Professor Hatake these days, Danzou-sama. And I'm afraid I can't come to work for you now, and I don't think I'll be able to in future." He took a deep, steadying breath, uncaring that the suffocating presence on the other end of the phone would hear it. "Goodbye, sir." Click.

It felt good to disobey. It felt even better as Kakashi watched Sakura's face rise sheepishly from beyond her fortifications before giving him an apologetic grin. He beckoned her with a lazy quirk of his chin and eyed his closest deskmate, who seemed to be enjoying a nap. Good enough.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't help but overhear a little," Sakura explained. She'd paused to pick him up his favourite biscuit from the coffee station - a conciliatory gesture that he wasn't above accepting. "I'm so wound up from thinking about how my students will do in their exams that I'm on hyper-alert all the time."

Kakashi nodded sagely before hooking his foot under an empty chair and dragging it towards his desk in a clear invitation. She accepted, sitting close enough that their knees touched as he slumped back down into his seat. God, he wished he'd been able to charm her into something more than friendship.

"I get it." He replied, trying to ignore the burning press of her knees against his. "You teach these kids for four months, then spend another four worrying about whether there was anything you could have said, or done, or taught to make their grades any better."

Sakura pressed her lips together in a thin line, the hands that rested easily in her lap balling into unconscious fists. Kakashi felt some of the anxiety at General Danzou's unwelcome demand drain from his mind as he watched, taking in her concern for what most professors would dismiss as a write-off class. It was familiar, centring; something to help forget the things that his former calling had asked of him.

"Pretty much," she agreed. "Does it get any easier?"

Kakashi pretended to consider.

"Wait until you need to send them off for their first residency."

Sakura grimaced. "Shit."

"Shit," he readily agreed, and they burst into laughter in tandem. Better laugh than cry - Kakashi could see she was still worried.

"The results come out in three days. Let's read them together then go get blind drunk whether they're good or bad."

She blinked at him, then reached forward and tapped a pristine painted finger into the muscle of his thigh. It was a little too high to be friendly, but he didn't dare point it out.

"Hatake… are you trying to get me to go on a date again?" Sakura's voice was teasing, so he closed his eyes and pretended to consider, index finger tapping his chin in thought as he finished his snack in one bite.

"Not after the third time. Or maybe the fourth?" She narrowed her eyes at him and he held his hands up in defeat, fingers smeared from the chocolate of her peace offering. "No, no. I'm saying let's go forget about students for an evening. Preferably with that sake you like so much."

There was acceptance in her eyes, but Kakashi was nothing if not a careful hunter. "Maybe we could share stories about people named Danzou and why they haunt us?"

"You are annoyed that I eavesdropped!" Sakura huffed.

"Nope, just curious. Was your Danzou a stern, commanding asshole as well? He'd need to be to make you freeze at the sound of his name." Kakashi winked, enjoying the way she shot him her second best glare. How did I ever think of her as an easy target? She'd eat me alive if I let her.

" .or. .ke." Each syllable was punctuated by the pressure of her finger digging into his thigh. I should let her.

"So, drinks at the Academy after the results?"

"Are you sure we agreed on the whole no dating thing?"

"We did."

He licked the chocolate from his fingers. She watched. And then she went with him anyway.

This time, Kakashi didn't need to suspect that Professor Haruno was drinking him under the table: he was sure of it. She'd been steadily filling his glass for a few hours - even after he'd taken to sneakily pouring it into the unfortunate plant beside his chair - while they exhausted every possible reason why one student could pass and another could fail.

Over the months they'd gone out drinking together plenty of times, but aside from the memorable occasion of his third attempt at asking her out (he'd never feel the same way about a cocktail umbrella) they were usually accompanied by a collection of their loud, obnoxious, or downright meddling colleagues. It was… nice; without Genma's smirking presence Kakashi didn't feel the need to dial up his charm, and Sakura herself was decently relaxed without the pressure to keep up with their years of in-jokes.

And there were signals; Kakashi wasn't blind, or deaf, or too drunk to recognise the way Sakura was sliding her chair closer to his. It was stark enough that he'd feel hopeful, if their banter hadn't made it abundantly clear that there was nothing beyond the vaporous promise of alcohol.

"I don't think I ever failed anything while I was in training," Sakura said dreamily, tracing a finger around the rim of her full glass. "Until I finished, and then I failed. A lot."

Kakashi paused. She didn't talk about herself much, claiming that everything they needed to know had been in her introduction. Past was Past, was Sakura's way; too bad he'd been distracted by her present to learn her secrets.

"You did?" He found it hard to believe she could fail anything.

"My 'Danzou'," she replied. "I never could live up to what he expected of me. And in the field-"

"-it somehow slowly got worse," Kakashi finished. She lifted green eyes from where they were burning their displeasure into her glass and all at once he felt pinned to the bar seat with the intensity of her gaze.

"Oh you're good, Kakashi-kun." She tossed him a cheeky salute that hovered expertly between crisp and careless. The kind it took a career soldier nights of practice to perfect.

"What regiment?" He asked softly.

A bitter laugh. "I didn't even last long enough to get one. First contact, we were in a bad position, lots of medical help needed, and I just-" (fingers fisting in the fabric of her skirt) "I just focused on the soldiers in front of me, no matter whose colours they wore. And when the day was done, I took off my helmet, laid down my tools, and walked into the night."

"What then?"

She shot him a look. "Then I spent six years with Médecins Sans Frontières. And when I couldn't take it any more, I came here." There was a finality in her tone that told Kakashi this was all he'd be getting, but he felt lucky enough for this glimpse beyond her impenetrable armour.

They sat in silence for a moment, Kakashi digesting what she'd shared while Sakura toyed with thoughts unknown to him. Do I share…? He felt the impulse to spill his whole sorry story to her, from recruit to grunt to leader, all in a trance of doing what he was told and going wherever the army took him.

"Your story's better than mine," he said instead, and was gratified to see the interest in her eyes as she swung in her stool to face him.

"Yeah?"

"Definitely." A firm nod. "At least you did something selfless. I just failed and failed until I couldn't fail any more." He smiled, bitterness balanced with a glint in his eye. "And when I couldn't take it any more, I came here."

Sakura's expression was hard to read in the shifting dimness of the bar, but he thought she looked softly amused to hear him mirroring her dismissive words. Then she was moving, too fast for how much sake she'd enjoyed, and a soft hand was cupping the side of his face, a thumb tracing the ruined mess of his eye before he could pull away.

"You're a ladykiller, Professor Hatake," his companion murmured. She was very close. "First, you're roguishly handsome. And then, you're just on the right side of charming. You know just what to say. And now…"

Kakashi held his breath, unable to move away as the gentle hand holding his head tightened into a grip that would've been painful if it hadn't been for the heat of the alcohol in his blood.

"And now?" He queried, at a loss for what else to say. He didn't feel like a ladykiller.

Sakura shook her head. She didn't loosen her hold on him, and there was a frisson of excitement in Kakashi's very bones at the way her face was slowly inching closer still.

"And now…" Sakura exhaled and he couldn't tell if it was in frustration or derision, and her breath was hot on his face and tinged with their evening of fun. "Now, you're telling me you understand me."

Kakashi couldn't help but grin, the tip of his canine poking out as he tried to tell her he was discovering he'd read her wrong all along. She didn't let him.

Instead, her indignant lips crushed themselves to his in a gesture that was less of a kiss and more of a demand, swallowing his charm and his compliments and his flirting in the direct way he'd grown to crave. Sakura took what she pleased from his willing form, holding him in place with a hot hand on his cheek and a commanding presence that he obligingly acceded to.

His turn would come soon enough.

It was over almost too soon, or it might have been forever; then his world was painted in roses as Sakura pulled back and placed her forehead against his, her hair winding its way between them in unashamed curls.

Her lips were just a little red: alcohol or not, Kakashi felt he could probably die happy. And then she spoke the magic words.

"Shall we get out of here, Professor?"

Kakashi was a thousand times grateful that his hopeful streak picked the Academy bar; it was less than a hundred metres from his house, a fact Sakura noticed with a sideways smirk even as she all but threw him through the front door.

He opened his mouth to warn her about the dogs but she took it as an invitation, reaching for him with such conviction that he let her take hold in a firm embrace, her smaller frame pushed up against his like a satisfied lioness. She took the top button of his shirt in her teeth and he almost promised her the world as she popped it open with a growl, nosing her way along his exposed skin until she found her target.

It was overwhelming; he could smell the oil in her hair from a hard day's work and his sight was obscured with tempting trails of pink, while his skin burned from the feverishly hot kisses she was pressing into his collarbone.

"Sakura…" he said, trying to keep a level tone as she encouraged him into the wall of the doorway. "Sakura!" This time a little firmer.

The firecracker in his arms pulled back just enough to meet his eyes through a curtain of hair. "Yes?" She murmured, and her breath kissed his collarbone, agonisingly wet from her adoration.

"I don't want to fuck you in my doorway."

He felt rather than saw her pout.

"You don't?"

Oh my god, yes.

"I don't."

At that, Sakura pulled back completely, and the way she smiled up at him, half bashful and half unashamed, nearly had Kakashi taking back his words and pinning her until she was trapped between him and the wall. Instead, he slid both hands down her bare arms, delighting in the way she shook under his touch; fascinated by the almost imperceptible goosebumps that followed his hands as they took hold of hers.

"Come to bed with me," he whispered, taking careful steps backward as he kept his eyes trained on the spot where they met. They didn't speak with words as he led them to the back of his small house, but there was a conversation in the way her eager tread was halted by his deliberate pace. Or the way she wet her lips as he squeezed her hands in his, a gentle caress at odds with the tension bubbling between each back-and-forth of their steps.

Finally, Kakashi paused. Sakura stopped with him, their uneven cadence causing her to sway a little as she steadied herself. Her green eyes never left his face, but this time her chin rose defiantly as he grinned darkly at her. The challenge was there in her unfaltering stare and Kakashi rose to it, pushing his bedroom door open at the same time as he gave a sharp tug to her hands. She fell into him and he caught her effortlessly, arms snaking around her waist and travelling down, down to the tops of her thighs, pulling her up against him so intimately that he felt the gasp she gave before he heard it.

Voice rough with desire, she spoke the two words he'd wanted to hear from her rosy lips for months. She demanded, he obliged, and that was that.

Kakashi took her to his bed and learned her secrets, imprinted the touch of his fingers on her dips and curves before confirming their stories with his lips and tongue and teeth. There was too much fire in Sakura for it to be gentle; she followed each kiss with stripes of punishment down his shoulders, his back, his legs until he was a patchwork of her creation.

Over and over, she murmured his name in his ear, a whispered song that they danced to as he slicked salt-stained skin over hers. There was a wildness in the air as they fought as much as they fucked, taking from each other until there was nothing left but heavy breaths and trembling hands, until Sakura's voice was cracked from announcing her pleasure to the darkness of Kakashi's bedroom.

When they were done, he cradled the back of her head as it leaned heavily into his pillow, fingers tracing her scar in a question that she didn't answer with words but with her body, arching backwards until she met his tired embrace. One day, it said - next time.

In the morning, when she called him Professor and he threw it right back at her with a wicked grin, they made it two steps out of bed before tumbling back to taste each other all over again.

And at work, Genma made a comment while Asuma counted the bruises on Kakashi's shoulders; they listened to Ebisu try his new lines while Kurenai watched with a knowing look.

Then when everyone was distracted and they'd sat down to work, Kakashi winked, Sakura blushed, and that was that.

AN: I swear this wanted to become an entire story.