A/N: Muhahahaha, they say always pay attention to your dreams, no matter what. Here's a bit of foreshadowing for you hungry pup-dogs.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Shifting Life
He Drinks the Wine and Starts to Fall

The lamb was delicious. Sakura couldn't cook like that. She'd made her own lamb before, but Kami, saffron? How in the world did this rusty little place get it?

As she munched happily away on the lamb in her mouth, she noticed Kakashi was nursing his nearly finished drink. He really could hold his liquor (she had never succeeded in getting him drunk ever, even after nearly three bottles of wine), and he really liked it usually. Someone passing them on the road had once pointed and said, "Hey, it's that alcoholic who beat that old guy's ass last night!"

Generally meaning in a drinking contest, because a bar brawl where Kakashi would lose his temper and shift would do no one any good.

Sakura often wondered if it was just plain impossible for Shifters to get drunk. Now was not one of those times. Kakashi had not touched his lamb leg.

"What?" she asked, sitting up from her hunched position. "Not raw enough for you, flea bag?"

He looked up at her sharply, his eyes lingering over her lips, actually, and her white teeth that flashed a precarious smile at him. Then he raised one of the side potatoes to his mouth on a fork and snapped it up.

Sometimes, "snapping it up" was used as an idiom, but not in this situation. Sakura watched in fascination as Kakashi's mask vanished, his tongue flicked out, and with a small wolf's growl, the potato flashed into his mouth. The click of his teeth as he bit down was audible even across the table.

"Kami, you're beautiful," Sakura said, resting her chin in her hand.

And there was that hateful mask. But only for a moment. It seemed as though he finally decided he was hungry, and pulling his plate towards him, immediately began to dig in.

"We should bring something back for Tenzou," he said thickly in between bites. Sakura hid her bubbling snicker with her hand. "What does he like?"

"Nothing too heavy for him," Sakura said. "Maybe some beef and rice."

Kakashi grunted his agreement, making Sakura snicker again. "I feel so much better, now that we're unbound," she said.

Kakashi abruptly stopped chewing. He looked up to regard her warily, swallowing what was in his mouth before speaking. Sakura suddenly felt like she'd spoken out of turn; the way he was staring at her was as though he was her father and she'd caused him great disgrace. "What do you consider me?" he asked slowly, as if he might confuse himself by speaking too quickly.

"I'd like to consider you something other than a protector," Sakura said meekly. "I mean, can't you be both?"

"Both what?" Kakashi asked.

"Friend and protector."

He nearly choked on his drink and held his fingers to his nose, clearly having gotten some of the dark beer up it.

"Why is that so surprising?" Sakura asked, affronted. "I've always loved you—I'm fairly certain I made that obvious—and the least you can do is be my friend after all these years now that you don't have to feel things through my body and..."

She bit her lip.

That came out sounding very lewd and very inappropriate, especially since she was considered a lady by social standards.

"I don't consider practically molesting you in prison being friendly," Kakashi said bitterly, wiping his face free of frothy beer. "And if that's the case, then you've got Tenzou to be friendly with."

"That's not what I mean!" Sakura all but shrieked, slamming her palms down on to the table. Several Shifters, twittering with their human companions, looked up from their own food to regard her before returning to themselves. "You know what I mean, you ass," she continued more quietly, sitting down.

"Do I?" Kakashi bit out. "If I recall correctly, I didn't start that little bout we had in the cell."

Sakura crossed her arms and looked away with a huff.

And then Kakashi smiled. The first true smile she'd ever seen him smile. It was wide and almost mischievous, a silly grin that was even more natural than the ones he gave at the pleasure of petting.

"You would make an excellent Shifter," he said, and leaned across the table to kiss her cheek. And as he leaned down close to her ear, his breath fanning across her neck and jaw, he whispered, "And for what it's worth, I think I'm beginning to understand what exactly it is that you humans call love."

He gave her a sharp nip on the earlobe with slightly pointed teeth before hoisting himself away from the table and leaving the tavern altogether.

Sakura could only sit in a state of shock.

That was the single most beautiful, erotic, enticing, appetizing thing he'd ever said to her, ever, and at the touch of his sharp wolf-human teeth on her ear, she could feel a warm wetness stirring somewhere below her midriff.

She leaned her head against the table.

Oh Kami. This was how Tenzou made her feel.

--

She'd bloomed back into the blossom he knew her to be. The blossom he'd protected for the past twenty years. The blossom he, admittedly, had fallen in love with the first time she landed a punch across his jaw, effectively shattering it when she was fourteen. (Tsunade had a rough time piecing that mess back together again, and a lot of Kakashi's crushing power was gone because of it. It was why he gave himself such huge fangs.)

He'd die for her. Do anything for her. And now, thanks to Tenzou, a Shifter was beginning to be able to express a human emotion like love.

And it felt so good, he just wanted to howl until his lungs fell out.

He was quite proud of what he did in that quaint little tavern, reaching across the table and kissing her like that, giving her a little bite to get his point across. It was all he could do not to resume what he'd been doing to her in prison.

He wondered how Tenzou would react if he was told. Would he be relieved? Feel snubbed? Glad? A mixture of any or all?

He didn't really know why he tried to hide his love of Sakura for so long. Even if he had known she loved him in return, he doubted he would have reciprocated at all. It was just some instinct, like the Itch and the Pains, that told him what to do and when to do it.

This new instinct he was experiencing, his inner self was beginning to refer to as the Fire.

It's like alcohol, but better.

Kami, yes. So much better.

Just the simple act of eating with her now had escalated into something profound. He adored every minute in her presence, and the only reason he had left the tavern was because he was teasing her. If he gave himself a choice, he'd be right back inside, kissing her brains out.

"Hey, Kakashi! Wait!"

That was her.

He turned around as she rushed up to him, and he stared at the breathless woman before him, her cheeks red from having had to run a block straight.

She had in her leather food sack Tenzou's meal. The smell was simple, but telltale.

"Where are you going?" Sakura asked, linking her arm with his in a friendly manner as they walked. He didn't mind.

"I was thinking about going back to the inn," he said.

"Tenzou said we could explore the town!" Sakura said, looking up at him. "Don't you want to?"

"Out of habit," Kakashi replied, "no. I kind of want to sleep."

"Well," Sakura said, "I'm still full of energy. I'm going to stay out a while. Is that okay?"

"You're asking me permission?" Kakashi asked, perturbed, looking down at her curiously. "You're my mistress still, bound or not. I still take orders from you."

Sakura looked a bit shocked that he'd said he was still willing to follow her, then she collected herself and sniffed. "Fine. I'm going to stay out for a while. You can go back to the inn and sleep."

Kakashi smiled and nodded, then ruffled her hair before taking off as a sparrow in the direction of their little room. He would flit through the window and sleep on the floor without waking Tenzou.

--

There's a certain quality of the air in the room that Kakashi finds he doesn't like. It's as though the air is shimmering in a massive heat wave, or as though it is on fire. He can't really see straight, and finds that when he speaks, sound is distorted as well.

"You awake, Tenzou?" he asks, and his voice comes out raspy and dizzy, as though it too is on fire or as though Kakashi is very, very sick.

Tenzou doesn't move. The reek of death and poison touches Kakashi's tender wolf nose. He reels in shock and then feels pain—oh, such pain!—ripping all throughout his body. Invisible claws tear into his flesh, invisible wings beat at his side, bruising his bones, invisible beaks send streaks of red from his gut across the floor.

And then there is a burning sensation prickling beneath his skin and he finds himself

retching all over the floor. He was crying too, which, in all his years, he didn't remember doing. He was a human (which probably explained his unusual, unfathomable tears), and his fingers were burning with the contents of his stomach. His mind was reeling and the room was doing a faint swagger in front of his eyes, causing him to retch and cry again. It was like he was swallowing sand, mouthfuls and mouthfuls of sand, and his mouth felt just as dry as that sand. Soon his stomach was empty.

Instinctively, his body desired to lap up what he'd just expelled, but he'd never had a bout that tasted so foul. Eating that would surely kill him.

"Kakashi, are you okay?"

That was Sakura's voice.

"Where is he?" Kakashi hissed. "Tenzou!"

"He's right here, Kakashi," Sakura murmured, tired concern in her voice. "What's wrong?"

"He was dead!" Kakashi said quietly, skirting his sick to come to her and press his wolf's head into her hands. "I smelled death everywhere!"

"Shh," Sakura cooed, kissing his forehead. "Hush." She slipped from the bed to the floor and pulled the wolf bodily into her lap where he lay, curled tightly against her stomach.

"There were gryphons and shadebane and it felt like it was real," Kakashi stammered. "But it wasn't just a normal dream. It was like... I don't even know! But if felt so goddamn real, Sakura!"

The sheets of the bed shifted suddenly, and Tenzou grunted softly in his sleep. He'd been sleeping since Sakura woke him up for him to eat, to at least get some nourishment in him before he slipped off back into that realm of sedation that single opium smoke had brought him. He turned over and rubbed his face.

"Whass goin' on?" he slurred, wrinkling his nose at the smell of sick.

Sakura kissed his mouth when it was close enough. "Kakashi had a bit of a bout, that's all," she said.

"A bout, eh?" Tenzou asked. It seemed like with each passing moment, he was becoming more and more awake.

Alive. Kakashi felt himself relaxing into Sakura's embrace.

"Yeah," Kakashi whispered. "A bout."

--

Morning came, and with that morning came a dire need to do something to protect himself. A thought immediately came into Kakashi's mind as he mopped up his sick from the night before.

Make yourself immune to Shadebane.

That's crazy, he retorted, scrubbing the floor with a bit more vigor than was necessary.

It's not. You can make the cherry laurel wine. Just keep adding 'Bane to it as the days go by. Think about it. You want to protect them, don't you?

Kakashi threw his glance over to Sakura and Tenzou, who were still asleep. His eyes softened at their embrace, and his hand over the soaked cloth slowed in its work, just so he could watch them.

If Shifters believed in perfection, that would have been it. A perfect moment watching two perfect humans in perfect love and perfect trust.

This feeling you have for them is neither human lust nor Shifter hate, his mind continued. It's love. Loyalty. A sense of belonging that you know you need more than anything in the world. Tenzou asked what you would do if Sakura were to be gone, and you said you would die. Now ask yourself the same question regarding Tenzou.

Kakashi thought a moment. Well, he mused, if Tenzou were to die, I suppose Sakura would rot from the inside out, and I would suffer with her.

You're connected, his mind said, bound, by something stronger than deep magic. You're bound by love to them. You love them. The both of them. Human or not. Former knight or not. You love them with such a passion that you would throw your instincts out the window for them and die. Because you know that instinct to live is as strong as the rumors of betrayal go, and yet you would go against that drive.

"When did this happen?" Kakashi whispered, still gazing intently at the two humans peacefully sleeping.

It may not have been love then. It may have simply been Shifter's loyalty and following and your wolf nature to form a pack. But now it is love, and that is all that matters. Make the cherry laurel wine and drink it.

Kakashi rinsed the rag in the bucket of water next to him and hung it on the windowsill to dry. Then he rummaged quietly through Sakura's pack and withdrew the jar of cherry laurel water and the much smaller, deadlier jar of Shadebane. Then, using his tin cup, he mixed the two together.

The Shadebane, a purplish oil that would burn his skin if he touched it, mixed with the clear laurel water to create a reddish wine that looked and smelled of blood, with a dusty consistency like a riverbed when its sand is kicked into the water and floats, ever so gently, to the bottom.

This ratio of Shadebane to laurel would bring no reaction out of Kakashi's body. He needed his body to attack itself and then form proper defenses before he could move on. So he added another drop of Shadebane, and the mixture grew darker, more nauseating and sinister.

He downed it in a few quick gulps, and sparks flashed before his eyes as soon as the wine dropped into his stomach. He felt dizzy and sick, and when he tried to stand, the room spun and he ended up crashing into the night stand, knocking over the dinner dish Tenzou had used last night and shattering it.

Sakura and Tenzou woke up at the crash and Sakura was up and out of the bed like a cat sprung after a mouse. When he collapsed, he was there to crumple into her arms. His eyes flickered to catch her image. She was wafting in and out of his vision like a scent on the air might fluctuate, but Kakashi found he could smell nothing at all save for the toxic wine on his tongue. She was speaking his name, screaming it, but Kakashi could not hear. He was fighting his own battle and was concentrating much too hard on winning to risk paying attention to the woman he was almost literally dying to protect.

--

"Kakashi! Kakashi, say something to me, dammit! Flea bag, open your eyes! Don't you dare pass out on me, you mangy scrap!" Sakura shouted, an arm poised beneath his shoulder while another was fisted in the collar of his shirt. "Tenzou, help me!"

Tenzou slipped out of the bed, favoring his injured leg as he helped half-drag, half-carry Kakashi onto the cushions of the second bed across the room. As soon as the Shifter was set on the sheets, Tenzou noticed the tin cup and jars in the corner, and jerked his head at them for Sakura to see.

"He didn't!" she gasped, rushing forward.

"What?" Tenzou asked, sitting at the foot of his own bed.

"He poisoned himself!" Sakura said, holding up the beaker of Shadebane. "Why would he do that?"

But Tenzou didn't have an answer. Shifter mentality was strange and foreign to him, and he could not even begin to grasp at it.

--

Maybe that wasn't the smartest idea. I feel so weak right now.

No. No, it worked! Your body feels weak, but don't you feel warm?

I'm under blankets.

Under blankets.

Don't you feel anything at all? Are you sure it didn't work? Have you shifted?

I feel weak. That's all.

But you haven't shifted!

Mopping his face with a cloth.

Kakashi opened one eye. It burned, and he shut it again with a groan.

Warm lips on his cheek, and then his mouth caused him to open his eyes again. They still burned, but he forced them to stay open.

"Why did you do that?" Tenzou demanded hotly from where he stood poised behind Sakura on a pair of crutches. "Poison yourself, that is."

"I want..." Kakashi murmured, realizing it was Sakura who had kissed him and that it wasn't just his imagination. "I want... to become immune... to protect you... I..." He broke off with a fit of coughing, and rolled away from the moist cloth in Sakura's hand so he could cough to the wall and not to them.

"You what?" Tenzou asked, his voice still full of anger at what Kakashi had done. Kakashi could tell Sakura was only glad that he was alive.

Kakashi swallowed and turned back to them, sitting up even though his muscles screamed and began to shift in violent protest. He held the urge to shift at bay. "I want to be able to die..." he started, "for you."

He looked away again at the shocked silence his words had induced. "That rumor," he said, "about a Shifter killing his own brother... It's true. But I don't want that instinct. Not around you two. It's... love, isn't it?"

He looked tentatively back at Tenzou and Sakura again. They both looked as though they were trying to wake themselves from a dream.

"Be grateful," Kakashi said, and Sakura looked up sharply. "That's what I was always told. And I know why, now." He gave them both a smile.

Sakura swallowed, and Kakashi knew that swallow was only for controlling her tears. "Why?" she asked with a shaking voice.

"I'm part Shifter, part chimera, part human," he said. "Though I'm only human in spirit, not in body. And the potential in all three of those beings, which are all cousins to each other in some way—because to be human is to have a spirit on the inside of your body, and to be a chimera is to be the link between human and Shifter—can only be unlocked by the human spirit, I think." He gave them another smile, then stood. "So I am grateful to you, for unlocking my door."

And then Sakura, it seemed, could not hold her tears back any longer. She rushed into Kakashi's chest, and as much as he ached, he loved the feel of her there as much as he loved her, and he wrapped his arms around her and closed his eyes and drank in her scent. Then he opened them to see Tenzou, who was smiling so broadly Kakashi thought his face might split in two.

Kakashi opened one arm, and Tenzou limped forward and crushed the Shifter to him with those arms that smelled so much like old wood. For the longest time, they merely held each other.

When Tenzou finally had to let go, it was only due to his leg, and he sat on the bed with a thump. "I'm sorry," he said, and Kakashi looked at him, hesitant to let go of Sakura, who still clung to him, though her crying had stopped.

"Why?" Kakashi asked.

"I told you I thought you were an animal," Tenzou said sadly.

"You were a knight then," Kakashi said, shrugging. "In league with monsters."

"They really hurt you, didn't they?" Tenzou asked, folding his hands against his knees and looking at the far wall.

"Yes," Kakashi said.

"I nearly got you killed!" Tenzou whispered, and Kakashi saw that he too was on the brink of tears. It was another human thing he didn't understand. The Shifter cocked his head to one side.

"We're safe now," Kakashi said. "It doesn't matter anymore. Why are you crying? I don't understand what tears do."

Tenzou shook his head, trying to explain. "For a human, tears mean sadness or regret or... joy, in some cases."

Kakashi looked down at the sniffling woman in his arms and remembered the dream that made his human form cry from the pain.

"It'd be like a howl for you. It's our way of voicing our emotions to the heavens." He gave a faint smile.

Kakashi had never given a death howl before, but he'd heard them, long and low across the land, and he'd howled a sympathetic howl in return before Sakura would shut him up with a boot thrown at his face. He loved howling, but crying did not look like it was pleasurable. His perfect humans had their faces contorted with pain.

But he'd never had anyone howl in his name before either. No stories were told of him on the night air as the wolves sang their songs. He found himself merely wanting to howl, high and keening and lilting, in song, in prayer, for all the wolves of the world to hear. He wanted them to hear so that they might know the names Tenzou, Kakashi, and Sakura. Even if they only knew them as wolves, it would be enough, because all three of them would make fine wolves in their own little pack.

Then realization struck.

A pack needs puppies.

Kakashi pried Sakura from him and pushed her toward Tenzou, who caught her before she tripped over him. Hopping up on the windowsill, perched there, Kakashi waved his hand in a brief farewell.

"Feeling much better," he said. "I think my plan is working. But I was just thinking that we might need some pups, so hop to it!" He gave them a cheeky smile before flying out the window as a silver-winged hawk.

--

"Kakashi just told us to have sex, didn't he?" Tenzou asked slowly.

"More specifically, to have sex to make babies," Sakura said, just as slowly. "Or... pups, as he called it."

"Did he just imply that we were like rabbits?" Tenzou asked, still trying to process what the Shifter had said. "Because the proper terminology would be kittens if he did."

"Probably. Shifter humor, most likely," Sakura said. Then she turned to Tenzou. "Shall we?" she asked, lacing her arms around his neck.

Tenzou gave her a knowing smile as he crawled over her, pressing her back into the pillows. "We shall," he murmured, before beginning to kiss her.

--

Kakashi was vaguely worried about Sakura having a child. Her family did often have complications—birthing was the cause of Shizune's death. But then he assured himself that the south would have excellent midwives (some races of chimera were legendary for their ability to help struggling mothers), that Tenzou would be an incredible father, and that Kakashi would be an uncle, just as incredible.

Because he viewed Tenzou as a brother, and Sakura as his dearest, dearest friend.

The only two real friends that he'd ever had.

Besides Genma, of course, though Genma didn't really count because the only thing that tied them together was the fact that they were both Shifters.

He'd shift into a horse and give that little boy or girl rides on his back every day, and he'd teach the child how to hunt and swim and do all sorts of things that most had forgotten how to do. What Tenzou couldn't do for it, Kakashi would take over as a Shifter who had raised Sakura from the time she was a baby. (Really, he gave a new meaning to the phrase "masculine mothering.")

How lovely life would be in their pack.

But the one thing that disturbed him was his dream. He'd never had any type of dream other than memories before to fuel his false hatred for Sakura and her family, but that nightmare was no memory. It seemed more like a premonition.

As Kakashi walked down the town's busy streets, he furrowed his brow. I pray that it isn't, he thought, nibbling on his thumb. I really hope it's not.

But something in his stomach burned, and it wasn't from the laurel wine.