Swapped
The Oasis & the Sand
Sakura woke blissfully slowly, feeling well-rested after the horrendous day she'd had. Her back was a little sore still, but it was on the mend. If she had been in her body, she would have been healing in her sleep, but Kakashi's body came with no such luxury. She burrowed her face into her pillow, inhaling deeply. It was warmer than usual, and the fabric felt soft against her cheek. She frowned a little when she felt it move slightly beneath her.
She cracked her eye open and was met with the sight of her own chest, covered in one of Kakashi's sweaters, rising and falling with his gentle breaths. She felt an uncomfortable, tight twitch at her crotch and sighed deeply. She had grown quite familiar with this feeling after Kakashi's mishap with endorphin-release. Part of her felt like she should move away and take care of the problem between her legs, but mostly she didn't care.
It was her breasts her face was buried between, she reasoned. She felt a little warm when she also reasoned that it was Kakashi's face that was buried between her breasts, and it was his erection pushing against the thigh of her body, but she forced the thought away. She was too comfortable to care.
Kakashi was murmuring pleasantly in his sleep, happy sighs and hums escaping his lips. She was relieved they had slipped back into a comfortable place with each other after she had shown him her memory of that night. That night had plagued her mind endlessly in the following weeks, but she'd been able to push down her disappointment and move on with life. She'd rather have stomached the rejection than lose her friend and partner.
Imagine her shock when she came to the full realization that he had genuinely no recollection of the events of that night. She wondered if she were just opening an old wound with letting him in on it. She had a nasty habit for pursuing men she had no business entangling with.
As if he could feel her worried state of mind, Kakashi wrapped his arms gently around her and slid his hands across the top of her back. She winced as he grazed over the bandaged wound, but the embrace was more pleasant than the pain was unpleasant so she stayed put. Eventually he settled into it and the pain dissipated as his movements did.
She supposed it was all secondary now. She had gotten over the sting of it all quite awhile ago, and they were in a good place. Well, they were in each other's bodies, which wasn't great, but otherwise they were doing just fine.
"You look comfortable." Kakashi murmured down to her sleepily after she lay there awake for some undetermined time, lost in her thoughts. She lifted her head to rest her chin on his chest and smiled lazily at him.
"I never realized I made such a good pillow." She said with a happy sigh, dropping her face back onto his chest and nuzzling. She ignored the twitch in her pants.
"Why—" He croaked out and cleared his throat a little awkwardly, "why don't I cut up the rest of our fruit and you can…take care of that?" He said, gesturing vaguely to her lower half. His cheeks were pink and he was avoiding her gaze. She supposed he was right and rolled off of him to let him get up from the bed. She sighed at the problem that lay before her.
"How do you usually 'take care of it'?" She asked, thinking that her solution had been a bit inconvenient for regular use. When he didn't answer her she turned to look at him, staring at her with wide eyes and a bright red complexion. She frowned at him in confusion but he just stared right back at her in surprise. He was acting so strange, she thought. This was his body, surely he knew how to… "Oh gods, that is not what I meant!" She exclaimed before smothering herself in a pillow. After awhile, she felt the bed dip beside her.
"Are you planning on suffocating it?" He asked, trying to hold back his laughter and doing a piss-poor job of it.
"If I stop breathing, maybe it will go away." She grumbled into the pillow. He hummed thoughtfully. Eventually she lifted her head and he offered her a piece of fruit. She took it grudgingly, even though she quite liked the taste. She didn't want him to be nice to her while she was struggling with his anatomy, and he was just continuing on happily in her body.
He sat there on the side of the bed while she lay on her belly, equally trying to hide the erection as well as squash it. They shared the fruit in silence. Eventually, she felt the arousal fade. With a sigh of relief she sat up. Kakashi smirked at her.
"For future reference: peeing usually works." He ducked and hopped off the bed just in time to dodge the pillow she whipped at his head.
"You couldn't have mentioned that earlier?!" She growled at him as he laughed. He really was a bastard.
Kojima-san had been nice enough to present them with a detailed map of Wind on their way out. They thanked her profusely and did their best impression of happy newlyweds as she made her suggestive comments towards them. Kakashi felt like he was actually going to miss her.
They topped up their water reserves and grabbed some food on their way out of the village. Kakashi once again had a sweater wrapped around his head to block his face from the wind, and Sakura had salvaged the mask from her shredded shirt to Kakashi's delight. The mask had finally grown on her. He wondered if she would still feel that way when they were switched back.
Although, she hadn't seemed to mind kissing him through the mask, he remembered with sick satisfaction.
She returned to his side, brandishing a bag of dried brown fruits happily. He eyed them sceptically. "What is that?" He asked unenthusiastically.
"They're dates!" She said, waving them in his face as though that would make them more appealing. "They're supposed to be really good for your digestive system…" She said glumly when it was clear he was not nearly as excited about her shrivelled fruits as she was.
"Ah…" He said as he nodded in understanding, "You're irregular." He said quite loudly. People turned to look. Her ears were bright red as she shuffled him along.
He was not so happy to see the desert again. He thought that if he ever saw the desert again in his life, it would be too soon. Granted, they weren't being swept up in a sandstorm this time, which did improve his opinion, but only slightly. Regardless, he would be grateful once they were back in lush, green Konoha. He'd had enough sand to last him a lifetime.
They picked the quickest, most direct path to Suna. There was a possibility they'd have to make camp for a night, as the map didn't indicate any towns on their route, but at least they weren't going in blind now. They'd been running for a few hours when Sakura requested a break. He obliged her and stopped under the shadow of a massive sand dune. The sand was cool to the touch, and he relished in the feeling as he leaned back on it. Sakura was sat next to him, hunched over and brows knotted in concentration.
"Is it your back?" He asked. She sighed wearily.
"The wind chakra twisted my skin as it cut. It's difficult to heal without seeing it." She admitted, albeit grudgingly. She didn't want to ask for his help, clearly, which baffled him. They were partners. He sat up and moved so he was situated behind her back. He lifted her sweater and unraveled the bandages to see the still-mangled expanse of her back. Sure enough, the spots that remained mostly-unhealed were twisted and gnarled.
"I won't try releasing your endorphins again." He assured her as the muscles in her back tensed. She let out a huff of laughter and he watched her shoulders drop as she forced herself to relax. If he ever were to give her pleasure like that again, he'd be sure she wouldn't be furious with him afterwards. He would also prefer she be in her own body.
As he made slow work of untwisting and mending her skin, he couldn't stop from letting his mind wander. As predicted, he had spent his night riddled with thoughts of the memory Sakura had shown him. He saw bits and pieces of his own memories mingled with hers, and tried to fill in any blanks left in her perspective. He wondered if things would have been different had he remembered that night. Would he have told her it was a mistake? Would he have simply pretended nothing happened?
He was kind of pretending nothing had happened right now, he realized. Had she shown him to see how he would react? No, it wasn't like Sakura to try and trick him into something. She was far too impatient for that. He believed she was being genuine in her reasons. Perhaps she had moved past the whole ordeal and now it was just a funny anecdote between friends.
He didn't find it terribly funny, though. When he thought about her skin under his hands, the hem of her dress at his fingertips, her mouth parting beneath his, and all the sweet noises she made…
"Ouch!" Sakura yelped and leaned away from him. He winced in sympathy.
"Sorry, sorry," he said and forced himself to pay attention.
"How do you think Naruto will react when he hears about all this?" She asked after a few moments of silence. Kakashi knotted his brow. Naruto's constant state of loud sometimes made it difficult to tell if he was angry, happy, excited, or any other emotion in his range. There were a few things that had transpired during this mission he could see him being pretty pissed off about, though. Kakashi's hands-on tour of Sakura's body, for one. He would probably not take that very well.
"What if we just don't tell anyone?" Kakashi proposed. That could be fun, he thought. If they returned to Konoha, still trapped in each other's bodies, and just pretended to be one another. He pictured himself sitting in Sakura's living room with his legs in Ino's lap while the blonde painted his toenails and told him the hottest flower shop gossip.
"I would love to see you attempt one day at the hospital in my stead." She said through her laughter. He hadn't even considered the hospital. He couldn't even imagine picking up Sakura's responsibilities at the hospital. He could imagine her cute medic's uniform, though. It was pretty much the only perk to visiting the hospital. She wouldn't wear it for a house call, something he'd found out the hard way. He could almost feel the lump she'd given him after he'd made that particular request.
"Yeah, maybe not." He conceded. Her back was beginning to look somewhat normal again, he noticed with pride. He told her as much.
"Finally," she said in relief. "We've wasted enough time with my injuries on this mission."
"I wasn't going to say anything, but since you brought it up…" He said with false severity. She swatted at him over her shoulder, missing by a long shot.
"If it were you, you'd still be passed out cold in that inn." She pointed out harshly.
"Remember when you looked up to and revered me?"
"Mm, yes, I think it lasted all of thirty seconds. That eraser dropped on your head and all my reverence flew out the window." She teased. "Not to mention that whole One Thousand Years of Death thing. Oh, and the fact that Naruto and I beat your bell test by threatening to spoil Icha Icha Tactics. And—"
"Okay, I get it!" He interrupted abruptly. Her mouth closed with an audible pop. Then she burst out laughing.
"So sensitive, Kakashi-sensei." She said teasingly. His forearms crawled with goose bumps at the indirect reminder of how she'd whispered the honorific in his ear in her memory.
"How does your back feel?" He changed the subject before his thoughts could run wild again.
"It's good, we can get moving again." She said, jumping up eagerly and forgoing the bandages. He didn't argue; she definitely knew better than he did in this department. They shouldered their packs and took off running again.
After three more hours of running, stopping only for quick water breaks, Kakashi noticed something in the distance. As they got closer, he realized they were trees. They paused and shared confused, elated looks with one another.
"An oasis?" Sakura asked quietly, as if she could scare it off. He figured if anyone could, it was her. He was wise enough to keep that thought to himself. "I always kind of thought they were myths." She admitted. He laughed at her, despite the fact that he was just as blown away as she was.
"We're only two hours from Suna now." He pointed out. The sun was starting to get low in the sky. If they made a beeline for Suna now, they'd get there just as darkness fell. But that oasis did look awfully nice…
"Let's at least look at it." She said excitedly. "Come on, Kakashi! You have to admit, it's pretty amazing." She said, daring him to tell her otherwise.
"Sakura, I have traveled many places, and seen many things. I'm not as easily impressed as—" She was quite literally running away from him. "I hope it's a mirage!" He shouted after her. Her laugh carried over the sand and taunted him. No respect, he thought sadly as he dashed after her.
It turned out that the oasis was not, in fact, a mirage. It was an incredible sight to behold, though. He'd let Sakura have that win. There was something remarkable about a lone jade pool in a sea of sand that made him feel like he and Sakura had wondered into a small heaven. He half-expected his life to flash before his eyes.
"Still not impressed?" Sakura teased as she grinned at his awestruck expression. He snapped his mouth shut and rolled his eyes.
"I suppose it wouldn't be the worst thing, if we arrive in Suna tomorrow morning instead." He said after a beat of silence. Sakura was all smiles and gleeful wiggles. She looked ridiculous in his body. "It would be easier for them to arrange room for us at the Kazekage residence in the morning, you know." He said. She nodded and hummed in agreement.
"Yes, it's the considerate thing to do." She said, pulling her mask down and grinning impishly. She sat by the glittering pool and pulled out her wrinkly fruits, beckoning him to join her. He gladly joined her by the water, but he turned his nose up at the date she offered him. She shrugged and took a bite of one. He pretended not to notice the way her mouth grimaced around it and how she struggled to swallow it down. He smiled when she surreptitiously put the bag back in her pack, never to be seen again.
"I do believe it's your turn to catch dinner." He said smugly. "That is, unless you'd like to trade your secret in for a favour?" He proposed. She barked out a laugh.
"Dream on, Hatake." She said as she walked out onto the glittering pool and began to scope out a target. He used the time she took to catch a fish to pluck a dried bush out from the sand at the edge of the oasis. The air was still hot with the sun out, but once it went down, they'd be glad for the fire.
Sakura had already cleaned the fish when he rejoined her. He broke off just enough of the bush for a small fire to cook the fish and saved the rest for nightfall. They sat with their ankles in the pool while they enjoyed their dinner, watching the sun lower and set over the dunes.
"Who knew the desert could be so enchanting?" She said dreamily. He eyed her as she stared off into the sunset. She was a hopeless romantic, always had been. He realized that the silly, wistful expression on his face wasn't entirely out of place. Along the way, with all the lost loved ones and violence, he'd forgotten he was a romantic at heart, too. She was a nice reminder of that.
"Even after the sandstorm and that fossil of a village?" He implored jokingly. She laughed.
"Yes, even after that." She said stubbornly. "Don't try to change my mind. Even almost dying at the hands of Aoyagi couldn't put a damper on this," she said, gesturing to the view before them. He smiled at her softly, even though she wasn't looking at him.
"You were impressive yesterday, Sakura." He commended in earnest. "That ninja was no joke. It would have been a difficult fight under normal circumstances, but you did it with the odds stacked against you." Sakura blushed but grinned happily at his praise.
"I had a pretty good teacher." She said with a crooked smile.
"How did you do it?" He asked, ignoring the bait.
"I cut off their chakra network." She said proudly. He raised his eyebrows in impressed surprise. "I can show you how, if you want. It would definitely eat up far less of your chakra than all that ninjutsu." She said as she raised two fingers, coated in pointed blue chakra.
"It's the same shape as your chakra scalpel." He noted as he inspected it. "But the chakra is different; it's not as dense."
"I basically combined my technique with the Hyuuga method of taking your opponent down from the inside out. Usually, I would only target physical vital points in the body, but with the Sharingan I was able to target the chakra flow." She reached forward and took his right forearm in her hand. With her free hand, she tugged her hitae-ate up and gazed down at his arm before running those two fingers across his skin.
"Was that wise?" He asked, though he didn't feel much different.
"I only severed a very small line. If my chakra were a little denser I could simultaneously snap tendons and nerves, but I'd rather not injure you unprovoked." She said with a sweet smile.
"You're always trying to injure me." He pointed out.
"You're always provoking me." She dismissed. "Try generating the mystical palm." She said, looking smug. He shrugged and tried to gather the chakra in his right hand. He frowned at the blue cloud of chakra that appeared.
"I can't manipulate it any further than this." He said with mild amazement. She already looked too smug for his liking.
"Anyone who didn't demonstrate exemplary chakra control wouldn't even be able to produce that much."
"Exemplary chakra control—Sakura, you flatter me," Kakashi said happily.
"I wasn't talking about y—"
"Thank you, Sakura-chan." He interrupted firmly, determined to cheat this compliment out of her. She rolled her eyes at him before putting away the Sharingan.
They lapsed into a comfortable silence as the sky faded from orange, to purple, and the air around them began to chill in earnest. They had already pulled their feet from the oasis pool and Kakashi gathered what remained of his dry brush to make a fire for them. They forewent the tent, opting to sleep under the stars instead. Once again, Sakura volunteered for first watch
"You sure? You've been through a rough couple days, you must be tired." He said, eyeing her warily.
"I'm fine, geez. I'm too impatient to take second watch. So unless you'd like me to wake you up two hours earlier than you need to…" She said with a threatening smile. He conceded and crawled into his bedroll without argument. She really was such a stubborn thing.
Sakura sat by and stoked the fire until she was certain Kakashi had succumbed to sleep. She wrapped a spare blanket around her shoulders as the temperature dropped from cool to cold. She wondered if they'd made the right decision in skipping the tent, but Kakashi was mewling away happily in his sleep, so she figured he was comfortable enough, snuggled up in his bedroll by the fire.
She spent the night gazing at the oasis pool as it glittered in the moonlight, getting up every now and then to scour the sand for more dried brush to keep the fire going, and listening to the soft noises Kakashi made all night. She tried to tune him out, but she supposed some level of her consciousness was morbidly curious about what could have been going on in his head to illicit those little purrs.
Or maybe she already knew and was just being voyeuristic. Kakashi's body certainly had an opinion about what those noises were alluding to. She sighed wearily. She expected that a man nearly-forty wouldn't be quite so virile, but here she was, half-hard in the middle of the desert, listening to her own soft moans. She wondered what that said about her, psychologically. Was it narcissistic?
She didn't get any sleep that night. At one point, she'd nodded off, propped up against a tree, but she'd woken not fifteen minutes later when Kakashi made a sound that was downright obscene, and her deeply tiresome semi graduated to fully aroused. She couldn't even remember a time in her life when she'd ever made a sound like that, she thought grudgingly.
What the hell was in this man's fantasies? She really needed to pick up her own copies of Icha Icha if she was missing out on this much. That trail of thought was entirely counterproductive, she realized with a sigh and a thump of her head against the tree behind her. Hadn't he said peeing would do the trick? That would prove to be a lot more difficult to do than she had imagined.
What a mess, she thought to herself, referencing both the splashes she'd made and the state of her life. She missed her body. She could always pee easily, sleep soundly, and she wasn't infuriatingly aroused at all times. Okay, that's not entirely true, she admitted to herself. She could acknowledge that she could be a bit insatiable herself from time to time. But when her arousal reared its ugly head, she usually had no issues ignoring it. The same could not be said of her experience in Kakashi's body.
Sakura let the fire die as the sun began to peek out over the sand dunes again. Kakashi was still sound asleep, blissfully unaware of the hours she'd spent glaring at the bulge in her pants as it shifted from hard, to soft, to hard again, and on it went all night long. She blamed herself really, because she had willfully endured the sleepy, erotic noises emitting from her body. It wasn't truly Kakashi's fault, but she still felt a little resentful.
You just want to know what he dreamed about, perv, she mentally chastised herself.
The sun had risen fully above the dunes now and the air began to warm. Sakura found herself gazing at the oasis pool again. She still had some time before they'd be heading to Suna. How many opportunities would she have in her life to take a dip in her own personal paradise?
As she undressed, she boldly let her hands feel the contours of Kakashi's body, despite knowing it would only encourage the heat coiling low in her belly. He really did have an exceptional physique, she noted with a sigh. Rugged and strong, but lean and graceful. How unfair. By the time she was wading into the pool her body was standing at full attention again. Gods, but every piece of him is perfect, she bemoaned internally. I wonder if his face is as pretty as the rest, she thought with a deep flush.
Thankfully, the water was cold enough to wash away the evidence.
Kakashi was surprised when he opened his eyes to daylight. It was getting unpleasantly warm in his bedroll, and he had an uncomfortable dampness between his legs. He laid there for a moment, considering the implication. He could remember bits and pieces of his dreams, and given the subject matter he wasn't entirely surprised by the state in which he'd awakened. He imagined Sakura had gotten an earful last night.
With a sigh, he unstuck his thighs and crawled out of the bedroll. Sakura was floating face up in the middle of the pool in front of him. And her face wasn't the only thing that was up. Yeah, she definitely heard me last night, he thought with another sigh. This mission was turning out to be far more problematic than it was worth.
At least he would be able to get in the water without raising any eyebrows, he reasoned. He wasn't sure how much more pent up frustration he could take. It had only been a few days, and already he was feeling the strain of it. He was sure Sakura had it worse. If he had been in his own body he would have excused himself ages ago to whack one out as quickly and privately as possible, but that was off the table in their current situation.
He was purposely noisy when he approached the pool so that Sakura would be warned of his presence. He didn't try to hide his mirth when she sunk into the water with a big splash in her shock. When she came back up, her hair was stuck to her face, but even that wasn't enough to hide her flushed skin.
"Good morning, Sakura-chan!" He said pleasantly, receiving nought more than a grunt in response. "I had the most restful sleep last night." He boasted, hoping to ruffle her feathers. The way she glared at him told him they were already good and ruffled, and his efforts were being wasted. She was crankier than he'd ever seen her. He felt for her, but not enough to go easy on her. He was nothing if not consistent.
"Shall we head to Suna? I could use a real breakfast and some air conditioning." She said, probably sensing ill intentions from Kakashi. Or he was just over thinking things and she really did just crave the comforts of civilization. He watched her out of the corner of his eye when they strode out of the water, but she seemed to have everything under control as she dressed.
He didn't bother with the bindings, and Sakura didn't try to force them on him. They'd be in Suna soon enough and he'd probably just slink off to his room and try to numb himself to the charms of Sakura's body. It was a vicious cycle; getting turned on, and then being turned on by the feeling of being turned on. This was a cruel world they lived in.
The run to Suna was pleasant. It was still early enough that the air remained relatively fresh, and if that wasn't enough then he could rely on Sakura's cold shoulder to cool him off. She had been uncharacteristically quiet the whole way, only speaking when he asked her a direct question that couldn't be answered with a gesture or grunt.
A friendly face greeted them at the gates. Kankuro greeted them warmly, paying extra close attention to him, wrapping an arm around his shoulder as he escorted them through the gates. Kakashi tensed under his arm, and shot wary glances to Sakura, hoping she'd step in. She seemed to be enjoying his discomfort.
"What drags you two through Suna?" Kankuro asked, mainly speaking to Kakashi, tightening his hand on his shoulder and nudging him. Kakashi gave him a dirty look and Kankuro recoiled. "Whoa, what's up with you?" Two paces ahead of them, Sakura laughed.
"Don't mind her; she hasn't gotten laid in awhile." Sakura said with a vindictive sneer for Kakashi's benefit. That spiteful she-devil…
"Well, that's an easy fix." Kankuro said suggestively, dropping his arm back down around Kakashi's shoulders. He was pretty sure half of Suna felt the murderous intent rolling off of him.
A/N: pretty sure I'm writing these faster than anyone can read them lmao whoops