Title: Cold Hands
Series: Naruto
Author: Coyen
Pairing: Sasuke x Naruto, Kakashi x Iruka
Rating: PG-13 -- R(?)
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, this writing is merely for entertainment purposes.
Author's Notes: This might be slightly AU, or OOC, I think. Please forgive me, I have limited knowledge of the actual plotline and characters. I just wanted to write this pairing for pleasure. Please enjoy and PLEASE PLEASE review! (---just a little desperate)
Chapter Three: My Decrepit Thoughts Betray You
"Yeah… yeah… yeah…" Naruto repeated under his breath again and again and again, sweat rolling down his brow as he lifted weights in his shabby top-floor home. He was thinking about being alone with Sakura for two whole weeks… this was it! He was finally going to get some action! It wasn't even really about Sakura specifically anymore, it was just about getting some in general… he didn't care who anymore, as long as he could start bragging along with the other boys of his village about sex, like back when they were in class…
And maybe… be a part of their group, too.
Naruto's face turned suddenly dark, and the pace with which he lifted the weights increased. Damnit… Kakashi went to pick up Sasuke and Sakura this morning… no telling what those two did! All alone in a dark cave… she probably got scared and held onto him… A spurt of blood shot from his left nostril as the image of Sakura pulling off Sasuke's shirt and him grabbing her close rose to his mind. Fucking hell! They probably boinked like crazy! He almost wanted to cry, then recovered from his brief bout of melodrama, swearing, not even realizing the exact details of his daydream that had caused the nosebleed.
"It's not fair… how come that guy has such a weird power, making all the girls fall in love with him?" The blond-haired boy asked no one in particular, setting down the weights and sighing, rubbing the drops of sweat from his forehead with the back of a hand. "Stupid jerk…"
Naruto stood and looked around. But that was all behind him now! It was time for his two-week retreat with Sakura! And he was going to make her fall hard for his charms! Now… had he packed enough underwear?
The young ninja-in-training started rifling through his bags. All… eight of them. He had to be sure that everything he would need for the upcoming trip was here, couldn't be caught unprepared for anything, as Kakashi-sensei would probably say… he had his toothbrush, his extra sandals, some comics, instant hot-packs, two blankets… condoms…
OHHH YEAH! The boy grinned and made sure those little guys were packed squarely away. He was definitely going to get into Sakura's pants… no doubt about it… he was determined to lose his virginity one way or another!
A knock on the door stunned the ninja out of his gleeful, lecherous laughter, and he jumped to answer it. It was Iruka, smiling happily. Sakura and Sasuke were standing just behind him.
"Ne, Naruto… I'm taking these two out for ramen in congratulations of completing their mission without any problems. Want to come?" The chounin asked, already knowing, of course, the answer.
"WAI!" Naruto jumped forward, paused, turned to grab his bags, scrambled back to the others and slammed the door behind him. "YOSHI! Let's go!" He was grinning impishly as the four began to walk down the hallway. "But why did you get me? I thought it was a treat for the ones who had finished their mission…"
Iruka didn't break his pace, answering fluidly. "I wasn't going to, but Sasuke here mentioned how much you like ramen, and knowing this and that you'd be disappointed if you found out, I decided to invite you anyway." Naruto glanced suspiciously over at Sasuke after his sensei was finished speaking. Sasuke's face held no emotions except for a faint blush, probably from walking up all the stairs that lead to Naruto's home. When he looked at Sakura, however, her face was pale, and her eyes troubled, as if she had seen a ghost. Something wasn't right here, he could feel it.
But right now, all he could think of was ramen, and he didn't feel like worrying about anything else.
----------
"Now that you two have had your fill… it's time to go!" Kakashi had appeared quite unexpectedly in the restaurant, standing next to Iruka and directing his voice at Sakura and Naruto, both of whom choked on their noodles.
"Kakashi-kun, give them a break, ne?" Iruka said fondly to his lover. This intimate information was hardly known by his students, but he was afraid some of them had guessed, anyway. "They're still eating…"
"Aa, aa…" Kakashi took a seat by the older man, pressing their thighs together beneath the counter and smiling underneath his mask, aware that no one had noticed his actions. "In a few minutes, then…"
Sakura seemed to have recovered a bit from earlier, probably thanks to the warm ramen. "Kakashi-sensei can be so cruel…" She said quietly, staring into the soup of her noodles. Naruto looked at her quizzically.
"He's just eager to get the mission started… I am too!" Naruto dumped the rest of the bowl into his wide mouth, and swallowed greedily.
"Naruto is certainly energetic…" Iruka said softly, beginning to fidget a bit. It wasn't much longer that he would be able to maintain a decent (seemingly chit-chat) conversation with Kakashi without someone being bound to notice that something fishy was going on. Kakashi laughed slightly.
"I'm afraid he looks forward to the retreat too much… he really expects it to be much more entertaining than it will be… you know me, Iruka, I don't tend to ever go easy on my students…" He pressed his thigh up against his lover's again, firmer this time.
"Aa…" Iruka felt his control slipping. It had been a while since they'd had a chance to sleep together…
While Sakura quietly ate her noodles, focusing all her attention on them and forcing herself not to think about what she'd seen back in the cave, and Naruto ordered a second bowl with fervor, Sasuke studied his two sensei. Something was odd about the blush on Iruka's face, and the perverted grin that was obvious beneath Kakashi's mask. His gaze traveled downward… and his eyes widened in shock. Their thighs…!
He couldn't believe it. He simply couldn't. He'd though he was a freak, he thought he was sick, not normal because of his long-ago realization that he was attracted to boys, and not girls… but here, right here, under his very nose and everyone else's, Kakashi and Iruka were very cleverly hiding an obvious intimacy! He knew immediately based on how close the Jonin sat, how they pressed their bodies in close, how, almost entirely hidden by their clothing and positions, Kakashi's hand had crept stealthily into Iruka's lap, and was resting on his inner thigh…
Sasuke looked away, blushing beet red, unsure of what to do. So he wasn't alone… the thought calmed him, reassured him, to an extent.
He wasn't alone.
That was all he needed to know.
"Well!" Kakashi said cheerily as he stood a few minutes later, leaving Iruka an unhealthy shade of red, and everyone having finished their noodles. "Let's head out, Sakura, Naruto!" Kakashi glanced at Iruka, gaze lingering suggestively. "We'll be back soon…" His voice was a notch lower, and huskier, than usual. Iruka nodded, blushing again. It seemed that Sasuke was the only one to notice this.
Sakura stood solemnly. "I'm ready."
"M-me too, sensei!" Naruto leapt to his feet.
"Good." Kakashi said happily, and walked out the door, the two ninja following.
"Come, Sasuke, I'll escort you home." Iruka stood, smiling at his student, and paid the man behind the counter.
When normally Sasuke would have said "No need", or "I'll be fine by myself", he chose instead to let his sensei walk him home, and think about a few new discoveries along the way.
----------
"Heeeere we are." Kakashi said in a sing-song voice, and the two young ninja pulled down their headbands from their eyes to find themselves standing on the porch of a really, really crappy log cabin. A light dusting of snow made the cracking, rotting wooden steps slippery, and the flurries falling on their heads promised a large snowstorm yet to come. The walls of the house had obvious holes in them, and little burrows that gave homes to snakes, rats, and other assorted vermin. The shingles were even falling off of the roof- but the worst part was yet to come.
As soon as Kakashi opened the door, both young ninja's faces paled. There was nothing but for two sparsely furnished beds, a kohatsu that didn't heat up, a crumbling cabinet, and a sink with decidedly rusted-over handles, whose ability to produce clean water was undoubtedly questionable.
Where are the WALLS?! Was the first coherent though that came to Sakura's mind.
W- w- where am I gonna PISS?! Was the first to Naruto's.
"Have fun." Kakashi said cheekily before disappearing in a hurry, obviously having somewhere else he would much rather be. The two ninja stared in silence.
"I don't know which is worse, this or the cave…" Sakura said with a grimace, thinking of having to spend two whole weeks in here. She had really, really bad karma.
Naruto recovered quickly, clapping his hands together. "YOSHI! Let's go!" He walked into the room, and threw his stuff down on the floor, Sakura following him in at a precarious pace. "Okay… which bed do you want?" A mischievous gleam rose to his slitted eyes in mere nanoseconds after the first words were uttered. "Or… we can share the same bed…"
"IDIOT!" Sakura nailed him the cheek, then calmly went back to unpacking her belongings. "No way, Naruto, give it UP!"
Naruto muttered darkly as he picked himself up off the floor. "It would conserve heat… it's supposed to be cold right…" He mumbled as he crawled over to the bed on the opposite side of the cabin that Sakura had chosen.
After only five minutes, Naruto had decided he was starving and was eating quite noisily from one of his bags. When he glanced over his shoulder and across the line through the middle of the room the Sakura had drawn with chalk, he choked and jumped to his feet. "W-what are you doing?!" There was an edge of panic to his voice.
Sakura was busy unfolding a large, thick rice paper dressing-wall that couldn't have possibly fit into her bag, and was stretching it out across the line she had drawn on the floor. "I'm giving us separate rooms."
"But, but..." Naruto looked traumatized. "But the sink is on your side! And the door, too!"
"Lucky me." Was the only thing Naruto could make out now that the wall was finished and only muffled noises came through. He slumped down onto his bed, looking miserable.
"This sucks." He muttered to himself. "How on earth did she think to bring something like that? And now I won't even be able to *see* her…" He slouched even more, food forgotten. After a few minutes of moping, he froze in shock again. W-wait… the door is on her side… how am I gonna *piss*?!
----------
//meanwhile…//
Sasuke willed his body to be still as ice; no movements, no sound, no nothing. He forced the blood flowing in his veins to become sluggish, forced his heartbeat into suspended animation. He could have been one with the tree branch that he was resting on, he had become so akin to a statue. But even at this degree of camouflage, he wasn't sure it would be enough to keep Kakashi and his legendary Sharingan eye from finding him out. He could only wait and see.
From his perch outside of Iruka's home, looking into the bedroom through the window, Sasuke thought deeply. He had followed his sensei after the older man had left Sasuke's home, determined to see more of this forbidden thing that was discovered at dinner. Curiosity and a need to be reassured of his own life's decisions and sexuality forced him to do this, to spy like so. An ache was starting to form in his calve muscles from holding such a rigid position, but he ignored it. He had to see. He had to.
Iruka was bent over some papers at his desk, scribbling distractedly. The pen kept slipping from his fingers and blotting ink onto the scroll, as if Iruka's concentration was far, far from the assignments. Sasuke watched irritably as the hour passed. Had he been wrong? Had he read Kakashi's body language wrong? He had been led to believe that Kakashi was going to return to see Iruka right after he had dropped Naruto and Sakura off. (Which he was forcing his mind to *not* think about right now..) Had he missed a small detail somewhere?
Sasuke's agonizing doubts were dispelled when the door to Iruka's bedroom creaked open. Iruka jumped slightly, looking up, startled, then relaxed when he saw who the visitor was. His smile was genuinely happy as Kakashi entered the room, waving and grinning.
"I thought you weren't coming…" Iruka's voice was tense, nervous and excited at the same time.
Kakashi half-set half-perched onto the corner of Iruka's desk. "Well, I'm here now." He reached over and plucked the pen from his lover's hand. "And now we have better things to do than grade papers."
Iruka blushed and smiled. "………I'm glad you came."
Kakashi stood and took Iruka's hand, pulling the chounin easily up. He tugged the shorter man over towards the bed, smiling wordlessly. They simply looked at each other for a moment, not in a gushy romantic way, but simply in acknowledgement of the returned feelings of one another, acceptance of what they were about to do, and fondness. There was an undercurrent of longing, as well, so tangible that it reached even Sasuke, outside on the branches, bent over against the cold wind.
"M- maybe we should… close the window…" Iruka stammered slightly. "If anyone were to hear or see us… we would be…" He trailed off, as if afraid to voice his fears, afraid of the consequences that he knew existed for the acts he had committed and was about to commit.
"No." Kakashi said quietly, pulling Iruka close. "I'm tired of hiding. I don't care anymore." For the briefest of moments, Sasuke could have sworn on his soul, the last of his clan, that Kakashi had looked directly out of the window at him. But then it was gone, and the Uchiha boy wasn't entirely sure it had even come about to start with.
Iruka's murmurs of protest were cut off as Kakashi fluidly pulled down his mask and his lips closed over Iruka's. The instant they were kissing, Iruka seemed to melt into the younger man's embrace, as if he'd been waiting for a very long time. Kakashi showed this too by leading them quickly over to the bed, and lowering his lover gently down on top of it, never breaking the kiss, and breaking a record with the speed he removed articles of clothing at.
Iruka was the first to break the kiss, blushing wildly. "Kakashi--" He blurted out, but Kakashi placed a long, slender finger over his lips.
"Don't worry. Please, for one night, just one night, don't worry." When that effectively shut the older man up, Kakashi pulled his own vest and shirt over his head, and slunk back down over the shirtless Iruka to reclaim the kisses that were his.
Sasuke's eyes had widened to the circular shape of saucers. His breath caught in his throat, he strangled on it, unable to breathe, unable to think. His whole face and body felt hot, like he was burning up from the inside out. His pants were tight and it ached, it was more painful than his legs, where he sat so delicately poised. Could it be… could it be that Kakashi *knew*? Knew that he was floundering with his own sexuality, and *wanted* him to see this? To know that it wasn't some disease, some sickness, and to learn? To be comforted in the fact that he wasn't the only one?
Sasuke didn't know. He couldn't think, although those decrepit thoughts were still there, simmering in enlightenment, at the back of his mind. He could only sit still, oh so still, and watch his two sensei make love, long, and slow, and beautiful, several times, calling out each other's names with unabashed passion and adoration.
He couldn't think. Time was frozen, and he couldn't tear his eyes away.
----------
Naruto was woken up, once again, by the incredible coldness of the room, seeping through his blankets and allowing him no rest. It had been one whole week already, and he hadn't heard a single sound out of Sakura for the past three days. Earlier, every time he had tiptoed over to the makeshift wall to get a glimpse of what she was up to, he had been knocked over by the incredible power and force of her voice, shouting and screaming at him to stay away and not even *think* about getting close. Eventually, exhausted and realizing that he would never be able to put his condoms to use, he had given up on even trying to ask her how she was doing, and had managed to pass the insufferably long, boring bouts of time with sleeping.
That was starting to work less and less, however. As the snowstorm raging outside became worse with each passing day, it got colder and colder, and the several blankets that Naruto had brought to burrow down in had lessened significantly in their ability to retain what little body heat he had left. Judging by the smattering of holes in the walls on his side of the room, it was dark out, night, and still snowing. Naruto sat up in the dim room, shivering as the blankets fell off from around him. He looked around curiously, and over at the wall.
For a few moments he just sat there, staring at the wall, rubbing his hands up and down his arms, trying vainly to build heat up with friction. All around him was silence; the stillness of night, the falling of snow that was like soft breath from the sky onto the earth. Just his labored breathing was heard. And then… something else. A small, muffled sound coming from behind the temporary wall.
Crawling stiffly with the cold over towards the wall, Naruto tried his hardest, painfully, to not make any sounds. He drew his body up close to the edge of the fold-out wall, and slipped nimble fingers just behind the wood pane, pulling slightly. The edge of the wall slid seamlessly, allowing him a small sliver of space to peek through or press his ear up against.
On the other side of the cabin, it was dark, and seemed less cold than his own half. Sakura was curled up into a fetal ball, partly under the kohatsu, which she seemed to have restored to working order, somehow. That, at least, explained why her side of the room was warmer. Naruto looked hard, squinting through the dark, to see what was making the noises.
It was, indeed, the petite girl. Sakura's hands were clenched into fists, and she had her face buried in a pillow, muffled sobs just barely escaping. She clenched and unclenched her fists in the fabric, flexing the white knuckles slowly, and her tears were languidly dying the cloth from white to gray. Her hair was a mess, and the edges of her face that he could see were red and puffy-looking, as if she'd been crying for quite some time.
"Why…"
Naruto stiffened at the sound of her distraught voice, feeling strange emotions rise up in his throat, making him choke.
"I don't understand… I just… I can't…" She seemed to give up voicing her confusion, and went back to sobbing quietly for some time. When she tried again, her voice was thicker. "How can you… like him?"
Naruto's eyes widened. Who was she talking about? What was she taking about?
"It's wrong… I don't understand… oh, God, Sasuke…" Her fists clenched in the pillow again, the knuckles starkly white, and her muffled sobs were strangled in her throat. "I tried everything… I did everything… nothing worked on you, and now I know why… but… I don't understand… I just don't understand… it's sick…"
At the mention of Sasuke's name, all the color drained from Naruto's face. Sasuke…? What had the boy done to possibly make Sakura cry like this? Not the snivelly 'girl's whining' that he was used to with others, but this- real sobs, heartfelt, painful emotions… what had Sasuke done?
"How can you be doing that… and thinking about him…" Sakura seemed to be trying to get answers from the thin air. Naruto's dense brain finally caught on, and he visibly backed up, a slight redness creeping across his cheeks as he processed this bit of information. "How can you…" Sakura's sobs were shakier now, trembling as they escaped from her lips, remembering things called out in the dark of the night, suffused with ecstasy. "How can you love Naruto? How can you, Sasuke?"
Naruto's fingers fell form the rice-paper wall to his lap. His breathing could no longer be heard above the deafening silence of the snow outside the cabin.
"It's sick… it's wrong… you're a boy, he's a boy… it just… it just doesn't make sense… I don't understand…"
Naruto slowly slid the wall back into place, and stood, walking silently over to his bed. Without a word, he climbed back under the covers, and curled up into a position like Sakura's. Once her muffled sobs had finally died down into the regular breathing rhythms of sleep, he let the tears come. They soaked down into his pillow, dying it gray like the girl's, even though no sounds escaped his lips, no words of not understanding; only the realization of something deep inside, something that he now knew, thanks to Sakura, was wrong.
His whole world had just been turned upside-down; he didn't know anything anymore. Everything was wrong. He was wrong.
----------
When Kakashi arrived, one week later, to once again retrieve his students from their training retreat, he was once again baffled to see them both silent and withdrawn, faces emotionless masks. This was especially unsettling in the case of Naruto, who seemed to always have some kind of emotion, at some kind of obscene degree or intensity, plastered across his face. But no, the young boy looked sobered, contemplative, as if troubled with many dark thoughts and feelings. Sakura looked the same before, if a little better from her previous expression of having seen a ghost, or something to that nature. Kakashi mused that she had probably thought things out a little bit on whatever subject it was that had plagued her before; as for Naruto, he had absolutely no idea.
It was in silence that the three returned back to the village. Kakashi wondered, as they sat in a boat with the oarsman rowing steadily, passing across calm waters, what exactly had happened during both of these two-week periods of time to affect his students so immensely.
----------
FIN
To be continued soon in chapter four!
PLEASE, PLEASE review! I live by you comments and criticism! Tell me what you thought of this chapter, or anything else that comes to mind! Correct me on plot or timeline mistakes! (But please keep in mind that I am new to the series!!) Any TeniPuri fans out there, shout out!
The more reviews, the faster the next chapter comes… reviews are my inspiration to write!!
~Coy