Kakuzu woke in the grey early morning, a little stiff and chilly, but hugely relieved to be waking at all. It occurred to him as he lay there on the hard floor of the barn that he still didn't know how long he'd been dead for - he'd meant to ask Hidan last night, but Hidan had been so tired... Kakuzu turned his head to look him. He actually looked peaceful sleeping, so unlike his waking self. Kakuzu smiled, but it was a smile with an undercurrent of reserve.

Supporting the back if Hidan's head with one hand and extricating himself with some difficulty, as Hidan had had wound himself around him tightly in the night and was half on top of him, Kakuzu rolled them both over slightly so that he could get a look at the effects of last night's surgery. Hidan's wound was now no more than a slightly angry looking red line. Running his fingertips across it, Kakuzu could feel that it was healing well. The stitches were holding nicely, too. No doubt when he woke, Hidan would be bitching about how they itched and pulled, but Kakuzu thought they should stay in for at least another day.

He let his hand linger there over Hidan's heart, feeling it gently beating, and asked himself what he really wanted from him. Kakuzu was not into self deception - or indeed self denial - and he couldn't pretend to himself that he didn't find Hidan intoxicatingly erotic. He had for some time. He had, however, always kept his urges sternly repressed, assuming that they were not reciprocated. Of course he'd had moments of wanting to take Hidan anyway - he could've easily, he was sure - and it was no moral reason that had held him back, rather a kind of protectiveness that was usually utterly foreign to his nature. That and, if he was honest, the fact that he and Hidan were comfortable with each other. Their relationship might be volatile, but it was easy, and he valued that. But now there was the unsettling fact that the willing Hidan that he'd thought was only a fantasy might suddenly be within the bounds of possibility.

Still, as a cautious man, he didn't want to start anything within himself that could easily get out of control, not without knowing for sure that the reward was guaranteed. He could feel himself growing seriously aroused now and thought that he had better get up. One of Hidan's legs had worked its way between his own and he'd flung one arm possessively across his chest again. Half on the cloak and half on Kakuzu, he must have spent the night in far more warmth and comfort, but Kakuzu didn't begrudge him that - somehow, it seemed due to him. He tucked Hidan back into the cloak, drawing it up snugly around his face, letting his fingers brush against that ivory skin just for a moment. Then, marvelling at his partner's ability to sleep through such disruption, he strode briskly over to the door.

It had rained itself out in the night and the dawn was clear and still. Kakuzu leant on the wooden door-frame, staring out at the fields around the barn, and began to consider what they should do next. He didn't intend to think about Hidan - his thoughts were intended to be entirely practical - though his partner might feel safe and secure enough to sleep like a log in broad daylight an hour's march from Konohagakure, Kakuzu had a better grasp of the danger they were still in. But, somehow, his thoughts kept drifting back to him anyway.

Trying to remember what had happened in the final moments of his own fight, the only thing he could remember clearly was the piercing sensation in his chest, that awful, deadly pain and the equally awful realisation the Hidan was probably in fairly serious trouble. He knew that if he'd walked away from his fight the first thing he'd done would've been to search for Hidan. At the time, he'd been in no doubt that he'd be alright himself.

But of course things hadn't quite worked out like that. The thing was, he'd never really have expected Hidan to come looking for him. He certainly wouldn't have felt he could count on it. And yet, look what had happened. And Hidan had been prepared to sacrifice his own heart! Kakuzu couldn't quite get it straight in his head. It seemed to imply a far greater depth of feeling than he'd ever ascribed to Hidan before. He had to rethink his whole position with regard to him. And now - he glanced over his shoulder at his still-sleeping partner - there'd been several episodes of intimacy that couldn't be ignored. His first, unthinking acts - he shivered slightly, thinking back - it had felt so natural, so right, just to hold him. For a moment all the distance he'd carefully kept between them had just evaporated.

Did Hidan always want to close that gap between us? The thought made Kakuzu's stomach twist. All the times he'd peremptorily brushed him off, all the times he'd ignored him, hushed him, the hard words he'd thrown at him replayed themselves in his head. Hidan had always acted hurt - the wounded glances - maybe it hadn't been such an act after all. Had he, in his loud, obnoxious way, been seeking Kakuzu's approval all along. Kakuzu's natural caution took over and suppressed the idea. Hidan was impulsive, and notoriously careless of his own body. When he'd come to find Kakuzu he'd been shaken and scared and desperately wanting someone to depend on. It didn't mean Kakuzu should read anything into it. He didn't intend to do or feel anything he might regret later.

He forced his mind back to more practical problems. There was their position with regard to Akatsuki to consider. Depending on how much time had passed, and reading between the lines of what Hidan had told him it seemed like it must have been at least a week, Akatsuki probably thought they were dead. And if their former comrades had abandoned them, did they want to go back into the organisation? Would they want to go back anyway? Kakuzu had suspected for a while that Pain's aims didn't quite tally with his own anymore, and after seeing the state of Konoha, he thought Pain might well be behind it. And if that was the case, in Kakuzu's opinion Pain was moving far too soon. Which could make being a member of Akatsuki really quite a liability. Kakuzu realised he was thinking for Hidan as well as himself and sighed, closing his eyes. If they were no longer Akatsuki, then they were staying together out of choice. And he found he couldn't push that thought away.

He turned back into the room just as Hidan stirred and opened his violet eyes, and Kakuzu's hardening resolve to keep his mind and hands off him began to melt.

'Ugh,' he groaned, blinking in the daylight and rubbing his knuckles over his eyes. He flopped onto his back. 'Yo, Kakuzu, where in fuck's name are we?'

'Somewhere we shouldn't stay long,' Kakuzu replied, averting his eyes from Hidan's beautifully modelled upper body. God, he had to touch him. Looking away wasn't working. He could feel his desires reaching boiling point and still somehow kept them down. 'You'd better get moving,' he said, his voice ringing false and strained in his ears.

Hidan just turned over again, burying his face in the collar of Kakuzu's cloak and settling back to sleep. The sight of his sharp shoulder-blades moving under that smooth white skin made Kakuzu's breath catch in his throat. He swallowed with difficulty, longing hopelessly for his mask to hide behind. Desire mutating into anger and frustration the more he held it in, Kakuzu sent out tentacles from both wrists which began to forcefully peel the cloak off Hidan. When he clung on, whimpering in reluctance, a second lot joined the first and snaked around his waist, pulling him upwards and towards Kakuzu. A third started to prise his clinging hands open. Snarling in sleepy protest, Hidan suddenly stopped resisting and tumbled forwards, sprawling naked and flushed at Kakuzu's feet. He looked up, a few strands of hair falling irresistibly over his face, somehow managing to smile and sneer at the same time.

'Say it with words, yeah, Ka-kuzu-chan,' he growled, his voice husky from sleep. 'Can these little fuckers feel?' he continued as the threads slowly released him, brushing against him as they began their retreat into Kakuzu's arms.

'Why, yes, they can,' said Kakuzu coolly, not looking at him.

Hidan snapped his teeth at them lazily, half malicious, half playful, and Kakuzu flicked one sharply against his cheek.

'Ouch, man!' cried Hidan, 'what was that for?'

Kakuzu let it linger a moment against Hidan's smooth skin, then repeated the action several more times in quick succession. Ignoring Hidan's protesting cry of 'dude, that fucking stings,' he proceeded vent his pent up feelings on him.

'For not moving when I tell you move,' he began in a low, dangerous murmur, 'for being careless with yourself, your body and your survival, for putting yourself needlessly at risk, for never thinking,' Kakuzu paused for breath, the slowly overboiling feelings of rage, pain and anxiety sending out a swathe of tentacles to join the single thread.

These struck Hidan much harder, with a much more satisfying noise, and left a pink mark along his cheekbone. Hidan gasped in shock. Kakuzu hit him three more times, alternating sides so swiftly that as his head snapped round with the force of one blow it met the next head on.

'Get up,' a new set of threads shot out and grabbed Hidan around the waist, jerking him bodily towards Kakuzu, 'try to think of the danger we're still in, and for God's sake act accordingly!'

''F-fine,' Hidan muttered, aggrieved but subdued as well, putting a trembling hand to his burning cheek, 'you've made your point! Talk about over-fucking-reacting, man...'

Kakuzu extended one arm and reached past Hidan for the cloak, which he drew onto him, gentle now, wrapping threads around his wrists and moving his hands like a puppet master. It was interesting how lost Hidan obviously felt without his scythe. It made him meek and easy to handle. Kakuzu did up the zip, pulling it rather higher than Hidan had been used to wear his own cloak. He didn't want stitches showing.

'Okay now?' he asked, his voice just a touch less harsh than before. Hidan stared at him with a mixture of apprehension and resentment. 'Time for a henge no jutsu. We can't go out in the daytime looking like S-rank criminals - not just now. So, lose the patterns and make your colouring a little more...' he toyed with the word normal, then rejected it, 'more... conventional!'

'Huh?' Hidan looked at him blankly. 'It's fucking ages since I...' He tailed off and performed the jutsu in a lacklustre manner.

Kakuzu stared at him for a moment. He really wasn't very different. Anyone who'd been with him for more that five minutes would know him. 'Maybe... some trousers?' he suggested dryly. 'And I think your eyes are an even more... surprising colour now...'

Hidan snarled at him, losing patience. 'Well, fuck me, wanker, maybe I'm not so hot at this, but maybe you wouldn't be either if you'd just been bitch-slapped awake! You did that for fun, you sadistic fuck! And I'm fucking starving, my mouth feels like fucking sandpaper, I am totally not ready for a back-to-the-academy fucking nostalgia-fest. Why are you always like this? I thought we - you - we're meant to be - fuck!'

Kakuzu waited until Hidan spluttered to a stop, thoroughly entangled in his own sentence structure, before relenting. 'Alright, Hidan, I did enjoy it, I admit. I apologise. I'll buy you breakfast somewhere nice to make up for it.' He reached into the cloak's pocket and drew out a couple of soldier pills. 'Eat this, it'll keep you going.' He held one against Hidan's lips, then pushed it through when he didn't respond. Hidan chewed it sulkily.

'These are fucking rank, man,' he said with his mouth full. 'I think they're off - you shouldn't try to save money on essentials, Kakuzu, you'll spend more in the long run...'

'Hush.' said Kakuzu, firmly, but not unpleasantly, eating one himself. 'Look, I'll give you an example.'

He transformed swiftly into a brown haired, dark eyed Hidan, a plain black cloak covering a standard ninja outfit.

'Oi oi, Kakuzu,' said Hidan, his mouth curving into a sultry smile, 'If it's possible, you've made me look even hotter than I already am! You're embarrassing me, dude, seriously. You act like you don't like me, but I can tell you think I'm really -'

'Shut up and copy it,' Kakuzu growled. Hidan complied, giving himself a Jashin rosary as well. He blew Kakuzu a kiss off the tips of his fingers and winked at him.

Kakuzu transformed back into himself in a matching outfit, but with the addition of his customary headgear to hide the fact that he just couldn't control his expression anymore when Hidan made those bedroom eyes at him. Did he realise what an effect he was having? He glanced penetratingly at him, but Hidan only laughed, good humour restored, and pulled the real mask and hood out of his pocket. 'I'd forgotten about that,' he said, 'There you are!'