Disclaimer: Standard disclaimer applies!

Revised: March 3, 2017

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Tuna!

He said her lady parts smelled like tuna!

And she was most certainly not on her period!

Sakura growled to herself at the audacity of the man as she sat with her arms crossed in the awkward silence of the cab ride. The cabbie kept alternating between shooting sympathizing eyes at Kakashi and glancing at her in disgust. She could have sworn she saw him mouth foul creatureto himself, and needless to say, Sakura was not happy.

Glaring venomously at the passing scenery—and ignoring the way Kakashi kept rubbing at the sore spot in his thigh—Sakura realized with a start that she had no idea where they were going. As if going to a strange man's house wasn't bad enough, this man was actuallya killer!

Sakura's anger was soon replaced by that awful feeling she got when she's done something incredibly stupid. Fidgeting slightly in her seat, and biting her thumbnail, she chanced anxious eyes in Kakashi's direction and then hastily averted them when his eyes lifted to meet hers.

Crap, it's like he knew every time she's looking at him!

Ino's voice in her head tells her to keep staring because wow that jawline is—

Sakura shut that thought down with a huff, and peeked at Kakashi again from under her lashes. He was staring out the window with sharp eyes and the lines of his shoulders were tense, and Sakura remembered that he's probably in pain because of that tampon she shoved into him earlier. Chewing her lip, her eyes raked down his form and Sakura noted—with a small amount of embarrassment—that had they met differently (like normal people), she would have found herself irrevocably drawn to him.

She's always liked those dark, mysterious types.

But it wasn't like she wasn't attracted to him now, though. The image of his Abercrombie abs and his Calvin Klein jawline just wouldn't leave her head, and she was horrified to feel herself flush as her inner voice helpfully supplied a mental image of his naked torso because woah baby.

"You can stop here."

Sakura jerked at the sound of Kakashi's smooth voice, and her hands reflexively clutched her bag protectively to her chest.

He had such a Disney villain voice, but he was one of the good guys, right?

It wasn't like he was going to just kill herafter all that trouble he went through, right?

Because that would be a complete waste of effort on his part! And it wasn't like she was going to tellanyone about this night, anyway.

Well, except for, maybe, Ino.

And her Mom.

The cab pulled to a stop and Sakura swiveled wide eyes to see where Kakashi had taken her and her heart dropped to about where her feet were when she noticed that they were in the middle of nowhere.

And it was dark.

From what she could see, they were on a dirt road surrounded by trees; and she thought there was a barn somewhere in that foreboding darkness because she heard a loud "Moooooo" rise above the sound of crickets and other forest critters.

Sakura has watched enough horror movies in her lifetime to know that this is the part where she dies and oh godhe's going to kill her!

He was going to chop her body into little itty bitty pieces, and then feed them to the cows and she was going to be turned into manure;and oh man she could already hear Ino nagging her at her funeral because "theonetime I let you borrow my favorite Givenchy bag, you go on and getmurdered!Who does that, Forehead?!"

Sakura wasn't aware of how close she is to hyperventilating and having a panic attack until Kakashi jerked open the door and the first thing she did is shout, "Manure smells!"

The silver haired man raised that perfect sleek eyebrow of his and cut eyes to the cabbie who was staring at her dubiously. "Ignore her, she's drunk."

And then he was grabbing her by her wrist and not so gently pulling her out of the cab until he's half dragging, half carrying her away.

"Hey!"

Turning at the cabbie's obnoxiously loud call, both she and Kakashi watched as he stepped out of his vehicle and edged towards Sakura.

"Are you okay, miss?"

Sakura, whose mind is consumed with all of the reasons why she doesn't want to die (where owning a chinchilla is high on her list), opened her mouth to say that no,she was not okay!

But then Kakashi's grip tightened around her wrist and he lowered his head to mumble into her hair, "Remember what I said about the police."

And then his arm was nonchalantly slipping around her shoulders to tuck her into his armpit in a smooth movement that would have made awkward teenage boys weep with envy. The crown of her head barely bumped his chin, and his side was warm and solid against her own.

His warm breath fanned over the shell of her ear, and she shivered because it was inappropriately delightful. "Relax, I'm not going to hurt you. Just breathe, and play the part of a drunken girlfriend."

Forcing her eyes to relax from their wide eyed stare, Sakura looked at the cabbie who looked between them suspiciously. Kakashi was right; her best bet was staying with him because she at least has his word that he won't hurt her.

And she honestly didn't really want to be involved in that major police investigation that's going to happen once they get back to civilization.

Sakura allowed the dreaded, long-repressed blush to creep its way up her chest to her cheeks as she shyly wrapped her arm around Kakashi's waist while her other hand reached up to interlace with the one he rested on her shoulder.

She looked to him for reassurance and his eyes smiled at her as the hand holding her own gave it a comforting squeeze. Her other hand clenched the material of his sweater in a white knuckled grip, all too aware of the male body beside her.

She's supposed to act like the girlfriend who's had too much to drink and therefore doesn't know how to control her mouth. And well, Sakura quipped, she's been around Ino long enough to know what that sounds like.

"Kashi," she whined in a slight slur, "Kashi-baby,"she ignored the way his hand tightened around her own at the nickname, "My feet hurt, let's go home!"

Queue sniffling and a high pitched wail, "And I broke a nail~!"

Holding her hand in front of her in a show of vapid self-important misery, Sakura was actually a bit dismayed to note that she hadbroken a nail. Her mother had taken her to get a manicure as a gift for her sheer awesome-ness, and she had only had one day to enjoy the nude tapered nails.

They were a little blood stained, too. But she ignored that because, gross.

"Look,"she yowled, trying extra hard to act annoying, "They were sooooopretty, and now they're broken!"

She felt the rumble of Kakashi's chest as he chuckled into her hair, "Don't worry, Cherry-baby," Ew, seriously? That was such a terrible pet name, "We'll get them fixed tomorrow morning when you feel better."

Lifting exaggeratedly watery eyes, Sakura pouted. "Really? You promise?"

When he nods, Sakura makes a show of nuzzling her nose into the hollow of his throat, and suppressed the gag that came from the sharp coppery tang of blood lingering on his clothes.

A cough meant to interrupt them pulled their attention back to the cabby, who looked a bit uncomfortable but also irate.

"Alright, whatever," he groused, "Where's my money?"

Oh, hell.

The pseudo couple freezed, and there was a pregnant pause as the cabby's unrelenting gaze remained glued to them.

"One moment please," Kakashi sang cheerfully before spinning her around so that their backs were to the other man.

"You don't happen to have any cash on you, do you?" Kakashi asked her quietly, his head very close to her own.

Sakura's shoulders dropped incredulously from their tense position by her ears, "You don't carry a wallet?!"

Kakashi snorted. "Oh, right,I'm sostupid for not carrying a wallet with all of my personal information to an assassination."

Sakura grit her teeth at his sarcastic tone (the nerve of that man astounded her), smacked him on the side with the back of her hand, and was pleased by his pained grunt.

"You're the one with the purse, anyway," he grumbled as he rubbed his side and Sakura stuck her tongue out at him as she opened the gorgeous gray purse to rifle around it until she pulled out a wad of crumpled cash.

Kakashi looked on with anticipation as she unraveled the bills and Sakura frowned.

"I have three dollars," she squeaked as she held up the torn and wrinkled bills. Kakashi slapped a hand over his eyes with a groan and this was a lotworse than that time she pulled up to a drive-thru for a large order without her wallet.

The cabbie cleared his throat again, and Sakura whipped around to send him an appeasing—and hopefully charming—grin. "One moment, please!"

To Kakashi she said, "What are we going to do?"

"Listen," he replied gruffly, "I got us this far; it's your turn to bail us out."

Reeling back in abject horror because this was just her luck, Sakura whispered back furiously, "What?! My turn?! I wanted no part in this! I did not volunteer to follow you—I was volun-told! I—no!"

"Calm down, woman!" Kakashi whispered back just as harshly, "Figure something out! Aren't you some type of genius, Miss Almost Doctor?"

Sakura was about two seconds away from jamming her heel into his instep for how infuriating he was, but was closer to losing her mind. "I am a paper genius! I don't do well in these types of situations! Look, I'm already starting to break out in hives!"

Gesturing to the smooth skin of her arms (because she's not actually breaking out in hives, she's just being completely and totally dramatic), Sakura tried very hard to deflect the responsibility of finding a way to get themselves out of this mess. Now, she's usually very adept when it comes to thinking on her feet; but there's just something about the incredibly stressful situation, the foreign blood on her skin, and the booze in her system that was making her a hundred times battier than she normally was.

Sakura once again has the miserable thought that Ino would know what to do.

Gasping, because Ino was the greatest person ever and bless the girl's foresight, Sakura swiveled bright eyes to find Kakashi's flat bi colored stare.

"I have an Arrive Alive card!" She breathed, giddily and all too happy that something has gone right this evening!

"A what." Kakashi deadpanned and Sakura rolled her eyes impatiently.

"An Arrive Alive card! It's for when you're too drunk to drive! You just give it to the cab driver and he's supposed to accept it! For free!"

Opening her purse once more, Sakura started rifling around its contents until she found the bright blue, cheaply laminated card. This was awesome! The best thing ever! All cab drivers were legally required to accept Arrive Alive cards because it reduced drunk driving—it was fool proof! Flicking her pastel pink hair over her shoulder, and holding it up in triumph, Sakura pivoted on the balls of her feet to face the cab driver who looked like someone took a giant dump in his Cheerios.

"Here you go, sir!" She chirped happily as she walked forward to place it in his outstretched hand. The small man narrowed his tarsier eyes as he turned the card over in his hands, squinting as he read the fine print.

"Nope, I won't accept this."

Sakura twitched.

"What do you mean," she started slowly, the poor bills in her fists crumpling beyond recognition with her ire, "you won't accept it?"

The cabby shrugged, his thin lips curling slowly into an apologetic smile that was not the least bit genuine, "Cash only, sorry."

She had just opened her mouth to tell him just where he could shove his cash only policy when Kakashi pried the bills from her white knuckled grip to throw it at the driver's face. In the seconds it took for the greedy man to flinch, then fumble to catch the bills, Kakashi had already grabbed her by her waist and thrown her across his shoulders in a fireman's carry.

"There's your cash!"

And then he was sprinting away, and Sakura was placing a hand on the strong muscles of his lower back to keep herself from falling. The cabbie was shouting angrily behind them, her hair was bouncing in front of her eyes with each step, and she thinks she's going to be sick.

"This is so crazy!" She screeched, her voice lurching in tune with each impact of his shoulder against her ribs, "Oh my God!"

She felt, rather than heard, Kakashi's sigh even as he continued to sprint like he was running from lions in an African safari, his arm swinging beside him rapidly and the other clenched tightly around her wrist.

"If you keep screaming in my ear, I'm going to drop you."

His voice sounded unreasonably even for the pace he was keeping and it was completely unfair. But his warning does its job, and Sakura shut up in fear that he'd actually follow through with it. He struck her as the person who was more bite than bark, and being bitten on top of getting shot at was not quite her cup of tea.

So, she did what any other tipsy, warm blooded woman would do in her situation: Sakura huffed, blew the hair out of her eyes, and stared at the fine piece of ass moving just inches away from her fingertips.

The moment was awe inspiring, beautiful, perfect, iconic.

Holy gluteus maximus, her mind supplied reverently.

And then the lust and booze induced fog cleared for all of five minutes, and Sakura realized with a start that a man she had just met under the worst circumstances—who she'd seen kill people—has her on his shoulders and was running away with her. It wasn't as romantic as it sounds, unfortunately, and she had to keep herself from losing her dinner.

The one time she tried to be a social butterfly instead of the social rollie pollie she usually was, she ended up being kidnapped by a hot murderer. The irony was not lost on her, and Sakura's eyes slipped shut as she cursed her blonde friend for the nth time that night, then apologized to whatever deity she had managed to piss off.

It took her a moment to notice that her unconventional method of transportation had begun to slow down, and soon her world was tilting from their fixed point on Kakashi's ass. Kakashi's hands—devoid of the bloody gloves he'd shoved into his pocket—slid over the smooth skin of her thighs as he let her down. It felt nice, she privately admitted to herself, but she still tried to hide the nervous shaking of her hands by adjusting her—Kakashi's—bullet proof vest.

Kakashi's strangely beautiful eyes crinkled reassuringly as they caught her own, and Sakura was struck—once again—by his beauty. His hair was unruly, but the disarray was oddly charming, and she could see the indent of a dimple beneath his mask. When he turned away, she grumbled to herself that even his profile was unreasonably handsome! The straight slope of his nose crinkled at the odd smell in the air, and his jaw line was simply wonderful. His chest rose in time with his heavy breathing as he tries to catch his breath and Sakura lips pursed in a small scowl before shrugging.

Kakashi was beautiful, and she supposed there are worse ways to die.

Ripping her gaze away from the man at her side, Sakura tried, and failed, to keep a neutral expression on her face as her sea glass eyes scanned the area—noticing once more that they were in the middle of nowhere.

And they were surrounded by cows.

She's so far passed being scared she's gone straight to being irritable.

"Okay, where are we now?" She huffed as she crossed her arms. Sakura was so done with tonight: she'd been groped, knocked over, threatened with rape, almost killed, and kidnapped! She's practically indestructible now!

"We," Kakashi drawled slowly, "are about a quarter of a mile away from my house."

What.

"You're kidding me," she plead, because he couldn't seriously be thinking of making her walk a quarter of a mile in mud and cow poop!

"Nope! Let's get going!"

And without waiting for her, Kakashi started trudging through the questionable goop while she stood there and tried so very hard not to scream in frustration. But…she didn't want to be left behind, and she didn't know where she was. Mind unwillingly made up, Sakura hurriedly unlaced her heels and held them (and Ino's purse) close to her chest protectively as she rushed to catch up to him. She tried so very hard to ignore the gross feeling of mud and whatever squelching between her toes as she tried to reach his side.

"This is so wild," she couldn't help but whisper to herself as she flinched away from curious snuffles. Kakashi was a few feet ahead of her and she was so focused on coming up even with him that she didn't notice the large cow approaching her flank.

"Watch out for Miss Bertha over there!" Kakashi called back warningly, his hand passing over a little auburn calf's snout, "She's very affectionate!"

But when he turned around to see why the ever present whiner of the two hadn't replied, he found her on her back with a large dairy cow—namely, Miss Bertha—nuzzling her hair and licking the sweat from her face.

It appeared that Miss Bertha hadn't even given the poor girl a chance to speak, lest she be French kissed by a cow, and Sakura's indignant squeals were interlaced with breathless giggles.

Well, he did warn her!

But he still walked over with barely suppressed amusement to gently push Miss Bertha away and haul the tiny woman to her feet. Except, this time she barely reached his armpit, and she smelled like shit.

Like, actual shit.

Wrinkling his nose, Kakashi said, "You smell like shit."

And then Sakura wheeled on him with all of the righteous fury someone who's barely tall enough to ride a roller coaster could possess to viciously step on his instep before stomping off.

"You better have a nice fucking shower!"

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tbc

Two Cents: When I picture Sakura saying, "I have three dollars," I automatically think of that Patrick meme where he holds up three dollars.