Title: All We Can Do Is Keep Breathing
Fandom/Community: Naruto / kakasakudrabble
Characters: Kakashi, Sakura
Pairing: KakaSaku
Rating: PG-13
Word of the Week: Past

Author Notes: I feel like I started a fad. xD So many people have started doing the kakasakudrabble one-shots now. I'm gonna end up not feeling special.

One chapter left. Who else is sad?

Hopefully, a new Chapter of Picture Trends should be out sometime this weekend. With three essays in the making, it's been a little hard to find some time to write stuff up. Plus, this chapter is rather difficult, as it's another static one. Muses for other stories sometimes interrupt my PT muse. I really need to just sit down and write it.


A blue, black shade of love.
Sent from above.
My hands are tied to worlds unknown,
And this I know.
Your breath's like wine,
And just like clouds, my skin crawls.
It's so divine, the sky it glows with fields of light.

Did you know that I love you?
Come and lay with me.
I love you.
And honesty, I love you.
You make me feel alive,
and I'll love you
Until the end of time.
— "Breathe" by Angels and Airwaves


Her fingers were freezing, her face felt like it was a ball of ice, and she couldn't feel her toes anymore. "I'm gonna kill that man," she thought after a few minutes of wandering down the street. "Making me walk all the way to the Memorial. He's such a jackass."

But, when she'd reached the tall black stone, she was surprised to find that he wasn't there—and there were no footprints.

Sakura seethed quietly.

She was so mad she felt like punching the cenotaph into pieces, but figured it wasn't much of a good idea.

Performing hand-signs slowly—her fingers were too numb to manage doing them fast—she disappeared in a puff of smoke.

The gray door in front of her was a far more fitting victim for her punishment.

"Kakashi!" she yelled. She wasn't quite sure if he'd actually be able to hear her over the howling wind. "C'mon, Kakashi, open the door!" The door shuddered in its jam as she pounded her fist against it angrily. "Kakashi, I know you're home. Can you please just open the door?"

"Some people are trying to sleep, bitch!"

Sakura narrowed her eyes angrily as somebody in the apartment complex above his yelled out of their window.

She opened her mouth to yell something ignorant back, but something tugged on her arm and she was pulled into the apartment quickly, stumbling. She fell, landing on her butt roughly. Green eyes glared up at mismatched eyes.

"You know that guy was asking for it."

Kakashi shook his head and held his hand out. "Yes, but I don't need my neighbors complaining to the landlord about how domineering women are beating them up." He lifted her easily enough, and she brushed her pants off angrily. "What do you need, anyway?"

"I wanted to check on you."

The Copy-nin glared at her out of the corner of his eye. "I don't need a babysitter."

"I know that. I just worry, is all" she murmured, glancing away as she slid her coat off. "Shit, Kakashi, it's freezing! What the hell? Are you trying to make yourself sick?" Rubbing her arms, she took in his undershirt with the attached mask—his second skin—and then the low-slung jounin pants.

"I'm not cold." Kakashi walked past her, down the hall towards his bedroom. She ignored his attempt to avoid her and followed after him. When he reached his bedroom door, he sighed. "Weren't you supposed to be doing some sort of Christmas party with Ino or something?" he asked without looking at her.

"I was." Her hand was laid on his back and he flinched away from her.

Sakura's face grew hard and she wrapped her arms around his middle instead. "See! That's your problem!"

Kakashi pried at her arms, but she was unwilling to drop her grip. "What? That I don't want to be molested?"

She dropped her arms and stepped back.

"Forget it. Nevermind."

She was halfway to the door when his arms gently slipped around her waist and pulled her back against him. "I'm sorry."

Sakura closed her eyes and took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. "I care about you, Kakashi." She laid a hand on his arm; felt it twitch beneath her fingertips. Her other hand raised and slowly located his masked face, before cupping his face gently. "It hurts when you do something like that. Flinch away, like you don't want me to touch you." His arms tightened around her middle.

His face moved away from her hand and buried in the space between her neck and her shoulder. Despite the situation, she couldn't help but shiver.

His lips were almost imperceptible against her neck.

She managed to turn her head slightly to the side and press her lips against his temple. "You distance yourself so much," she whispered, settling for slowly sifting her fingers through his hair. "I understand why, I'm not an idiot, but it worries me. Your actions are idiotic, you're risky so often in missions—there are so many days when I do not know if you're going to come home."

Sakura closed her eyes, biting back tears.

"Everybody I love has died." Kakashi took a deep breathe and exhaled slowly, his breath hot against her neck. "I can't. . . I can't risk that happening again. I can't lose anyone else." He chuckled darkly, arms tightening, hands splaying across her hip. "It's better to have nothing, than to have and lose."

She gripped his hair tightly and tugged, managing to spin in his grasp.

Once turned, her grip lessened on his hair, soothing the aching with a slow, stroking motion.

"And I say that's bullshit." Sakura lifted herself onto her tip-toes and pressed her lips gently against the scar under his left eye. "I want to be close to you. I want you not to feel awkward when I'm closed to you."

"I don't feel awkward," he said, slightly put-out. "It's just wrong."

"Then why does this feel right?" Her lips touched his own masked ones instead, and for once, he found himself unable to make a response.

The kiss was soft, chaste, and as unsexy as it could have possibly been.

"It would. . . if this wasn't in the way."

But he wanted more.

His hand pressed against the back of her neck and his lips slanted against hers quietly. Sakura gripped his shoulders tightly, holding her body against his and savoring the way he tasted—dark and musky, like a cured liquor. His fingers threaded through her hair, gently tugging as his other hand grasped at her hip.

When he pulled back, she hummed pleasurably. "See? Closeness is good."

"I'm addicted to you, you know." He spoke more to her hair than her.

Sakura laughed and curled her arms around his neck, holding on tighter. "I'm about as addictive as air, Kakashi."

"Yea, Sakura," he murmured as he pressed his lips to hers again, reveling her. "You're my air—I'd die without you."