When has he ever been this horny? His punishing schedule and the rules that he had agreed with Dr Rosenmato meant that he was turning in the worst mission reports of his life, as he raced home to rub one out, amongst all the things he had amassed over the past few months. Now taking up a position as head-curator of his own private gallery memorizing their fucks.

"You should not be keeping trophies Kakashi."

Well, no shit, Dr Rosenmato.

Alarm blaring, Kakashi was momentarily lost in the morning fog after another restless night spent being haunted by Anko who was now a nurse and also very concerned about his prostate...

Fuck my life.

With an air of resignation, Kakashi stood and began to strip the bed, something glinted aggressively in his peripheral vision.

"What?" Kakashi mumbled. "I'm giving you back."

Gleaming violently now as if catching the morning ray and shooting it back into his face, full of accusations.

"You're not making me feel good about myself here."

Pulling the drawer open, he swept the necklace off the top of his table - and away.

Kakashi had not been grocery shopping in so long. His kitchen could only offer off the most meager and unexciting of meals -plain rice and some sad vegetables.

Grabbing a bowl first, Kakashi yanked the cutlery drawer towards him, a tinny rattle rang out as the utensils settled again. But he hesitated, hands hovered over the chopsticks... Chopsticks that could be used to poke, and rap knuckles and placed in a wide mouth to make false fangs...

Just use a spoon, Hatake.

Taking a spoon and too big a bite of his dinner, he slid the drawer closed. Heading for the sofa, he had just cracked open his book before he heard a loud knock at the door.

"Hi, can I help you?" Kakashi asked.

"Delivery for Miss Anko Mitarashi?"

"Uh, there's been a mistake. You sh-"

"No, pal," He said, shoving the clipboard under Kakashi's nose. "Look, we tried to make a delivery on three occasions, each time failed. See?"

Kakashi took the clipboard.

"Gotta return it to the invoice address," he explained. Kakashi scoured the delivery times and dates, frowning. How was it possible? Iruka - the little shit -had given him her schedule on the promise that Kakashi would deliver a careers day assembly at the academy.

Ugghh - he would have to do an assembly!

A thought that filled Kakashi with remorse - why had he ever agreed to those terms.

"She - uh- left a message..." The delivery man tapped the clipboard, embarrassed. It was directly underneath Kakashi's neat, carefully chosen original message:

"Hope we're square now Anko! :)"

Smiley face? Was I drunk?

Kakashi had seen it at the time, just like a bad jutsu combination that would be deflected in seconds and of course he had been right.

As he looked at the ugly, barely legible scrawl- he saw and felt the residue of her anger in the kanji:

Fuck-

you-

Kakashi -

Hatake!

Scribbled so hard and underlined so maniacally that her pen had perforated all of the sheets below.

And the smiley face? It had offended her so much that she had torn the page in her ferocity to eradicate it.

"Uh, we're going to have to charge you for the failed deliveries."

"Fine," Kakashi sighed, resigned. "Did she keep the sheets at least?"

The delivery man looked at Kakashi amused and sympathetic as he handed him a package that looked like it had been used for shuriken target practice. The package sagged sadly in Kakashi's hands.

"Feisty one, eh? Tipped us well though." He chuckled. "But sorry pal, gonna have to charge you for that too."

It was the sum of several days worth of work, now being hustled through his apartment. Kakashi had visited every department store in Konoha trying to track down that stupid mirror. Finally, after admitting defeat he had even asked Sakura for advice.

Man, what happened to his cute little students who would do anything he asked without question. They quizzed him mercilessly before he cobbled together a terrible lie to throw them off the scent.

What had he said again? Practicing a new jutsu.

On hearing that, Naruto had insisted on learning it too.

"Can't wait sensei!"

Never lie to children.

"Where do you want it, boss?"

Anywhere else.

"The bedroom, I guess."

Having tracked one down eventually, Kakashi had paid an arm and a leg for it to be shipped to Konoha and now he had pissed her off even more and he was the reluctant owner of a huge, over-priced mirror that he would never use.

He tossed the package containing the sheets into a bin. A dull, unceremonious thud before it toppled over, spilling the contents on the floor.

Seriously? F.M.L.

"Well, see you buddy!"

Waiting until the door had closed and the footsteps had faded before he groaned.

What was I thinking?

"Urrghh" Kakashi moaned and like a felled tree, he hit his bed - rigid, and hard and heavy.

Weeks had passed with no sign of Anko. Kakashi had barely been home as he had elected to stay on his unrelenting schedule of missions. Kakashi relished the distraction - even when blighted with the occasional appearance of his clone (as sheepish as ever since the incident).

Ha -in your face clone-me!

Deciding on a shower... as he climbed the stairs he could see that the door was ajar and a shaft of artificial light illuminated his door step.

Great... a showdown. Hatake, just be glad that we're not standing outside the missions office.

Taking a deep breath, before he pushed the door open and set the groceries on the hallway table, stepping over her shoes haphazardly sprawled in the hallway, he could see her foot dangling from his bed.

Anko.

She gave him a wide smirk as he entered, before she dipped her chin partially screened by the collar of her coat.

She had helped herself to a pot of tea, nestled on his bed, reading. And he saw it then, his painstakingly preserved first addition Icha Icha bore a scar on the spine, from an overzealous reader.

"Re-decorating?" Kakashi asked, as he pointed to the photos that she had laid flat along the windowsill.

"They don't need to witness this," she said as she took another sip.

Fuck, is she going to smash that cup and cut me?

"Tea? No - suit yourself." Anko placed the empty cup and poured, as she lifted he saw a ring had formed from the base, the wood warping as tea soaked in.

Who is she?

Kakashi fought the urge to slap her until she couldn't sit down for a week. It was irritation edged with amusement that allowed him to master the fear of a confrontation. Kakashi leaned against the door frame and crossed his arms.

"So breaking and entering - diversifying are you? "

"What have I broken?" Anko asked, wide-eyed looking around.

"Why are you here Anko?"

"You've been avoiding me."

Is it even worth denying?

"Can we just forget it happened?" Kakashi asked her quietly. "Please?"

"Fuck no," Anko spat as she looked at him, furious. "How could I ever forget it? "

Again, guilt and shame and a need to be away from her radiated from his core out and he turned away from her, but she had closed the distance between them and a hand shook his jacket.

"I'm sorry," Kakashi said, voice strained. "I was an animal and I - I'm just sorry."

"Why?"

"Anko I'm sick, there's something wrong with me," he whispered. " I fucked you in an alley in front of our colleagues... I tied you up... I hit you... I rubbed a kunai against your... God - I fucking gang-banged you with my clone."

Babbling now, barely able to string sentences together as he was so sick with shame and anxiety that made his stomach churn, and his body run cold. Kakashi was dancing on a knife edge - madness beckoning on either side.

"Gang-banged?!" Anko scoffed. "How did you ever graduate from the academy if you can't count?"

"It's not a joke Anko," his tone getting sharper, grabbing her shoulders, almost lifting her from the force.

"Tell me I'm trash, I'm begging you - call me a cunt - tell me I'm worse than scum. Anything."

Shaking her, as if brute strength could deliver meaning and understanding where his words did not.

"Why can't you say it?"

"Because I fucking loved it Kakashi!" Anko screamed back at him, breaking out of the hold.

"Alright!?" She cried, as she shoved him hard and he landed back on the bed, she knelt beside him.

"You want the truth?" Anko asked him, unflinching.

"I can't touch a kunai without getting wet," as she placed her hand between her legs for emphasis.

"I've strained my hand fingering myself over and over wishing it was you touching me..." her voice was barely louder than a whisper but her words resonated deep.

"Anko are you mad?" Kakashi cried in anguish, as fists formed in his hair before he brought his hands to his face. "You didn't agree-"

"I'm a shinobi too, asshole," Anko said sharply. "Do you think you would have gotten anywhere near me if I hadn't wanted it?"

"But the way I fucked -"

" We fucked," she said softly. "I was there too."

Reaching out for him, Anko pulled his hands away from his face, he felt that compulsion no choice but to look at her. Hypnotized by her eyes and the touch of her soft hands, all gentleness when really she was a knife concealed in a velvet glove. Anko's voice was so soft, so seductive, her words like a snake dancing along the surface of the water, new thoughts and ideas rippled through him and new possibilities revealed themselves to him.

"Kakashi, it wasn't a coincidence. I did a shift at the missions office to get your schedule...

"Dealer's choice - remember?"

As if I could ever forget.

"Do you think I really would have let you put it anywhere without a little prep?" Anko chuckled softly.

"Your medical was scheduled right after mine. Tsunade wanted the reports the following day. I was so late that they had no choice but put us through the assessment together."

What is she saying?

She was a purveyor of fine evidence and facts laying them out for Kakashi to inspect but how could he buy anything? With her beguiling proximity - it was all too much for him to process. Pushing her away, he stood up, and turned his back on her, running his hands through his hair.

"We fucked."

"Context. Kakashi. Context."

The series of events had been invested with meaning derived from their own thoughts, beliefs, history and experience. And boy, was Kakashi the sum of his past, his anxiety, his inadequacy and that had launched him into a vortex of shame - whilst Anko...

My, how he had underestimated that woman, her cunning, her agency, her resilience all employed to have him.

"For a genius shinobi, you're a real fucking idiot."

Anko slipped off the bed.

"Kakashi," her voice was barely audible, he had never heard her sound so unlike herself.

"I know."

"What do you know?" Voice so hoarse, was that his voice?

Slowly, she pursed her lips, then without breaking eye contact she opened the bottom drawer of his bedside table, easily lifting it out and she tipped the contents on the bed.

Of course she had found it.

And there it was, his collection of trophies unceremoniously decamped on to the bed.

The sweater that she had worn and stretched, that still smelt like her. The kunai that he had used during their first night together, and the gloves that he wore as he brought her to the edge of climax.

Anko's necklace that he hadn't returned...

A crumpled receipt from a meal that was never claimed back on his expenses.

And then... the star exhibit he had created to memorize that night - her panties dangling from her fingertips.

"Come on Kakashi," she murmured. "You trashed the sheets but there was no sign of these."

The mask had remained in situ but he had been exposed. He was a cringing mess - all mortification and embarrassment.

"Freaking amateur hour," she murmured without judgment or humor.

Defeated, he leaned on the edge of his desk, hand gripped the edge either side.

"What do you want from me Anko?" He whispered.

"What do I want from you?" She asked slowly, as the real Anko sat in the midst of all the items that made up his private gallery.

"Well, shit Hatake - I want you."

Kakashi sighed and closed his eyes against her but that face was burnt into his mind's eye. Oh god, that dirty, sexy, wide mouth. How many different ways had he played this moment out in his head? His decision to say no was losing traction. Why had it been such a bad idea again?

Because Anko is devious as fuck Hatake.

"How can I believe you Mitarashi?" Kakashi whispered. "You are such a liar."

Anko laughed, but it didn't reach her eyes as she tossed her hair out of her face.

"Well, well. Kakashi, we are at a mighty impasse - aren't we?" Anko laughed, bitterly. "Because you are a fucking liar too."

Check mate.

Anko's hands ran over the various items on the bed.

"What is all this?"she asked.

"What?"

Stalling for time, and he knew that she knew it too.

"Kakashi," She murmured. "Fucking say it already."

Opening his mouth, he promptly shut it again.

And say what?

So lost in the endless cycle of anxiety, plagued by doubts and guilt he had not surfaced long enough to examine his own feelings and thoughts - beyond the need to chastise himself for his recent behavior.

"You don't want me Anko," he muttered.

"There's something wrong with me. I'm sick."

"Why do you have to do that?" She asked, sadly.

"I'm scum."

Anko shook her head...

"You're worse than scum- " and she was all sadness and disappointment - in a way that unsettled Kakashi.

"-You're kind - do you know that?"

Anko touched her hitai-ate

"I've never seen you without it... apart from our journey back... Why?"

Kakashi shrugged.

"I've seen the way you are with Pakkun - the way you are with me. You washed my hair. You swept up the broken mirror, you changed the sheets and made me a cup of tea and gave me a food pill- who does that?!"

"Broken glass... just dangerous," Kakashi mumbled, batting away her words with embarrassment. Anko said nothing else and silence crept in, occupying the space between them as she looked at him.

Kindness. Right... good one...

Kakashi was 3 years' old again, looking at the fragments of his mother's vase. And he was desperately trying to piece them together, small fingers, growing clumsier with every nick and cut, as he bled. He knew it then - he was destruction.

Within seconds he had decimated something his mother had created, he dishonored her memory. Kakashi had been so gripped with fear and anxiety at what he had done. And as his father's shadow crawled over him he cowered, expecting his father's wrath and prepared to accept any punishment for what he had done.

But it never came.

Sakumo had understood immediately, kneeling beside his son, he had wiped the tears from his face, scooping him up into a hug of warmth and kindness which Kakashi didn't deserve.

"It was an accident my boy."

"She would hate-"

"No," his father said sharply. "Never." Kakashi stiffened at his father's change of tone expecting retribution but he had only embraced him more tightly.

Gently he had carried Kakashi to the kitchen sink, Kakashi remembered the contrast of his own, small trembling, pink hands cradled in his father's large, strong, wide hands as the blood drained away, and the warmth that emanated from his chakra which healed his finger.

Together, with Kakashi on his lap they had pieced together the vase, gluing the shards, as it was re-assembled it had lost the quality of beauty and fragility and other worldliness, all Kakashi could see the lattice work of scars - it's ugliness.

"Look at this my boy," his dad said gently, as he held up the vase. Kakashi fingered the cracks.

"It's horrible," Kakashi reasoned, " And we could never use it again Dad." Poking a finger through a hole caused by a large crack as if to illustrate his point.

Sakumo's shoulders shook violently as he laughed loudly, before he kissed his son and ruffled his hair. Kakashi hated his dad's mushiness but he had allowed it then, and it pained him to think of the times he had pushed his dad away desperate to be older and to be taken seriously.

And if Kakashi had only understood then that there If he knew that there were a finite number of kisses and hugs and hair ruffles he would have never let him stop.

"But my boy," Sakumo said, with a smile. "This is now something that we have all made together."

Oh Hatake, for a genius shinobi you're a real fucking idiot.

Ask.

"Why were you so pissed off about the mirror Anko?" He whispered.

"Why do you think?" Anko murmured. "Disappointment dumbass... But you just can't do it, can you? A stupid mirror... or a drink..."

Anko stepped off the bed now, and stood before him, close enough to touch and to kiss and to kill. And despite her trench coat she was more naked than he had ever seen her. This was Anko's underneath the underneath.

She doesn't know you Hatake. You break things. You're poison. You're destruction. Why bother?

Anko's fingers twitched as though she was going to garrott him, and shit he really wished she would, but then a cloud passed over her face, and she turned away from him and as she was leaving he smelt that scent again...

"You're so fucking disappointing Kakashi."

"No-"

Shocked, Anko whipped round to look at him and he was holding her wrist. For once, Kakashi had acted reflexively without thinking, his body and the urges interred within had moved him to action and he could barely believe it either.

Releasing her... he took a deep breath, then he opened his desk drawer, and removed the sealed envelope and he handed it to her.

"If this is a cheque for that stupid mirror," Anko hissed, as she tore open the envelope. "I'm going to end you Hatake."

He felt a pained smile break across his face as his heart raced. And he was now afraid... so afraid.

"Open it."