**Notes for the Chapter:**
I know I'm excercising some creative license with curse marks - along with other things!

She's going to be running out that door Hatake, might as well open it now.

He closed his eyes, as if losing sight of Anko reading would lessen his nakedness somehow.

"Kakashi..."

She had finished reading, her face was unreadable as before.

"Was her husband the...?" Anko's voice tailed off, but he saw a finger touch her neck. Kakashi took a deep breath and nodded.

"Fuck."

Was that it?

"Why were you seeing her?"

At her words, a noose tightened around his insides now.

"Sex addiction."

Was that me speaking?

Anko's eyebrows shot up, lost temporarily in her fringe before her face relaxed again.

"Sex addiction," she whispered. "Wow."

Anko's eyes skirted over the letter again.

Kakashi was struggling to look at her, the edge of the floorboard by his foot suddenly very, very interesting. Applying some pressure before it creaked underfoot... probably needs to be hammered down. His toolbox was under the kitchen sink - wasn't it?

"You 'fucked her, and brutally'?"

Kakashi winced at the words.

"Yes," he had said it so quietly. Could she even hear him?

"It escalated -I was so angry. I just - just lost it. I missed the cues… it went too far… I should have never... I thought we were going to die-"

"So you wanted to go out in a blaze of glory - is that it?"

And those words cut him like a glass. A huge pane of glass shattering, cutting skin and flesh and shards going deep.

It's what you deserve, Hatake. So, feel it asshole.

Kakashi moved, part-way between a shudder and a grimace - but an affirmation nonetheless.

"-And how bad was it? The addiction."

"Bad...probably everything you're imagining and worse Anko." As he hung his head, breathing deeply to stop the anxiety from taking hold.

"Tell me," she urged him.

Go on.

"I was worse than scum Anko. I used women..." As his voice cracked, he took a breath and continued. "I would fuck them and treat them with contempt for doing it. I couldn't stop myself - I didn't want to stop. I didn't see it as a problem then."

"And who were they?"

Running his hands through his hair, he took another deep breath, as he looked up at the ceiling gathering his resolve before he looked at her again.

"Anko, I fucked without prejudice. It wasn't hard being a -" thumbing the uniform. Anko nodded.

Kakashi thought back to the waiter -who had been so impressed that she was a kunoichi and that shinobi who gave her a shot at the bar and Tiger. Of course she understood.

"Have you ever paid for it?"

"Yes-"

"-And gone bareback?"

He nodded. And then the first cloud crossing her face.

"STI's?"

"Yes."

"For fuck's sake please tell me you're clean now."

"Yes - completely. I-"

But his voice tailed off as she heaved a heavy sigh, but eyes were still overcast...

"And have you ever - " Kakashi saw a hand, almost trembling as she reached out and touched the photo frame beside her. It was unspeakable. The very worst - she actually thought the very worst of him and who could blame her? He closed his eyes, dropping his head again.

"No - never - Anko, " he felt so sick then. "They're… kids."

The sound of springs as she stood up, and the patter of small feet, taking slow steps towards him. Disbelieving the sounds, he opened his eyes to contradict himself but there she was - holding the letter out offensively - like a shuriken ready to be thrown.

"I can't believe Lord Third let you see her."

"He had faith in my choice."

"Well that was fucking dumb."

And that was that - her killing blow as his life slowly ebbed away.

"Anko..." was it a warning or a plea?

"Kakashi, I'm sorry but I don't -

-want to see you...

-know who you are...

-want to be here anymore…

His mind erupted with all the different ways her sentence would be concluded.

"- give a shit."

Of course she didn't. Who would want him? But he was too slow to act, as the effect of her words tore through him. The distance closed between them and until her toes were only mere inches from his. Returning his gaze - fierce and hot and terrifying. And though it should have been a physical impossibility - Kakashi cowered before that diminutive frame, the living embodiment of those dimensions 38-28-39 that had plagued him for months...

"Do you hear me Kakashi?" Anko asked, as she held the letter out between them… But even if he took it back - it was too late -she knew the truth about him.

Kakashi held out a hand for the letter but then she snatched it back, crushing it in her fist before she balled it up and threw it over her shoulder as it bounced and rasped on his wooden floor.

"I don't actually give a flying-fuck."

With that she kissed him. As her mouth hit his chin, then their lips met through fabric, another kiss through the mask as it slipped down until skin met skin, and he could taste the spice aniseed and peppermint and salt...

Frowning, he pulled away to look at her face, and he saw it glistening on her eyelash before it broke and rolled down the length of her cheek. This made no sense for Kakashi. Unless-

"You're mad," he said, simply. "You're actually mad Anko."

Kakashi had his hands on her shoulders fighting the compulsion to kiss her again. Anko chuckled softly, as her tears fell more freely than the first.

"Maybe I am," she said softly. "But do you know what? It's not all on you Kakashi."

Kakashi frowned...

"I loved that old man as much as anyone but that was some poor judgment-"

"- I was the cunt that tried to fuck my therapist Ank-"

Anko shrugged herself out of his hold and turned to face him.

"-he should never have allowed you to see her. Come on - would you send an alcoholic to rehab' in a brewery?"

"I wasn't a helpless child Anko."

"Yeah? How much control does an addict have? Any more control than a child?"

It was too much for Kakashi to hear Anko talk about Lord Third in that way - misappropriating blame that should be wholly his.

"- Lord Third-"

"-was human - sometimes as flawed and as fallible and as short-sighted as the rest of us."

"You're wrong," Kakashi said, shaking his head so violently he felt his neck crack.

And how could he believe her - this little actress who lied, and manipulated and coerced so easily.

"Anko, I'm broken," he said, his suffering so acute now. "I hurt people and I destroy things. That's what I'm good at."

Anko's shoulders shook violently as she laughed - but at that moment it was so misplaced, cruel and frankly disturbing.

"Stop-" he pleaded. "Stop it." And she fell silent again.

"Kakashi - we're shinobi. It's in the job description - ver-fucking-batim."

"Anko," he said, placing hands over his ears as he was assaulted by her words, before he dropped his hands.

"She - and," as he cycled through all the people he had hurt.

"She was Anbu... For her to say she hated me and that… I'm sick."

"And so what, Kakashi?" Anko whispered. "You think a tattoo and a mask can harden a heart? Did it harden yours? The truth of who are you comes out when you fuck. If you have sex for money or for revenge or because you're lonely and insecure - that's still 'the truth'. That's who you are.

"Maybe she wanted more. Maybe she was going to fuck you into falling in love with her. And even if you said no, would she not have hated you all the same? Did she mean what she said or was it said just to hurt you?"

"Hatake… seriously," she said, using a tone that one would take when addressing a child. "People don't always tell the truth, and their actions aren't always honest."

Oh don't I know that - you devious, little minx.

A small step and she was leaning against his desk too, taking up residence at the other end. Anko kept a respectful distance but she was too close for comfort - their fingers were only inches apart until Kakashi shoved his hands in his pockets.

Anko's maybes were like drops in a vast body of water. Too insignificant for noticeable change but an alteration in the chemical composition all the same. Kakashi was so unsure of himself but then… but then shame embraced him again. Oh god, he really didn't want that to be the truth of him - that darkness lurking so close to the surface.

"Maybe she didn't think she could make the jump? Who knows what was going on under that mask. But none of that fits the narrative of you being an asshole - so fuck that."

Kakashi balked at the familiarity of the phrase and tone. And he was transported back to Rosenmato's office, the deafening scratch of pen on paper and he understood, finally, why they were all using the same vernacular and the same pop-psychology.

"I get it. I do. We all have done things we regret or wished things maybe ended differently... Because of who we are, the stakes are sky-high and the consequences are dire. Kakashi...Do you know just how much my past weighs on me?" He recognised it in her face… those words, a hint of the scars that she carried too.

"I don't deserve to feel better."

Kakashi didn't think he could felt anymore nauseous but the image of Anko driving the kunai up along her thigh and that kiss as she hovered between life and death...

"That's different Anko - you-"

"Why is it different?" Anko. "Because it was me and not you? And only you're allowed to suffer. I've made choices, all those people made choices too. So, it's not all on you, asshole."

"Anko, I should never have gone anywhere near her - near either of them."

"Probably not," Anko said simply, looking at him sideways. "It was a bad call but-" and with that a lopsided shrug.

But she can't give me a free break. She just can't.

"Anko, I'm cursed," he whispered, as he wiped the tear swelling from Obito's eye, always so much more honest than his own one "Tragedy follows this eye."

"You're cursed?"

Anko looked at him, eyes narrowed, but without breaking her gaze she folded down her collar to reveal the mark. A glow like the lit tip of a cigarette, as though the tomoe charred her flesh. Another secret of her body, a clue to her past now fading from sight now but branded forever in his memory. Kakashi had seen it for himself, he knew how far Orochimaru had fallen but he had never imagined that ruthless ambition that abhorrent immorality could have touched Anko... and in spite of that, the fact that Lord Third still loved him, so like his own feelings. Kakashi felt an intense rush of emotions as he thought about his own team - those kids. How could that cunt have done it? And to her...

And god, what a poor choice of words that had been.

"I'm sorry-"

Anko said nothing though as she pulled the collar up again placing her hands back on the edge on either side of her ass.

"What happened-"

"-He took something from me," she said quietly.

The compulsion to know now overrode the fear at what she would reveal.

"What did he take?"

"He - " Anko paused, taking another route. Was she evading the question?

"-I-" Anko sighed, then started again looking at her feet. Kakashi found himself mapping the profile of her face as she talked, storing it away for the gallery.

"I was so broken Kakashi. I was kept on such a short leash afterwards for the longest time. 'A pre-caution Anko - just a precaution'. I was a kid but I wasn't a moron."

Anko rolled her eyes and tutted as if still annoyed all those years later.

"Lord Third was so sick of me begging, he had to throw me a bone eventually - I was assigned to the Intelligence Division."

"T&I?!"

"Oh no - I never got to play there," she said with a smirk at his expression, as she glanced over.

"I was still on a leash 'member. But for the first time in years I was where I wanted to be... Just crazy access to all that intel! I was learning everything I could, until I would be ready to act. I still wanted - still want - to be the one that brought him in..."

Anko's voice tailed off, as her eyes searched his face. She tilted her head, she pursed her lips before a sign:

Go?

Kakashi nodded.

"I met someone from T&I whilst I was at I.D..."

Kakashi's stomach contracted at the way she had said someone .

"One of the young ones you like so much?" Kakashi had said it casually - as though he had no stake in the answer. Anko gave him a weak smile but shook her head.

"No, he was older than me. Actually, he had probably lived my life twice over - a kinda' old soul. But in those few months we were… all these parts of me that had been broken, were put together again, much stronger and more resilient than before. I felt things that were entirely new to me - so I could trust in those experiences and ideas. They hadn't been implanted or reinvented or hidden from me and I found the void was being filled with something else. The truth of who I am."

Anko had stopped talking, searching his face. Kakashi pushed back his hair, and scratched the back of his neck before his hand had dropped back to the desk.

"And how did it end?" Pushing the words through his teeth, and then a horrible thought occurred to him. "Has it ended?"

"How do these things always end, dumbass?" Anko asked, quietly. "Freaking badly."

But then another shrug and another small smile. "But it doesn't matter... An end doesn't invalidate the memory."

"Did you-"

Kakashi couldn't finish it and it seemed like Anko was going to leave it unsaid too. But Kakashi already knew the answer - that this unnamed bastard had reached in between her legs to grasp hold of her heart

Anko was right, the truth of who you are does come out when you fuck. He knew it as much as she did when they had sex and by the way they did - that they both had a past. How different it had been for them, that stage of development demarcating childhood from adolescence to adulthood. For him, sex was used as a means of control or to feel in control. And it became something corrosive and dysfunctional and shameful but for Anko it had had some kind of transformative power. Hatred and unbridled jealousy for this unknown man, the arbitrator of Anko's sexual awakening coursed through him and he wanted to lash out. Gripping the edge of the desk again, as he pushed away a brutish urge to throw Anko to the floor and climb on top of her, between her and in her until thoughts of freedom were abandoned she was as enslaved and helpless as he was.

"Well shit, I want you Hatake."

She's a liar, Hatake.

But then, aren't you?

**Notes for the Chapter:**
I really enjoyed writing this! Thanks so much for reading.
W xxx