Finders, Keepers
You don’t pull away again.
He’s still holding your wrist, just loosely now, and you’re just… standing there. Looking up at him like you’re not sure what to say next. Your mouth opens, then shuts again, the sharp glint in your eye dimming—not gone, just tempered. Like you’re too tired to keep throwing sparks tonight.
And maybe he’s too tired to keep catching them.
Kakashi lets go.
His fingers fall back to his side like they’d forgotten they had other uses. For a moment, the air feels too quiet again, like the room hasn’t fully resettled from your absence.
“You hungry?” he asks, voice low.
You blink. The question throws you more than the grip did.
“…I could eat,” you mutter.
He doesn’t say anything else. Just moves past you, grabs the half-empty takeout container on the table—rice cake and sweet egg and something that barely resembles protein anymore—and splits it with you. He pushes a set of chopsticks toward your side of the table, sits down cross-legged like it’s a routine instead of a last-ditch attempt to do something normal.
You take your time eating. And he watches
The room settles into something slower after that. Less sharp edges. Still quiet, still a tension humming in the floorboards—but not the kind that threatens to break.
It’s the kind of tension that lives in held breath and half-finished thoughts. In glances not quite caught and silences that don’t ask to be filled.
It’s a tension he knows well—simmered instead of boiled. The kind that makes your shoulders drop by fractions, makes your movements less stiff, more deliberate. A truce without ceremony.
Kakashi’s still watching you.
Not in the overt way you’d call him out for. Not with that dry voice that always lands somewhere between annoyance and amusement. You haven’t looked at him like that in days—maybe weeks.
But he watches anyway.
Not your face. Not your eyes. That would be too much, too close, too obvious. He watches your hands instead—the way you break the rice cake in half, how your fingers brush the crumbs from your palm, flicking them off the edge of the table with deliberate flicks. Methodical. Precise. You’ve always had good hands.
Sharp, fast, expressive in ways you’d never admit.
You eat like you’re trying to convince yourself this is normal. That this is just another stop, another night, another meal. That he didn’t find you standing at the edge of something vast and hollow, something that wanted to swallow you whole. That whatever had settled inside your chest like rot isn’t still there, whispering to you behind your ribs.
You make a joke about the inn’s food being slightly better than field rations, and he hums a noncommittal response—too distracted by the way your voice has steadied to say anything more.
You don’t press. You never do when he gets like this.
You just keep talking.
Your tone is light. Careful. Wound with that brand of casual nonsense you use when you’re trying to keep things from sinking too deep.
You tell him about the old woman who gave you directions you didn't need, who kept insisting you buy a foot soak “for your poor, overworked energy.” You mimic her voice with a pitch-perfect impression that makes something in his chest tighten. You mention her dog barked at you like it could smell your mood, and that it only calmed down when you gave it half a rice cracker. You call it “clearly the smarter of the two.”
Kakashi lets out something like a laugh—quiet and short. The kind that’s not forced.
It hits him then, quietly: you’re talking just to keep him there. Just to keep something steady between you. Like if you fill the room with enough mundane things, it’ll crowd out the space where pain used to sit.
None of it is important.
It’s everything.
He listens. Offers dry responses when it feels right. Says your face looks like it lost a fight with a sleep-deprived raccoon and a bundle of barbed wire. You roll your eyes and say at least you still have both of them working—unlike someone else. Then you mention the trap.
Snare wire, across the ankle.
The moment you say it, he goes still. A breath catches in his throat and lodges there, but he forces it down.
You notice. Of course you do.
But you don’t needle him for it.
“I got out of it,” you say. “I’ve done worse.”
You have. You absolutely have.
But he remembers how your voice sounded before you left. Not angry. Not reckless. Just quiet in a way that worried him.
The kind of quiet people wear before they disappear.
You’re not there anymore, though.
You’re here—elbow-deep in half-eaten rice, licking crumbs from your thumb like none of this is unfamiliar. You tell him if you get stuck in this alternate dimension much longer, you’re going to start charging him rent.
He doesn’t even try to hide the sigh. “You don’t even pay rent in our world.”
“That’s different,” you say, smirking. “There, I can climb through your window and steal your food when I run out.”
“You’re not supposed to admit that.”
“Please. You always leave the window cracked.”
He doesn’t tell you that he does it on purpose.
Doesn’t say that the first time you vanished from his life, the not-knowing nearly unmade him. That when you showed up again days later, half-dead and bleeding, and let yourself inside like it was nothing, he left the window cracked every night after that.
Because if you were ever coming back, he didn’t want anything in your way.
You’re watching him now—openly, this time. Not reading. Just… cataloguing. Like you’re counting how long he takes to respond. Like you’re quietly waiting for him to shut down again.
He doesn’t. Not this time.
“Did you sleep at all?” he asks.
You shrug. “Some. Not well.”
Honest. Clean. Not a cry for help. Not a plea. Just facts.
He finishes the rest of his food and sets the bowl down. His eyes catch on the faint bruise on your ankle where the trap caught you, the tremble in your hands when you think he isn’t looking.
You’re here. You’re alive. But only just.
And maybe you think you’re fooling him. That he only watches you out of suspicion. That his gaze is a calculation, not concern.
But really—he’s just afraid.
Afraid that the wrong thing will reach you again.
That whatever tried to steal you away from the inside will make a second attempt.
That he won’t be fast enough next time.
The room settles around them like mist. Not heavy—just enough to blur the edges of tension, just enough to let the air soften between spoonfuls of soup and shared silence.
Kakashi lets the last bite melt on his tongue before setting the empty container aside. You finish a moment later, elbow brushing the wood of the low table, and then lean back with a sigh that sounds equal parts fatigue and reluctant acceptance.
You’re still here. You’re still breathing.
And he’s still watching.
You haven’t noticed how often your chakra flickers lately. Maybe it’s because you’ve lived inside your skin too long to tell the difference—but he sees it. He feels it like a distant drumbeat out of sync. He’s always been attuned to you, long before this world decided to rewrite every rule beneath your feet. But now? It’s almost deafening. A steady off-rhythm twitch at the edge of his senses.
It’s not your fault.
And it’s not your doing.
But it’s starting to scare him.
You don’t know it. Don’t know how close you were to slipping entirely out of his reach when he came back and found the room empty. When the bed was made and your pack gone and the space still faintly smelled like your soap and regret.
You’re talking again—something about how the futon’s too thin and how, if this mission doesn’t kill you, the cheap sleeping arrangements will. He grunts in response. But he doesn’t really laugh, doesn’t really engage, because his mind’s already moving.
Calculating.
Planning.
When you yawn and rub at the back of your neck, he speaks.
“I’m keeping watch tonight.”
You snort. “Obviously.”
“In the futon.”
You blink at him. Hard.
“…I’m sorry?”
Kakashi gestures toward the room’s single futon, still folded out from earlier. “There’s nowhere else to keep proximity. It’s safer this way.”
You stare at him like he just proposed you both take turns drowning in the bath. “You’ve got to be joking.”
“Not even a little.”
“Kakashi, there’s one futon.”
“Yes.”
“For one person.”
“And we’re two ANBU with years of experience sleeping in less ideal situations.” His tone stays even, calm, maddeningly factual. “We’ve shared tighter quarters. Caves. Tents. Trees. You once fell asleep half on my back during a stakeout.”
“That was a shoulder. And I was injured.”
“You snored.”
You glare at him.
He presses on. “Your chakra’s unstable when you sleep. It spikes and then drops sharply. I’ve seen it happen multiple times. If that happens again in this place, with the amount of shinobi around the village—”
“I have bad dreams, nothing else,” you cut in. “It’s not the end of the world.”
“It’s not just dreams.” He meets your eyes evenly now. “There’s something in the air here. Something old. You know it too—you’ve felt it. You moved through the trees like they were watching you.”
You hesitate.
That’s all the confirmation he needs.
“If I’m right next to you,” he continues, “I can stabilize it. If it fluctuates, I’ll be able to respond immediately. It’s simple field protocol.”
You look like you want to argue. You always look like that when he’s being irritatingly logical. He doesn’t tell you he’s made the decision hours ago—long before you came back, long before your voice found its usual sharp rhythm again.
He doesn’t tell you he couldn’t sleep anyway.
Not when you might vanish again.
Not when he still remembers the echo of your chakra the moment he found you gone—like a ghost sighing through a cracked door.
Instead, he stands and walks toward the futon.
“Don’t worry,” he says mildly. “I’ll stay on my side.”
“You don’t have a side. It’s my futon.”
“You left,” he says, unfolding a spare blanket with the careless ease of someone used to making beds in enemy territory. “Finders, keepers.”
Your groan is theatrical. Aggrieved. “You’re the worst.”
“And you’re still alive.” He throws a glance over his shoulder. “You’re welcome.”
You mutter something obscene and drag your feet toward the futon like it’s a punishment. He hides the small relief that rises in his chest when you do. When you don’t fight it anymore. When you settle beside him, back to him, breath sharp with tiredness but not panic.
He doesn’t touch you.
He doesn’t need to.
Your chakra pulses low and steady, still flickering here and there like embers from an unstable flame, but he can feel it. And he’s close enough now to act if anything shifts.
He lies back with his arms folded behind his head and stares at the dark ceiling. The room is warmer with both of you here, your breath soft and steadying, even if your body stays tense. He can feel it in the slight pull of the blanket where it drapes across your legs. In the way your spine refuses to fully rest against the mat.
The minutes pass slow and loose. The kind that stretch around them like dusk shadows—no real edges, just quiet breath and the low hum of something unspoken between them. It isn’t silence so much as it is suspension. Like the world is holding its breath right alongside you both, waiting to see who breaks first.
You shift beside him, once, then again, tugging the blanket tighter around your shoulders. Kakashi doesn’t move. He doesn’t need to. He can feel your chakra brushing against his own, even now—uneven and skittering, like static in the air before a storm. Not violent. Just… restless. Searching.
Your chakra used to be steadier. Not calm—never that—but focused. Sharp-edged and deliberate, like a drawn blade balanced on breath. But now it flutters. It stutters in irregular pulses, like something inside you is trying to tune itself back to a frequency that doesn’t exist anymore. Like you’re out of sync with your own skin.
He’s watching it, even now. Watching you.
The futon creaks when you shift again, more restless this time. Then your voice slips through the dark.
“…You’re not going to hover all night, are you?”
Kakashi doesn’t bother pretending he wasn’t. His answer comes soft, bone-dry. “That depends.”
“On what?”
“If you start glowing in your sleep. Or walking out again like it’s a midnight stroll.”
There’s a pause, then a soft scoff. “I don't glow.”
“No?”
“I didn’t walk out either. I was just scouting.”
He doesn’t press. Not yet. Not when you’re here again, under the same roof, under the same blanket, even if every line of your body still feels like it’s braced for war. He can see it in your posture—shoulders stiff, hands still too close to the edge of the mattress. As if even now, part of you is ready to run.
“You didn’t leave a note,” he says after a pause.
“…Didn’t think I needed to.”
His jaw flexes. “You didn’t.”
Beat.
“But you do now.”
The quiet that follows isn’t sharp, but it’s not easy either. It’s the kind of silence that has weight. That leans between them like a thing with breath and form. But it’s not empty. There’s something fragile beneath it—like frost thinning under sunlight. Something warmer.
“I’m not going to disappear on you again,” you say eventually, voice barely audible.
It’s not a promise. Not quite. But it’s something. A confession, maybe. An offering.
He doesn’t answer with words. Just lets it settle over his ribs, low and deep and delicate. Like if he moved too fast, it might shatter.
You shift again, rolling half onto your back, eyes fixed on the ceiling beams above. The space between you is narrow—no wider than a forearm—but neither of you crosses it. It’s the closest you’ve been in days, and somehow it still feels like a thousand miles.
After a long moment, your shoulders drop. The tension fades from your posture inch by inch until it’s only weariness left, stretched taut over brittle bones.
“You’re not going to sleep, are you,” you mumble, words curling at the edges with drowsiness.
“No.”
You snort faintly. “Paranoid.”
“Prepared.”
“Control freak.”
Kakashi’s voice is barely above a whisper when he answers. “Maybe.”
You’re fading fast. He can hear it in your voice, in the way your chakra starts to even out, the off-rhythm beginning.
Your breathing slows.
“I’ll keep watch,” he murmurs, mostly to himself.
Your lips twitch faintly. Sleep is pulling at you now, heavy and quiet.
“Don’t steal the blanket…”
His laugh is soft. Barely audible. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
A beat passes. He watches the rhythm of your breath even out. Sees the lines in your face go slack.
Then, lower—like a vow wrapped in dusk: “I’ll keep everything where it belongs.
And he does.