Mizuki Why?

Mizuki paces, nervous energy and anger crackling in his chest like a ball of electricity. Lightning. He wants out. He wants- He needs-

“Kakashi, I’m going to kill you!” he snarls, barely hearing himself. “As soon as I get out I’m going to kill you.”

He wants to flex his claws, to tear through the bars like tissue paper, but the chakra seals prevent him. He’d been too cooperative to begin with. Kakashi had made him. He needs-

Kakashi’s not here.

“Kill you!”

Of course they notice and he sneers as a T&I psychologist pulls up a chair on the other side of the bars. She watches him pace and mutter for a time, before asking, “Do you resent Kakashi for stopping you? Or for raping you?”

He lunges at the bars, feeling the sensation of claws slipping out for a moment before the seal shuts it down, causing enough pain that it would normally double him over, but right now he welcomes the pain, lets it center him. “Don’t you dare speak badly of Kakashi! Fucking bleeding heart Konoha and your fucking weak ‘Will of Fire’! You don’t have the right to speak ill of him! Haven’t you done enough damage to him? Do you know how hard it is to get him to quit being a ‘gentleman’?”

He laughs a little manically and spits on her shoe, just to make his point clear, then turns away because she’s no longer of interest. Bloody Konoha cowards. All the same.

She waits a while before trying again. “So you are saying that you purposely provoke Kakashi into abusing you?”

Mizuki laughs roughly and sneers at her. He knows her type. “Abuse? Kakashi wouldn’t know how. The lot of you ruined him for that, peace-loving fools. Or do you think it’s abuse when you beg like a bitch in heat for your husband to mount you? I’ll bet you’re too busy fantasizing about it being his younger brother instead to even care.”

She pales satisfactorily. Bingo. Not that it matters to him, but it is amusing that most of those in T&I are there because they’re as bad as him or worse and just want to pretend to themselves that they aren’t. Predators pretending that they are rabbits. They make him sick.

It’s only because of Kakashi that he’s still playing their game. Only because of Kakashi that he hasn’t escaped, that he isn’t long gone from this joke of a prison. Only because of Kakashi that he isn’t dead. Their specialist had studied his transformation abilities from samples, and come back a few weeks later to inform him that if he was ever to be released from the chakra seal, he shouldn’t use the transformation anyways, because it is unstable and even mere minutes using it will dry up his chakra production, drain his reserves, and kill him in the process. Painfully. Too bad pain’s never been much of a deterrent. But he doesn’t actually want to die.

“When is he due back?”

“Who?” she asks blandly.

“My boyfriend, you fucking cunt. Or has your girlfriend refused to fuck you for so long that it’s affected your brain function?” As if she doesn’t know that the only person he’d ask about is Kakashi. As if she’s not making pathetic attempts to play mind games with him. He doesn’t know why they bother. He’d told Morino the full truth when Kakashi had first dragged him in, and Yamanaka had confirmed it. Maybe it’s T&I’s dysfunctional attempt at mental health checks. Whatever it is, he doesn’t appreciate it.

The woman leaves, and he goes back to pacing, hardly taking note of her departure other than as a surcease of another source of annoyance.

He doesn’t know how long it is later when he turns around and Kakashi is just there, already inside the cell as one of the T&I lackeys retreats hastily. Kakashi is holding himself like he’s in pain, like he has cracked or broken ribs.

Mizuki immediately aims his attack at the weak spot, a vicious grin on his face. But Kakashi hasn’t been a jounin for half his life for no reason. Maybe he can’t manhandle Mizuki like he normally does, but that doesn’t stop him from managing to take him down forcefully slamming him against the floor so hard that he’s going to have bruises for a week from face to knee. Something in Mizuki relaxes a little. Kakashi never disappoints.

“Shouldn’t you be in the hospital?”

“Saa, well I was until a little bird told me my cute little Mizuki was begging for my presence.” Kakashi’s voice sounds more tired than mocking, though. He must be hurt more than he’s letting on.

“I’m not your cute little anything!”

“Maa, maa, no need to be so worried. It’s nothing more than a little scratch.” Kakashi chides.

“Like I’d be worried.” He’s not. Just because ‘little scratch’ generally means Kakashi almost died from his wounds. He’s not uselessly sentimental like that. Sentiment is for people like Iruka, who can get whatever they want just by trying even though they’re talentless hacks. Who think words are more than just hot air given sound.

Mizuki tries to twist away because honor is for fools and with Kakashi injured that much, there’s a chance that-

A long fingered hand comes down punishingly on his ass, leaving fiery pain in its wake, over and over until he is no longer struggling, until he’s begging, until he’s sobbing and broken. An empty husk washed clean of ambition and viciousness. Until all that’s left is the urge to please his master and gain his approbation, something he knows without a doubt he cannot earn but might be gifted with if he grovels enough, and faint grief that he’s broken relationships he’ll miss always even though he never regrets his actions.

When he comes back to himself, it’s to find himself lying with his head in Kakashi’s lap, tears still wet on his face. Kakashi himself is sitting against the wall, head tilted back, obviously fast asleep with the fingers on his good hand tangled affectionately in Mizuki’s hair. That he wakes this way, instead of buried under Kakashi’s weight as he sprawls over him after sex is a stark reminder, an indication that Kakashi had probably escaped from the critical care ward to come here for him.

Fool. What would I do if you died? Because there’s no one else. There never has been. No one else who understands what makes him tick, who instinctively knows what he needs and gives it to him.

Mizuki knows he’s not a good man. He never has been. He’s never tried to be. But Kakashi… Kakashi makes him better. He doesn’t understand Kakashi’s choices of loyalty and hidden affection for those weaker than him, for ideals that are soft and pointless, but he relies on them. Because they’re too much a part of Kakashi to separate, and he needs Kakashi. Needs the punishment, the firm touch, the occasional quiet praises, the rules he hates so much.

He sighs and buries his face against Kakashi’s stomach. He calls Kakashi his boyfriend when he’s being vicious, but Kakashi will never call him that, never give him that importance. As it should be. Kakashi is stronger than him. Even with the fickle power Orochimaru gave him, he will never be Kakashi’s equal. (As much as it infuriates him to be the weaker, he’s glad Kakashi understands that so well.) But he is Kakashi’s and that is enough.

It is a long time later, maybe four hours, and probably far too long given the thin sound of his breathing, when Kakashi stirs again. If he were one of those weaklings that pat themselves on the back for believing in the ‘Will of Fire’ and taking care of those around him, Mizuki might’ve called for someone to take him back to the hospital where he belongs, but his breathing hasn’t gotten worse for all its thinness, and Mizuki’s always been a selfish person. He knows that once Kakashi leaves he won’t see him again for several weeks. Knows that Konoha won’t send him out on another of those missions that wind him up with contained violence until he’s healed up properly.

He knows that Kakashi has a bargain with Morino, that there’s conditions attached to it. Punishing him by avoidance isn’t really Kakashi’s thing, so he’s fairly certain it’s an ‘at need’ sort of condition. He’s not an idiot. He knows what Kakashi is to Konoha, what potential he has, what a liability others view Mizuki as being to him.

The hand in his hair tightens briefly. “Quit moping. It doesn’t suit you.”

Mizuki huffs and tangles his hand in Kakashi’s shirt. “Idiot. What are you doing here instead of the hospital? You can’t tell me that you didn’t escape from the critical care ward. Not with your ribs in that condition.”

“Maa, maa, that’s not true. I escaped before they could put me in there. Surgery was tedious enough, and hospital beds are boring.”

“Idiot. You’re going right back there after you leave here and parking your ass in a bed until the doctor clears you to be on your own. Otherwise I’ll find a way to sic Iruka on you.” he mumbles. Kakashi’s not allowed to die on him because he hates hospitals.

Kakashi chuckles and starts that stroking his nape thing he sometimes does that invariably puts Mizuki to sleep. He wants to protest, but it’s such a comfortable thing that he doesn’t want it to stop.

“Nngh. Petting me won’t stop me from siccing Iruka on you.” He slurs sleepily, already losing the battle.

When he wakes, Kakashi is long gone and the psychologist is waiting patiently outside his cell.

“I just wanted to apologize for implying Kakashi would rape or abuse you.”

“Fuck.” He sits up, back to the wall and scrubs a hand across his face, then tilts his head back to stare at the ceiling. “I know.”

It’s something she only does when he’s so wound up that he’s reacting rather than thinking, and the apology is routine by now. And he’s good at the social game when he wants to be, so he apologizes too.

“Sorry for implying your girlfriend thinks you’re such a bitch that she regularly denies you sex.”

And if the apology is more a slap than apology, well so what? She deserves it for trying to use Kakashi against him. The one upside to being a criminal is that he doesn’t have to play the ‘pretend nice’ game all the time.

She laughs appreciatively, not offended. She wouldn’t last a week in T&I if mere insults offended her, no matter how nasty. She knows how to play prisoners, so whether it’s a subtle genjutsu or she actually has that good control of her reactions to pretend their words hurt doesn’t really matter. He can respect that.

That doesn’t mean she’s forgiven for insulting Kakashi like that, though. Not even he would rape someone. Kakashi? Not in this lifetime. The honorable moron probably couldn’t even be coerced to do it. He moves his head to stare at the psychologist and bares his teeth at her.

Why is he defending Kakashi anyways? Somehow it always ends up that way. The undeniable urge is sickening in its consistency, and entirely unnecessary given that no one would believe such things of Kakashi in the first place. Something about the man practically screams ‘noble’ and ‘gentlemanly’. If Mizuki believed in Kami, he’d think its presence is a diety’s revolting prank.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m leaving.” She says amiably.

“Wait.”

“Yes?”

“If he doesn’t go back to the hospital and stay there, get Iruka to go yell at him for being an idiot.”

She raises her brows in mild surprise. It’s the first time he’s bothered asking for something. Well, something other than food that’s not disgusting prison slop or a change of clothes. “That bad, eh? Sure.”

A week later, Kakashi shows up to glare at him.

“How the hell did you manage to sic both Iruka and Gai on me from a T&I cell?”

Gai too? He has to hand it to the psychologist for the sheer deviousness involved. The bitch.

Mizuki just laughs. For a genius, Kakashi can be stupid about the strangest things. T&I has a vested interest in the continued wellbeing of their top jounins after all. One jounin vs all the prisoners that jounin would bring in over time for them to break? No contest. If even Mizuki who doesn’t give a shit about anybody bothers expressing ‘concern’, they’ll definitely go out of their way to make sure he has people fussing over him so he doesn’t expire. “Idiot.”

“You are a vicious brat.” Kakashi opines in a sulking tone.

Mizuki laughs harder. Hell yeah, he is. But he’s Kakashi’s vicious brat. And very, very pleased that his grudging action has resulted in provoking Kakashi to sulk.