Feral Descent

Kakashi snarled and backed into a table when Minato reached out to steady him. He clutched at the slippery, stinging throb of his belly with cold, papery fingers.

 "Stop!" his dark grey eyes-both of them still as of yet unscarred and whole-slanted menacingly even as he wobbled on his feet, "... I'm okay." He grunted. Staggered, and fell to one knee.

 "Kakashi."

The smooth, tanned skin of his sensei's face was beginning to pucker between his blonde brows. He uncrossed his arms, holding them loosely at his sides in a casual movement that the chunin instinctively knew was anything but. It was the posture of someone approaching a cornered, possibly rabid animal. 

Somehow, impossibly, it seemed to make the entire situation worse.

"You're hurt." Minato was saying in that infuriatingly calm, gentle way of his, still taking those even, measured half-steps inchingly towards him, "That cut looks deep and you're losing blood fast..."

The eleven year old, who'd been shivering silently in pain the whole time, unwittingly let a small, wavery gasp slip out. He crumpled against the wall of the ramshackle lean-to behind him, crashing to the dusty floor and curling in on himself frailly. Minato was by his side, his warm, solid palm cupping the bony ridge of Kakashi's elbow, in an instant.

"Woah." The man's cool tenor reached him blurrily as if from underwater; Kakashi made a small noise when he felt himself being lifted, "Easy..."

It was hard to remember why he was fighting when everything hurt so much. He trusted his sensei. Distantly, in the static-filled corners of his mind not obliterated by the brutal siren of unexpected agony, he was even aware that it'd been Minato who'd saved him. The hands that held him now, carefully gathering him from the floor and folding his cold, aching body against the solid warmth of steady, broad shoulders-they'd swooped in at the last possible moment and plucked him from certain death. Like they always did.

So, why-Kakashi whined and attempted to twist his body away from the hardness of the newly-righted table without thinking when Minato settled him gingerly upon it like it was an operating station. The thrashing aggravated the open wound along his stomach and abdomen further. What was a slow, sanguine trickle devolved into more of a gradual seeping. Kakashi sobbed breathlessly.

"Shit." 

It wasn't often he heard his sensei curse. If he hadn't been in such overwhelming fear and pain he might have said something. Exactly what that might have been, he'd never know because-in a swift movement that had the air catching painfully in his throat and his stomach swooping nervously-Minato had bent over him and had started unbuckling things. Unfastening, jostling. 

The silver-haired boy felt the hem of his stained, soppy t-shirt roll out from under the waistband of his pants at the same time he noticed his weapons pouch, sword holster, and his sandals clatter to the wood beside his head. 

"Wait! Sen-sei." The words were nearly lost in a sudden glob of bloody spittle that rose and frothed between his lips. Minato's blue eyes were slow-moving and thorough. Focused. Hard beneath the flat, worried line of his blonde brows. He yanked Kakashi's mask down to his chin in one quick motion. Stopped him from choking.

Kakashi's slightly glassy eyes widened. His narrow chest hitched, the pace of it's uneven rise and fall skipping ahead dramatically. His mask!

Cool air washed over his bare cheeks, nipping his nose, and reminding him unflaggingly that this was the first time since he'd put the small dividing patch of fabric on that his sensei had seen his face without it. 

Now, he remembered why he was fighting, twisting frantically beneath his sensei's gentle, probing fingers. He started gasping, his breath slipping into the dizzy realm of hyperventilation.

"N-No," he moaned, "Wait. Wait-"

He didn't want to be on his back right now. The table felt hard and unalterably barren against the curve of the back of his skull; the slender line of his bare neck supported only by empty air. He distinctly felt each of the curves and dips of his rapidly growing body where he was forced to open up the angles of his frame against the flat expanse of the table with a heightened, tingling rush of awareness. His sensei's breath ghosted over the bare, throbbing skin of his gutted belly as the man bent over him. It tickled and, coupled with the unfamiliar feeling of his wet t-shirt squelching up to a tangled weight above his collarbones, made him wriggle his hips against the trapped sensation.

Minato's light blue eyes flickered. Something in his jaw set and Kakashi read the heavy determination in his eyes. It was almost as poignant as the unmistakable worry blooming sharp and hot in the jounin's azure depths. And it shouldn't have felt so dismantling and anchoring at the same time. To have another person look at him so... The last time someone had stared at him so intently-like he was more important than what anybody else thought or a reputation that needed to be upheld; more precious than any rare metal or gem; fragile as a dream uncharted-his dad had still been the White Fang of Konoha.

Now, his dad was a palmful of ash. Enclosed in an unremarkable off-white urn on the mantelpiece of the dilapidated Hatake estate outside the borders of the village. 

And, Kakashi: alone. 

In the morning he opened his eyes to cold, twisted sheets and the empty walls and floor of his rundown apartment. He ate alone. Small, measured meals that he didn't take any pleasure or warmth from and were often left unfinished when he realized he felt more comfortable being hollow anyways. There was no one there to count his bruises, to shake their heads or make a small noise of mock-disappointment under their breath at his recklessness. No one to mend tears or patch holes. No one to argue with. He stared flatly into the cracked slab of a mirror bolted over the sink in his bathroom with wide, starved-looking eyes when he cut his own hair with a pair of blunted shears. The sallow face of a lonely child staring helplessly back at him uncomfortable to see. 

What was it that his sensei thought he saw when he was looking at him like that? It couldn't, couldn't have been Kakashi. He wasn't... The eleven year old looked away from the emotion glowing fervently behind those blue eyes. Bit his bloody lip.

"Oh, 'Kashi." Minato's sigh was so light it smarted.

The man couldn't be seeing him clearly. No. Because Kakashi knew that he was none of the things he saw reflected-wavering and filmy, beautiful-in Minato's tidal eyes. 

He wasn't worth worrying about.

Evidently, the Yellow Flash of Konoha felt differently.

"Wait!" Kakashi croaked again, and his blood-spattered hands collided with Minato's over the knotted drawstring of his blood-sodden pants. 

Maybe it was the way his voice crept up at the end of the word, making him seem younger than he was. Maybe it was the sight of Kakashi's pale fingers scrabbling weakly across Minato's bigger, unshaking hands or the smear of bloody fingerprints left behind. It could have been the jarring clash of a hot, dizzy blush meeting the icy trickle of embarrassed, frightened tears over the soft skin of his cheeks. The nervous half-kick of his heels raking against the harsh wood of the table.

Whatever it was that Minato seemed to see, looking down at him with an unreadable, decidedly adult expression-it was enough to make him pause. Withdraw the tingling brush of his calloused fingers from Kakashi's damp, aching skin. If only for a moment.

"What is it, Kakashi?" The Yellow Flash's cerulean gaze burned into him furiously. Impatient, "Why are you pushing me away?"

"I...I-"

But he'd taken too long to answer and Minato wasn't willing to hold off medical care for any longer. Not with his charge bleeding out like this. 

Kakashi's grey eyes widened. He grabbed at his sensei's wrists, head tossing back and forth frantically. Kicked his feet and tried to twist away from the man.

He started screaming.

"Hey!!" Minato caught his shaking fingers in one fist, jerking him roughly, and grabbed Kakashi by the back of the head. He forced the wild-eyed child to hold still, and look straight into his unshakable blue gaze, "Cut it out!"

The breath shook out of him, Kakashi shook his head feebly. For some stupid reason he couldn't stop crying. He couldn't remember the last time he'd cried. It-Everything was so much more out of his control than he'd expected it to be. His face felt hot and tight like it was pinched between two giant, invisible thumbs; his chest hitching, torn stomach muscles wracking without him meaning them too. Even his throat felt clogged, as if his tears had overflown his insides and were bubbling up the narrow tunnels of his eye sockets and nasal cavity. 

He wanted Minato to hold him. To push him away.

He didn't know what he wanted. Everything just... hurt so...

What." Minato growled, still crushing Kakashi's smaller fingers in his grip, jerking him back to the present,"What is it?"

Kakashi let out a hurt, exhausted sob of nervousness. Blinked back hot, sticky tears and sniffled. He mumbled something quietly, burning grey eyes slipping avoidably to the side as he stopped trying to escape.

"What?" They Yellow Flash frowned. Turned his head and leaned closer to Kakashi's quivering, bloody lips. The hold he had on Kakashi's hands was bruising. Simultaneously grounding and invasive. The eleven year old shook his head, damp silver spikes fluffing with the motion. He whispered the words again, blushing.

"I don't want you t-to take my pants off."

Several expressions struggled to cross Minato's stunned face at once. Surprise bordering on dismay slipped into murky looks of shame, guilt, and a profound sort of realization that almost seemed to touch on absent curiosity. He stared down at Kakashi, still half-cradling the boy's neck and squeezing the smaller, shaking hands inside one sweaty palm. And then a refreshing gentleness cooled the fury in the man's tanned face.

Minato laughed.

Kakashi flinched.

A slow brush of his sensei's thumb rubbed against the short, downy hairs along the back of his neck where his mask had been pulled down. Smoothing. Tracing.

Petting.

"Is that it?" And then, still smiling faintly around the worry creased between his brows, "I thought it was gonna be something worse...You don't need to be afraid. I'm sure you don't have anything I haven't seen before. It's just skin, Kashi-kun."

"B-but-"

Minato's ethereal blue eyes blinked down at him with unmistakable fondness. And it was enough to break every notion that he'd ever had about himself. It-

Kakashi jerked his head to the side, overwhelmed and terrified at the feelings stoked deep inside him by that single look. His own eyes were wide, dark with hurt and a sort of uncomprehending sheen. It was too much. Was... Was this what it was to be an adult? To have someone look at you like, like-

"Shh." And Minato stroked a warm caress over Kakashi's scalp, ruffling his hair then, "You don't need to be afraid with me." he said, "I promise I would never hurt you... You terrifically dense, precocious, stubborn little slip of a boy..."

Kakashi stared up at Minato. Forgot how to breathe. Traced the slope of the man's cheekbones with watering, steel-bright eyes. Felt himself slowly unraveling.

Trusting.

"Shh."

"Sh."

"It's okay..."

"It's okay, just-" There was a stifled grunt as Kakashi was folded over the cluttered desk in the deserted jounin lounge. The ANBU behind him still wore his mask. It was the brutish mug of a bear, painted in sleek purple and crimson lines.

Kakashi was down to his boxer briefs.

"Okay..."

"Hold. Still." Kakashi winced into the cold metal, the claw-like fingers of the man's gloves digging into his scalp where they held him down.

"Just..."

He wished the man would stop talking. It ruined the fantasy.

Made him feel smaller than his eleven year old self.

"Ah. Yeah, like that. Just-"

"Just..."

Kakashi drew in a stuttered gasp, his mismatched eyes opening for only the briefest of seconds as another barbed glove wormed its way down his belly. Pressed flush against the desk, scattered papers and pens crumpled beneath him, it was hardly a comfortable setting. How had he gotten here?

"Fuck." The ANBU's voice hummed through the thick porcelain of his mask, tickling the inside of Kakashi's ear in a way that made him breakout in a cold sweat, "Why are you not naked?"

"Just look at me."

 And then he was being man-handled. Yanked up and twirled around and slammed back down onto the now cleared surface of the desk. Kakashi lay flat on his back, gasping. His fingers rushed illogically to hold closed the puckered gash of a belly long-since healed, for a moment losing track of the silver-haired boy in his memory with the silver-haired teenager being crushed by the ANBU above him.

The Copy-Ninja sealed his eyes shut, scarred and unscarred alike. The progression of his recollection melted hazily through into the present, blurring the two moments together stickily. He let out a small, faintly audible note that was equal parts fear and base relief the same moment the eleven year old in his memory did.

"Look...

The ANBU sniggered behind his bear mask at the silver-haired boy's whimper. And the bear mistook it, relishing the delight of causing such a reaction through such a simple action. Who would've guessed Konoha's top cadet, their fastest rising star could be so affected by having their last article of clothing yanked roughly from his hips?

Kakashi stared hard into the back of his eyelids. Tried to recapture the grace of Minato's animated carousel of expression. The warmth of his blue eyes. He fought desperately to not be where he was-He wanted to submerge back into the rolling wash of memory. To be safe.

"Look at me."

But, lying there with the contents of the lounge desk strewn haphazardly beneath him-the narrow strip of his ankles, covered by the bunched fabric of his underwear; the only part of him left secret to the ravenous perusal of the Bear-masked soldier atop him-he couldn't help but feel...

alone.