InsaneJournal

Resting Easy [Kakashi and Ryouma]
[[Takes place October 21, the morning after Find Me On High Ground.]]

Ryouma woke to sunlight stretching a wide ray of warmth across his face and chest, a bush warbler’s liquid chirping trill in the trees outside the window, and a lean, muscled arm thrown possessively over his ribcage. Kakashi was a solid heat at his back, one foot hooked over Ryouma’s ankle. His breath tickled Ryouma’s ear.

For a long, delicious moment Ryouma lay still, eyes half-slit against the sunshine. He hadn’t dreamed it. And this was no genjutsu, either; no Suna nin would think to add the delicate detail of the bush warbler’s autumn song. He was safe in Konoha, waking up in Sharingan no Kakashi’s bed, and the rest of his life stretched out before him.

He drew a deep breath--sweat, cotton, a faint lingering aroma of last night’s stir-fry, Kakashi--and grinned ridiculously to himself. Then, caught by a sudden thought, twisted to his other side and wriggled up onto his elbow. Kakashi’s grip tightened a little, but he didn’t stir.

Ryouma had watched him sleep before. Sat vigil, more like, in the hospital and once, memorably, in a hotel room, after Kakashi took a double dose of a drug meant for Ryouma. He’d counted breaths until he lost track somewhere in the high five hundreds, hummed, sung, massaged limp limbs to prevent blood pooling, talked aloud to Kakashi and to himself. For all that, he realized, he’d never actually spent much time watching Kakashi. The mask was there, for one thing, and even when it wasn’t a vague sense of decency still constrained him; you didn’t stare at Kakashi’s naked, vulnerable face any more than you rifled through his underwear drawer.

Seeing as how the rest of Kakashi was just as naked, though, Ryouma felt fully justified in a little aesthetic appreciation.

He looked younger in sleep. Most people did, but Kakashi had always looked peculiarly ageless to begin with. Maybe it was the grey hair, or the cold gaze, or the mask. It was hard to remember he was only twenty years old--twenty-one, now, but still two years younger than Ryouma. He had an old man’s eye, seeing too much, remembering it all.

But now the tension had drained away, and his straight grey brows relaxed from their customary scowl. His mouth curved a little, as though he were enjoying his dreams. His lashes were darker than his brows and hair, Ryouma noticed, and a faint tan bronzed his pale skin in a rough triangle around his right eye. On his right arm, the sharp-edged tan lines of biceps-baring ANBU armor had already begun to fade.

I was ready to run S-ranks until I beat the odds.

He’d left ANBU. Kicked out before he could commit mission-suicide, then suspended even from regular jounin missions. Had they even let him leave the village, any time these past three months?

Ryouma had first-hand experience of just how badly you could screw up in ANBU without anyone official taking notice. What had Kakashi done, to bring the Hokage himself down on him?

And how do I thank him, for keeping Kakashi breathing?

He touched a fingertip, very gently, to the long straight scar slicing down from Kakashi’s left eyebrow to the sharp crest of his cheekbone. Kakashi’s lashes flickered, but the Sharingan eye didn’t open. He rumbled something, low in his throat, and snuggled a little closer.

Kakashi was right, Ryouma decided. Answers and memories could wait. Let’s be happy about it.

He bent closer, until his lips brushed the curve of Kakashi’s ear, and whispered: “Mornin’, sunshine. You always this snuggly?”