Archive of Our Own

Goldfish

At first, Sakura hated being temporally displaced.

Everything was strange and old-fashioned. She has no close friends. The sannin, who have not yet earned their titles, were either competing with each other to be the first to fuck her or working together toward the common goal of a team orgy with her. Either way, their efforts at seduction tended to work at cross purposes more often than not. And, although she would never have suspected it as a child, the Third Hokage was not kindly, wise, or a good leader. Sakura hated that everyone and their cousin seemed to think it acceptable to make pointed comments about the unique cut of her kimono, especially since she absolutely refused to wear one. Ever.

And then she ran into the Wolf. Literally.

"Hey there, Red Riding Hood," he said as he straightened, his voice muffled by the inside of his white mask. Tufts of thick, gray hair flop around the mask's perked ears and painted red whiskers. Painted over the eyeholes are a pair of red eyebrows, arched to make the mask's expression seem friendly instead of menacing. "Are you here with anyone?"

Sakura wondered if this man was the inventor of the stylized and painted animal masks that Konohagakure's ANBU forces will eventually become famous for. This was the first time that she had seen such a mask since she had gotten herself stranded in the past.

"I'm not your type," Sakura said curtly, pulling her red cloak closed over her white sundress. Nearby, children were shrieking and squealing as they tried to catch little goldfish in paper nets.

"Oh?" said Wolf, cocking his head to the side. He looked her over very deliberately. "I think that you might be."

"I'm a violent, ball-busting bitch," Sakura bluntly informed him. "I'm not gentle or kind and I like hitting people, especially when they piss me off. And if you're involved with Team Sarutobi's shenanigans, I'll break every bone in your body. Twice."

Usually, that was enough to scare off an old-fashioned shinobi.

"Sounds like you're exactly my type," the Wolf purred. He sidled closer. "Buy you a drink?"

Sakura opened her mouth to reply and then forgot what she was going to say when a small boy with rounded baby cheeks, wide dark eyes, and gravity-defying gray hair pushed through the crowd. His pale blue yukata was crooked and very wet.

"Look what I caught, Daddy!" he chirped, holding up a clear, plastic bag and grinning a gape-toothed grin. Inside the bag swam a goldfish.

"Oh, wow," Sakura gasped, melting. Toddler Kakashi was just so cute! When little Kakashi turned his grin on her, Sakura knew that she was doomed.

"That's wonderful, Kakashi!" said the Wolf, swinging the small boy up into his arms for a hug and a tickle. "Kakashi, meet my new friend. This is Little Red Riding Hood. She just invited us to come eat yakisoba with her."

"Yakisoba!" Kakashi cheered. When he beamed at Sakura, all of her murderous feelings toward his father evaporated. "Thank you, Miss Little Red Riding Hood!"

"You're welcome," Sakura said faintly, wondering if the Hatake smile was a known bloodline limit. Kakashi's smiles were practically lethal.

It would certainly explain why they all wear masks, Sakura mused as she let the Hatake men lead her toward the nearest yakisoba stall. When Sakumo stuck her with the check, Sakura was hardly surprised.

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Costumes

The wolf mask was flimsy and cheap. It was made from thin wood and painted white with red whiskers, eyebrows, and accents. Its pricked ears were adorable, as was its pert nose, but its eyeholes were too far apart for anyone with two working eyes. But it was pretty and it was an easy way to match Kakashi's costume (the mask) to Sakura's costume (a puffy white dress with red accents, red shoes, and a red cape.) Little Red Riding Hood needed her Wolf, after all.

When Sakura gave it to Kakashi, she certainly never expected Kakashi to wear it. But he dutifully put it on, fumbled underneath it, and then pulled down his usual navy blue face mask to bunch around the base of his throat.

"Well?" he asked, turning his head from side to side. "What do you think?"

"Oh," Sakura said faintly, lust shuddering through her. It took up residence in her tight belly, her twitching fingers, and her thundering pulse. She licked her lower lip. "Oh, my."

The wolf mask covered the quarter of Kakashi's face that usually betrayed his emotions but it bared the smooth, clean lines of his throat and the pale, clean shaven angles of his jaw. When he turned his head from side to side to model his new accessory for Sakura, he inadvertently flaunted his newly exposed skin.

On anyone else, those uncovered patches of skin would never have been worth the effort of noticing. On Kakashi, that cheap mask was practically obscene. So was Sakura's response to it.

"Sakura?"

"Leave the mask on," Sakura ordered hoarsely as she pushed Kakashi backwards, into her bedroom.

"Sakura?" he said, sounding nervous even as his hands moved to frame her hips. "We're running late."

"And we're going to be a lot later," Sakura promised as she firmly pushed Kakashi towards her bed.

Kakashi laughed.

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Carry You Home

Sakura was admiring the underside of a picnic table when a pair of hands roughly clamped themselves around her ankles and dragged her out from under it.

"You're drunk," Kakashi said flatly.

"Yes, yes, I am," Sakura agreed as she wriggled, arranging the rumpled lump of red cape more comfortably under her neck. She had won it (and a kiss!) during one of her many rounds of arm wrestling. "I am very, very drunk."

Kakashi crossed his arms and glared down at her. Laughing, Sakura sat up. She clumsily tucked her cash winnings into her bra, the cheap wooden mask looped around her wrist banging against her boob.

Kakashi made a disgusted noise.

"Alcohol, money, and women are the three cardinal sins of the shinobi," he snapped as Sakura dragged herself to her feet. "You know better than this."

"Lighten up, squirt," Sakura giggled and reached up to ruffle Kakashi's hair. It was soft and unreasonably thick near his scalp, like fur. The mask's nose bumped into his temple. "No women. Or men. Yet."

Kakashi irritably battered her hand, and the mask, away. "Sakura!"

"Heeey, don't be like that," Sakura whined, cradling the mask to her chest. "I won this for you."

"Yeah, right."

"No, really! I saw it and thought, 'That's Kakashi, for sure!' and won it off of the guy wearing it, just for you."

She had also gotten five ryo and half a bottle of cheap, disgusting sake off of that guy. Sakura decided not to mention any of that to Kakashi.

Some of the rigidity disappearing from his shoulders, Kakashi looked at the mask with more interest. "Yeah?"

"Yeah!" Sakura cheerfully agreed as she clumsily tried to unwind the mask's ties from around her wrist. After a moment, Kakashi's hands captured her own. He worked to untangle and untie the straps from her wrist, his long, calloused fingers warm against her skin.

Sakura exhaled gustily.

"Where're Obito?" she asked, more to distract herself from how nice it felt every time Kakashi's fingers brushed against her skin than because she really wanted to know.

"Kissing under the arch," Kakashi said, sounding disgusted.

Sakura laughed and ruffled his hair again with her free hand.

"Someday, you'll find someone that you want to kiss," she promised as the mask finally came free.

"But I won't be so disgusting about it," Kakashi promised as he put the mask on, tying it behind his head. Sakura decided that he looked adorable with perked ears and red whiskers so she told him so, at length. The delicate rims of Kakashi's ears turned the most delicious shade of red when he blushed. Sakura told Kakashi about that, too.

"Thank the gods," Kakashi sighed with real relief when they ran across Minato-sensei and his family. Naruto and his siblings were busy trying to catch goldfish with paper nets.

When Kakashi began complaining about Sakura to their teacher, Minato and Kushina laughed at them. Sakura pinched Kakashi's side and beamed at the adults.

After Sakura had proven who she was and when she was from to his satisfaction, Yondaime Hokage had smiled his surprisingly gentle smile at her and said, "Don't worry, Sakura-san. You'll have a place here, too."

Minato-sensei had then arranged a spot for Sakura on his own team, which consisted of her emotionally constipated younger sensei, the sweetest, nicest, most awesome Uchiha to ever Uchiha, and a medic-nin assassin with the kindest smile that Sakura had ever seen, before or since. Yondaime had a weird sense of humor.

In the present, an enormous splash drew Sakura's wandering attention past Minato-sensei's shoulder to where a laughing Naruto had fallen into the goldfishes' tub. Sakura felt her smile soften and gentle. She was glad to see Naruto so happy. From her original timeline, Sakura had vague memories of Naruto at that age sitting on a swing and crying.

Sakura might have lost track of the conversation while comparing and contrasting all the differences in Naruto. And then, since she had already lost the thread of the conversation, Sakura decided to take a nap. She was drowsing against Kakashi's shoulder when Kakashi nudged her awake.

"M'comfortable," Sakura complained even thought her legs were feeling sort of numb and she had a crick in her neck from leaning down to rest her head on Kakashi's shoulder. When the bony shoulder under her cheek disappeared, Sakura stumbled and opened her eyes.

Kakashi was kneeling on one knee with his back to her, his arms held at an angle behind him.

"Get on," he gruffly ordered her. "And I'll take you home."

"Okay," Sakura said sleepily and did as her told her. Kakashi was skinny and he had a bony back but he was wonderfully warm. Sighing happily, Sakura snuggled closer to him, tightening her legs around his waist and hooking her chin over one of his shoulders. Kakashi made a strangled noise at the back of his throat, his hands tightened on the undersides of Sakura's thighs.

It was a surprisingly long walk home or maybe it only felt that way to Sakura.

"Do you still miss your time?" Kakashi suddenly asked.

"Not really," Sakura mumbled. "Everyone's so much happier now. Hey, haven't we gone by that darts booth before?"

"N-No," Kakashi said, his steps speeding up. They were soon past the darts booth. "I'm glad. That you're not sad anymore, I mean."

"Mmm, thanks."

When they got back to her apartment, Kakashi picked her lock and bypassed her security with the ease of experience. Once inside, Kakashi moved through her apartment without turning the lights on. Sakura, who had her eyes closed, mentally followed Kakashi's progress through her flat. She thought it entirely unfair that he never so much as barked a shin or tripped. Sometimes, she rearranged her furniture for the express purpose of tripping up Kakashi. (Not that it ever worked.)

Once, on the way to her bedroom, Sakura cracked her eyes open only to immediately shut them again. The darkness was very dizzying.

In her bedroom, Sakura got off of Kakashi's back without opening her eyes. Kakashi gently manhandled Sakura into her bed, wrestled her boots off, and left the room. She heard his footsteps crunch across the stiff bristles of one of the throw rugs in the living room. (Sakura had bought that particular rug specifically because it was so noisy, the better to hear unexpected visitors coming.) Then Sakura heard the soft bangs of cupboard doors as Kakashi rummaged around in her kitchen. There was the sound of her kitchen faucet running, the crunch of the rug's bristles again, and (eventually) the sound of Kakashi setting two somethings on Sakura's bedside table. One was a full glass of something and the other was a rattling bottle, probably of aspirin.

"Sit up, Sakura," Kakashi ordered and then hauled Sakura up with one hand when she tried to pretend to be asleep. He pressed a tall glass into one of her hands and two small, round pills into her other palm. "Swallow those and drink it all."

It was too much work to argue with Kakashi so Sakura did as he said, all without ever opening her eyes. Then Sakura flopped back into her bed. Kakashi took her empty glass away, refilled it in the bathroom, and then put it on her bedside table. Then he leaned over Sakura.

Kakashi hesitated.

Sakura held very still. Her heart was pounding in her throat. It made the darkness pound around her.

Kakashi quickly leaned down and softly stole a kiss. It was quick and clumsy and very brief.

Sakura wished that he would do it again.

"Kakashi?" Sakura asked when he pulled back, braving the darkness and prying her eyes open. It was to no avail. Her apartment was simply too dark for her to see anything with her feeble, human eyes... unless she used a medical jutsu.

Sakura was far too drunk to shape jutsu, of any sort.

"Sorry," Kakashi blurted. "I just - I've always - It was highly inappropriate. Sorry."

"I liked it," Sakura sighed, her eyes sliding shut again. "Do that again when I'm sober. You'll see."

"Go to sleep, Sakura," Kakashi ordered and then stormed out of her bedroom, quietly shutting her bedroom door behind himself.

Smiling, Sakura relaxed into sleep.

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Lost

Kakashi paused. He made a shushing gesture at Asuma, cocked his head to the side, and concentrated on listening closely. Through the festival's din, he heard high whimpers and soft, wet snuffles.

It sounds like a lost puppy, Kakashi thought, his cold, hard shinobi heart softening. Human misery had no hold over him. Canine suffering, however, was another matter entirely. Kakashi never ignored strays, injured animals, or puppies.

"Be right back," he muttered to his partner, then leaped between rooftops and stall pavilions until he made the ground. Festival goers melted out of his way, parting at the sight of his ANBU Wolf mask. Kakashi strode past three stalls and through a short labyrinth of rubbish-strewn alleys, toward the sound of the disturbance.

Instead of a distressed puppy, he found a distressed little girl. She was huddled in a corner, shivering and sobbing. All he could see of her was a stained green yukata, a tangled red cape, and a mess of pink hair. Kakashi stared down at her, feeling betrayed.

Despite a strong temptation to turn around and leave the child to her private moment of misery, Kakashi stood his ground and waited for the girl to notice him. All evidence to the contrary, there still might be a puppy somewhere in this alley.

She did not.

Kakashi shifted his weight. He glanced around the alley, looking for an adorable bundle of fur.

Still nothing.

"Are you... okay?" Kakashi finally asked, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. The steel plate on the back of his fingerless glove caught in and pulled on the small hairs at the back of his neck.

The little girl shifted, moving just enough to look over the hillocks of her knees.

"No," she whimpered. She dragged her sleeve across her eyes. "I'm lost."

"Do you need directions?" Kakashi politely inquired.

The little girl made a high, whining noise and hid her face in her knees again.

Kakashi hesitated, uncertain what she required. Finally, he asked, "Should I walk you?"

The girl made a long, wet snuffling noise. Kakashi's heart softened. Newborn puppies made that noise when they were looking for a teat or a bottle's nipple.

"Would you?" she asked, her voice muffled by her knees.

"Yes," Kakashi quickly promised, more to move this along than because he cared or anything.

The little girl sat up, dragged her other sleeve across her face, and asked, "Really?"

"Yes?"

The little girl stood up, shook out her cape, and tried to smooth out her yukata. When she held her hands up to him with an expectant look, Kakashi sighed and turned around. He knelt on the alley's grimy pavement and let the little girl clamber onto his back, her legs hooking around his waist and her arms clasping over his shoulders. She snuggled close, snuffling under his ear like a contented puppy. It was adorable.

"What do your parents look like?" Kakashi asked as he stood, happier about this self-imposed assignment. After all, lost children were kind of like lost puppies.

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Home

Kakashi still had his own apartment. He just happened to prefer Sakura's place. Her apartment was smaller but it always had food and its walls were painted cheery colors. There were no noisy neighbors, chew toys to step on in the middle of the night, or limits to the hot water heater. And, when he came home from a mission uninjured, Sakura was usually very happy to see him. (When he came home hurt, she cursed at him, provided medical care, and let him convalesce in her bed. He (secretly) enjoyed that, too.) Best of all, the bedding (usually) smelled like Sakura and him and sometimes sex.

He thought about the comfortable familiarity of Sakura's tiny apartment the entire distance between the main gates and the window of Sakura's bedroom.

When Kakashi peeked through her window, Sakura appeared to be fast asleep. She woke as he eased through her window, however.

"Kakashi?" Sakura asked as she sat up, her tousled hair falling over half of her face. She was wearing that awful red nightgown that covered her from throat to wrists to ankles. Sakura claimed that it was very warm. Kakashi hoped so because it was one of the most thoroughly unsexy things that he has ever seen.

"Yes," he said as Sakura shoved her hair out of her face. His voice was muffled by the inside of his ANBU Wolf mask. "Go back to sleep."

"Ha!" Sakura reached out to hook her fingers into the bottom strap of his kunai pouch. She gave it a gentle tug. "That's probably what all of the Big Bad Wolves say when they get caught sneaking into someone's house."

Sakura, her tousled hair falling around her shoulders and her eyes sparkling, smiled a razor sharp smile full of teeth and wicked intent. Kakashi shivered, his fingers flexing and his mouth going dry.

"Why grandma," he rasped, "what big teeth you have!"