Archive of Our Own ^beta

Cloud's hunter-nin catch him and, horrifically enough, don't kill him. Instead, Kisame is hauled off. Transferred around. Interrogated a little about nothing in particular. Then, finally, shipped off to some place where he can't smell even a hint of ocean-wet salt air.

On his best days, Kisame can only barely make it to his knees with the small amount of chakra the seals on the prison allow him to keep, and even that is a struggle. Without chakra everything is harder — breathing, thinking, plotting an escape. There are at least a dozen other men in the same large cell with Kisame and aside from a few extremely brief struggles over food, they all ignore each other.

Fights aren't worth it unless they're life or death and no one in here has extra energy to spend on murder.

The longer Kisame is in the cell the harder it becomes to move towards the front when guards come with food, and eventually Kisame figures that he'll starve to death, assuming the order to kill him or hand him over to Kiri to be killed doesn't come through before then. Kisame should probably have some kind of emotion about that, too, but he doesn't; he's just tired.

Even when a Leaf ninja starts to lurk just out of arm's reach, Kisame can't dredge up any more emotion than confusion about it. Admittedly, laying flat on your back for days at a time isn't very intimidating, but everyone else in the cell at least looks baseline human. Kisame should be at the bottom of the list of people to bother, if one was making a list.

But the Leaf ninja creeps closer.

And closer.

The Leaf ninja's arm brushes against Kisame's arm, and he's damn lucky it takes more energy for Kisame to keep his scales ready to skin a fool than it does to let them lie smooth and unassuming, because normally even the briefest of contact is enough to skin the poor asshole who thought he has a right to get handsy with Kisame. In this case, Kisame can only muster an annoyed, confused look.

"Sorry," the Leaf ninja mutters, and completely fails to go away.

Kisame's seen enough of the Leaf ninja to know, now, that this is Hatake Kakashi. Last Kisame'd heard, he'd assassinated the Sandaime Hokage a couple years ago — so that probably explains what he's doing in a high security prison, but not why he's somewhat literally cuddling up to Kisame.

When feeding time comes, Hatake brings him food. A lot of it; more than Kisame's eaten in one sitting since he was captured. It's hard not to be grateful, although it's easy not to say thank you.

Hatake can tell somehow, though. He pats Kisame on the shoulder, like maybe Kisame is a dog or something. "You're welcome," he says, and slumps full-bodied over Kisame as soon as they're both done eating.

It's weird as fuck, but whatever. Even thinking is hard without chakra. Hatake can do whatever he wants.

"Really?" Kisame asks, much later, when Kakashi's hands worm under his shirt.

(At some point "Hatake" became "Kakashi", which is dangerous as fuck, just like the rest of this, but completely unavoidable.)

"Shh," Kakashi says. He lays his head over Kisame's heart.

It's not endearing, but it's... fine. It's nothing to expend energy on stopping.

They're never going to get out of here, so there's nothing wrong with maybe cuddling back a little. It doesn't mean anything. Kakashi is warm, unlike the rest of this hellhole.

Eventually, Kakashi asks him, "Is this a good day? Could you move?"

Kisame experimentally twitches a limb. "Yes," he hazards. He's thinking Kakashi probably means for Kisame to go get food today, which Kisame decides he will grudgingly do this time, although maybe not next time.

"Good," Kakashi says, and then doesn't follow this exchange up by asking Kisame to approach the front of the cell to receive rations from the guards.

Instead, he replaces with the large sack of barely-edible rations the guards have set down in the hall. It places him well in the middle of the five man squad on the other side of the bars, and Kakashi is able to liberate a knife from one of the guards and kill all of them before anyone — Kisame included — has had the time to react.

It's terrifying. And therefore attractive.

Next, Kakashi replaces with him, leaving Kisame stumbling to gain his footing in the hall, and then Kakashi rapidly replaces with one of the dead guards, leaving both of them on the outside of their cell, surrounded by corpses.

"You're taking me with you on your break out?" Kisame asks, kind of touched despite himself. It's been a long time since Kisame made a friend.

Kakashi leans against him and grunts, "I need you."

Not knowing how to interpret that or what in the hell to say in reply, Kisame says nothing.

They stumble through the halls of the prison and kill anyone who gets in their way.

Bitterly cold air whips Kisame's face the moment he cracks open the last door, but freedom is more important than warmth. The jagged mountains look like any other shitty high-altitude deathtrap to Kisame, but at least getting out of a mountain range is easy — you just go down.

Kisame's chakra doesn't exactly come flooding back when they're clear of the building, but everything gets easier, like Kisame's got some slack now. Not enough to temperature regulate yet, but enough that he doesn't have to lean on Kakashi just to stay upright.

Experimentally, Kisame pulls away. Neither he nor Kakashi land face-down in the snow, so that probably counts as a success.

"Shelter," Kakashi suggests. He points down the mountain and to the south. "There's smoke that way."

Kisame can't smell a fucking thing, but there's no point in starting to doubt Kakashi now. They head south together.

Neither of them have the energy to run, much less chakra-enhance, so they move at an excruciatingly civilian pace and make it nowhere near the smoke Kakashi says he can smell on the first day — night closes in a few hours after they start walking, and wandering around a Lightning Country mountain in the dark without any chakra enhancement would be a stupid way to die.

So they find what might very generously be called a cave but is realistically just a significant depression in the mountain that gets them out of the worst of the wind and snow; they're able to clear it out down to frozen, dead pine needles and dirt with a few minutes of work.

The rock face will make a good heat reflector and one end of the cave is conveniently just bare stone, perfect for building a fire that won't spread. The dead branches they find are slightly damp, which Kisame kind of thinks is the end of the have-a-fire-and-don't-freeze-to-death plan, but Kakashi uses some kind of Leaf trick and a small spike of chakra to make the whole pile burst merrily and immediately into flames.

It's an incredibly impressive show of chakra control, because Kisame doesn't have enough chakra to even keep himself from freezing to death right now and wouldn't have trusted himself to make kindling catch, let alone set an entire campfire roaring to life. But Kakashi, who'd also somehow managed to replace twice in rapid succession while still inside the chakra-eating prison, performs the task casually. Almost carelessly, like he doen't even have to think about it.

But then, that's Leaf ninja for you: completely bullshit and terrifyingly competent.

There's no food and neither of them have energy to hunt, so after the fire is set up, there's nothing to do but sleep. Their cave is just big enough for them to lay side-by-side, and having spent several weeks leading up to this allowing Kakashi to invade his personal space, Kisame doesn't think twice about allowing it again. This, at least, has some kind of obvious purpose to it.

Which, speaking of, now that they're laying down chest-to-chest, Kakashi's wild silver hair brushing the bottom of Kisame's chin, Kisame asks: "Why'd you pick me?"

There had been other people in that large cell, people who'd been there far shorter than Kisame. People who wouldn't have had to be fed up to be worth anything in the fight towards the exit.

"You're Hoshigaki Kisame," Kakashi mumbles, "so it was logical."

"Oh, I see, because of my world-renown charm and good looks," Kisame says.

Kakashi huffs something that might be a laugh against Kisame's neck. "Sure," he agrees. "Also, your world-renown chakra reserves. The prison was using a standard chakra-sink seal that draws on the largest source of chakra in any given area first. The closer I was to you, the more of my own chakra I got to keep."

Standard chakra-sink seal, Kakashi says, as if he knows about non-standard ones — which now that Kisame thinks about it, he probably does, because Hatake Kakashi is the famed student of the goddamn Yellow Flash. And, according to the Bingo Books, a certified genius.

It's wildly, insanely attractive. Kisame doesn't know whether he wants to fight or fuck Hatake Kakashi, but he hopes he'll have time to find out.

It's still freezing in the morning, but the parts of Kisame that have a dangerous Leaf jōnin plastered all over them are actually almost toasty. It's not enough to make Kisame wish he could just lay there on the cold ground, but it is kind of nice. Compared to waking up in prison, anyway, although that had also involved plenty of waking up with Kakashi wrapped around him.

Kakashi buries the remains of their fire and Kisame uses a C-rank jutsu to return the snow to the state they found it in, gently sloping into the cave. It's not a perfect coverup — they hadn't had the energy last night to make an easily-erased camp — but it's good enough.

No one's come after them and murdered them in their sleep, so they've clearly gotten away. And today, with a full night's rest, he and Kakashi move much quicker. By mid-afternoon they've found the source of the smoke: a civilian skiing resort, nestled at the bottom of the mountain.

Neither of them have any money, but that's really not a problem for a couple of skilled ninja.

To Kisame's surprise, the first thing Kakashi does is sneak up to a civilian about to ski down the slope and steal their scarf right from around their neck. He winds it around his own face, hiding his nose and mouth like they usually are in Bingo Book pictures. Only then does he follow Kisame's descent towards the ski lodge.

"I'll see about getting us a room," Kakashi says, and then pauses for a significant length of time as if expecting Kisame to disagree, which Kisame does not.

Kakashi is obviously the better choice to make contact with civilians, and hoping for more than one room when they don't have any money whatsoever is clearly unreasonable.

It does occur to Kisame that this is their best chance yet to split up without dying, though. A large part of Kisame expects that Kakashi won't come back, because with a decent head start it would be too much of a waste of energy for Kisame to try and catch him. But, no: against all odds, Kakashi emerges from the main building after about ten minutes with a key dangling from his hand.

"We get a cabin," Kakashi announces, twirling the key so it flashes in the late afternoon sunlight. "And room service."

"This place does room service?"

"Not typically," Kakashi says. "But I explained that I, like all ninja, have absolutely no concept of table manners. So they decided that they'd rather I not frequent their dining room, for some reason."

The cabin isn't exactly luxurious, but it's clean and dry. It has one bed, a bathroom, a wood stove with a supply of dry firewood stacked nearby, and about fifteen minutes after they've arrived and secured the place there's a knock on the door from a very nervous civilian man delivering a crock of hot stew and a small black kettle. On further inspection — to Kisame's surprise — the kettle is a joka, generously full of shōchū.

Kakashi uses a jutsu Kisame isn't familiar with over the stew and shōchū before either of them take their servings and says, "It's not poisoned." He lets Kisame serve them both while he rearranges the fire in the stove, so it's probably safe to trust that assertion.

The kettle is left on a far corner of the stove, where it heats slowly.

"Did you threaten them or genjutsu them?" Kisame asks idly while they eat.

Kakashi makes a sound. An offended sound. "I took a mission," he says.

"What in the hell could they need to hire you for? Assassinating the owner of a rival ski lodge?"

"I don't accept assassination contracts," Kakashi says, like that's at all a thing Kisame actually needs to know. "I explained that we've been lost on the road of life and promised to improve the road between here and the nearest village."

Roadway improvements. Hatake Kakashi hired himself out to repair a civilian road.

Something of Kisame's incredulity must show on his face, because Kakashi adds, "One of the bridges keeps getting washed out in the spring thaw. Easy to fix."

"Easy to fix," Kisame mutters to himself, disbelieving, but it's not like he can argue. If Kakashi wants to take D-ranks, that's his business. Maybe he's not even going to do it. Maybe he's lying — people tend to lie.

They set the traps for the night after they're done eating and then settle back at the table to drink the shōchū provided by the lodge owner. It's been a long time since Kisame has gotten purposefully drunk with someone, and longer still since he did it in private, in an enclosed space, with someone who could very well kill him.

But he toasts with Hatake Kakashi. He drinks. When Kakashi's cup is low, he refills it. When his own cup is low, he allows Kakashi to do the same.

It's always a bad idea to talk, but Kisame talks. The world seems softer. Kakashi seems softer. Kisame tells him about a mission he'd taken shortly after leaving Mist where he'd been hired to defend this civilian ship from pirates — how good it had felt to pick a mission, to vet it himself, to haggle the price. "Didn't even get to fight any pirates," Kisame says. "But the mission took me all the way to Wind and it was on my terms and if I'd wanted to I could have called it off at any time. That's when I knew I wouldn't go back even if I could some day."

Kakashi fills Kisame's cup back up. "I wouldn't go back either," Kakashi says to him. "I refuse to be trash again."

Kisame doesn't know what that means but he knows that it sounds right. He knows he wants to keep hearing it, and he knows that when Kakashi says it Kakashi means it. It's true and it's beautiful.

And it's really, really warm in the cabin.

They finish the shōchū. Kisame visits the bathroom first, and then double-checks the traps while Kakashi takes his turn. Time stretches and contorts. Kisame should burn the alcohol out with chakra, but he likes how he's feeling. He doesn't want it to end, even as he dithers over whether or not to climb into the bed. He and Kakashi haven't discussed whether one of them should keep watch or sleep on the floor; there's a plush rug by the stove that would be just fine to sleep on if they dragged the table out of the way, but Kisame is reluctant to suggest it.

No matter how bad of an idea it might be, Kisame wants to share the bed with Kakashi. He admits that to himself, feeling faintly embarrassed about it, and then Kakashi comes out of the bathroom holding the small, complimentary bottle of lotion provided alongside soap and shampoo.

"Oh," Kisame says, very intelligently.

Kakashi unwinds the scarf from around his neck without breaking eye contact. He pulls his shirt off as he crosses the room and tosses it aside carelessly. It lands on the stove, but before Kisame can say anything to prevent the cabin from burning down around them while they focus on more important things, Kakashi's fingers twitch and the shirt is pulled off of the stove to a safer resting place.

A chakra string, obviously, and normally that wouldn't be so impressive, but like Kisame, Kakashi is three sheets to the wind. He shouldn't have the chakra control for anything but the most basic and ingrained kind chakra molding.

Kisame strips out of his own clothes as Kakashi approaches, deliciously trapped between apprehension and appreciation of this latest skill. What's about to happen might be a very, very big mistake, but they've both been living on borrowed time since Cloud caught them and Kakashi probably doesn't have any reason to want him dead.

He only has his pants half off when Kakashi takes off his last article of clothing apart from the forehead protector slung over one eye, and when Kisame is shoved down onto the bed his pants are still dangling off one ankle. He kicks them off — not in the direction of the wood stove, though — and surges up to kiss Kakashi for the first time.

Not only is Kisame alive the next morning, he's in roughly the same position he woke up in the previous day, with his arms wound tight around Kakashi, their legs helplessly tangled. The wood stove has run low on fuel, burning low and not particularly warm, so the parts of Kisame that aren't under the bed's homemade quilt are unpleasantly chilled.

There are no birds, or even wind or chatter from tourists. Laying around and waiting to die in prison, Kisame had thought maybe he should have bought into that Uchiha's plan, maybe he should have joined Akatsuki, but... well. This is strange, no doubt, but it isn't bad, even if it will be over soon. Everything is still and cold, except for Kakashi's skin against his skin. Kakashi's breath ghosting across his chest.

Kakashi has retreated entirely beneath the blanket, not even his hair sticking out. Kisame runs a hand up Kakashi's spine just to see if he can — Kakashi doesn't stir, even though Kisame's hands could skin his back in seconds in this position. He even seems to still be sleeping, but Hatake Kakashi can probably manage to feign sleep.

It doesn't really matter if he's awake, anyway. Kisame is content to lay there and appreciate having a bed and chakra and skin-against-skin and not having been murdered overnight.

Kakashi sticks his head out of the covers, eventually, stretching in a long and languid manner that Kisame finds distracting even without being able to see most of it — it happens with Kakash's entire body pressed straight up against Kisame, and imagining what it looks like is almost better than actually seeing it happen.

He wonders if the lotion is still around, and catches himself looking for it, and then abruptly stops.

The shōchū is out of their system and they're no longer in danger of dying. No matter how great a round two in bed sounds, what Kisame should be hoping for now is that he and Kakashi will calmly and quietly go their separate ways, with a good amount of delay between their departures. Otherwise round two will be them trying to kill each other, which... Kisame still feels should be avoided. If possible.

Kisame removes his limbs from Kakashi's personal space.

"You're really going to fix that bridge?"

Kakashi props himself up with one arm, lounging across the bed in an extremely unfair manner, and shrugs one shoulder. "Yes. Are you going to help?"

Unable to even guess at what reasons Kakashi might have for offering, Kisame goes with the blunt truth: "I was going to use the time to put distance between us before we go our separate ways."

"Ah," Kakashi says simply. He sits up, this time at the same slow and deliberate pace he'd used when they'd met, telegraphing with each motion how very much he's not about to stab Kisame. "It would be better than fighting," he adds, eventually, when he's settled against the headboard and Kisame still hasn't said anything.

Kisame stays laying down, looking up at Kakashi and, above him, the plain wood ceiling. He can analyze Kakashi's slow, non-threatening motions, but Kisame doesn't know how to move like that. No one ever taught him. He's never needed to know before. It had been enough to be terrifying in Kiri, and the only purpose of learning to appear safe and non-threatening would have been to lie to people.

Is Kakashi lying now?

"If you want to fight, we could fight," Kisame says. It would probably still be some kind of fun, if not the free-wheeling, joyous carnage it would have been the day before.

"I don't want to fight," Kakashi says, very quietly and very seriously. And then his visible eye crinkles. The corners of his mouth twitch. "I thought we'd stick together. I need to find the man who has your sword and kill him. I expected you'd want to come."

"The guy that has my sword," Kisame repeats, blankly. Obviously getting Samehada back is on his to-do list, but he hadn't honestly expected Kakashi to know anything about it.

And that's without touching the equally unexpected I thought we'd stick together. Why would Kakashi think that? Why would anyone?

"He's about this tall?" Kakashi gestures at a height about half way between himself and Kisame.

The squad leader of the Cloud hunter nin who'd captured Kisame had been about that tall. Kisame briefly describes him.

"That's him," Kakashi confirms. "He took something from me. And I hate him. Why not go find him together?"

"I hate him too," Kisame says, contemplatively. Killing him would be easier with a partner, and working with a partner like Kakashi might even make it easy. "What'd he take from you?"

It's important to know the stakes. It's important to know if this is just bait, meant to lure Kisame somewhere.

"A gift someone gave me," Kakashi says.

The words could mean anything, but the tone — even if they split up, Kisame is sure they'd meet again over this Cloud ninja's cooling corpse. And that'd be pretty hot, but... together would be better.

"Alright," Kisame says. "We'll go after him together. But I'm not helping you with the bridge."

"I see how it is," Kakashi mutters, sounding both disgruntled and happy. "I'll be doing all the hard work."

"Well," Kisame says reasonably, "you volunteered for it."