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Entropy	By : ersatzbeta Category: Naruto > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 1332 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor do I profit from writing this or any other fanfiction.

Chapter List
- 10
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- 12
Chapter Ten
Overnight, Sasuke began making calculated demands on Kakashi�s time. They were out of the only kind of mushrooms Sasuke ate--enoki--so go to the store and get more. He had heard that the bookstore had just received a few copies of the commemorative Icha Icha Anthology. Wouldn�t Kakashi like to go check it out? Sasuke knew Gai was back from a mission and was looking for a challenge, so he'd probably have a better chance of avoiding Gai by not being at home all the time. And, somehow, Sasuke knew all this without going outside.

It didn�t take a genius to see that Sasuke wanted Kakashi out of the apartment. Not that Sasuke would ever ask him to leave. Sasuke was too passive aggressive for such a conversation: it was more his style to continue to block any attempts Kakashi made to pack. Sasuke wasn�t really tall enough to loom convincingly, but he managed it somehow. He spent a lot of time driving Kakashi out of the common areas of the apartment by being so...something. Silent. Irritating. Not precisely intimidating, but certainly un-ignorable as he dogged Kakashi's every move in the apartment. It was ridiculous that Sasuke was acting like this. Worse than that, in Kakashi's opinion, was that it was working. Sasuke's behavior halted all moving progress. Kakashi needed to adapt. Clearly his usual methods of dealing with Sasuke--namely, ignoring the problem until Sasuke came to him to confess--were not right for this situation. He was determined to get to the bottom of it before Sasuke's deliberate inactions got them evicted or worse.
Kakashi mixed up his routines. He started to come and go without warning, but he didn�t surprise Sasuke in the act of doing whatever it was he was keeping secret. He tried setting up traps with shadow clones, and Sasuke turned out to be elegantly efficient in dispatching them. Kakashi disguised himself. Sasuke found him out. He set his dogs to watch him, subtly of course. Sasuke bribed them with treats. Kakashi used genjutsu, but Sasuke was not fooled.

Although he considered himself to be a creative person, Kakashi was running out of plans. He concluded that the best approach might be the most direct: the one thing he hadn�t yet tried because it seemed too simple to work. By the time Kakashi had exhausted all his other ideas, Sasuke had finished in the bathroom and living room. He had, in both those rooms, packed up the contents without protest as Kakashi looked on. Thus, Kakashi knew that Sasuke was done with whatever he was hiding. He exuded a certain smugness when asked how the packing was going. It infuriated Kakashi and spurred him on. The kitchen was his last chance and he refused to walk away. Kakashi needed to know what Sasuke was hiding, and so he put his plan into action.
Kakashi transformed a clone into a potholder and snuck it in with all the other implements in the kitchen that were laid out and waiting to be boxed. So that Sasuke wouldn�t cotton on too quick, Kakashi threw in some verbal misdirection. He gave himself imaginary points for using the truth.
�You want me out, so I'm going,� he said. �You�ve got one hour before I come back.�
Kakashi brushed past him on the way to the door. He left Sasuke staring after him.
Kakashi�s potholder clone, laying innocently on the counter, was a first-hand witness. Sasuke stood, not moving, in the middle of the kitchen for fifteen minutes. Then he closed the blinds on the window over the sink. He kept looking around the room, as if he suspected someone would come in at any second. Sasuke began opening cabinets and drawers one by one, all the while checking over his shoulder. He fished around inside each open cupboard with one hand, sneaking something out in his closed fist. Sasuke did this half a dozen times all over the kitchen before coming to the drawer underneath the disguised clone. He eyed the potholders for a long moment. He opened the drawer. Sasuke reached in and pulled his hand out again, and Kakashi transported in behind him and grabbed his wrist.
He found himself clutching a potholder instead, and Sasuke was across the room, looking hunted. A kawarimi was only effective for a few seconds at best, and that was only if the caster had somewhere to run. Sasuke had no escape. Kakashi threw the potholder and Sasuke sneered as it hit him in the face. The henge came undone and Sasuke was sandwiched between Kakashi's clone and the real man. Kakashi felt Sasuke�s pulse speed up. It hammered like a moth beating its wings against glass.
�What have you been hiding?" said Kakashi. "Drugs? Money? Forbidden techniques?�
Sasuke fought as much as he was able. His chakra spiked and flared and raged within the confines of the kitchen. He was apparently much more concerned with preserving whatever he held: Sasuke had unprecedented opportunities to disable Kakashi, but that would have taken both hands. As it was, he scored several good kicks and one-handed hits before Kakashi got a real hold on him. He pinned Sasuke against the side of the refrigerator. He pried Sasuke�s fingers apart and Sasuke looked pained. Kakashi must have hurt him more than he might have intended to, but he told himself it was worth it as Sasuke finally gave way and opened his fist.
Kakashi stared. He blinked and stared some more. He sighed and let Sasuke go. Sasuke edged past Kakashi, cradling his full hand against his chest as he put a yard of space between them. Dark bruises blossomed around his wrist. Kakashi could see Sasuke's pulse fluttering at the base of his throat, could smell the sweat beading at his hairline. Fear crept into Sasuke's chakra even as he retreated further.
It didn�t make sense. What Sasuke was protecting didn�t make sense. Kakashi tipped up his hitai-ate to be sure. A tangle of hairs, a couple pieces of gravel, presumably from the flower beds outside the building, some wood shavings, a dried-up maple leaf. Why was he hiding that? Kakashi was reminded of the reports he�d seen. When Ibiki's people had searched Sasuke at the beginning, they had found a few twigs and dried pieces of grass in his pocket. Some idiot had dumped the stuff in the waste bin and Sasuke had put that ninja into the hospital with a crushed femur and two fingers shorn off. After that, they�d instituted the policy of draining his chakra and immobilizing him completely during questioning. Still, that history didn't explain why Sasuke had collected the flotsam in the first place, why he had these things now, years later.
�Turn out your pockets,� Kakashi said.
Kakashi crossed his arms over his chest. He could wait as long as he had to, but his patience was worn thin and he just wanted this to be over.
Sasuke glared, but he obeyed. Placing it piece by piece on the counter, Sasuke dragged out the presentation as he emptied his pockets of everything he�d collected from his kitchen hiding places. When Sasuke finished, there was a sizeable mound of the shinobi equivalent of pocket lint: scrids of wire and a length of boot lace; more rocks and long-dead vegetation; some twine, actual lint and desiccated cloth scraps; a broken writing brush; chips of ceramic from a teacup shattered weeks ago; and other less identifiable odds and ends.
Kakashi moved closer to the collection, and Sasuke tensed. The Sharingan was constant in his eyes. With a sinking feeling, Kakashi recognized the boot lace. It was his, or at least it had been. He mulled it over as he bent towards the pile. It still didn�t make sense.
�Don�t,� Sasuke said. �Please.�
He looked torn between rushing forwards to stop Kakashi and running away. He vibrated with tension, and the dissonance in his chakra made Kakashi's teeth ache.

�Why?� Kakashi said. �Why keep this? Why hide it?�
He pointed to the boot lace in particular and all of it in general. These things had value to Sasuke, no matter how strange it all appeared, laid out on the kitchen counter for scrutiny. Kakashi could only assume that he'd had similar stashes of junk in the other rooms as well. The idea baffled him.
�Because it�s mine. I need it,� said Sasuke.
Kakashi could tell he meant what he said. Sasuke looked more on edge than Kakashi had ever seen him. The tomoe in his eyes swirled, blurred together as Sasuke tracked Kakashi's movements. His fingers twitched almost uncontrollably. He was visibly holding himself back and waiting for some signal to gather his things. Kakashi didn't think he could curb his impulses much longer. The air crackled with Sasuke's chakra.
Kakashi gave the array on the counter one more look before he nodded. The tension in the air subsided as Sasuke's chakra receded. Sasuke let out his breath and started forward, sweeping the stuff off the counter and into his hands. He held it reverently for a moment and then looked into Kakashi�s eyes.
�It�s mine and I�d hurt you if you touched it,� he said.
His Sharingan slowed, but it did not yet subside.
Kakashi digested this, considered the ninja Sasuke had hospitalized, the squirrel he must have compelled to steal the boot lace those months ago during construction, and the care Sasuke must have taken to avoid discovery while collecting and hiding all these things when they shared the same five hundred square feet of living space, day in and day out. Sasuke�s dedication was frighteningly misplaced. Kakashi allowed himself to feel the tiredness that had been building up over the past few days, a tiredness he felt whenever some incident cropped up that required such careful handling.
�You wouldn�t kill me?� said Kakashi.
However light his tone, Kakashi had rarely been more serious.
�I�d try,� said Sasuke.
There was a sullen note in his voice. It was ugly. He curled ever so slightly around his burden, favoring it. His muscles tightened as he prepared for defense. Sasuke looked ready to snap if Kakashi got any closer. The kitchen faucet dripped, and it was deafening, that drop of water hitting the sink basin and gurgling its way into the pipes. Kakashi reached out and twisted the tap closed before it dripped again. He tried not to notice how Sasuke flinched as he drew his hand back from the knob.
As their focus stayed with the faucet, understanding leapt between the two of them. Kakashi relaxed a fraction. It was good that Sasuke realized how disturbed this was, how crazy it looked from the outside. At least Sasuke didn�t actually want to kill him. It was almost flattering that Sasuke seemed to think he might not be able to take Kakashi in a fight.

Sasuke smoothed the detritus into a pocket and stroked the cloth over it, settling it into place. When his gaze met Kakashi's again, the red bled out of his eyes. Kakashi looked away first. He let Sasuke have that slight victory, though he left the kitchen with a parting shot.
�Can we get to moving now?� Kakashi said.
Sasuke froze. He gave Kakashi a look that he interpreted as �you�re a blithering idiot.�
"Well?� Kakashi said.
Kakashi crossed the living room and opened the door to his bedroom, leaving Sasuke still standing in the kitchen.
Sasuke grunted. Kakashi heard boxes scrape across the floor. He smiled and closed the door behind him.
A/N: Holy moley! Again, another hard chapter to edit, but I kept at it until I felt some satisfaction. (I think the story is better for it, too, though it is by no means perfect.) In particular, the second paragraph gave me hell. I must have worked on it and rewritten it completely a dozen times. I still don't think it was quite what I wanted. Also, I'm not sure if I'm being too subtle/not subtle enough with character motivations (and, of course, the interest in Sasuke Kakashi is supposed to be developing...)
I haven't been able to track down the name of whatever is wrong with Sasuke (in the context of this chapter.) I've read some articles about A. Holocaust survivors and B. children from really horrible orphanage conditions doing the collect-random-stuffs thing. If anyone can clarify exactly what it is--separate disorder or just a shared symptom of other things--I'd love to know!
Also, a few quick review responses!
petite-neko: Thank you! Characterization can be so hard, and I'm glad I'm doing it well! For some reason, Kakashi comes fairly naturally to me.

yaoi_is_my_antidrug: I like to think that there's something still good in Sasuke, no matter how warped he's gotten, even in canon. Kakashi as a nurse cracks me up too. When I first was writing the hospital scene, I couldn't think of the proper word for a johnny, and so I kept alternating between smock (which made me think of a crazy artist-with-beret Kakashi) and gown (like...Kakashi in a red carpet dress and feather boa.)
Yuliya: I'm glad you're enjoying it! The story hasn't gotten to the point where it's too long to read in one sitting, thank goodness. Not to say that it won't in the future. I have Plans (with a capital P.)
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Entropy