Dirty Little Secret

A/N: First of all, sorry for the long delay. There were two reasons for it. One, RL is keeping me VERY busy at the moment. I am sorry, everyone.



Also, as you can all see, a new pairing has been added to the title. I am hoping that it won't shock you too much.



As it is, I have had a big kink for KakaPeinKaka ever since their duel. :D Onto the fic now.



CHAPTER 29



The night when Kakashi witnessed his Hokage abuse Nagato marked several changes in the former jounin. Changes which did not happen all at once, but which slowly developed and creeped inside his soul. Changes that slowly made him see more clearly the world around him.



The first change was that he gradually began to realize that he wasn’t special. Not to Naruto, not to anyone else. The belief, the sense that he was special to the blonde disappeared as he listened the way the Hokage talked to Nagato – a monologue that was frighteningly familiar from the occasions when the blonde took Kakashi to bed. He told him the same things, in the same acidic, mocking, hurtful tone. At first the older man had thought that talking as a part of his punishment as Naruto saw fit, but as he listened to him talk to the red-head he realized that what Naruto said wasn’t a matter of punishment – it was a matter of self-gratification. All that Naruto did was a matter of self-gratification. Kakashi didn’t matter. Pein didn’t matter. All that mattered was Naruto’s pleasure. Sometimes he wondered how he could have been so incredibly blind so as not to notice that. Had he been so desperately needy so as to ignore all the signs and just cling desperately to the notion that someone would actually find him to be good enough to keep? Kakashi knew that the answer to that question was yes. He knew that above all else, he wished to punished enough so as to be forgiven – by his father, by Obito, by Minato-sensei, by Sasuke, by Sakura, even by Naruto himself. All the people he had failed so badly in his life. And in his need to be forgiven, to become worthy again, he had fallen in the hands of someone who wasn’t interested in Kakashi’s absolution – all he cared about was his own pleasure. It made Kakashi feel like an idiot.



The second change was his relationship with Nagato, as he began to call him. After that horrible night, he had realized that he was as much as a prisoner as the red-head was, that his role was almost the same, the only privilege that he had was the fact that he didn’t spend the time between abuse sessions locked up in a tiny, cold room. He guessed that he should be grateful for that small difference.



Naruto didn’t stop hurting the red-head after that first night. He began visiting him more and more often, forcing Kakashi to stand by the door and wait for him to finish, forcing him to witness the horror he visited upon his prisoner. Sometimes he looked up and watched Kakashi’s reactions. It seemed that he knew how much this disgusted him, how much it made him feel guilty for being too weak to interfere and stop the abuse.



Kakashi wasn’t stupid. He knew that even if Naruto had transferred his interest in causing physical damage to Nagato, forcing him to watch the rape was as terrible psychological abuse for him, because it made him feel helpless. Because it reminded him that Naruto had truly taken the control out of his hands – Kakashi had not given it to him, it had been taken by force from him, and that made all the difference.



How he craved to take the two steps to Naruto and lift him off the smaller red-head and then beat him senseless for what he was doing. But he couldn’t. He knew that the blonde was too damn strong, that he wouldn’t be able to come anywhere close to him before he snapped his neck like a chicken’s. So he was forced to watch and listen to Nagato’s agony.



Afterwards, when the Hokage finished, he always ordered Kakashi to wash the red-head, to dress his wounds. To clean up after the act.



In time, Kakashi began to need to do this, as a silent apology to the broken man clinging weakly to him after each session. And Nagato did begin to cling to the younger man. He too wasn’t stupid. As broken as he was, physically and mentally, he was still able to discern that Kakashi was as much as a prisoner as he was. He began to trust Kakashi, began to view him as his companion. And the younger man realized that the red-head feared being alone more than any physical agony that Naruto or anyone else could inflict on him.



Their time in the bathroom after Naruto was done with Nagato and had gone back to bed to sleep became longer and longer, with Kakashi often filling the tub after he’d washed the blood off the red-head and the two of them soaking in it, holding each other, the smaller man in his lap, head on his shoulder.



“Why did you allow this, Kakashi-san?” Nagato asked one night.



“Why did I allow what?”



“To become trapped here?” the red-head clarified.



Kakashi sighed.



“Because I believed that I deserved it.”



“Do you still believe that you do?”



“I don’t know. I wanted… I wanted to be punished so I could be forgiven. But recently I have realized that Naruto cannot give me that forgiveness. I cannot earn it by staying with him.”



“I see.” Nagato intoned and winced when he tried to move, bruises sore and muscles protesting. “I can understand the need for forgiveness.”



“I have never asked you if you regret what you did, Nagato. And I am not about to.”



“You don’t have to, Kakashi-san. I know that you want to.”



There was a long, pregnant pause when Nagato finally spoke:



“I know that for my crimes, forgiveness, or redemption even, are unattainable. Not in this life. Probably not even in the next.”



Kakashi paused, his callused hand absently running over the bare shoulders.



“Have I ever told you about my father, Nagato?” he asked.



The red-head shook his head.



“My father was one of the most famous shinobi in Konoha. The most famous, probably. He enjoyed the privileges of that – not in an arrogant way, but I know that he liked being admired, that people saw him as a role-model. He was happy that he was respected, that people looked up to him, that children wanted to be like him when they grew up. He had come from a very poor, civilian family, at the very bottom of the social ladder. So these things were important to him.



Perhaps because he came from a civilian family, he had learnt to respect human life, to cherish it, even. And that respect made him fail a mission in order to save his injured teammates. He ordered a retreat, so that he could save their lives – that was more important to him than the successful completion of the mission.



Of course, when they returned, he paid for that decision.All that happened during one of the numerous wars, and what he had done amounted to treason. So suddenly, overnight, from the most respected and loved person in the village he became a complete pariah. He was taken off active duty, people either shied away from him or they downright insulted him and cursed him on the street. One evening he came home covered in mud. Later I found out that children from the academy had thrown it at him.



As much as we both hoped for it, it didn’t blow over. If anything, it seemed to become worse. The failed mission had heavy consequences for Konoha as we lost several of the border cities. Even the people whom my father had saved began to curse his name, to shun him and insult him. The children at the academy made my life hell as well. They constantly mocked me, picked on me, mocked my family name. I began to dread going out of my house in the morning. I began to hate my father for bringing this on the both of us.



One evening, my father came home quite late. He had brought me a present – a new set of kunai – he had spent some of our quickly dwindling finances to get it for me, hoping it’d lift my mood a little. I was in my room, trying to clean the big red “LOSER” someone had written on my backpack with a marker while I wasn’t in the classroom. So when my father came in my room and gave me the package I…” Kakashi’s voice broke and he took a shuddering breath “I threw it back in his face. I told him I hated him and I wished he wasn’t my father. I was so angry. I said so many terrible things to him. He looked at me, then looked down, took the package and apologized for disturbing me. Then he left. I found him hanging from his bedpost the next morning.”



“Kakashi-san…”



“I killed him, Nagato.” Kakashi stated softly.



“No.”



“Yes. What I said to him… it was what pushed him over the age. When he thought that he had lost even my support. I killed him.” He paused, looking up at the ceiling, trying to swallow past the lump in his throat. “You are the first person in my life to whom I’ve said that.”



“Kakashi-san…” Nagato tried again.



“My point is that we all make terrible mistakes. Yours… well, yours were bigger than most people’s are. And some mistakes cannot be forgiven. You haven’t even told me why you want yours to be forgiven. I never realized that…”



“I was capable of feeling guilt?” Nagato offered.



“Yes.”



“I wasn’t. Not while the Rin’negan was active.”