#sheep scribbles

Sneotenna…

Bonus Battat:

Spun the choice wheel and you got dissociation first 😎 Defs keep an eye out for the other two, I have them saved to my current to-write list! (this didn’t actually end up super angsty? The others will, I promise, I’ve got plans 😂)

(@badthingshappenbingo)

Fandom: Naruto

Prompt: Dissociation

Ship: Kakashi/Tenten

There are days, Tenten thinks, when she’d like to shoulder Kakashi’s burdens for him. She’d like to take what ails him and pummel it into dust with nothing but her bare hands, ease the aches and pains of a life past and help him see that the world is brighter than the blood on his blades, kinder than the life thrust upon him so long ago.

He comes to her often these days, and for more than replacing the shuriken and kunai he loses “on the road of life.”

Road of death, more like, but she’s not going to complain when his coin keeps her in business and his crow’s feet when he smiles light up her day. 

She’s learned to tell where he’s been by the set of his shoulders and jaw, and she’s grown proficient in seeing past the quiet maa, Tenten, I’m all right today he tries to pull when he’s anything but. She sees the hard swallows and hears the barely audible whines when fresh-off-a-mission shinobi come too close. Though he tries to hide it, she notices the slight disconnect in every action on days he can barely meet her eyes.

He hides it well, admirably so, but Tenten is no fool, and Kakashi is no god.

“--and that’s the real reason that Konoha was founded,” she says tonight. They’re seated over barbeque to mull over their sparring session from earlier, and today, he’s not listening. It doesn’t bother her--she’s used to the blank stares and slow blinks as shinobi around her blink in and out of the here and now, but that doesn’t mean she won’t use it to her advantage on occasion. “Kakashi?”

“Hm?”

“You were just agreeing that they chose Konoha’s name because Madara lost a bet that Hashirama couldn’t scare him from somewhere in the forest, and he got him hidden in the leaves.”

Kakashi nods, jaw working thoughtlessly as he chews on the same meat he’s been chewing on for the last forty-five seconds. “Right,” he says, distant. “Makes sense.”

“And you’re paying for dinner tonight.”

“Mhmm.”

“And...” She softens, drops the act as she reaches across the table to tap the back of his hand. “You’re having a hard time.”

The touch gets his attention, and his eyes flash to hers as he nearly chokes, he swallows so quickly. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

“That you’re paying for dinner.”

“Tenten,” he groans.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone you totally ate up my theory about the Founders, either,” she says, grinning as she laces their fingers together. “Did something happen?”

He shakes his head. “Just thinking.”

“You were awful far away for just thinking,” she says.

“I was empty,” is all he replies, and her heart hurts for him. Partially because she knows how good that emptiness feels on days where you just want the world to quit, but also because she knows how hard it is to fill it when it becomes unwanted.

Kakashi’s lips quirk up in a half-smile as he lets her hand go to tip her chin up. “What was your Founders theory?”

Tenten smiles and tugs his palm to her cheek, shaking her head before nuzzling into the warm leather of his glove. “You wouldn’t think it’s nearly as funny as Lee does,” she murmurs. “Do you pay better attention in your meetings? You know, for the sake of the village and all.”

“Usually.” A splash of red colors his cheeks as he ducks his head, and when he tries to tug up his mask to hide it, she puts on a pout. “Oh, don’t give me that look.”

“I’ll accept the mask if you come home for a drink with me,” she says.

“Is it going to become four or five?”

She shrugs and sits back in the booth. “Do you want it to?”

“Don’t know.”

“Well...” She drums her fingers on the table and looks out the window at the last rays of sunset before looking back to see him with mask settled neatly over the bridge of his nose. “Home, then?”

He nods. “I, uh--” He looks down, tangles his hands in his lap as he sighs. “Probably shouldn’t go home by myself, if I’m being honest.”

Been wanting… burger… oughhhh