Title: The Line
Author: Winter Ashby (rosweldrmr)
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, Masashi Kishimoto-sama does. Lyrics to "Don't stand so close to me" by the Police.
Rating: T
Summary: There is a line that separates Kakashi from the one person he wants and knows he can never have. But she pays no attention to his line as she inches closer on this summer night so full of unspoken desire and an unrivaled temptation. Will his line be enough to keep her perfect pink lips from reaching his fortress of painful self-control? Kakashi & Sakura
Authors Notes: I use lyrics from a Police song, I'm not taking credit for them. The lyrics are in italics, just so you know.

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The dark bar was full of smoke and the lingering scent of warm sake was wafting through the cramped spaces between heated bodies. Kakashi wondered, not for the first time that night what he had done to deserve such a punishment. But it only took one look at the pink haired, vibrant woman across the room to understand. He chastised himself, for the hundredth time that night for letting her get so under his skin and entwined in his life that a mere look could bring his laconic willpower to orbit her every whim.

Because that was the look she was giving him now. Splendidly devious eyes and mischievous quirking lips that made him want to sit up and beg like a dog. He allowed his solitary eye to linger over the shinning exposed skin of her thighs and silently thanked God that while she grew, her clothes seemed to shrink. He hated himself then, just as he had many times in his life.

He found it much less irritating to blame the Ichi-Ichi series for his overtly sexual mindset. But all the blaming and denial in the world couldn’t make his eyes stop from procrastinating over her perfect curves and charming need. She was waving a finger at him, beckoning. As he rose to his feet he wondered if she knew what she could do to him. He didn’t bother to look over his shoulder; he knew that Asuma and Genma were rolling their eyes. But he also knew that if it were either one of them that she waved her slender finger at, they would follow too.

“Nani?” His voice was dark, and hindered by all the weight of self-hatred and pitiful self-control held for him. He watched her eyes sparkle as she pointed to a vacant chair. He sighed, because he knew that he would obey and sat. There was a small stage just in front of him, currently full of all things Sakura, and grabbing the attention of anyone who was still coherent enough to lift their head from the sticky tables.

He wished for a strong drink and the warm, silken embrace of his former student. So he sat, and stewed in his own hated while his eyes followed her form as she went to and fro on the stage. There was a TV screen to the side and a lone microphone mocking him from only a few feet away. She smiled, and he could swear that he could feel a part of him die along with the accompanying joy she sequestered in him. She reminded him too much of a girl he couldn’t forget and a promise that he failed to keep.

The lights dimmed, and hazy, drunken eyes found her in the darkness. Her bright pink hair was like a beacon in the otherwise dreary room. She stepped towards the microphone and took a deep, calming breath as her tiny hands came to grip the stand. He almost envied the cold metal and smoky air that swirled around her parted lips.

An unfamiliar drum beat began and Kakashi was suddenly forced to dredge up past lessons on foreign languages because there was no way this song was Japanese. Instead he watched in utter amazement as her subtle pink lips and perfect voice began to form the strange syllables of English.

“Young teacher, the subject of schoolgirl fantasy. She wants him so badly, knows what she wants to be.” She smiled for him and he knew that there was something very relevant dripping from her lips. “Inside him, there’s longing. This girl’s an open page. Bookmark it, she’s so close now. This girl is half his age.” She leaned in and licked her lips and in the spot light it made her tongue seem as soft as velvet. So he leaned in and held his breath because he wanted to taste her so badly he could barely contain the shaking in his hands as his nails dug into the underside of his lonely wooden chair.

He wasn’t entirely sure he’d understood all the words, but something about the way she looked in him made the center of his stomach swirl and plummet. She was beautiful and the way she slid her free hand down the microphone stand made his throat go dry. Her perfect lips formed the chorus of the unusual song while he contemplated all the ways he could end his own misery. “Don’t stand… don’t stand so… don’t stand so close to me. Don’t stand… don’t stand so… don’t stand so close to me.” He couldn’t bring himself to look away.

Then her eyes flicked up and back and Kakashi couldn’t suppress the urge to glance over his shoulder in the direction her ivy eyes had taken. Quant blond hair and blue eyes greeted him in the form of her childhood rival. She wore an equally devilish smile as she spared him a passing glance on the path to the tiny stage. “Her friends are so jealous; you know how bad girls get.” She took a breath and he thought it felt exactly like he was alone in a clearing, listen to the night pass him by.

She continued in her strange song whose meaning was so meaningful he was fearful of the implications of his proximity to her. “Sometimes it’s not so easy to be the teacher’s pet.” She took another breath and he was sure then that he’d never be able to forgive himself after tonight. “Temptation, frustration, so bad it makes him cry.” She leaned down then, and gave him the worse kind of look he could ever image. And all he wanted to do was take her in his arms and taste her perfect pink lips that taunted him. He followed the words that hung from her lips on a path that began with ‘temptation’ and ended with ‘cry.’

Idly, he thought that he couldn’t have chosen a more accurate song. Even if some of the words were lost on him, her hips moving to the music in the stage light, and the perfect pert nipples that peaked out from excitement under her trademark red outfit made his mouth and eyes water. “Wet bus stop, she’s waiting. His car is warm and dry.” Then he was sure that he’d fallen for a horrible trap because all he could think about was what she would feel like laying underneath him, clawing at his back and screaming his name into the warm night air.

“Don’t stand… don’t stand so… don’t stand so close to me. Don’t stand… don’t stand so… don’t stand so close to me.” He imagined taking her in an open clearing in the woods and relished in the imaginary sweat that dripped between exposed breasts as he finally claimed the object of his long seeded desire.

She looked past him once more to the gaggle of jounin that swarmed in the back of the bar and pretended not to watch. He wished he could remember how to pretend with her. “Whose talking, the classroom; to hurt, they try and try. Strong words in the staffroom, the actuations fly.” Then her eyes were back, passing over the heated skin of his chest and dare he say, flickered ever so slightly over his cloth covered lips. He nearly choked.

“It’s no use, he sees her. He starts to shake and cough.” For the first time in his life, he was very glad that he’d been forced to learn this strange language when he was a child. Because the way she looked at him, with curved lashes and shinning desire made his insides bind his heart to the image of her virgin lips rip him apart. “Just like the old man, by book he’s caught.” He knew it was wrong and sick and perverse, but knowing how innocent and new she was made her all the more appealing. He knew she would be wild and tight and everything he’d wanted since the say she turned sixteen and started wearing a miniskirt. “Don’t stand… don’t stand so… don’t stand so close to me. Don’t stand… don’t stand so… don’t stand so close to me.”

Her aria ended and her hand slid back up the stand to clutch the length of the microphone while she breathed heavy breaths and gave him a heated look that made his insides curdle and ache for her hands. He dreamt of her caresses and imagined that she’d be uncultivated and passionate as she tumbled through his bed and entwined their legs in a fruitful battle for dominance. His mouth stood proudly ajar as he watched in elated horror while she winked at him.

“How did you like it, Kaka-sensei?” her breathy voice swept over his world and drowns in him the overwhelming delusions of hearing her beg for him in that very same voice. There is something about the way she says his name that makes him twist in her hands. The suffix mocks him and is in direct opposition to the way she says it. But there is a part of him that likes the way she still calls him sensei. And even in his sickest of fantasies, the supplication remains as she screams for him, but always with the familiar title. He likes the way she says it, because it’s dirty and wrong and perfectly in tune with his deepest desires.

He knows no other way to respond to her question than to stand on unsure feet and take an unsteady step forward. He dreams of her hands on his body and his tongue in her mouth. He wishes for her naked skin to touch him and feel her nails in his back. He wants her so badly he can barely breathe anymore. And her perfect pinks lips and perfectly proportionate breasts demanded his undesired attention.

He could feel his groin ache for the warm, wet embrace of her lips. He is so close to finally giving in and claiming every inch of her body as his own. The look in her eyes make him draw ever closer to the imaginary line that he knows he can not cross, but will forever blur because of the way she says his name when they are alone together.

Her subtle little touches that last longer than they should drive him to the brink of insanity while they sit, alone, in an empty forest and pretend to be on a mission. But they both know what the mission really is, and he is so close to failing the mission of maintaining some semblance of authority as he nearly trips over himself to reach her body in the spotlight of some karaoke bar in the middle of the night.

“Bravo, Sakura-san! Your mastery of the English language in the springtime of your life is splendid.” For the first time in his life, Kakashi was so happy to see Gai that he nearly hugged him. Because the instant his voice drifted from somewhere in the distance, that horrible look faded from her eyes and she was once again just Sakura. She is a skilled medic-nin and he is her former sensei. The line was reformed by the self-proclaimed beautiful green beast of Konoha and he couldn’t have been happier.

The line was familiar, and trusted. It was certain and definite. So he held the last vestige of tentative self-control close to his pounding heart and takes this opportunity to run for the exit like a dog with his tail between his legs. His gloved hands find his pockets while he hates himself again this night for coming so close to crossing the line.

This dance has been going on for over a year and with each passing day that her overt advances become more provocative it becomes harder and harder to see the line that he knows he’s not allowed to cross. But that only makes him want her more, because he knows that she’s forbidden. But she calls him sensei to taunt him, and rubs her chest over his when she passes by him.

The warm summer air outside the club is only slightly less offensive because it is thick and it reminds him of a bedroom filled with sweaty air after hours of rough sex. And he can sense that she is not far behind him. So he resigns his rattled nerves to prepare for the short journey through the empty, dark streets as he walks her home and tries to pretend that everything is just the way it always was. But he knows that it’s not, because the only thing keeping from slammer her up against some gritty wall in a back alley is that oh-so-familiar and yet ever-elusive line.

Her arm snakes through his and his heart is gripped with the sudden urge to run. But her skin is soft and the strange mixture of vanilla and sake makes him stay. So they walk, arm in arm with the pretense of normalcy. But the lingering memory of her song filled his mind as he replayed the look in her eyes as she licked her lips and stepped towards him. He wanted her then, just as he wants her now. Because she is so young, because she is off-limits, because she is everything he ever wanted but was never allowed to have.

Her apartment loomed in the distance and his strained self-control began to tug at the corners of his covered lips and at the edges of his tattered sensuality. She was silent the whole way, he thanked god for that. But he knew whatever she had been planning since the beginning of the evening was yet to come. So he walked on, because this was his Sakura, and no one else would be permitted to walk her home.

She was so close now, so close to being his. The line that separated them seemed to fade when they were alone. She stopped, just short of her home and turned to him. “You never answered my question, Kaka-sensei.” she smiled and he can feel a piece of his heart break away and drift back and down through the darkness that engulfs his past.

“Ah, it was very nice, Sakura.” He smiles a pathetic little smile under his mask and wrinkles his eye into a familiar ‘U’ shape to prove that he is pleased. But his hands in his pockets leave the action unfulfilled and he can tell that she knows because she doesn’t move. He opens his eyes just in time to catch her watching his lips and it’s so hard to pretend that he nearly collapses and gives in. “Sakura…”

“The moon is out tonight.” she turns from him and the beginning of his lecture about rules and the proper order of ranking. It is a conversation she has stopped him from beginning many times. But every time she cuts him off, it takes more courage and longer intervals for him to bring it up again.

“Ah, hai.” He doesn’t look up, he can feel the moon reflecting off her skin and shinning in her eyes. It makes her skin glow and almost glisten from the sweat of being crammed into a dank club. He wonders what she would taste like.

“You like the moon, don’t you?” her voice takes on a curiously fickle tone as she faces the distant orb with an almost wistful longing. He hated the moon then, for making the sweeping pang of regret pass through his eyes, yet again. It wouldn’t be so bad to kiss her, just once; or to feel her body move against him on this warm summer night.

“Yes, Sakura. You know I enjoy the moon.” She keeps her slender back to him while he allows those stinging memories of torturous nights spent alone with her in the woods, trying desperately to keep his mind from wandering over the curve of her lips or the peak of her breasts to come flooding back. He spoke about his life, and rambled about the moon, because doing so was the only thing that made that look dissipate from her stunning eyes.

“Do you not enjoy me?” He lets his eyes slip shut as he sighed and slumped his shoulders over his chest. He didn’t want to see that look on her face, that look of gentle hurt from his unspoken rejection. But he knew it was there all the same, he could smell her sadness.

“Goodnight Sakura.” The line was somewhere in the distance and he reached out to grasp it. He wished to touch it, hold it; convince himself that it was real and that preserving this line was worth the ache her words created in his soul. The line was safety, it was home-base, it was his. He’d created it with utter confidence in his undying ability to see it, and judge it, and never get close enough to actually see how thin the line really was.

But that was years ago, and he had indeed been confronted with the reality of his line on a regular basis for some time now. He was at the point where he was sure that it was imaginary and only existed in his mind. She seemed to take no heed of his fantasy line, but insisted on pushing ever closer to the brink of sexual temptation. She was a walking representation of everything he stood to protect and all the attributes that he secretly longed for.

Finally he opened his eyes as he turned and walked from her vacant home and lonely bed that he was sure she’d never shared with anyone. He longed to feel her sheets on his bare skin while they slid against each other. He could swear he could almost hear her moan his name into his ear while he penetrated her.

“Kaka-sensei.” her voice brought him from his chilling reprieve and hated lack of self-control. He knew he shouldn’t, but when she said his name like that, he knew that there was no will power in the world that would allow him to remain singular. So he turned and watched in fixated fascination as she drifted closer on the midnight breeze. He could smell her in the air and feel the graze of her shirt over his exposed forearm.

“Yes, Sakura?” his voice was deep and thick in the warm summer air as her name fell from his lips and splashed over the approaching outline of her form in the streetlight. As she stepped into the light, his left foot took a step back. The look in her eyes this night was fierce, and strong. He could feel his convictions tipping as the line he desperately clung to was suddenly turn upright and he slid into the fearful depths of his own dark thoughts.

She sauntered forward, hips swaying to some unheard beat and lips shinning like they had no right to. She was a kunoichi, she shouldn’t be this beautiful, or strong, or appealing. But there she stood, so gorgeous it made the center of his chest tighten when he looked at her, and her fiery eyes and confidant strides betrayed the quacking of his useless legs on the dirt road, and he wanted her so much he thought he might die if he didn’t touch her tonight. So he took a deep breath, but it was too late, she was already too close and his intended calming action only served to breath her in and twist him up.

“It’s still early.” Her sweet tone and prevailing undertones were a pointed mockery of his lessons from her youth. He’d taught her to look beneath the beneath. But on this night, with the air so charged, and her firm breasts so utterly within his reach his beneath was clearly an unhealthy fascination with the apex of her perfectly toned thighs. “Why don’t you come in for a drink?”

He shivered, because he wanted her so defectively he was going blind trying to turn away from her shinning desire and unbridled passion that burned for him. He hated her then, really hated her and all the pain she’d brought with her. He imagined hating her so much he could just take her on an empty street corner like this one. He smirked at the mental image of slamming her against the wooden railing while she wrapped her strong, warrior legs around his waste and cried because she wanted him just as much as he did her.

But then it was gone, moving away on the sea of thoughts that shouldn’t have been. He sighed and reached blindly through the darkness in his mind for some remnant of his line. But with each passing second that she stood so close and looked at his so… like that – he was sure that there had never been a line. His hands itched for her body and his tongue danced behind his lips for hers.

Then, deep in the corners of her eyes, he recognized something that shouldn’t have been there. A great broken heart and overwhelming sadness left behind by the hole of an absent teammate. The image of salty tears staining her face as she begged him at the gate to bring the boy back emerged with startling force and served to push back the desire that previously clouded his inhibitions. His line was once again within his reach, broken and twisted, but there nonetheless. So he resigned his aching groin and muffled heart to lean back and away from her temptations.

“I can’t do this anymore, Sakura.” For the first time since their dance began, he was the one who finally acknowledged it, because it was real, and painful. So they danced, in the moonlight around the diminishing line that he created to protect her and now used to shelter his fragile dignity. She took no notice of his words as she glided closer to him and his fractured line.

“Do what, Kaka-sensei?” the way she leaned in and said his name was painful because it was so tempting. The pain he was sure was just there was now gone, replaced with a frightening need. And looking into her eyes was a trap that he’d fallen right into. She was so close now; he could taste her on the breeze and feel her on his hypersensitive body. He shook his head, because she was naïve, but not now, not anymore. Not when she looked at him, like that. She knew exactly what she wanted.

“It’s wrong.” He was firm, and so staunch that he almost believed himself. If it wasn’t for his shaking hands and erratic breathing, he was sure that she would have obeyed his line this time. But as it was, she drew closer and rested small hands on his green vest and leaned up and in and was so close he could feel her heart beat in his chest. With the newfound sensation on her tiny hands on his aching body, his battered line was torn from his grasp and whipped his face as it passed on the violent storm that raged within him.

“Onegai.” Her supplication brought in him to his proverbial cliff and he now stood, teetering on the edge of diplomacy and the insanity of years of pent up sexual aggression. He longed for her touch, and her soft face twisted in a pleasurable moan he’d imagined over and over. He wanted his line back, because at one point it was thick and defined. But with her lips so close to his in the sex-filled summer sky, his line was so flimsy that her breath on his face was strong enough to nudge it just off course so that one kiss wouldn’t be so outrageous.

He balled his helpless hands into tight fists in his pocket because it was the only thing he could do to keep them from twisting in her hair and pulling her closer. But the intoxicating smell of her alcohol-laden breath and her vanilla shampoo swirled around his absent morals and distance reservations. She leaned up and in and he hated his body for refusing to move. She was so close, too nearly within his reach.

He pulled his hand from his pocket and pooled it at the side of his mask while he watched in amazement as her eyes slipped shut. He wished for his line then and all the safety it represented, because this was dangerous and exposed. The stretchy fabric of his mask slipped past his nose and gathered at the junction of his trembling lips and curious uncertainties.

Sirens wailed to life and in the distance he could just make out the flashing red lights that adorned the strong wall that surround the village. Her eyes snapped open and she retreated so hastily it almost hurt. Soon the street was full of running people and muffled words. But still they stood, in the circle of the street light and watched as the line reformed of its own accord and his mask rose to once again cover his face.

“Kakashi, what are you doing here?” Kurenai stopped just long enough to fling a scroll over her shoulder before she continued on, lost in the mass of moving bodies and frantic eyes. This was bad. His hands tore at the seal and rolled it open while his widening eyes took in the implications of the insignificant paper.

“What is it?” Her stone voice cut through the veil of shock that surrounded him. He looked up and past the scroll to her wide eyes and nearly cried with regret. If only he had tasted her, just once, he was convinced that this wouldn’t sting quite as much. If only he had gotten to touch her naked skin and roll her perfect body under him while he pushed into her with wild abandonment.

“He’s back.” he let the scroll ship from his hands and fall meaninglessly to the dirt path that lead to the wall and the outside and the return of a lost comrade and former student. “Sasuke’s back.” Then, she was gone. Off, moving ahead through the mass of people that formed to welcome home their prodigal son with open arms and missing memories of the pain left behind in the wake of his betrayal.

He hated him then, for leaving, for somehow giving him the one thing he never wanted but was undeniably drawn to, and now for snatching her away just when he was sure that he could cross the line. She didn’t even spare him a glance back as she bound through the crowd, back to her first love, back to her Sasuke-kun.

He turned from the gate and his former students and marched on aching feet to sleep for three years, or at least until he was certain that he could hypnotize his twisted mind into thinking that he’d never wanted her. His hands were heavy and his heart burst to be free of his oh-so-familiar pain that continued to haunt him at every turn.

There was no more reason for the existence of a line anymore. He knew that she would never look at him like that again, and when her shinning lips and vacant bed and virgin body were filled, it would not be by him. No, it would be by the cold, jaded boy who hated his brother and abandoned his home to seek power.

He drown his sorrow for chances left unfulfilled and the recent memories of her serenading him in sake and passed out with only half his body on the bed and half a heart left in his fractured chest. He tossed and turned in his alcohol-induced nightmare of her parted lips moaning someone else’s name while he stood with helpless want and an unknown pain she created in him. And when the sun rose on his battered form he still clung to his line like a child holds their blanket. Because it was his, and if he squinted his eyes deep enough, he could almost see her standing at the foot of his bed.

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Foot Notes:

As far as the last line goes… Maybe he squints because she really is standing there and he wants to pretend that she isn't, or maybe he squints so that he can imagine her standing there. It can mean whatever you want it to.

I hope you enjoyed it! I couldn't help myself - I LOVE torturing my favourite bushin! Tell me what you think! :)