Title: Fever
Rating: T
Notes: written for naruto_meme, prompt: I will nourish you with soup and penis!
When Gai entered Kakashi's apartment using his spare key, and heard his rival's voice calling out the moment the door clicked shut behind him, he didn't think much of it. Even when he realized that it was coming from the bathroom, he didn't suspect an emergency because Kakashi's voice sounded so calm and collected, saying his name, saying "Gai" the way he always said it with that hint of boredom.
"In here," came Kakashi's voice from behind the closed bathroom door, "I could use some help," he said, and Gai dutifully set down his groceries and opened the door, expecting nothing really.
Certainly not expecting Kakashi naked – pale, so pale – sprawled on the floor helplessly, on his belly, looking up at him awkwardly over his shoulder.
"I took a shower, got nauseous," Kakashi rolls his eye, "don't look at me like that."
Gai has no idea how he's looking at Kakashi, shocked probably, but he does his best to stop. Averting his eyes seems like a good first measure.
There's a towel on the floor, next to Kakashi's almost ivory thigh, which Gai grabs – the towel, not the thigh, certainly not the thigh – and throws it over Kakashi without taking proper aim, on account of trying not to look too closely. It's one thing to go to the onsen together, this, however, is another matter and it's not so much the nudity that gets to him as the vulnerability of Kakashi's position.
How exposed he is, how fragile he looks.
Gai has little choice but to touch him now. His heart flutters in his chest as he bends down and picks up his rival, whose skin is too cool and too damp under Gai's hands. But he lifts him easily, as if he's almost weightless, as if his bones are hollow like a bird's. Because it's the only way that makes sense to Gai – for whatever reason – he turns Kakashi over and carries him in his arms, bridal style.
And Kakashi, weak but not thatweak, snatches the towel, holding it around his waist with both hands before it can slide to the floor and embarrass them further.
"You could have just helped me up, you know," he says, exasperated.
"You should be at the hospital!" Gai counters, then realizes that this is a mistake he can rectify. "I will take you there!"
"Yes, please carry my naked body through the streets of Konoha," Kakashi drawls, and that is all the permission Gai needs. He heads for the door.
Weakly, Kakashi punches him in the chest. "I was being sarcastic."
Hatake Kakashi is a man with great judgement, except when it comes to his own health, this Gai has learned the hard way, so he feigns deafness and marches on.
"Bed rest is all I need. At the hospital I'd only take up space and keep the nurses from taking care of the patients who really need them."
Gai takes another faltering step.
"My bed," Kakashi says, then coughs, "will do, thanks."
Fine.
The back of Kakashi's shoulders is starting to feel warm against Gai's arm; it's just the flu, anyway. Kakashi shouldn't be as weak as he is, but illnesses have always hit him harder than they ever did Gai. Plus, he only just recovered from the effects of Itachi's Tsukuyomi, and, in the space of a few days after waking up from his coma, lost two students.
On the outside, Kakashi took all of these developments in stride, with a shrug and an "Oh well", but maybe –
Does he really want to go down that path? All of Konoha is whispering behind Kakashi's back as it is. Conversations end abruptly when Kakashi enters the jounin lounge, everyone knows who he is – well, that isn't exactly new, and neither, come to think of it, is the pity.
Gai lays his rival down on the bed and quickly pulls the thin blanket up to his chin, just barely stopping himself from covering the lower part of his face, too.
"Thanks," Kakashi croaks.
Gai nods, wondering if he should get his rival some clothes from the wardrobe. The thought of Kakashi's naked body under that blanket unsettles Gai for some reason. But then he doesn't know if Kakashi has enough strength and coordination to dress himself; if he doesn't, Gai will have to help him—
No. No clothes. Kakashi doesn't seem to miss them anyway. He looks sleepy and feverish now, more so than before when he looked cold and brittle.
There are other things Gai can do for him. The reason he came. The groceries that still sit untouched on the floor next to the door to Kakashi's bathroom.
Gai has brought fruit, mostly pears, some apples and oranges, packets of instant miso soup and juice. Like any good rival, he also braved the erotica section of Konoha's bookstore and picked up a book he thinks Kakashi might enjoy. The shop owner recommended it, anyway, and, much to Gai's relief, was quick to believe that the book was supposed to be a present for a friend and not for Gai himself. "Everyone has a friend like that," he'd told Gai with a wink - and that had put his mind at rest somewhat because for a while he'd feared he might be the only one in Konoha surrounding himself with known perverts.
Gai snaps back to the situation at hand, that is Kakashi sniffling in his bed, his face a ghostly white with some rather alarming splotches of feverish pink.
It occurs to Gai that he has never seen Kakashi look this weak, that this time, by losing all three of his students to other masters, Kakashi really has failed. For the first time in his life – both their lives - Kakashi has been unable to rise to a challenge. All his other regrets were not directly his fault, but this one, this one is on him and him alone.
And as he stands there, next to Kakashi's sickbed, it dawns on him that, for the first time, he managed to surpass Kakashi.
But there's no joy in this victory. It leaves Gai feeling hollow and vaguely disturbed. All his life, he has looked up to Kakashi, has envied him, admired him, hated and loved him; to feel balanced he needs Kakashi to be strong.
"I'll make you soup, rival!" he declares more loudly than necessary.
Kakashi just looks at him in that blank manner of his. The blanket wrapped around him only seeming to emphasize the fact that he is naked beneath it. It clings to his thighs, and it occurs to Gai that he was still wet from his shower when Gai covered him. He should have helped Kakashi dry himself off first, why didn't he do that? Kakashi is already sick; this oversight might aggravate his condition.
He should have taken that towel and used it to dry Kakashi off – he recalls the perfect little droplets of water clinging to Kakashi's skin like dew – he should have –
Gai finds himself imagining the act of rubbing Kakashi down with the towel. Kakashi sprawled on the floor with Gai kneeling over him, the pressure of his hands, how Kakashi would feel it through the fabric—
His own cheeks are hot now, blood thrumming through his veins. He doesn't understand where these thoughts are coming from or where they will go if he lets them. He mustn't let them.
He is here to take care of his rival.
Soup. Pears and apples. Maybe a sandwich.
Kakashi probably hasn't eaten anything remotely healthy in days.
"Fear not, rival!" Gai gives his trademark thumbs-up mostly to make himself feel better. "I will nourish you with soup and penis—"
He hears himself say it before his brain can really catch up to the fact that his mouth produced the word. The drastic changes in Kakashi's expression – from tired discomfort to incredulity to pure glee – helps to clue him in as well.
"PEARS! I meant fruit!"
"Oh? Because what you said was—" Kakashi's bubbling laughter is harshly interrupted by an onslaught of hacking coughs.
"I'm going to make soup!" Gai stomps out of the room before Kakashi has recovered enough to tease him about the color of his face – his blood is pounding in his ears.
As he stirs the boiling soup, he thinks about the lake swallowing Kakashi's unconscious body.
Kakashi is half-asleep when Gai brings him the soup and makes him sip it. Since he has to sit up in bed to do it, the blanket slips down to his waist, exposing his torso; you can count the knobs of his spine when he hunches over the steaming bowl.
Gai finds him too skinny, thinks that he if bothered to do some pushups once in a while, he might put on some real muscle. Kakashi is too much of a slacker when it comes to repetitive physical exercises.
It used to drive Gai crazy when they were kids, knowing how little time Kakashi spent training, knowing that in spite of the hours he spent repeating katas, pummeling training dummies, running, doing pushups – everything until his hands bled, his muscles ached, until he passed out sometimes – that in spite of all that, Kakashi was still better than him.
These days, now that they're more or less equals, he sometimes finds himself missing that knowledge, the defiance and fury that set his heart ablaze. Kakashi can still annoy him, of course; on the surface, their relationship hasn't changed at all, but deep down Gai knows that whenever he complains about Kakashi's aloofness nowadays, there's no real fire behind it and Kakashi's teasing, too, is just that – teasing, routine.
He remembers the first time he beat Kakashi in a spar – how hours later the elation of victory wore off and a grim sense of loss settled leaden in his stomach. He remembers the first time he saved Kakashi's life. In a winter, during the brief, cold time of year when they were both seventeen. December and him looking over his shoulder, looking for the frozen clouds of breath coming from behind Kakashi's mask, each one smaller than the one before, the intervals between them stretching, smoke signals from a dying fire.
And the blood. You couldn't see it on the dark blue fabric of his uniform, but it dripped red from his white fingers.
He remembers the snow melting under his feet when he opened the seventh gate.
What happened after that –
Nothing but white noise.
In front of him, Kakashi slumps against the headboard and slides down bonelessly, back onto the pillow.
He's flushed with fever, silver strands of hair sticking to his damp forehead.
His breathing is a little fast; something hypnotic about the rise and fall of his chest—
In a way, he almost looks like—
Gai makes himself snap out of it then and there. His previous slip of the tongue comes to mind. Penis. Kakashi has a penis.
He might have a somewhat feminine looking face, too pretty, far too pretty, so pretty it used to frustrate Gai, so pretty it makes all the women fall in love with him, plus some of the men, or so Gai has heard.
Anyway, it's not manly, not a warrior's face, Gai thinks, not like his.
And it occurs to him then that even more than a winner, Kakashi is actually a prize, an object of desire for many. People fantasize about him. They want him.
And he remembers the one time he fell for a girl that had been with Kakashi before him. He was nineteen then, very much in love with her, and after he found out about her fling with his rival, he became quite obsessed with the plan to prove himself the better lover.
To this day he is sure that he accomplished his goal back then, and yet she still dumped him the moment she got her hopes up about Kakashi, who as it turned out couldn't even remember her name and broke her heart even more cruelly than she'd broken Gai's.
"Do you need anything else, rival?"
Kakashi looks up at him from under his unruly mop of hair, bleary-eyed and exhausted; the next coughing fit can't be more than a few minutes away.
"Juice?" Gai offers, choosing a word that can't come out sounding too wrong. Standing next to Kakashi's bed like this feels weird – he looms over his rival, fidgets because there's nothing to do with his hands, and tries not to think about the scales of their relationship tipping.
"No, it's fine – I guess I just need some sleep."
It's a hint Gai's supposed to take, he can tell. He's missed so many of these that Kakashi has spelled it out for him on more than one occasion. This is usually how it starts, with the meaningful look and certain tone of voice, but Gai is going to be obtuse about it right now because there's no way he'll leave Kakashi alone like this.
"Good. I'll watch over you then."
"I'm fine, really," Kakashi says as tersely as he can manage, meaning, Please leave.
"You're not, but, as your rival, I will make it my duty to nurse you back to health." It's just after the last word has left his mouth, that he remembers his earlier slip and the book. The book that still sits at the bottom of the grocery bag. It's about doctors and nurses and patients and when he was in the bookstore he thought it would be kind of amusing to give it to Kakashi, considering the circumstances, but now it feels very inappropriate.
He'll have to take the book home with him when he leaves; it might make a good birthday present for Ebisu.
Kakashi, he notices, has stopped protesting and sunk back deeper into his pillow, too tired to even lift his head.
"Whatever," he mumbles weakly, and with that he is asleep, just like that, motionless except for the rise and fall of his chest.
And all Gai can do is stand there and stare at his beautiful rival and try not to feel the sesation of heat expanding in his chest, a mixture of pain and pleasure he dares not name.
end.