Kakashi was standing at his kitchen window, watching the clouds crawl across the blue afternoon sky when he heard Gai knock on his door. His friend's knock was unmistakable; no one struck Kakashi's poor door quite as hard as Gai did, leaving it shuddering in the frame for seconds even after he had stopped.
With a sigh Kakashi made his way to the door. He pulled it open wordlessly, stepping aside to let Gai wander past. If Gai was surprised to see that Kakashi had already changed out of his funeral clothes and into his regular uniform, he didn't show it.
"How is she?" Kakashi asked in lieu of a greeting as Gai bent over to take off his sandals.
"Shizune and Anko took her home." Gai straightened, but his eyes remained glued to his feet. Despite how matter of fact his voice sounded, Kakashi could tell how distraught Gai was. He could see the sadness edged into his friend's features, the uncharacteristic downturn of his mouth, the crease between those big eyebrows.
"I see," he said. The women would probably do whatever it was women did in this kind of situation. They'd cry together, he figured, hold each other maybe. The guys would be getting drunk somewhere. That was the way it usually went. And then they'd all move on. Until the next funeral. "Anything else?" he asked
"No orders yet," Gai reported, trailing after Kakashi back to the kitchen. "Did you know she's pregnant?"
Kakashi stopped at the window. Behind him, he heard the soft sound of Gai padding barefoot over the linoleum, but his mind was suddenly elsewhere, a sunny day like this, Asuma and the news he never got around to share with Kakashi. So that was it. He thought of his own mother's face, forever two-dimensional and fading behind dusty glass. Kakashi could feel his stomach folding in on itself.
"No. She told you?"
"Yeah. I can't figure out if that makes it better or worse."
Kakashi turned away from the stubbornly unchanged sky to Gai. Did he have a mother? Had he been raised by more than one parent? Kakashi couldn't remember – Gai's father, yes, Maito Dai had been somewhat notorious, although the only actual recollection Kakashi had of him was the grainy picture of a tall, green person standing in front of the academy and the uncharitable thought that had struck his four-year-old self, That guy looks like a gorilla with a stupid haircut. He'd never seen Gai's mother and he didn't know if Gai had ever met her. He'd never asked.
Kakashi shook his head. "Gai. It doesn't make it anything. It's just a fact."
"I think it's good that she'll have something of him. That a part of him can live on in their child." Gai put his hands on his hips as he spoke as if he was dispersing ancient wisdom, not just cheap platitudes.
"He's still gone. A baby won't change that." Leaning back against his kitchen counter, Kakashi shrugged. Maybe Gai was trying to see glimmers of light in the darkness, but he didn't have the energy. He studied his friend's face and registered the subtle narrowing of his eyes.
Kakashi knew what was going to come out of Gai's mouth even before Gai's lips moved.
"We should go, Kakashi! They'll return to that place!" Gai shouted, his words exploding into the small kitchen, making the window pane tremble.
Kakashi leaned back a little further, his body tense in a way that he definitely didn't want his friend to notice. His muscles felt like frayed rope. "You want to go AWOL right now? In broad daylight?" he drawled, an unspoken, that's ridiculous and you know it hanging in the air.
But Gai was blind and deaf to such things. "They couldn't stop us if they tried! And who would blame us if we gave those cowardly criminals what they deserve?" One hand was still on his hip, the other he'd balled into a fist, waving it around for emphasis.
Sometimes Kakashi wondered if things were really that simple under that shiny bowl cut, if Gai could slot his wishes this neatly into his perception of reality, if it was that easy for him to ignore all of life's thorns and barbs and stumbling blocks until he inevitably tripped over them.
He sighed. In front of him, Gai stood like some kind of vengeful god, posing with the fading sunlight streaming in through Kakashi's streaky window, and blissfully oblivious to everything that didn't fit into his fantasy.
"And you think you're the only one who's had that bright idea?" Kakashi asked. There were moments whenever he talked to Gai that felt like he was trying to help a child take his first steps. Here he was leading his boy along.
"What do you mean?"
"Team 10. Asuma's team. Except that they're smarter than you. They'll wait for nightfall."
Gai blinked. "How do you know?"
"Because that's what I'd do." And he'd watched them, of course. He'd seen the looks in their eyes, shrouded in grief but determination buried underneath. Those kids were scheming; it didn't take a genius to notice that.
"That doesn't mean –" Gai protested.
"Yes, it does. Haven't you seen their faces? I'm sure of it." It was time, Kakashi decided, to deliver the killing blow. "And when they go, I'll go with them."
There it was. The wide eyes, Gai's eyebrows shooting up as if someone had lit a fire beneath them and, of course, the scandalized outcry. "Kakashi!"
"Asuma's dead. They need a fourth squad member, a jounin. The four of us will go." He kept his voice low, even. Gai's hysteria was nothing new, but Kakashi had to keep a cool head; he couldn't let Gai's antics get to him, he never had, and he wouldn't start now.
Gai shook his head. He took a deep breath, steeling himself. "I'm coming with you then. With my—"
This, too, was exactly what Kakashi had expected.
"No."
"What?! Why?!" Normally, Gai pulled at his hair, whined about Kakashi's hipness and coolness and then issued some kind of ridiculous challenge, this time, however, all color bled from his face and he stood, still as a statue. Kakashi found the reaction unnerving, like the look in Gai's eyes, the sheen of moisture there brighter than before.
"Because we're already a four man squad, adding more members would just mean that the enemy would be able to sense us faster, because you only just got back from a mission, you're tired, and because you and your team will be needed here." He counted the reasons off the just way he had prepared them when he'd planned the conversation.
"You need me more!" Gai was beseeching him, taking a step towards Kakashi, who sighed, his gaze wandering over to a far corner of the room.
"I already said I didn't."
"Kakashi!" Gai clapped his hands on Kakashi's shoulders. His voice rang loud in Kakashi's poor unprotected ears. "What are you going to do without my hot-blooded energy?! You need my power of youth and –"
"Gai. I'm sure Shikamaru has a plan. Besides, your team isn't the best match for this kind of mission, and you know it. This isn't about strength and speed; it's about strategy." This was the point where he had to look into Gai's eyes. It wouldn't work otherwise. "Trust me," Kakashi said, making his voice deliberately light as if he wasn't asking for anything important, just a small favor.
"I could help you. The two of us – We're the strongest two man squad! Konoha's mighty blue beast and Sharingan no Kakashi! No one can defeat us!" Gai's eyes were shining with conviction. Kakashi should have been used to this by now, but somehow… maybe it was the heat rolling off Gai's body or the way Gai clutched at his shoulders as though he was afraid Kakashi would slip out of his grasp and vanish into thin air.
"This isn't a mission for a two man squad." It was Kakashi's job to stay reasonable, to show that he knew what he was doing, even if his heart was pounding, even if he found himself thinking of Kurenai in her empty apartment. "Gai, I've already decided," he said.
"You…" A long, shaky breath and Gai hung his head. His hands weighed Kakashi down like two anchors.
"What?" he asked when there was nothing but the sound of Gai breathing. He hadn't expected him to give in that easily. Where was the rest of the fight?
"I…" Gai paused, sucking in another breath. When he looked up at Kakashi again, his eyes were alarmingly intense. "I don't want you to go without me."
Something inside Kakashi seized up at the sound of Gai's voice, harsh and breathless. He closed his mouth so abruptly that Kakashi heard the click of teeth and Gai looked aghast, almost as if he himself was surprised to have said that. And what was that even? In all these years, during the war, during Kakashi's time in Anbu… why say something like this now? It was ridiculous.
"Gai…" Kakashi forced a chuckle that wasn't really anywhere inside of him. "…That's not like you." Gai's face reminded him too much of the time directly after the chuunin exams when Lee had been injured and Gai'd been in agony. "Don't tell me…" Blushing, Kakashi scratched the back of his head in something like embarrassment. "Are you going soft on me now?"
"…" No answer, just a hiss of breath, sharp as though Gai'd been stung.
"You do trust me, don't you?" The silence stretched between them, hot and taunt like skin over an inflammation. "You know I wouldn't do anything reckless."
A lifeline of words tossed out to Gai, to himself, maybe. But then, Asuma hadn't acted recklessly. He'd been strong; he'd fought well, and yet… It could always happen. No matter how good you were, no matter how hard you trained. All it took was one slip-up; all it took was one tiny moment of bad luck. Only it hadn't been that either. Those two Akatsuki guys were strong. Perhaps stronger than anyone they'd ever fought before.
He saw Gai's Adam's apple bob. Somehow, they'd both swallowed at the same time, Kakashi against the sudden uncomfortable dryness of his mouth and Gai for who knew what reason.
"Kakashi… "In the space of that one unfocused second Gai's hand had moved from Kakashi's shoulder to his jaw and he was thumbing the edge of Kakashi's mask in a way that, Kakashi was sure, wasn't entirely absent-minded.
He wanted to turn his head away, to step out of Gai's reach, and yet something was stopping him. Not just the edge of his kitchen counter digging into his backside but an unmistakable pull behind his tense stomach muscles.
The fabric of his mask shifted against his skin, catching on tiny stubble. Down it went, down over the tip of his nose, the tickling sensation almost making him sneeze, and then over his lips, Gai's thumb at the corner of his mouth.
This was not how the conversation was supposed to go. This wasn't planned.
If Kakashi stared at Gai's nose, looking huge and distinctly unattractive from his angle, he found he could pretend he didn't notice Gai's eyes or his lips. Didn't notice them getting closer, his tiny unmasked reflection swimming in the moistness in Gai's eyes.
Kakashi tilted his head into the press of Gai's thin lips; that was his first mistake. That and letting his eye slide shut, letting Gai push him harder against the kitchen counter, letting himself be trapped in Gai's embrace.
Gai was a brutal kisser, his lips rough and wind-chapped, his mouth moving over Kakashi's, his tongue at the seam of Kakashi's lips, probing. When Kakashi let it in, Gai groaned in a way that pierced him down to the marrow of his bones. But the heat expanding in his chest and pooling between his legs where he felt the pressure of Gai's thigh was suffocating and Gai's desperation was right there, tangible in the tension in his shoulders, muscles and sinews moving under his skin, under the palms of Kakashi's hands.
As much as Kakashi wanted to, he couldn't.
He pushed, his fingers digging into the black linen of Gai's mourning clothes. He pushed Gai away, avoiding those eyes, that face bruised by shadows.
"Kakashi, I—"
"I have to get ready. Just go, Gai."
The fire in Gai's eyes that said, You're making a mistake. You should take me! Kakashi turned away from it, shedding the moment like dead skin.
On the other side of the window pane, the sun was impaling itself on the sharp black trees of the Forest of Wind.
It was time.
Shoving his hands into his pockets, Kakashi slumped against the gate post. They wouldn't see him if they came from inside the village, which suited him fine for now.
His eye fluttered closed against the flood of red, the sky an open wound above him, bleeding into his eyelashes. It bathed him in memories he'd rather forget. Stumbling through this very gate on numb legs, a man's contorted face, shouting, Where is she, where is she?
Days later he'd recognized Rin's father at the funeral. Too late.
Kakashi licked the back of his teeth, tasting a hint of Gai, already fading.
The breeze carried a whiff of smoke to his nose, sharp, mixing with the sweetness of funeral incense already hanging in the air.
Asuma's raucous laughter, his long-suffering sighs, his deafening snores.
Where is she? Still that voice echoed through the deserted chambers of Kakashi's heart.
Where?
There was no reply, only the noise of his blood pounding in his ears like the sound of a distant sea.
end.