Echoes - a soulmate AU in which when your soulmate gets a tattoo, an 'echo' of it appears on your body. When you touch it and think of them, they can feel it.
Naruto timelines are made of crazy and nonsense so . . . I think this is accurate but if not, just go with it?
Gai jerked awake to a burning sensation flaring in his upper arm, and hissed. For a single instant it felt like a sore muscle, but it was too intense and too isolated - then he thought of the burn of opening the Gates, but it was far too soft to be too similar to that, and, again, too isolated.
He rubbed his arm groggily, feeling nothing, and twisted his head to look at it in the dim light, but he couldn't see anything. He hauled himself up and lit a lamp with sleep-clumsy hands before looking again.
There was a semi-translucent red streak creeping down his deltoid. Gai wondered if he was bleeding for a moment, then his breath caught as the growing tail of the streak began to swoop.
It wasn't an injury, it was an Echo.
Gai crossed his legs and twisted his arm to keep watching it, wondering if his soulmate was much older than he was.
The red curled and grew and Gai's stomach tightened nervously even as it stopped, wound in on itself. Another streak began and Gai folded his legs up tight to his body, eyes wide, biting his lip.
His soulmate was ANBU.
Gai couldn't have returned to sleep with the slow burn of the tattoo being echoed on his own skin, but even when it faded his busy, worried thoughts kept him awake.
For once it was difficult for Gai to drag himself up and prepare to go out to the training fields as dawn filtered over the world. Halfway into his jumpsuit he paused and covered his Echo with his palm, biting his lip.
He focused on the touch, knowing that his soulmate - whoever they were - should be feeling the warmth under their new tattoo.
Gai shook his head and dragged his jumpsuit up the rest of the way, sliding his arms into the snug sleeves and thinking he was grateful he no longer habitually left his arms bare. Not that he was not proud to have an Echo from his soulmate! But perhaps . . . if his soulmate was ANBU . . . it was better for it to be quiet, for now.
Gai worked even harder than usual in his morning training, trying to quiet the worry at the back of his mind - ANBU were the best of the best, but they were also. . . Every ninja lived a dangerous life, but ANBU more than any other. The most dangerous battles and infiltrations, hunts - assassinations. They were secretive, isolated. Every Konoha ninja was a weapon in the hands of the Hokage, but ANBU went beyond that - an ANBU was supposed to be nothing more than a weapon, the mask cutting off the person inside.
Sweaty and humming with the pleasant buzz left by heavy exertion - and aching a bit, but that was routine as well - Gai left the training grounds feeling somewhat more settled. He smiled as he wandered through the village, stopping for lunch and, after a moment of hesitation, buying Kakashi's favourites as well as his own before going in search of his Rival.
Kakashi had been on a mission - one either too highly-ranked or simply too sensitive for Gai to be able to find out about - but Gai had seen him return yesterday.
Kakashi might be a notorious ninja, experienced and deadly, but Gai had been tracking him and following him all over Konoha and a good part of the surrounding forests for years now. It didn't take him even a full hour to find Kakashi.
"Eternal Rival!" Gai cried, trotting up the hill towards Kakashi.
Kakashi barely twitched in response, but that wasn't unusual either. Gai's steps stuttered, though, as he reached the top of the hill and saw Kakashi was wearing ANBU blacks and armour, though there was no mask to be found anywhere about his person.
Gai swallowed hard, forcing himself to move closer. ". . .Rival." he said, but he had no idea what he had been going to say after that. Kakashi didn't belong in ANBU - not that he wasn't good enough, he was, but. . .
Kakashi twisted to look at Gai with a funny expression, probably because Gai was acting strangely himself.
Gai's eyes caught on the ANBU tattoo now blazoned in a streak reminiscent of blood down over Kakashi's deltoid and triceps.
The brand new ANBU tattoo he had not had yesterday afternoon when he returned from his mission - a mission that must have been his first run as an ANBU - and which he had most likely been given some time last night.
Gai faltered, but it didn't matter, as Kakashi ignored him after a cursory glance, silently pushing Gai away again, as he had been doing since . . . since the death of the rest of Kakashi's team. He had warmed to Gai over the years, slowly and not without considerable effort and persistence on Gai's part, but those deaths had hurt him deeply, and made him cold again. To everyone. Not that many tried to get near him any more.
It was all right that he had withdrawn - Gai understood - but he had only wanted to be there for his friend, his Eternal Rival, and so he had determinedly refused to leave Kakashi alone, as he always had. Kakashi would run, and Gai would follow. Kakashi would hide, and Gai would find him. Kakashi would ignore him, and Gai would only come back again, undaunted.
As for now, Kakashi was leaving again - though, Gai smiled faintly as he realised an instant after Kakashi disappeared, he had taken the lunch Gai brought for him - and Gai settled into the spot Kakashi where had been sitting, thinking, his heart hurting for his friend.
His soulmate?
Gai covered the Echo hidden by his sleeve with his hand, thinking of the shadowy fragility in Kakashi's icy gaze, and couldn't-
He couldn't say, couldn't try and be sure it was Kakashi. Not now. Kakashi barely allowed Gai to come near him as it was, as hard as he fought for that tacit allowance, and even now he was distant and cold, putting more effort into trying to chase Gai away than he had in years.
If Gai brought this to him. . .
Kakashi might never let him close again at all. Gai already had to chase him down regularly to get anywhere near him, and he was used to that, but if Kakashi chose to keep running, or worse, now that he had other options, to retreat to ANBU headquarters. . .
Gai couldn't let Kakashi see his Echo, or let on that he had it, until his Eternal Rival was. . .
Gai didn't know. He didn't know what might make it okay - what would make this frighten Kakashi less. Only that it couldn't be now, not like this. Not when Kakashi barely consented to any kind of companionship, however it was offered, however superficial.
Gai ate his lunch alone and planned out how best to go after Kakashi again. He would go right after they had both had time to eat - it was what he normally did, and he wouldn't change. He couldn't change. Kakashi would notice, would know something was strange, even if not what it was - Gai knew Kakashi as few people did, but he knew Gai, as well. Even if he wouldn't say anything, he would know and he would pick at why.
No, Gai would chase him down the same as always, would Challenge him, would keep at him for acknowledgement, for whatever he would allow Gai to drag out of him to keep him here.
Everything else could wait. Even- Even this. Gai stroked the new Echo again, lightly. Not enough for the Echo to carry the warmth of his attention to his soulmate. Kakashi needed the contact, a friend, whatever he said and however disdainful he was of the idea. Needed the reminder that he wasn't only a weapon, Gai thought - needed their rivalry as much as Gai did, in his own way.
And Gai, at least, wasn't going to let it drift away from them. No matter what.
This was going to have more scenes, end differently - later, when they're grown - but . . . here is where it insisted on ending.