Character: Kakashi, Yamato, Gai
Prompt: GaiKakaYama; balance
Rating: R
Warnings: Mentions the Sexy
Three's a crowd. Three people – even a child knows that fitting three people on a see-saw simply does. Not. Work.
Kakashi, Gai and Yamato somehow make it work nonetheless.
It is all a matter of balance. While Kakashi and Yamato brood, Gai's eternal Flames of Youth burn all the brighter. While Yamato and Gai get caught up in the rules, Kakashi breaks so many of them that it's getting ridiculous. While Kakashi and Gai are turning old, Yamato is there to remind them that they are still worth the respect of the younger generation.
It is complicated. A judicious amount of juggling is necessary so that nobody feels left out. Thankfully, neither Gai nor Kakashi are people to get jealous, and Yamato doesn't let himself be the odd man out. And when one of them holds him down, while the other does wicked, wicked things to his body, such thoughts are the furthest from his mind.
But beneath all the complications, it is not love.
None of them knows the word beyond an encyclopedic definition. They all were raised under less than ideal conditions – one in a laboratory, one in an orphanage, and one of them in an empty house that would eventually be filled with the corpse of his suicidally depressed father. There simply wasn't anyone to show them, and so they don't, can't love.
It is not even lust. Not when steel-hard fingers massage as much to arouse as to soothe away the pain of countless nightmares and missions. Not when a single red eye spins as much to take in every drop of sweat and every moan, as to make sure they are still whole and unharmed. Not when wood is reshaped as much to create interesting toys as to provide every-day items like chairs and bowls.
Not when one of them stumbles into Konoha, blood-soaked, and there is someone to stitch his wounds and rub his helpless adrenaline, and then make sure he can sleep the sleep of the dead until the next morning.
It is – they don't know what it is. And they don't think too much on it. Not when only one of them can cook, and only one of them can sew, and only one of them can convince Kakashi's plants to survive one more week.
They are comfortable with the way things are. And even though it is not very comfortable to have his knees forced up to his shoulders and a heavy, weight-adorned body plow into him while yet another hand holds his member as a wooden tendril slowly creeps down his slit – well, none of them would give anything to change this.
It is balance, because they all know that the next time it will be someone else.