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My hands float up above me

And you whisper you love me

And I begin to fade

Into our secret place

- 'All Around Me' by Flyleaf

Naruto rested his head on the cool wood of the door to his room, trying not to remember the betrayed faces of his friends as he avoided them on what might be his last day. He wanted to be alone to think and remember the world. His fingers curled into loose fists gripping his hair, as he closed his eyes and felt his breath hissing through his throat.

How many minutes did he have left to breathe?

How many hours did he have left to feel his blood throb through his veins?

He felt Kakashi's hand land on his shoulder, and he turned and fell into his embrace, burying his face into Kakashi's chest and hearing the warm drumbeat of his heart, filling his head with the scent of sandalwood and smoke and the bitter metallic stench of fear. Kakashi's hand tangled in his hair, stroking, gentling. Naruto rested there for a moment, and simply breathed.

How had he not realized how precious a gift breath was?

Kakashi's hand slipped from his hair to wind around his shoulders, and he rocked them back and forth, humming something, something that seemed ancient and otherworldly and terribly, terribly sad.

"Are you okay?" Naruto rubbed his cheek against the softness of Kakashi's shirt, feeling the warmth and coiled steel of the muscles beneath, before answering.

"No." He sighed, wanting to hide in Kakashi's strength. "I'm not." Kakashi rested his chin on top of his head, his arms tightening.

"I used to think," Kakashi said without warning, "that after Obito and Rin died that I could never love again. I thought that they had taken me with them to the world of spirits, and that all that was left of me was a body bound by duty.

Then Yondaime died, and I believed that it should have been me. I thought that I had given all my love to him and Obito and Rin, and that when they died, I could never get it back." A hoarse laugh, warm like brandy and sunlight in spring.

"That was fucking stupid of me." His grip tightened suddenly, pulling Naruto closer to him, hips and torsos melding together, and Naruto closed his eyes and tried to etch this memory into his brain, a drop of warmth to take with him forever.

"And then I met you and Gaara, and I realized that I could still love." His voice cracked, and Naruto felt tears burn, for this proud, noble man who had loved so deeply, for the man who had taught him to stand up.

"I could still break, and hurt, and die, but you know what?" His breath shuddered out and trembled like a leaf in a storm, "I've decided that it's worth it. All of the pain and hurt that love brings," Naruto tilted his head back and saw Kakashi's unmasked lips twitch into a heartrending smile, his eyes glossy with some emotion he couldn't name,

"It's really all worth it." And then he was cupping Naruto's face in his hands, bending close, and Naruto closed his eyes as warm lips settled onto his.

It was a different kiss than Gaara's, slow and tired, lacking the animalistic undertone that always prowled in the back of Gaara's every movement, the restless bloody fury. But somehow it was comforting all the same, tasting of the deep currents of the sea. It was different than he had expected, but no less beautiful and somehow sad, that he was only kissed on the night before his death.

Kakashi's tongue slipped inside with the agility of a serpent, and Naruto felt a clenched noise escape him, hands fisting in Kakashi's shirt. Sparks danced across the inside of his eyelids, warmth uncoiling, like a dragon woken from sleep, in his belly- not Kyuubi, he refused to think of that- Kakashi's tongue tangled with his, and he responded, clumsy, unsure, feeling the warmth of Kakashi's hands splay across his back, mapping the tracery of old, old scars.

Kakashi's lips left, whispered across his trembling eyelids in a gesture of trust, and slid away like raindrops on glass. He felt Kakashi lean his forehead against his own, and opened his eyes.

Slowly whirling red and the gray mist of the fog over the Nakano River pinned him in place, caught in the web of slow-burning need that Kakashi was deftly building around them.

"You're beautiful," Kakashi said. Naruto smiled, catching Kakashi's hand in his, feeling the uncallused- strange, for a shinobi- palm between his own. Kakashi was handsome, and Naruto almost snickered as he remembered what Kakashi had told them about his reason for wearing the mask.

"'If I took it off, everyone would fall in love with me,'" he quoted, grinning. Kakashi returned the smile, a simple communion of hearts in the face of the oncoming darkness. "It's true, and here I was thinking you were just being arrogant." Somehow he felt that he had returned to the person he had been before this pain had started, that the specter of death made him force away the pain inside him and brought the warmth of laughter back. 'How weird.'

"No one ever called me modest," Kakashi shrugged. The sound of soft footsteps on the hallway floor broke the spell, making them both look over to where Gaara stood, arms crossed in his customary pose, brow furrowed in confusion.

"Am I interrupting you two? Shall I leave?"

"No!" They both spoke at once, and exchanged sheepish grins before separating. Gaara came closer, skittish, but allowed himself to be pulled closer. Naruto leaned towards him, whispered, "I came up with an answer for you." Gaara glanced up, hope- something so strange to see in Gaara's old-man eyes- shining in the dimness.

"You have?" Naruto sobered, and said simply,

"I love you, too. Just like I love Kakashi." Gaara's gaze flickered from him to Kakashi, and back again, stopping only when Kakashi nodded, smiling gently.

"I'm glad," Gaara said softly, stretching up and kissing Naruto again. The taste of the wild filled Naruto's mouth, and for a moment he felt totally drunk on it, on Kakashi's solid form against his back, hands resting on his hips. The two men he loved shared his feelings, even here, at the end of all things.

Gaara broke away, leaning his head against Naruto's chest, hands resting on top of Kakashi's, fingers stroking idly. Naruto leaned his head back against Kakashi's shoulder, closed his eyes. 'I want to stay here forever.'

But he couldn't. He had one night. One night to make everything worth it. "Kakashi?" He felt his old sensei's voice rumble deep in his chest, gloried in the feeling.

"Yes?" He swallowed, steeled himself.

"Will you-" but the words stuck in his throat, and he couldn't give voice to them, as a final sign of how the Kyuubi's taint was still there like a dark raven hanging over them. But Kakashi understood.

"Yes, Naruto-" his voice broke, fingers tightening on his hips, chest trembling against Naruto's spine, "Yes, I will. But only if you want it."

Gaara tilted his head upward, pinning him in place as he stared into pools of green. Gaara wouldn't be left out, and somehow that was right. He felt the fox move restlessly inside him, grinned. To be able to make love with them, to forget the Kyuubi's terrible agonies inflicted upon him for seven long, long years-

That would allow him to escape the Kyuubi's intangible shackles forever.

That would allow him to go in peace.

"Yes. I'm sure."

Kakashi let his head drop, buried his nose in Naruto's hair as he tried to control himself, tried so desperately not to break down, because he understood just what Naruto was giving them, the last piece of himself, something to remember him by.

'This is nothing like what happens in Icha Icha,' Kakashi reminded himself. 'Sex can't solve the pain of what's been taken from him. Sex can't erase a rape. There's no dashing hero to save the day. Just you and Gaara, to make his last night worth it.'

As the sweat cooled on their bodies, Kakashi pulled the covers up over them all, sinking down into the mattress and letting his head fall into the pillow. Gaara wedged himself up against his side, one arm flung across his chest. Kakashi glanced over at him, watched the pale eyes flicker up to meet his gaze. They shared weary, heartfelt smiles. He reached for Gaara's hand, pressed an openmouthed kiss in the center of it. Gaara smiled, closed his blackened eyelids, and sighed, a long and vaguely canine sound, almost as if he was acknowledging that he was safe and loved.

There was a sort of honor in that, he thought, that Gaara trusted them both enough to sleep in their presence. That he trusted them to keep him safe. He turned his attention to Naruto, who lay on his other side, his eyes wide in the darkness. He sighed internally and lifted an arm. Naruto's quicksilver smile flashed in the gloom as he scooted across the mattress, molding himself to Kakashi's side. He laid his arm back down across Naruto's shoulders, pulling him close.

"Thank you," Naruto whispered. Kakashi brushed Naruto's hair off his forehead, stroked a thumb across his bottom lip as he replied,

"You're welcome."

When Kakashi woke in the middle of the night, he was at first unsure as to why he had done so. A few stifled sobs came to his ears, and he turned from Gaara to pull Naruto against his chest as he had done only scant hours ago. Each hour that passed was an hour with Naruto that he might never have again.

Naruto's frail shoulders trembled against him, and he felt cold, so cold, even with Gaara's desert warmth against his back. Bitter tears stung in his heart, reopened long-sealed wounds. Naruto spoke, his voice soft, childlike,

"I'm afraid."

"I know."

"I don't want to die."

"I know."