nerves aren't something zabuza easily shows, but his shoulders are tense as he pushes gai's wheelchair down the road. kakashi walks at his side, and he knows they're both aware of the tension, but they give him enough grace to not comment on it. after another five minutes, the path deviates from the main road, curving down to a beautiful sprawl of land. at the end of the walkway sits a house: newly built, two stories high, larger than it really has any right to be. gai makes his confusion clear, and kakashi turns to look at him with a little tilt of his head. "been working on this for some time now. construction took longer than i'd anticipated, but. it's..." he pauses, tapping his fingers against the handles of gai's chair, "our house. for when you both are here."
Something about the weather in Kiri makes Kakashi drowsy.
Maybe it's the watery light of the sun, never quite free of the clouds, never quite hot and bright and intense the way it is back home - though, he notes with some chagrin, the intensity is still more than enough to turn him lobster-pink during the course of a beach day. Maybe it's the cooler weather, the ever-eminent threat of rain making him think it might be a good day for a nap. It isn't the worst thing, he thinks, to be a little drowsy.
He'd woken up a little bit late this morning, tucked between Zabuza and Gai. Gai had been trailing his fingers over the hard muscle of his flank, Zabuza's arm and thigh thrown over both of their bodies like he was trying to crush both of them to his chest. Gai had kissed him on the shoulder when he'd noticed he was awake, and Kakashi had made a tired noise, rolled over to tuck his nose against his throat, and gone back to sleep. He never goes back to sleep.
He never used to go back to sleep, anyway. It seems like it's getting more common these days, when he cracks an eye open at five or six in the morning, discovers how much effort he'll have to expend to crawl out from under the heavy arms of his husbands, out from the warmth of the duvet and into the cool air. Sometimes the effort seems monumental. The morning after arriving late and reuniting with their lover is a fine morning to sleep in, isn't it?
All that to say, when Zabuza finally cracked an eye open around nine, he'd laughed to find Kakashi still dozing, and laughed even harder when Kakashi had whined and shoved at his face when he'd tried to greet him with a shower of kisses. Gai, who had decided to read, had accepted his own bounty with much more grace and enthusiasm, and they'd kissed over Kakashi's back until he'd griped that they were crushing him. This had started the three of them jostling playfully until Zabuza had managed to shove Kakashi halfway out of the bed, stood up, and with an uncharacteristic nervousness he'd declared: "Get dressed while I make breakfast. I have to show you something," before fleeing the room so swiftly Kakashi had barely had time to pinch his bare asscheek as he left.
Kakashi and Gai had stared at each other for a moment.
"Do you think he's finally going to murder-suicide us?" Kakashi asked absently, loud enough that Zabuza could definitely hear him in the kitchen through the open doorway.
Gai gasped and declared, "My Love, that is an unkind speculation to make about a man we lo-"
"You're right, sorry," Kakashi waved him off, slipping out of the bed and blearily hunting for a pair of pants- he did not care who those pants belonged to, it just seemed prudent to find some if they were going to be in public. "He definitely found us a sex dungeon or something, right?"
The walk is pretty long for a sex dungeon. Through it all, that content sort of drowsiness remains. He matches Zabuza's pace with his hands stuffed in his pockets, watching the beach grass wave hello and stubborn salty scrub brush cling to jagged rock outcroppings despite the wind. There are some flowers he's never seen before blooming in the chilly spring air, and their scent mingles pleasantly with the salt of the sea, the sand and kelp and things living and dead and not quite either. He considers acting like his legs are tired and finding a seat in Gai's lap to cut some of the tension, because though Gai's efforts of asking questions about the plants, the birds, the weather patterns, the local customs this time of year, and Zabuza's characteristically sarcastic or playful or enthusiastic answers, he can still feel the nervousness radiating off of him.
He doesn't get the chance, because the house comes into view. Pristine new construction. Kakashi tilts his head and then turns to stare at Zabuza with his good eye, waiting for an explanation.
"been working on this for some time now. construction took longer than i'd anticipated, but. it's..." he pauses, tapping his fingers against the handles of gai's chair, "our house. for when you both are here."
Gai's laugh is delighted: "Our house! Momo-san, your skills remain a delightful surprise- look, Kakashi, a house that is sturdy and new, with such fine roof work--"
Kakashi hums absently, his feet feeling stuck to the path, gaze locked on the house. It rises up out of the sand and the beach rock and the scrub grass like a living thing, resting above the ground on thick pillars, with a ramp that leads up to the front deck. It's huge. The doors are open, and behind the house is a pebbly beach on a little bay, with gentle waves rolling against the shoreline. It's well-constructed, to be sure, and much too large for just the three of them, which means Zabuza thought about them staying for a while, staying long enough that their hurricane-force former genin teams, friends, their little cobbled-together families might come visit too, need their own space. He understands why it took Zabuza longer than expected.
He isn't sure what he feels when he looks at that house. It's strange, he thinks, to see a place that isn't haunted by his own ghosts- he won't turn a corner in these halls and expect to see his father, or his grandmother, or his aunt, and he won't step off the stairs expecting the granny in unit 201b knocking on his door to ask for his help moving her couch so she can vacuum underneath it. He'll never have woken up in the middle of the night on the kitchen floor here and discovered he'd burst his stitches open. The house is an empty place waiting to be filled with newer, kinder memories.
As many as he can make, anyway, he thinks. If the damned hat doesn't kill him off too soon.
Gai has started warbling, his pleasure no longer able to be contained by enthusiastic professions of adoration, declarations of Zabuza's virtues, and the like. They're on Kakashi's blind side, but he can feel the air shift when Zabuza bends down to accept a kiss, two, three, from the man, and in between each kiss there is another stream of proud praise, and Kakashi remains still and silent and sleepy next to the pair of them while he thinks.
He wonders if this house is a fresh start for Zabuza, the way it is for him.
Kakashi returns to himself with a start when Zabuza touches his elbow, and turns his face to look at him head on.
"Do you want to see the inside?" He doesn't seem quite so nervous anymore, but there's still something unsettled jumping behind his eyes. Kakashi cups his jaw and leans over to kiss him too, laughing into it as Gai rolls himself down the gentle slope with a cheer.
"I already love it," Kakashi tells him, "But if you don't show me at least three places where you smashed your thumb with a hammer, I'm not going to believe you built it yourself. C'mon."
"Asshole," Zabuza grumbles without heat, unable to keep the smile from his face when Kakashi laces their fingers together.
"Yeah," he agrees easily. "Stop making me want to retire, you'll never get rid of me."
when the water on the window let the sunlight through / and I got a good look at you / standing above me bright and tall / there are no words for it
snowghoul
yousharknotpass
discoholicmusic
