#.. .stay.

@godmist / there's a patch of sunlight in my room, on the carpet where i held you for a moment in june

"Which shirt? Which sweatpants?" Gai is smiling through the kiss, teeth knocking into Zabuza's as he surges forward against him, but Zabuza holds him back with a hand on his chest, and shoves him down on the mattress before clambering on him. Gai lands with a playful 'oof'.

"Seriously, where the hell do you keep hiding all my clothes?"

"It's not like you wear them," Gai counters, dragging his nails down Zabuza's midriff, and it's as far as he's going to get in terms of admitting that he is absolutely hoarding them and never intends to return a single piece. What was the Mizukage doing walking around topless all the time, anyway, baring all of that goodness for everyone, for free?

They're all in Konoha, of course -- his clothes. Folded neatly and camouflaged in his own drawer as if they've always belonged there: two of his tank tops, a shirt, the sweatpants, and that sweater he mentioned. They smell like him -- or Gai thinks they do, and looking through his drawer and letting his fingers rifle through Zabuza's clothes makes Gai feel that he isn't so far. Like he'd be in the next room. Like this place was his home, too.

It's not. Not really. Not for now.

Not in the same way he'd given up his whole life for Kiri, not in the same way he'd left Konoha to make right the things he'd wanted to make right for a decade now, not in the same way his heart bled for the village he'd grown up in.

What was it he'd said before he'd left the second time? Borrowing some time from the present, baby, but I'll make it up to you. I promise.

Well, Gai is here now in Kiri with him, and 'home' has morphed again, pieces of it untangling and shifting and resettling in something new and mildly uncomfortable, and all too transient. The relieving pinch of Zabuza's teeth over the skin of his collarbone is counterbalanced by the uncertain way he noses over his scarred veins, and the tender kisses over the circular embossments down his torso.

Home is redefined here with Zabuza, in the way he'd installed ramps into his office, his home -- you'll be staying a while, after all.

'Staying'.

The word hadn't sat quite right with him, but still the smile had grown on his face in excitement, and the thought of settling in Kiri beyond a mere few days had stirred something within him.

Gai is fumbling with Zabuza's pants, and he doesn't know if it's because the nerves on his fingertips are screaming static or because he is trembling from impatience, from weeks of missing the warm press of Zabuza's body to his. Zabuza takes over with a laugh, shucks his pants off and then, then Gai is looping an arm around his neck to draw him down, flush against himself. They're pressed together neck to neck, chest to chest, hip to hip, legs weaved around each other and Gai wants more; he wraps his arm around Zabuza's lower back and tugs, rolling his hips forward as if he could press himself any closer to him.

"I missed you so much," Gai says in a breathless murmur, and the following words spill out of his lips before he can think twice: "Kakashi should be here with us."

But it's true, and Gai tries not to think too hard about the fact that it's probably a little bit of a relief for Gai to be gone a while longer, just so he can get Hokage shit done without having to worry too much about Gai. Zabuza grips Gai's jaw hard, and Gai focuses his gaze on him again. "We'll just have to make it up to him, hm?"