#hound.

The little girl's name is Miyuki.

Kakashi stares at the characters on the scroll blankly for a half second too long before he remembers that was also his mother's name. Hatake Miyuki, one of the half-feral swordswomen from the land of Iron. Of course, she is the daughter of some noble from the land of Honey, so this one's name would be Lady Miyuki. Kakashi's mother was many things, but nobody ever would have called her a Lady.

The details are pretty typical. Some rich lordling in the land of Honey married a woman from the land of Fire. She comes home to visit her ailing parents with their precious daughter, and he gets into a trade dispute with a different rich lordling from the land of Claws, who threatens his life. He is of course terrified for the safety of his precious wife and daughter, and hires them a protective detail from the great village hidden in the leaves. Risk assessment placed this at a high B-rank, Kakashi's on light duty after getting stabbed four times in the liver on his last assignment and ending up in the hospital for a month.

So, the girl's name is little Lady Miyuki. The wife's name is Lady Eriha, which is a name Kakashi blessedly has no prior association with. His comrade for this assignment is @lvyeshou -- apparently they think he needs someone to make sure he doesn't frighten the civilians. Kakashi thinks, privately, they couldn't have picked a better partner to cover his rough edges for the duration of what will no doubt be a long and arduous journey.

He eyes the other young man subtly, rolling the scroll and then tossing it to him. "I hope you arranged for someone to water your plants, Gai," he murmurs. "This will keep us out of the village for about a month and a half."

Traveling with civilians is usually a slow, painfully boring process, and they'll have to stick to the narrow strip of unaffiliated countries between Wind and Earth countries. To get to the land of Honey will take a little over a month, and to return on their own should take less than a week at a good clip. It should be more than enough time for Kakashi to get himself back into shape to go back to regular ANBU rotation once they're back.

At nineteen, they've both had more than their fair share of assignments outside of the village, so once Gai has read over the scroll he tips his head toward the gate, where the girl and her mother are waiting with their entourage of a couple of non-shinobi body guards and a few maids.

'i know it's bad. but i can't be alone now, i can't'

Kakashi twitches upright and then awake in an instant.

His left hand is wrapped around a kunai before he even registers that he's sitting up, but Pakkun's small, coarse paw casually settling on top stops him before he can lift it from the bed and throw it at the intruder- in the darkness, only Obito's eye can see the outline of the slim teenager standing in the center of the room with his arms wrapped around his midsection like something inside of him is hurt.

He blinks rapidly, and then closes Obito's eye. The faint red glow from it fades swiftly, leaving Gai no longer illuminated by anything but the waning crescent moon outside. Kakashi forces his grip on the kunai to relax, and only then does Pakkun move his paw with a sleepy grumble. None of the dogs have moved, really, all of them remain in various states of sprawled on his bed and the couch and the floor in his little studio apartment. None of them bothered to get up when Gai let himself in. Kakashi himself hadn't woken until he'd hit the single creaking floorboard in the center of his room.

And Gai had stopped, when Kakashi had sat up suddenly. Gai is clutching his midsection, like something hurts.

Kakashi's sleep-adrenaline brain catches on that last detail, instead of ruminating further on what any of the rest of that means.

"Areyoualright?" falls out of him so fast it's almost one word, and he fights to untangle his legs from blankets that are weighed down by Bull on one side, who groans at him in protest, and Guruko on the other, who huffs and jumps off the bed to curl up next to Akino beneath it. Legs free, he slips from his sheets on silent feet, stumbling over to Gai and stopping just before he grabs his elbows. He smells like tears, and snot, but no blood. No sickness, just... heartache.

Gai sniffs, shivers, even though his apartment isn't cold. Kakashi finally touches his palms to Gai's elbows, and the other boy lets out a soft whine, folding himself close to Kakashi and tucking his face against his bare throat before he can decide whether he wants to push him away or not. Gai's arms slip around his waist, and when Kakashi grunts at him, Gai whispers wetly against his collarbone: "I know it's bad. But I can't be alone now, I can't."

A stretch of silence curls around them, broken only by a sniffle from Gai, who continues to leak against Kakashi's bare skin. Kakashi's hands, very carefully, settle one at the small of his back and one between his shoulder blades, feeling the knobs of his spine, the shuddering gasp of each of his breaths. Something yawning and empty opens up inside of him, something awful, something hungry, something that wonders if all he had to do was break into someone's apartment in the dead of night and cry on their shoulder for a little sympathy, if maybe that might have changed-

But the situations are different. Gai isn't like Kakashi, he never has been. And Dai wasn't like Sakumo, except for... well, there is at least one glaring similarity, isn't there? It's the tangled limbs standing here in the middle of Kakashi's apartment.

"Um..." Kakashi rests his cheek on the top of Gai's hair- he stinks a little, and he's greasy. He'll make him shower in the morning. He wonders if maybe he hasn't showered since they'd buried his father and Kakashi had brought him back here. He doesn't know. How many days has it been? He's been sleeping a lot. What time is it?

Squinting at the clock on his wall: three sixteen in the morning.

Gai starts to draw away, already trying to wipe the tears and snot both from his face and Kakashi's bare collarbone, an apology stuttering from his lips.

Kakashi's hand shoots up to the collar of his shirt, and without a word he drags him to the low bed and pushes him down on it. His legs are sprawled over Bull, who still doesn't bother to move. Pakkun's eyes blink judgmentally at him from the pillow on the left side of the bed, and Kakashi pushes and shoves at a squirming, protesting, sniffling, pathetic Gai until he has enough room to slip in between him and Bull. The blanket situation is unfortunate, and will likely not resolve itself until he makes his bed in the morning.

"You don't h-have to-" Gai starts.

"Shut up," Kakashi sighs, shoving at Gai's shoulder until he's turned away from him, and then Kakashi curls up behind him and settles his arm over his waist and his face presses against the nape of Gai's neck. He can feel each shuddering breath, the almost feverish heat of his skin against Kakashi's cheek. He should have gotten him a glass of water and made him drink it, but he's afraid that if he spent any more time looking at Gai tonight, he might say something, or he might ask something, and Kakashi just... doesn't want to deal with that.

He'll get him a glass of water in the morning. And breakfast.

They both lay there in his bed in silence for a few minutes, Gai continuing to try and force himself to cry quietly, and Kakashi slowly growing more and more tense.

"It's not bad," he finally says, his voice cracking out of him like a whip.

Gai jerks, like maybe he thought Kakashi had fallen back asleep and was just naturally as stiff as a board. "What- What's not bad?"

Kakashi makes an impatient noise against the back of his neck, and his voice is brittle when he answers: "Not wanting to be alone, Gai. Humans are social creatures. Not wanting to be alone is normal."

The other boy's voice is small, thoughtful, when he replies, "Oh."

Pakkun groans. Kakashi reaches up and flaps a hand around until he finds the dog's head, and he gives him a few fluttering pats until he growls, "go the fuck to sleep, stop bothering me."

Exactly.

"See? It's fine. Go to sleep," he parrots, letting his arm fall back around Gai's waist. It doesn't take long for sleep to find him again- the way his nose is pressed against Gai's spine makes him snore, just a little bit.

Breakfast in the morning. Probably some eggs with a little too much salt, and whatever bullshit tea he has on hand.

"come home and shout at me. come home and fight with me. come home and break my heart, if you must. just come home."

Kakashi finishes adjusting the ties on his armor, spine and shoulders stiff, trying to gain control of the small amount of exposed expression before he turns around. Still, his lone eye is flinty when he turns to look at Gai, and he allows the silence after the plea to stretch on, and on, past the point of uncomfortable and into painful territory. Is he supposed to be tempted by the idea of fighting with him? He hates fighting with Gai. He hates this conversation.

They both know it's a selfish ask, anyway. Are they allowed to be selfish?

"What's 'home', Gai? You?" He asks, voice tight with... with irritation, with pain. Kakashi hates that he can't quite muster the derision he'd like with the question- with a little more scorn it would have been reprimand for the presumption, but without it the question sounds genuine. Is his home here in Gai's room? Is it dragging himself off Gai's couch to work out and spar early in the mornings, and then getting a filling breakfast shoved at him until he relents? Is it the casual touches on his shoulders, his elbows, the small of his back, his flank, is it the fingers carding through his hair? Kakashi is a little afraid that the answer might be yes.

Gai has opened his mouth to reply, but Kakashi doesn't want to hear it. He doesn't want to argue with him, or watch the flash of hurt in his eyes when Kakashi snaps at him again- so he steps into his space, chest to chest, and then gracefully folds his legs beneath him until he's kneeling, his hands resting on the backs of Gai's thighs, his cheek pressed to his stomach as he stares up at him. The other man's mouth freezes in a shocked little "o", even as his big, hot hands settle one on the meat where his neck runs into his shoulder, and one on his jaw. Gentle pressure. His body armor presses into the fronts of his thighs, like Kakashi might try to crawl inside of him.

He strikes before Gai can untie his tongue.

"We will never be able to promise that to each other, Gai, you know that," Kakashi's voice is low, soft. "Our lives don't belong to us, and they never will. Stop asking this of me."

promise me this is the end.

Another thing to cut himself open on and bleed all over.

Late the night before he left they were twisted and tangled up together in Kakashi's bed, the dogs pressed close around them like the heat from each of their bodies might be enough to ward off the chill of February, might be enough to fill his hollow chest and breathe something like life back into him. Kakashi is going through the motions, these days, worn thin by too many missions and too much fear and held together only by the faint ribbons of anger he can dig his fingers into. Gai's head on his stomach was so heavy, like it was the only thing keeping him from drifting away on the wind.

“I like laughing with you.”

Another period of recovery- it's spring.

Kakashi finds himself in the space where easy sparring is allowed, and still a relief to move instead of an irritating constraint.

One week ago he'd ducked into Gai's apartment and slept on his floor when he'd realized the man was out of the village on an assignment.

Two days ago Gai had come home, they'd smiled at each other (Gai's bright and broad and warm and Kakashi's little more than a shy curl in the corner of his lone eye, but present all the same), and Kakashi had asked nicely if he would help get him back into shape.

They're in one of the more secluded training grounds now, little more than a clearing in the woods that smells like growing damp things, like the early flowers of mid-April, and like Gai's and Kakashi's sweat mixing as they exchange blows for a second consecutive hour. Kakashi will have to call it quits soon, he thinks: he's exhausted, and the sun is high in the sky, and he thinks he might offer to take Gai out to lunch as a thank you for-

His distraction nearly costs him. At the very last second he manages to twist and catch a heavy blow from Gai's shin to his guard instead of to his gut, but the force of it sends him skidding back through the plants, tearing them up from the soft ground as he tries to gain his feet again. Gai calls out, asks if he needs a break, and instead of replying Kakashi gathers himself and launches at his waist, tackling him to the ground.

The pair wrestles, each trying to stay on top, the perfect form of their previous taijutsu spar devolving into something more like a pair of clumsy pups tangling with each other. They roll, they roll, Gai trying to pin Kakashi by the shoulder, Kakashi wrapping his thighs around his waist and using his body weight to sling him to the side, twisting so he's sitting on top of him. Gai flails, smacking at him, and a bark of startled laughter escapes Kakashi before he can smother it.

The sound is foreign to both of their ears, raspy and awkward with disuse. Gai's eyes light up even as Kakashi's narrow suspiciously, and he continues to flail and carry on dramatically, slapping uselessly at Kakashi's hands when he fists them in the other man's collar. Astride Gai's hips, Kakashi doesn't think he imagines some special twitch of interest from the manhandling, the contact; he definitely isn't imagining the rapid dilation of Gai's pupils, the sudden shallow nature of his breathing and a certain sharpness in his scent, or the way one of Gai's palms settles against his hip, searing hot in the cool spring air. The way his thumb seems to naturally slip beneath his loose shirt and settle against the tender bare skin above his pants. Kakashi...

He twitches at the contact, trying and failing to swallow something that might be more closely aligned with a giggle than an actual laugh.

Gai's interest sharpens further, and Kakashi's stomach twists with nerves, embarrassment... Maybe a shred of anticipation. He doesn't get to finish his warning: "Gai-"

"Are you ticklish, my Esteemed Rival?" Gai asks him, visibly calculating how he might wring another breathless giggle out of the man sitting on top of him now.

"Nnnno," Kakashi lies, badly, because Gai has shifted his grip on his hip to trail his hand lightly over the tender skin beneath his navel. He can't help the laugh that bubbles out of him even as he grips Gai's wrist and turns that hand away from him. Gai takes the opportunity to twist his hips and sling Kakashi over to the side, and then they're grappling again, less focused on getting each other in a hold than they are at jabbing tender points, producing bursts of wild laughter that for once, neither of them bother trying to contain.

Kakashi discovers this about Gai: his stomach is not ticklish, but his armpits are, as well as the back of his knees, which produce a jolt so severe that he nearly takes Kakashi's head off, which makes him laugh all the harder.

Gai discovers this about Kakashi: he's so ticklish that even a little poke to the ribs or stomach can set him off if he has his guard down, already laughing. He's still liable to snap his teeth if he gets too close to his neck, but in this setting it's playful rather than reactive. His laugh sounds like a blade unsheathed: pretty and sharp and dangerous, like it belongs to the man that holds it even if Gai hasn't seen much of it before.

Spring is about the thaw, about the growth of little tender green things.

Gai gets in his guard and manages to pin him on his back and Kakashi lets himself fall limp when Gai settles between his thighs, hovering over him, one hand pressed flat to his breastbone just beneath his heart. Kakashi breathes, and Gai's expression shifts slightly from excitement to something almost reverent.

Kakashi wants to be afraid of that. Some part of him is afraid of that reverence, of the intensity that Gai feels anything about him at all. But for the moment that part of him sees very far away indeed, resting here on his back in the little clearing in the woods, the space between them quiet and still and hot from their exertion. Kakashi breathes again, and Gai's eyes flicker from his own to his mask, and then back to his eye. Kakashi blinks, breathes in, breathes out.

"Ilikelaughingwithyou," Gai bursts out, suddenly nervous under the intensity of Kakashi's even gaze, and something warm curls in his gut at the awkward, rushed honesty.

He laughs, and Gai's gaze flicks to his mouth again, still covered by the mask. Kakashi can't help but tease, asks him: "Sorry, what was that?" like that might help cover the fact that his own heart is in his throat, and his face is flushed not with exertion but with something fresh, awkward, and sweet.

Gai rises to his challenge, because he always does. With something very serious indeed creeping into his expression, contrasting sharply with his pink cheeks, he repeats: "I like laughing with you."

Something in Kakashi's throat closes. His heart continues to beat wildly in his chest. He feels starving, abruptly, like the only thing he ever wants again is this moment on repeat, over and over, like he ought to lift his headband and record the tender, wanting look on Gai's face so he can keep it tucked away forever. He could do it, could ask Gai to say it again and remember with perfect clarity the way his mouth shapes the words, the blood hot in his face. He wonders if the perfection of the memory would produce this very same perfect feeling every time he called on it, touched it gently and held it.

His closing throat, his racing heart, the trembling thing inside of him wanting to reach out and tuck himself inside of Gai's ribcage next to his big heart, right where he knows there's a space for him already hollowed out.

He can't speak, because he doesn't know what to say. Maybe there isn't anything for him to say. There probably should be some perfect line that would put a broad smile back on Gai's face, make another warm laugh fall out of him. Kakashi should probably apologize and tell him to get off. He doesn't want to.

Reaching up with his right hand, Kakashi pinches the edge of his mask over his nose and tugs it down until the fabric settles under his chin. Gai's eyes widen, locking on the small, toothy smile still lingering on his mouth. Both of them lick their lips simultaneously, and that too makes Kakashi laugh.

"Do you want to kiss me?" Kakashi asks him, for once wanting more than his cowardice would normally allow him to take. "I want to kiss you, Gai, I--"

He doesn't get to finish his sentence, because Gai has practically fallen into his mouth, pressing their lips together like he's trying to cut himself open on Kakashi's teeth. It's awkward, messy. It shoots lightning up Kakashi's spine, and he tightens the hold his thighs have on Gai's waist, and twists his fingers in Gai's hair, and opens up his jaw beneath his onslaught so he can nip at him.

One of Gai's hands is very, very soft indeed on his jaw. The other slips from his breastbone to his waist, and grips him there tightly. This time, when Kakashi squirms, it isn't with laughter-- it's with heat twisting like a knife in his belly.

bring on the disaster 💋 - send for a kiss from kakashi (5/5)

She slips him a scroll and he palms it, and then they both freeze at the sound of footsteps heading down the hall towards them. There isn't supposed to be anyone else in the archives this late at night, no one except for--

"It's Ootomi," Kakashi whispers on an exhale, quietly enough that the man they suspect of being a ROOT plant wont hear him as he approaches. "Reni, I'm going to--"

As Ootomi rounds the corner, Kakashi presses her into the wall behind her, looming over her with one hand pressed next to her head, pulling his cloth mask down to lock their lips together in what will likely shape up to be one of the stiffest, most uncomfortable kisses Reni will ever receive.

As if startled by the other man's appearance, Kakashi draws away with a gasp, slipping his mask back up over his face. The scroll has been secreted away into one of his many pockets, not to be seen by the light of day until he's back in his flat and can pour over it in peace. "Oh- excuse me, Ms. Kita," he steps away, not having to fake the burning pink of his ears. He bows to her, and then turns to Ootomi, clears his throat, and bows to him awkwardly as well. "I was just, er, lost, and Ms. Kita was going to help me find the exit, please forgive--"

He's pulled this move a hundred times-- not kissing Reni, but trying to pretend to lie very badly in an effort to hide what he's actually lying about. People must think he's a scatterbrained idiot, because it works almost every time. It works now, too. Ootomi rolls his eyes, and then wanders past them.

kakashi's closet is their current hiding place of choice. he opens the door— presumably to grab a shirt— and there they are, seated with their back to the wall and their knees drawn to their chest. yasu looks up at him, blinking twice before wiggling their fingers in a little wave. "hello."

Kakashi's hair is damp from the shower. He peers down at Yasu with a wrinkle of sleepy confusion in his brows, because when he'd gotten into the shower a little bit ago, there hadn't been anyone else in his apartment. When he'd gotten out, he'd felt the soft, familiar breeze of Yasu's chakra, smelled the bite of disinfectant and refrigerated decay, but... well, he kind of thought they might be lingering in his kitchen, or on his couch.

He's glad he'd kept his towel around his waist, even if they're getting up close and personal with his abs.

"Uh," he says, instead of asking aloud when the hell his apartment became a halfway house for rebellious little shinobi, brainwashed or otherwise. "Hey, Yasu."

Reaching over their head, he decides to forgo the uniform. He is not leaving the fucking apartment today, he can wear a sweatshirt and sweatpants and sleep all day if he wants to. Yasu is even welcome to join him, if he can coax them out of the closet.

He debates closing the door in their face to dress himself, but figures it's his goddamn apartment, and he isn't exactly body shy. Yasu can look or look away, he hasn't been awake for more than an hour and therefore can't be burdened to care. Once he has a pair of pants on, though, he sits on the bed and fusses with his sweatshirt for a moment, squinting blearily at Yasu with one eye.

"Hey," Kakashi calls for their attention once more. "Do you want breakfast?"