#retirement.

"hey. enough of that," zabuza says, a hand cupped carefully over kiti's bottom where she's cradled against his chest, "come lay down. your daughter wants to cuddle."

Kakashi finishes four-three-two-one more push ups, and then presses himself back into a child's pose with a soft sigh. From there, he rests his chin on the ground and stares at the pair of them, a small half-smile curling in the corner of his mouth.

Zabuza's hair is flat, sticking to the side of his head. Kiti's hair looks like a little cotton ball, and they're giving him the same wry, sleepy look that says they're unamused, but tolerating his shenanigans.

"My daughter, huh?" He points both index fingers, one at Zabuza and one at the infant. "You have the audacity to sit over there, pot and kettle, denying your part in this. The nerve."

Mock offense doesn't stop Kakashi from gracefully getting to his feet and slipping into the bed with him, throwing an arm and a leg over Zabuza and pressing his face close to hers, brushing his nose against the baby-soft skin of her cheek. She smells like a little alive thing, and she gurgles happily to have the pair of them so close, reaches out and yanks on Kakashi's hair.

"Ow," he mutters, reaching up carefully to take her chubby first in his hand. "Fucking hell- Sorry, shit, excuse me, I mean uh-"

Kiti giggles, releasing his hair so she can put her hands on his cheeks and gum uselessly at his nose, and then drool all over his browline. She is a cute little thing.

Zabuza laughs at him, because he's an asshole. Kakashi pinches his side. Kiti squirms and grabs his hair again, this time to chew on the tail end of it.

"Aw," Kakashi says. "She's so gross. Kitiara, sweetie, you have no idea where I've been. What if I was just rolling around in something dead?"

Her guileless dark eyes blink at him, and then shift to Zabuza, as if to say: Dad, you married this gross idiot? She doesn't drop the end of his ponytail from her mouth. Zabuza snickers, runs his hand over the cotton cloud of her hair. "I think she's teething," he says.

"We'll have to get her a chew toy," Kakashi suggests, deadly serious.

Zabuza's laugh rumbles low in his chest, and Kitiara tries to mimic the sound.

It was... unexpected. Out of all the people to stumble to his farm, John would have never thought she would. He remembers, the two of them working together on a mission before he met Helen. And now that he’s officially retired, he’s... having a hard time understanding why she’s here. She looks... different. Not like how she presented herself back then. Eyes narrow onto her. “Can I... help you?”

( 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐒𝐀𝐆𝐄 ) ; one muse gives the other a shoulder rub.

It's going to rain tonight; one of those days-long, miserably chilly spring rains that'll end up closing roads because of the mud. It's the season for it, and Kakashi's arm has been bothering him all goddamn day; the ache that starts bone-deep in the fingers, crawling up his wrist, stiffening his elbow, locking up his shoulder, crawling up and down the web of scarring old and new from his elbow to the beds of his nails. It bothers him enough that he's favoring it, but the duty of a father never falters.

Gai and Zabuza are both out of the house-- he thinks perhaps even together, haggling at the farmer's market in the hot spring sun. Raika has a cold, and Kakashi had practically shoved the pair of them out the door to get them to stop fucking hovering, so the poor kid could have some fucking peace and quiet.

And him, too. He's man enough to admit that.

She stumbles out of her bedroom rubbing her eyes, asks if she can lay with him for a bit because her room is too hot. Kakashi does not inform her that snuggling with him is going to be hotter than sleeping alone, because he has been looking for an excuse to be horizontal since he'd gotten up this morning.

When Zabuza and Gai return, Kakashi is flat on his back on the couch, left arm wrapped securely around Raika where she's half laying on his chest and half tucked between his ribs and the cushion. His face is turned into her hair, and she's dripping snot and drool all over his bare collarbone, sniffling occasionally. Kakashi's numb right arm hangs limply over the edge of the couch, fingers curled slightly and twitching with agitation even in his sleep, nearly touching the ground.

Gai hands the grocery bags off to Zabuza, the pair exchange silent, affectionate looks, unwilling to break up the peaceful moment. Kakashi will wake as soon as either of them utters a word, no matter how comfortable he is.

As he wheels closer, Kakashi's head twitches, but he doesn't turn to look at him or sit up, so Gai sits quietly for a moment with a smile on his face, watching his chest expand and contract with each breath, his exhales coming out almost like sighs from the weight of the toddler on his chest. The arm hanging down is corded with lean muscle and a thousand little white-pink scars where shards of bone had caught him on entry, and the miasma of angry-looking red-brown lightning figures extending all the way up to his elbow. The fingers twitch again, tremble. Gai reaches down and takes it carefully, folds that palm between his own and presses the back of it it to his cheek.

Kakashi blinks awake, because of course he does, and turns his head to lift his brow at Gai in silent question.

"Good morning, my love," Gai stage-whispers. Raika doesn't twitch, and Kakashi gives him a brief but fond roll of his eyes.

"Is it still morning, Gai?" He asks, turning his hand in Gai's grip to run his thumb over Gai's cheekbone, down his jaw, to settle against the warm skin between his neck and shoulder. When Gai grins at him, he can't help but helplessly, reflexively smile back.

"No," the other man admits. "It's nearing two in the afternoon. You've slept the day away!"

Kakashi clicks his tongue at him, a silent admonishment for the enthusiastic volume when the kid is sleeping, and informs him: "Raika still isn't feeling well."

Gai takes in the pinched corners of his eyes, the slight tension he holds in his legs and his ribs, and the faintest tremor he can feel in the palm pressed to his shoulder. "Ah," he suspects it isn't just Raika, but he doesn't bother to articulate that suspicion. Instead he reaches up for Kakashi's palm again, cups it in his hands, and starts to rub it gently. Two thumbs digging into the meat of Kakashi's palm leave the other man squinting at him with something that might be suspicion, but Gai doesn't stop, because he doesn't voice a protest. He massages his palm, his fingers, stretches out his wrist. "She will be hearty and whole in no time," Gai reassures Kakashi, who he is certain is far too hip and cool to be nervous about their child having a little case of the sniffles. "Zabuza and I have returned with many healing ingredients for a hearty soup for dinner tonight."

"Mmm," he replies, eyes locked on Gai's hands where his thumbs are now pressing carefully into the meat of his forearm. It doesn't feel good, exactly, to have Gai putting pressure on tissue and bone that feels brittle enough to snap, but it feels right. Relaxing. To have his hands on him. The static under his skin seems to fade. Gai chatters at him about their dinner plans-- he can hear Zabuza getting started on cutting vegetables in the kitchen, smell the cooking fire lit and the aromatics starting to flavor the oil. He should get up and help.

Gai presses his thumb into a particularly tender spot above his elbow that elicits a gasp from Kakashi, and the other man looks at him very seriously, but doesn't let up on the pressure. "Does it hurt, my love?" Gai asks him, and he shakes his head in response, his jaw locked tight around the overwhelming sensation against the tender skin of his killing arm. His non-verbal reply doesn't seem to satisfy Gai, because he asks again: "Does it hurt?"

"Nnoo..." Kakashi forces out, trying to keep himself from squirming. The intensity of the feeling has already started to fade, and by the time Gai grabs his hand and starts to carefully manipulate his arm around that bright-hot point of his thumb digging into his forearm, he can feel the muscle in his arm starting to actually relax. The rest of his body follows suit.

Gai has gone quiet, focused on tracing the lines of tension and chasing them out from underneath his skin. Kakashi watches him, eyes half-lidded, feeling warm and sleepy once more with Raika drooling over his shoulder and Gai sat close to his other, with his big, strong hands chasing away a hurt that was decades in the making.

"You don't have to," he starts sleepily, almost shy with how badly he doesn't want him to stop, and smiles when Gai interrupts him:

"No, but I want to."

Early riser, John’s always been. Habit even before his days spent in the Marines. Though it’s different today. He has fixed breakfast. It was a particularly rough day yesterday on the farm- ultimately having to make sure the animals were okay during the storm. So to make up for it, he’s fixing breakfast. Eggs, bacon, toast. All not too shabby.

He takes both plates and turns around when he sees her. “... made breakfast.” Plates are lifted to bring her attention towards them. He then sets them both on the table and sits down himself. “Thanks for yesterday.”

in his time in this town, he hasn’t really met anyone that was particularly interested in him. sure, there was small talk here and there when he would sell what vegetables he had grown in his garden, but other than that? there wasn’t much of an interaction. but here he is, in a diner far past the average diner time around here, and somehow, he had sparked a conversation up with this woman. maybe it was because he felt ... connected to her. that he saw him in her. the war. the fighting. death, even. and at the center of all of that, there was peace. so they were talking over their dinners. he about his farm. ❛ there’s ... um, a few chicken. few cows. horses. ❜ he’d add in, ❛ realistically, it shouldn’t ... uh, be a one person job. ❜

chernyynose. arabian horse. male. chernyy is russian for black, so he is quite literally called blacknose. his most recently obtained horse.

spot. appaloosa horse. male. got his name because of his spots of black/bay.

mustang. mustang horse. male. his name comes from his breed. he was john’s first horse, also a rescue one.

black (female) and white (male). he named them on what color was dominant on their faces. unlike with his horses, he allows these two cows to breed if they so choose. he takes milk from white and doesn’t have any plans on selling them (especially to a meat factory)

he owns a plethora of chicken, though only one rooster. the rooster is respectively called rooster. the chicken are used for their eggs and the occasional chicken will be used to make himself a dinner, or to sell.

dog. pitbull. male. his longtime, loyal companion who certainly deserved a life on the farm just as much as john deserved.

guard. bullmastiff. female. john realized he should train a dog to protect the chickens from predatory animals. she’s mostly an outside dog, but only particularly during the night.

merle. australian shepherd. female. her name comes from her coat color. she was a rescue. almost seeming to come from absolutely nowhere, but she soon found her way into john’s life. she and dog take up the majority of john’s bed at night.