He was a ferocious man. He had been ill-made in the making. He had not been born right, and he had not been helped any by the molding he had received at the hands of society. The hands of society are harsh, and this man was a striking sample of its handiwork. He was a beast - a human beast, it is true, but nevertheless so terrible a beast that he can best be characterized as carnivorous.
He can't quite stop himself from fussing with it, though he knows a Shinobi must not fidget or fuss, must be placid and flat-calm. Kakashi's father is like that, a mirror's surface on a cold lake, hazards hidden below, no wasted movement. Kakashi still wants to be just like him.
He's haggling prices with one of the vendors, driving a hard bargain for duck feet and organ meat, and Kakashi has heard it enough times that he doesn't have any interest in it. His father will be frightened, perhaps, when he discovers that Kakashi has wandered off; though perhaps he still knows where he is, can hear his little footsteps and the rabbit-quick breaths as he ducks around the market, hiding from no one and everyone. Perhaps he can smell him over the rich spice scents, the half-rotted vegetables, the stink of bodies washed and unwashed.
Kakashi will take his scolding without complaint. Sakumo worries about him. He won't do much more than sigh, and perhaps hold his hand a little tighter the next time they go to the market.
Pakkun trots along at his heels, sniffing garbage and nipping meaningfully at Kakashi's heels when he gets in the way of the busy adults. They can't see him well, carrying their loads. He's very small.
There is another small boy at the end of the alley he comes upon. Kakashi stops. He watches the boy, who is making no small amount of noise, waving his arms about and grinning. He has a stick of barbecued chicken. Kakashi's stomach growls.
He turns back to look at his father on the other side of the market. He really will be upset with him, frightened, if Kakashi leaves the market square. But it's just one alley. He won't go much further than that. He turns back to the boy. He takes a step forward, and then another. Pakkun trots along next to him, sniffing at the air and letting out an excited 'yip' at the smell of meat. Kakashi finds himself in agreement.
He lifts his hand as he approaches, he calls out: "Excuse me," his father tells him he should be polite when he's asking for something. His father always gives him a bite of his food, even when Kakashi doesn't ask so politely. "Excuse me. Can I try some of that?"
He's pointing at the barbecue stick. He stops his approach a few feet away. It's rude to crowd strangers, that he knows well.
Mama has Saturdays off. It’s why Papa says they’re going to the market today, though Gai isn’t quite so certain how many days it is between one Saturday and the next. They come here often enough that his parents are content to let him wander – “No further than Aunty Kei’s stall, okay?”
It goes like this: they enter from the east, where the stalls selling trinkets are still unfolding, carts rattling noisily over cobblestone and goods still covered up under large, well-worn plastic tarps. Gai holds Mama’s hand, somehow pressing himself close to her side while also skipping every other step, hopping at times to avoid the cracks in the pavement. They head for Mama’s friend’s stall, where they’ll share a hot meal of rice, tamagoyaki, and whatever side dishes she’s made for the weekend, before they move on to marketing for the week ahead.
At least, that’s the plan, but things don’t always go according to plan. What Gai really remembers of these Saturdays are mainly two things.
The first is that in between the stalls, Papa points out all the various snacks on offer, asking Gai again and again if he would like this taiyaki, that dango, or some oden. Gai gets whatever he wants on Saturdays, because Mama has them off, and they both love him so, and Gai’s noticed that Papa pesters him a little more insistently whenever Gai still has bruises from that week’s training.
The second is that his parents get into conversations that. never. end. Gai can tell by now which conversations will last forever and which ones are short, polite greetings. He grins toothily up at whoever Papa’s got an arm around, and shows them his shaky front tooth. He keeps his hand fisted in Mama’s skirt when they lay a heavy hand on the top of his head and ruffle his hair.
None of their conversation interests him in the slightest, even when they’re talking about him. Mama smooths his bangs out, and Gai is itching to be off. She catches his small wrist in her hand. He complains and tugs against it, making her stumble with the force of his effort. That’s usually when she bends to take his face in her hands, smiles pretty and sweet at him, and makes him promise not to go too far. Gai hooks his pinky around hers, presses their thumbs together, and shouts, “That’s a promise!”
He whizzes around the familiar streets of the market, bumping into plenty of legs despite his efforts to weave through the crowd smoothly. With a fistful of coins clutched tightly in his hand, Gai has a clear destination in mind: the yakitori stall at the end of an alley, the one beside the stall that’s always roasting chestnuts in a large wok. The ojii-san always gives him the biggest stick, or the freshest one if they’re all about the same size, still steaming hot, tender and sweet-savoury.
So hot that, although this has happened many times before, the big bite Gai takes once again scalds the roof of his mouth, and he chews with desperate, dramatic pants in an effort to cool the food down in his mouth. He fans his open mouth with a hand, the skewer thrust in the air like distance will cool it faster.
Gai has just swallowed the bite when a boy catches his attention. There's a dog trotting along beside him, unleashed and calm. The boy has white hair, sticking up in tufts like they have a life of their own, and a cloth that covers half of his face. He’s never seen anyone like him.
"Excuse me. Can I try some of that?" He's pointing at the barbecue stick. He stops his approach a few feet away. It's rude to crowd strangers, that he knows well.
“Hello!” Gai greets, loud and confident. He looks at the skewer, only one-third eaten. He looks at the boy, then the dog, then the boy again. Gai doesn’t have to think twice. He always shares his food with Mama and Papa, when they’re not caught up in their endless conversations, at least, so this shouldn’t be any different.
“Of course you can!” He has enough coins, actually, to buy another one altogether (the ojii-san had not asked for as many coins today). “You can finish this, I can buy one more! But you have to take that, um, that-” What is it called? “-that thing off first.”
Gai shoves the skewer pointy end first in the boy’s face, the way he and Papa do to each other when they share food. And, in the same way as they often do, the offered food comes with its usual encouragement: “Say ahh!”
Gai doesn’t learn the boy’s name, because he forgets to ask. He wishes he did. He forgets people’s faces sometimes, but it’s easier to remember them when he also knows their name. But there are no other boys he knows with white hair, and no other boys he’s seen that cover their face like that – “It’s a mask,” the boy had said. Gai had shown him his shaky tooth, a fair exchange for the boy showing his face.
The next time he meets the white-haired boy with a mask and a dog, Gai resolves, he’ll get his name, and maybe they could be friends.
The flowers made the air boil. / The boiling air made me think of you a while. / I did not come here to suffer.
The astringent smell of hospital makes his head spin, but that might also be the sight before him: Gai, bandaged and hooked up to several machines, the stitches in his own chest aching and his dead eye throbbing because he feels like he hasn't slept a wink since they'd pulled him from the field. Gai's hand is still like a corpse, cold in his own, and sometimes he wonders what would happen if he squeezed until the bones in it shattered like glass in his grip. It probably wouldn't be that hard, he thinks. They're practically sponges, according to the medics. He bets he could squeeze them out of Gai's hands like roasted garlic or-
The astringent smell of the hospital also hides Zabuza's approach until he hears him purposely scuff his feet outside the door, flickering his heavy, miasmic chakra to announce his presence to a distracted Kakashi. He thinks he might be cranky, because he considers tossing a kunai at his head just to make him dodge it anyway.
The door slides open. Kakashi turns to face him.
"Hey," Zabuza calls out gruffly, closing the door behind him. "Moved to a private room in the ICU, huh? He must be some kind of big shot."
"Yeah," Kakashi replies flatly, eyeing him. He's dressed for travel. Something twists and folds over itself in his chest. He grits his teeth, takes a breath, and forces himself to sound flat-calm, unbothered, slightly friendly. "I said it was vital for my focus, gonna do a lot of paperwork in here. Don't think I needed to add the last part, I just forgot I was..." In charge now. It made the administrator he'd pulled aside look at him like he was an idiot, or worse, something to be pitied, and he'd almost told them to forget it. "Do you think he'll be pissed at me for asking that he gets special treatment?"
"Has Gai ever been pissed at you?" Zabuza snorts- the way he shifts his weight in the doorway, the moment's hesitation before he steps forward once, twice, three times, sure strides as if he knows exactly how welcome he is in this space, and he settles his hands on Kakashi's shoulders. Squeezes him, a little, and Kakashi tries not to shake apart under his palms.
"Umm..." Kakashi bites his lip, sighs from his nose, and replies: "Not for long, he's not that smar-"
Zabuza shakes him once, sharply, but doesn't say anything. Shame curls in his throat, and Kakashi covers his face with his hands with a long sigh. He doesn't apologize, and Zabuza doesn't ask him to.
After a moment, Zabuza runs a hand over the back of his head. "I'm leaving this afternoon, you know."
Kakashi, afraid of the thing crawling in his throat, doesn't pull his face from his hands. He nods.
"Supposed to be at the gate in an hour. Didn't want to..."
Leave without saying goodbye, Kakashi knows he doesn't finish the sentence because it sounds like an ending. It is an ending, he thinks, but the ending has been a week long, or maybe years in the making. Maybe it was always going to be this: another parting, another five, ten, fifteen years with an ocean between them.
Zabuza is too stubborn to admit that it is an ending, too stubborn to admit aloud that they're both choosing duty over each other, over Gai, because that's all they have ever been capable of doing. Kakashi resents himself for it, and he resents Zabuza and his gentle hands and the sharp curve of his wicked smile and the warmth radiating from his chest so intensely that it feels like a frightening contrast to Gai, laying silent and still on the hospital bed in front of them. Zabuza's thumbs dig into the tender flesh of his shoulders, and Kakashi forces himself to let go of Gai's hand with a sharp inhale.
"Yeah," he says. "I get it. Give us our kisses goodbye, I'll walk you to the gate."
"Alright," Zabuza steps around the chair as he stands, brushing his hand over Gai's forehead like there's hair to be brushed, and rests his lips against his brow tenderly. He stays bent over there for a long, long moment, long enough for Kakashi to start counting the knobs of his spine. Zabuza reaches for the hand that Kakashi had released, carefully presses the back of it to his cheek, and Kakashi focuses then on counting the scars on his back, feeling like the worst kind of voyeur.
He stares at the scars and pretends he can't hear Zabuza whispering to Gai like the man can hear him, the plea for his health, for him to look after Kakashi, the promise to make him proud.
The doctor had just told them a day ago that he was likely to pull through, but they wouldn't know how intact his mind was or what his body might be capable of until he woke. If he ever woke. He'd spent twenty fucking years making promises like this to a grave stone, and look at all that got him.
Kakashi turns away, steps toward the table against the wall and fusses with some of the cards, the ribbons on the vases full of pretty flowers that will die long before Gai makes it out of this room, shuffles a few papers he'd asked Shikamaru to bring over from his office, and recognizes distantly that he doesn't like himself very much, and that he is very small, and very cruel. He's cruel to himself, and he's cruel to the people he loves.
He licks his teeth, bites the inside of his cheek, and wills his hands not to shake. He does not listen to the sweet, sad things that Zabuza whispers to Gai. Still he hears when the other man straightens, shifts, and reaches out for him. He turns as he does, slipping close to him as Zabuza wraps his arms around his waist in a loose embrace. Kakashi's hands trace up his ribs, over his pecs, thumbs catching on the rings in his nipples- Zabuza's breath catches, and his gaze flickers toward Gai on the bed, but he says nothing. Kakashi's hands settle on his cheeks, bare already, the bandages gathered at his throat. He thinks Zabuza's eyes are a little red rimmed.
"And you," Zabuza murmurs, still under Kakashi's hands.
"Me," Kakashi agrees tiredly.
"You'll be pissed if I remind you to take care of yourself," Zabuza must read the fission of irritation that runs through him, because he laughs, pulling a hand from his waist to tug his mask down around his chin and then pressing his lips to Kakashi's. Saliva stings on skin that's sensitive from being chapped and bitten, but the feeling grounds him, and Kakashi's hand slip from his cheeks to tangle in the hair at the back of his head. The kiss is slow, languid, shifting slowly from chaste to filthy as Kakashi tries to put the thrashing animal in his chest in a stranglehold.
He starts when his ass hits the edge of the table- he didn't even realize he'd been backing up, like he was fleeing, like he was seeking something solid behind his back so Zabuza could better crush himself into him like he's trying to get under his skin. Zabuza chases him, like he always does. The table bows, and he draws away from the kiss with a choked, gulping kind of laugh. Nothing is funny. His gaze slips to Gai, and Zabuza's follows, guilt twisting in his lips.
"Hey," he calls softly, shifting away from the table and drawing Zabuza closer as he settles his back against the door. "Please, can you-"
"Yeah," Zabuza replies, even though Kakashi isn't really sure what he's even asking for. He crowds him, his hands slipping up under Kakashi's shirt to rest against the tender skin of his waist. The stitches in his chest twinge as he presses close to him, but Kakashi chases the sensation, wrapping his arms around his shoulders and dragging him into another searing kiss. His thigh shifts, and he hooks his leg around Zabuza's, pressing their calves together and rubbing himself against his thigh. Zabuza moans, a quiet thing, and pulls away to blink at him. Turns his head to look at Gai, and then back to Kakashi. "Do you want to go back to-"
"No," Kakashi replies flatly. He doesn't want to go back to the apartment. It's empty, because it's a hasty construction they've been staying in since the village was destroyed. It's cold, and now almost devoid of Zabuza's things, and he'd just have to come right back here after and- "But I want, um-" Zabuza starts to fall to his knees but Kakashi's grip on his hair keeps him standing. "No, stop, I want-"
Zabuza's brow pinches, but he squeezes his waist, and Kakashi shivers. "What do you want, baby," he asks, voice low. Strong, like he intends to give whatever it is Kakashi asks of him.
I want you to stay.
I want him to wake up.
I want to hide and never come out.
I want the world from both of you.
I want you to stay.
Asking for something not within his power to give would ruin their little game, this taut string of promise between them, where they can pretend they will do anything the other asks of them.
Kakashi swallows a whine, draws his face close again and kisses him with his mouth open, tongue and teeth forward. His hips roll against Zabuza's thigh, and he can feel the other man's cock stiffening. The low groan in Zabuza's throat makes his cheeks heat, and the feel of his hand slipping down his back, beneath his waistband, squeezing his ass makes him gasp into his mouth.
"Well?" Zabuza asks, slipping his other hand up to thumb over his nipple, his shirt riding up where it catches on his wrist. Kakashi shudders at the rush of cool air and the feel of his hot hand brushing tender skin. "Are you going to use your words?"
"Shut up," he snaps at him, teeth dangerously close to his cheek.
A bark of laughter muffled into the hollow of Kakashi's throat, a nip of his teeth enough to make the thin skin smart, and a question: "Is that what you want?"
"I w-want you to," Kakashi's hands slide from his hair down to his shoulders, down his chest, curling in the front of his waistband. Zabuza's sharp inhale encourages him to finish: "I want you to fuck me," he lifts his left hand to his mouth and licks his palm, and then fumbles a little to stick it down Zabuza's pants to take him in hand. "I- I wanna be able to feel you for days."
He feels Zabuza's dick twitch in his grip. "Oh, is that all?" He asks, because he's a bastard.
Kakashi bares his teeth at him, but he just raises a brow, unfazed, his hips slowly starting to thrust into Kakashi's hand. His grip is probably a little tight, his hand a little too dry, but Zabuza hisses like it's exactly what he needs. His face heats further, the flush creeping out over his ears and down his throat, and falteringly he says, "I- I want something to. Remember you by. I want to feel something-" That's not very sexy, is it. He tries to switch tracks, but his mind is empty of anything except for the solid heat of Zabuza's body pressing him against the door, the sound of the machines behind him keeping Gai alive, the glimpse of the top of his head he can see over his shoulder. All he knows is that there is something ravenous inside of him that is used to being fed, and it has grown fat and happy and insatiable, and he needs some ache to press on in the coming days that will remind him that he is still alive-
"Kakashi," he calls softly, pressing his nose to the hollow of his throat again and sighing. "It's okay. I've got you. I get it."
Do you?
He doesn't ask.
Zabuza keeps his face tucked against Kakashi's throat while he fumbles with his belt, opening his pants all the way and shoving them down his thighs. He's still a little soft, and Kakashi wonders what part of this situation is least sexy to him, but he doesn't ask. Zabuza's hands shuck his shirt up around his armpits, then off over his head, then trail down his chest to shove his pants down to mid thigh, just enough to-
And then he bites him.
Zabuza sinks his teeth into the meat where his neck meets his shoulder with enough ferocity to make Kakashi thrash between him and the door, which rattles in the frame behind him. Zabuza releases him and laves the flat of his tongue over the marks his teeth have left, angry red on pale skin. They're still for a moment, waiting to hear if any footsteps approach the door at the noise, but the hallway remains empty. The only think Kakashi can hear is the sound of the machines in the room with them, his own racing heart, Zabuza's ragged breaths.
Kakashi tips his face towards him and Zabuza kisses him again, his fingers sliding between Kakashi's thighs and pressing up and into him- he's mostly dry, and they haven't really had sex since the war kicked off. The sharp ache of penetration makes him hiss, but he grips Zabuza's wrist when he starts to pull away and grinds down on his fingers. "Don't stop-" he hisses, and Zabuza presses his forearm to his throat and pins him to the door like that, shushes him. Kakashi squirms, and then stills, lightheaded.
"Shh," Zabuza murmurs in his ear, lifting the hand that had just been between his legs and slipping three fingers into his mouth, pressing down on his tongue and sliding down toward the back of his throat. He doesn't clamp his teeth around the digits, and Zabuza slowly starts to thrust his fingers until he gags, until his eyes start to water, until his fingers are soaked with saliva. Kakashi's gaze is locked on his face, watching his serious expression twitch with every quiet gag, every soft sigh he pulls out of Kakashi. He draws his hand away and slips two fingers back into him, and Kakashi's hips twitch.
"Zabuza," his voice already sounds wrecked, and he can see Zabuza's face shift into something a little more smug. "Come on, I want you to fuck me, I-"
"I'm going to fuck you," Zabuza presses an open mouthed kiss to his jaw, dropping his arm from his throat to hitch Kakashi's thigh around his waist. His palm grinds against his clit, and Kakashi drags him closer, hips flush, his hand pressed between them and his cock resting at full mast against the tender skin of his lower belly. Zabuza laughs, tells him to relax, pulls his fingers out of him and takes himself in hand, rubbing the head over his clit and making them both hiss. "So impatient-"
"If a nurse walks in we're going to fall on top of-" Kakashi's grumble is cut off when Zabuza feeds his cock into him. He hisses, because saliva doesn't exactly make the world's greatest lube, but the friction and the stretch are enough sensation to make him think he might actually be feeling this for days. His hands clutch at Zabuza's shoulders, his jaw, his upper arms, his chest, and Zabuza is careful to keep his thrusts shallow to start out, no matter how much Kakashi tries to pull him close and drag the full length of him inside.
"Would you like that?" Zabuza asks, hands clenched so hard around his hips that he hopes he'll bruise around it- that'll make getting the stitches in his chest pulled pretty fucking awkward, but he's done it himself before.
"Wh- what?" He asks, half-focused on trying to figure out how to get Zabuza to sink into him to the hilt, half-focused on the thought of pulling out his own stitches in a few days. The door is cold at his back, flimsy. There should be another warm body there, holding him up, murmuring into his ear on his blind side and-
"If the nurse came in and caught us," Zabuza snickers, because he already knows the answer.
"Not particularly," Kakashi drawls.
"Ah, better make this quick then," he hikes Kakashi's other leg up around his hips, and groans when Kakashi uses that leverage to drag him close. Both of them hiss at the friction, and Kakashi rolls his hips, chasing the intensity of sensation.
"I can't believe you don't have lube," he says, instead of something sexy, or something romantic, and he receives a bite to his collarbone for his trouble that tells him Zabuza wasn't exactly thinking they would fuck in the hospital, let alone in Gai's room.
Kakashi drags Zabuza off his collarbone by the hair and drags him into a toothy kiss so he can draw his eyes away from the still form at Zabuza's back. They grind against each other, Zabuza's hands roaming his chest, careful to avoid the stitches, Kakashi raking his nails along his sides like he can pull him closer, until he loosens up and the friction lessens enough for Zabuza to thrust into him.
The pace quickens, and Kakashi's head falls back against the door. He stares at the ceiling instead of at the rest of the room, and then he closes his eyes. Zabuza's teeth sink into his throat at the invitation, and the jolt tears an unexpected, painful orgasm out of him. He doesn't make a sound except for a small wheeze, and Zabuza's hips stutter at the way his body tenses up.
"Keep going," Kakashi snarls at him, hips twitching away from the sensation even as he tries to fuck himself back onto him. "Come on, Zabuza. Don't you want to finish inside me? I want you to, I want to walk you to the gate, sticky with it, I want- I want-"
He bites his tongue so hard that it bleeds to keep himself from telling him he wants him to stay, that he would do anything to make him stay.
Zabuza's fingers trail down to his clit, trace the tender skin where he's stretched around his cock, and Kakashi squirms and gasps at the overstimulation. He groans into Kakashi's neck, his thrusts growing sloppy as he nears his own end. The sudden gush of warm-wet, Zabuza's trembling thighs, the soft sigh all tell him he finally came, and Kakashi feels his toes curl through another orgasm as Zabuza fucks him with his softening cock, like he's trying to milk every last drop into him.
"Oh no, Mister Mizukage," Kakashi drawls. "I'm not on birth control and we didn't use protection. Will you take responsibility?"
Zabuza's cock twitches valiantly even as he huffs out a breathless laugh, but through some mutually and silently agreed upon pact, they untangle themselves from the other. Kakashi leans back against the door with his palms pressed flat to it, and can't help but think that he should be leaning against a muscled chest and feeling up Gai's hard, powerful thighs, asking if he wants him to blow him, or directing him through fucking Zabuza, or-
But he's laying on the bed, still. Kakashi counts two machine breaths before Zabuza returns to his side, kissing him softly, wiping him with a tissue, rolling his shirt back down and sliding his pants back up his thighs. He leaves them unbuttoned, they kiss lazily for a while.
Kakashi sighs and murmurs "We'll miss you," against his lips.
"I know," Zabuza pulls away from him just to press their foreheads together, his arms wrapped around Kakashi's shoulders. "I'll miss you both too."
Neither of them apologize to the other. What would be the point?
"You're late to the gates," Kakashi informs him after a few minutes of resisting the urge to try and crawl inside of his ribs, carried in his chest like an extra lobe in his lungs. "And you look like you got mauled by a bear."
"Nah," Zabuza tugs on his hair. "More like a wolf- and besides, I'm not ashamed."
That's good, Kakashi thinks he's ashamed enough for both of them. "I'll walk you to the-"
Zabuza shakes his head, cuts him off: "You can stay here. I know it's..." As one, their gaze slides back to Gai. Kakashi can't make him look at him too long. His eye shifts, locks on the light filtering in through the curtains, the pattern they make on the floor. Zabuza is brave enough to keep looking. To take him in, the mechanical rise and fall of his chest. "I'll see you soon. Both of you," he switches tracks, cupping Kakashi's cheek and waiting for him to look at him. "I love you."
"... I loveyou too."
I saw you standing near the water / And wondered how long I'd be paying for one dumb mistake. / The sight of you was really something else. / But I don't know what that something else was.
i cant remember if ive posted this link but shou and noah and i are workin on a little ao3 series that basically has all the kkgz stuff centralized. and set in order if you want to try to comprehend the timeline. here
