He watches Kakashi from behind wire-rimmed glasses, a book in his hand, splayed open to the page he's been pretending to read whenever Kakashi catches him. It's childish, this game of stolen glances, but some of it is residual disbelief: coming to terms with Kakashi being home, where he belongs. A moment, and then another before he reaches out, his fingers skimming the other man's arm, pushing into Kakashi's calloused palm. Minato leans over, his head against Kakashi's shoulder, and exhales.
Kakashi finishes his page, but does not turn it. The weight against his shoulder begs silently for attention, and he tilts his face just a little, letting go of his book to bring his hand up.
As he exhales, the tips of his fingers skim over Minatoās hair.
Minato stands rooted to the spot, oscillating between anger and sorrow.
There is a part of him that will always crumble into ash when Kakashi is near, as ridiculous as it seems, another part of him that loathes himself for falling so easily. For allowing Kakashi to break him like this. But he is shattered, and the shards of his heartbreak cut at every part of him, drawing poison.
He swallows, emotion a rock in his throat that chokes him.Ā
Fast, faster than heād intended, heās across the room, his fingers knotted in Kakashiās stupid vest, shaking him lightly. His cheeks burn, his eyes sting, and he knows he must look wild like this, feral.Ā
āStop it,ā he growls, teeth bared. This close, he can smell Kakashi, the loam of the forest clinging to his skin, the sweat and fading smoke of somewhere heās been. It sloughs at Minatoās anger, wears it down to a smooth stone instead of an avalanche. āYou donāt have to say it, justā¦just stay.āĀ
Fingers tremulous as they curl over the edge of Kakashiās mask, Minato pulls it down, sucks in a breath wet with fear, and presses his lips to Kakashiās.Ā
āJust stay,ā he whispers again, lips brushing over Kakashiās when he speaks.
Itās all a little too much ā too much fury in those eyes, too much forgiveness in his voice, too much gentleness in the touch of their lips.
Just stay.Ā
As if itās that easy. As if itās so laughably simple.Ā
Staying is hard. Staying entails not running, and it means handing Minato a terrifying amount of power. He could destroy Kakashi with a few choice words, a single act.Ā
Kakashi doesnāt know if he can be left again, if there will be anything left of him after the loss of all the pieces of himself that the people in his life have carried off.Ā
He flattens his hands against Minatoās shoulders. He should open his eyes and see what a terrible idea this is. He should shove the other man away and walk out and never come back. He grips Minato by the fabric of his shirt and pulls him closer, wanting the weight of him to anchor him to reality, angling his head so that his nose jams into the other manās collarbone.
Itās the way he smells that undoes Kakashi, clean and soapy and warm. He cannot help but remember waking in the dark with only that scent keeping him from thinking he is all alone. Minute tremors ripple through his entire body.
Then, so quietly he can barely hear himself, he murmurs a confirmation, or perhaps a plea:Ā
Thereās no real reason for him to come back here, Minato thinks as his hand rests on the knob of the door to their old apartment. No true, valid excuse for the way he lifts his fingers, watching the ghosts of his prints evaporate, leaving the handle clean again. He could leave, could step away and fade back into the farce of a life heād created in Kakashiās absence, butā¦Ā
āRidiculous,ā he mutters to himself, shoving into the flat, stopping abruptly on the threshold, his stomach stone heavy. Nostalgia is like a suckerpunch, ripping away his breath, causing tears to spring to his eyes, hot and biting.Ā
Here, he sees Kakashi reaching for a cup of tea, there, the shape of his imprint on the cushions of the couch. Thereās a pockmark in the table from where Minato had thrown something at him once in the heat of the moment; he swears he can hear the sound of Kakashiās laughter, low and throaty as he dodges easily.Ā
Angrily, Minato swipes at his eyes with the heel of his hand, then wrings it, as though he can throw the sorrow to the floor to be crushed beneath his heel. A bitter laugh at the thought before he freezes, suddenly hyper aware that heās not alone.Ā
On cat-quiet feet he moves to their bedroom, freezing when silver catches his eye, the sounds of sorrow unmistakable. For once, he doesnāt melt into empathy, doesnāt find the vice-like chill about his chest thawing in the face of Kakashiās masochism. It constricts, makes it hard for him to breathe.Ā
āLiar,ā Minato says, and his voice sounds strange to his ear, foreign.Ā āYouāre a liar, Hatake Kakashi.ā
He jolts upright at that voice, its inflections as familiar as his own.Ā
Ironic, that his grief falls away so quickly at the appearance of the one he grieves for. The response is automatic, and he hoods his eyes from the scrutiny he can feel, though he dares not look.Ā
Kakashi has his mask on, but he has never felt more exposed.Ā
Itās hard, almost impossible, like reassembling a broken snowman, but he schools his expression into something he hopes is less agonised, less broken.
āEverybody lies,ā he says, because it is the kind of glib remark he has always hidden behind.Ā
He realises he has to explain his presence here, in Minatoās apartment. And it is Minatoās. It had always been. Kakashi had never allowed himself to think of it as theirs. Never.Ā
āI was ā I came to get my clothes. Sorry. Didnāt know you would be here.ā Measured. Quiet. As if Minato hadnāt just accused him of lying a month ago. Ofā¦ loving him.Ā
The thought is just as distressing as it had been that night, and every night since. Kakashi imagines that he is surrounded by thick, cloying fog and crosses his arms to keep his hands from worrying at the bedsheets.Ā
He frowns at his knees, half his attention on breathing evenly, the other half on Minato, the glimpse of flared nostrils heād seen earlier, the elevated heartbeat, the roughness of his anger. It is all he can do to keep the torrent at bay, keep himself from spilling apologies and confessions at the other manās feet.
Perhaps most powerful of all, however, is the idiotic, selfish urge to whisper donāt hate me into the crackling silence between them.
Funny, how three sentences could smash him into a million pieces. How Kakashiās voice (the voice that had whispered his name, had told him it would be alright when he did happen to dream, had been his comfort, his home, his...everything) sounded like shards of glass, grating against each other, shrieking and protesting the sharp, clicking edges. So unfamiliar.
Kakashi was leaving, oblivious to Minatoās trembling hand as he reached for him, grasping for the fading spectre of Kakashiās back through his tears. Ā Somewhere, someone was crying: broken, keening sounds that twisted upward, shattering against the ceiling.Ā
Gone. Kakashi was gone, and Minato couldnāt breathe, his chest ached in all of its fierce emptiness. And still, the weeping went on, filling the small apartment with the sounds of despair until he was left to realize that it was him who made those sounds, so forlorn and pathetic. Ā
Had he ever been so distraught?
Casting back through his memories, Minato was struck by the realization that he had not. Not even for his wife, whom he was told was the love of his life. Guilt stabbed at his gut, the noxious poison of his grief a perfect counterpoint.
Maybe Kakashi was acting selfishly, maybe he was purposefully destroying them to preserve himself somehow, but Minato did not deserve him. Not when he couldnāt even remember the woman heād pledged to love with his whole heart.Ā
Perhaps he had loved her, but this heart (the heart heād risen with) belonged to Kakashi.Ā
And it was broken.
A month passed.
Thirty days in which he saw Minato not at all, in which he slept (or failed to sleep) alone, in which he stacked brick after brick of ice into a wall more impenetrable than anything heād ever built.Ā
On the thirtieth day, he decided that he was fine.
He was fine with being less than a stranger to the man who had been his teacher, and then, impossibly, his ā his something. He was fine with the edges of frost that framed his mind, because they kept him sharp and focussed and cold.Ā
He was not fine, however, with only two changes of clothes.Ā
So he returned toā¦ the flat, because he had somehow heard ā through no effort of his own ā about Minato moving. He would get his things, then he would leave.Ā
It was simple enough. Yet, when he moved to leave the bedroom with an armful of clothes, a weak gleam at the periphery of his vision made him turn.Ā
Hair. Two strands of it, fine as gold in the light of the sun, on the pillow.Ā
Distantly, Kakashi saw himself sit, or rather collapse, onto the bed, and watched as disturbed fibres and dust danced in the sunlit air. Then he hunched in, not into his normal, affected slouch, but folded by a wave of indefinable force.Ā
What buffeted him was something sharper and heavier than the bruise of self-recrimination that usually darkened his chest, or the ache that lived in his right eye socket. Something like grief, the kind of grief that heād only ever allowed himself to feel for the dead, but far more bitter, because this time, he hadnāt just stood by and watched as someone he cared for was torn away from him. Heād done the tearing himself, scrabbled at what little happiness (funny how naturally the word came to him now, now that he no longer had a chance at having even a sliver of it) theyād weaved until his fingers bled and he was empty of anything good.Ā
He drowned in it, choked in exquisite breathlessness, because there was nothing else he could do except let the water slip between his fingers, nothing that could save him from himself. His nose burned with the scent of salt.Ā
He loved (wanted needed) Minato, and he had run away and hurt him and driven him away, and now he was alone.Ā
No. No, no, no, no. Ā He couldnāt be without Kakashi, he couldnāt.Ā
The room seemed to pitch and sway, as if the floor had broken, as if a sea rolled out between them, trapping each of them on an island, unable to cross to the other. Worse, Kakashi was saying he didnāt want to be with Minato.
His eyes stung, and he shook his head. Kept shaking his head, as if the vehemence of his denial would somehow erase all of this.
"No. No, Kakashi, donāt say that." The please was unspoken, yet louder than anything else Minato had said thus far. āDonāt say that, Kakashi, you donāt mean it.ā
Because he had felt Kakashi, he had touched him and pressed his mouth to Kakashiās skin when the man had trembled, when heād fought his desires and crumbled to them. He had seen Kakashi fall into domesticity with the ease of one prepared for it, so heā¦he could not mean that.
A war raged within his mind, almost comforting to him in its violence. Old, rooted instincts raged against new habits, fresh sentiments. His young self snarled at the way, even now, he wanted to just close the distance between them and clasp Minatoās hands and bury his face into his neck. Disgraceful, it thought him, as well as naively masochistic. Didnāt he know that love is a fairytale, and, in fairytales, monsters like him are slain, not adored?Ā
Didnāt he know that, when a wolf gets caught in a trap, he ought to gnaw off his own paw rather than stay and be shot? Ā
āI do,ā he said, the words as quiet as raindrops, tasting blood and fur on his tongue, his every nerve afire.Ā
āI know what I want.ā And it is too unsustainable, too unfair, too risky. I want this ā you ā too much.
If he shook, and if his heart fluttered like a wounded butterfly, then he didnāt (allow himself to) notice.Ā
āIām sorry.āĀ
Kakashi spoke like he was apologising to the dead, stood in front of their gravestones and confessing his sins. In a way, he was, because his cowardice had caused yet more pain to those he cared for, and he was still the worst man he had ever known.Ā
Then, he walked away, familiar winter settling like a shroud over him ā after all, the dead donāt talk back.Ā
term's over, so i'm going to try and do things on tumblr again. drop me a line if you'd like to plot? even drabble prompts might be nice and help me find my motivation back.
first priority, of course, will be the things and replies that i've owed people for far too long.
When Madara finally, finally gets his body back, he feels disappointment.
He had thought the ache to be the pain of constantly dying, lingering and lingering on the brink of death yet never quite tipping over. But even now, at the prime of his physical youth, the flare in his chest still sears.
It angers him, that a decades-old betrayal can affect him so, when itād been a betrayal that heād foreseen, even allowed. It enrages him that Hashirama still does not see the error of his ways.
He sets the hurt within him aflame, letting it fuel his fury.
(He feels alive. Fire cannot kill fire, and no one, he thinks, has ever blazed quite like this.)
Perhaps, if he burns and burns and burns (himself, the world, everything), he can finally, finally have peace.
The last five minutes of this life he hadnāt asked for, the remnants of a heart he hadnāt intended to give away again. The scraps of his pride, which heād long given up to a man who had been his student in an alternate time.Ā
Perhaps it had been selfish to imagine that he could be allowed to love again, that he, of all people, could have the very thing heād lost once more, somehow defying death and justice all in one fell blow. The arrogance that had possessed him to feel secure in such an idea appalled him, now that he could see it for what it was.
The promise Kakashi had made him not to run again cracked against the force of Minatoās confession, fissures connecting, spiderwebs forming on the fragile foundation. He watched to see if Kakashi would break that promise, if he would crush beneath the weight of what they were, what they could be.Ā
"Kakashiā¦" Ā
He hated the fractured sound of his voice, how hollow it rung in the cavernous space between them. Minato didnāt want to beg, but he knew that if Kakashi didnāt leave and soon, he would do just that.
He couldn't stay, either. Not like this. Not with the words, the promises, rancid and dangling between them like hung corpses.
Kakashi wanted to forget this had ever happened. He wanted to bury this like he'd buried his father and pretend he didn't care.
Words don't work like that, though.Ā
(Deep down, he's always been a coward, but he's never been as terrified as he is now, in the face of Minato's confession.)
"I don't thinkā"Ā He spoke as if discussing the weather, low and even, the numbness of dissociation still on his tongue. "āwe should do this anymore."
Ironic, that a part of him immediately wanted to take the words back.Ā
There's a bit of dried blood in his hair, but it's mostly at the back of his head. Otherwise, though, Kakashi looks fine for someone who's been on a long mission. A very long mission. Seeing Minato for the first time in a long while uncoils something in his chest, and, instead of addressing the Hokage (in full regalia, he notices offhandedly) as he ought to be addressed, he lets out the breath he'd been holding. He wants to stand up, but that's not proper. "Hi."
Minato is less formal, eschewing pomp in favor of his happiness that Kakashi is alive, that he is well. His eyes sting with tears that want to fall, but he refuses to sob like a baby in front of his guards.Ā
What he will do, though, is rush to Kakashi, throw his arms around the manās neck and cling, appearances be damned.
He doesn't know what he was expecting, but it wasn't...Ā this.
So he doesn't quite relax into the embrace, conscious of masked, knowing gazes and the floor-to-ceiling windows in the office. But he does blink and, surprise colouring his tone, murmur:Ā
this is probs very ~unpopular opinion~ but i've never found the fanon future occupations for sakura and ino especially appealing?
yes, sakura is probably a medical genius, but i think she'd feel cooped up as head of the hospital. it would, of course, be an important and relevant role. there'd be no chance for her to utilise her battle and considerable interpersonal skills, though. my fav future headcanons for her are as a jounin sensei or hokage. (something along that vein works as well, like head of the education department or being in charge of training field medics. she knows how important education is, as someone that the system pretty much failed, and i can see her pushing for better placement systems for genin teams or following in tsunade's footsteps and advocating for even more field medic training.)
lots of people seem to really like ino as the head of torture and interrogation. i can see the appeal, because it definitely fits her skillset and she's tough enough to do it, but i think it would actually be a taxing job for her? as in, day in, day out, she'd be putting on a harsh veneer or just some sort of mask for interrogations. seeing as that's already sort of how she operates now, i think it wouldn't be very healthy for her in the long term. i prefer her as the consultant they call in on difficult cases and being highly respected for her expertise in this area, but not running the show on a daily basis. other than that, i can see her doing most anything, really. working with orphans, research of all kinds, hitting everyone over the head because the idea that three clans should have kids at the same time is kinda dumb, cross-breeding species to produce gorgeous flowers or delicious fruit,Ā anything she wants.Ā
AU where Gai takes Team Seven and Kakashi takes his team because lbr Gai is an infinitely superior sensei and Hiruzen was trippin when he let Kakashi near children
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