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It's a fresh sunny morning. Kakashi is sitting in bed, leaning against the wall, Gai peacefully lying beside him, his arm over his lover's lap. The sun is passing through the windows, splashing the bed with light, and highlighting Gai's skin's warm undertones. Under the sun the scars of the 8th gate opening almost look like golden veins running through his body. This man truly is something. Everything he ever wanted, Kakashi thought.
In mornings like that, when Gai is still sleeping and Kakashi is able to just rest in bed with his husband's arms around his waist, retirement truly feels like a blessing. They have been together on the job quite a few times, but it never offered such peaceful moments of bliss.
Kakashi could get up and start his day. Gai sleeps quite a lot since his injury, and he already told Kakashi multiple times that he didn't have to stay with him until he woke up. Kakashi knows that, he just doesn't want to.
He's already lost so many people, so much time, how could he get his mind to choose anything else over the feeling of Gai's warm skin against his own?
Thoughtlessly running his hand on Gai's forearm, feeling every hair, every vein, every scar under his fingers, like the map to a place he knew by heart, he leans his head against the wall and lose himself in the moving pattern the sun was projecting on the ceiling when reflecting through Gai's pain medication bottle on the nightstand.
He has been in this position before, looking at the same patterns, in a much darker, much colder place.
"Hatake? Mmmh… let me see." The nurse turns around and starts to search for Kakashi's name on the big medication cabinet behind her. "Found it!"
She takes a paper bag out of one of the shelves and hands it over to Kakashi.
"The doctor gave you every information you needed about the treatment?" She asks nicely.
Kakashi nods quietly, takes the bag and turns around.
"Don't forget your follow-up appointment in two weeks!" She shouts as Kakashi is passing through the door, and then quietly, just for herself "Poor kid, I hate that they send so young shinobi to war."
The sun has set. Kakashi is laying down in his apartment, alone, as no one else has been living here for quite a while now. Everything is silent, except for the slight sound of the ceiling fan above him slowly turning in a never-ending motion. He lifts his arm above his head, playing with the reflection of the moon through the bottle he's holding.
Is he really about to do that? He sits down in a violent motion and smashes his fist against the floor. "Fuck." He clenches is finger against his thighs. "Fuck. Why did I tell Minato-sensei about this? I should have known he was going to try to help me. I don't want that. It's my fault. They're fucking dead because of me and I'm the one getting help?"
His eyes are tearing up in frustration. This is not fair. This doesn't make sense. Why are people still looking after him?
A shiver goes down his spine. It's coming back. The phantom sound of the Chidori. The phantom feeling of blood on his hand. "Kakashi" The phantom voice. "Kakashi" Rin's voice.
His whole body tenses in a losing battle against his mind. It's the same feeling. Again. And again. And again. The absolute and bottomless dread stacking up like blood clots until something explode inside of him. The flashbacks. The nightmares. The paralyzing terror.
If Gai wasn't following him the other day when he passed out during a mission… well maybe that would've been for the best. Friend-Killer Kakashi, killed by the memory of his friends. A fair return of fate.
But of course he survived. He always does. Surrounded by blood and corpse. But alive. Was he going to see every single person he had ever cared about dying before his eyes or will he eventually find peace in being de dying one, finally?
He looks at the bottle. "Kakashi, I want you to join the ANBU and work for me," Minato said earlier this week when Kakashi was in the hospital after his aborted mission. "But I can't order you to go back on the field if anything like that is going to happen again. I need you to tell me exactly what happened."
The both of them stayed silent for a while, Minato fixing Kakashi with his deep blue eyes, and Kakashi avoiding them completely. "I… I saw Rin." He finally said, still looking away. "You were trying to use your Chidori?" Kakashi nodded. Minato looked pensive for a while and finally said "I'm gonna ask the hospital to send someone for you about that. I need you back on the job, and I need you focused. Understood?" Feeling Minato eyes were still ostensibly fixing him, Kakashi finally looked back at him. "Yes."
He grabs the bottle, takes a pill and swallows it. After a few minutes, his breath starts coming back. His heart rate slows down. The wave is pulling out. For now. He needs to take a shower. Maybe the blood will wash out this time.
This was a short night of sleep but a surprisingly restful one. Kakashi didn't wake up in terror once. He wouldn't call his sleep peaceful either, but for him, that was already a huge improvement.
He had washed his face clean, trying not to look at his hands too much in case the blood was still there, taken his pill and gotten out to the training field.
Ox. Rabbit. Monkey. He feels his chakra flowing through his body to his hand. He pulls up his headband up, takes a quick look at the five straw mannequins in front of him and starts running.
One. Four to go.
"Kakashi"
He clenches his jaw.
Two.
Rin's face appears again.
He squints his eyes
Three. Four.
"I need you back on the job and I need you focused."
Five.
He stumbles, out of breath.
"I did it." He thinks. "Five hits with the Chidori. I did it!"
A slight smile grows on his face. The flashbacks are still here. But further away. Maybe he is going to be useful again, after all. Maybe he'll be able to kill again. The only thing he's ever been successful at.
Kakashi stretches his arms. He's been squatting in this tree for hours. It's only been a couple of days but so far the ANBU missions haven't been exactly epic. A sudden sound rings through the trees. He jumps, followed by the two other ANBU members of his team.
Iwa shinobi. Five. As the ANBU enters the lookout post the foreign shinobi retreat. Not on Kakashi's watch. He jumps through the window and follows them into the forest.
Five shinobi. He's done it before. If the voices are still far enough today… His mind is made up.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
The last shinobi is back against a tree with nowhere to go.
"Your eye…" He says. "I recognize you… you're Cold-Blooded Kakashi."
Five.
Blood is running down his hand. Real blood this time. His two teammates land behind him. He's not listening but their voices sound like accusations. He turns his head. They shut silent.
Yes. He is Cold-Blooded Kakashi. He is Friend-Killer Kakashi. He's not going to clean the blood anymore. What for? New blood will come, as it is his purpose. After all, shinobi are merely tools. If Minato wants him an assassin in the ANBU, then he will be.
"Oï, Kakashi!"
The air is still cold but it's a sunny day. The winter seems to be coming to an end. Kakashi stops to look behind his shoulder. It's Gai. He hasn't talked to that person in so long. Why would he? Gai is so full of life and passion. The exact opposite of Kakashi and, even if hasn't quite admitted it to himself yet, the exact things he's been hiding from.
"Up for a challenge, my dearest rival?"
Something twitches in Kakashi's gut. He doesn't like that. He can't put a word on what he's feeling, but he is feeling something, and that's already too much.
"No, I'm busy Gai, sorry."
Gai's face immediately gets painted in disappointment, as it does when he is feeling any kind of emotion. There might be something else, but Kakashi isn't sure what and he's not staying here to find out. He needs that feeling to stop as quickly as possible, or he might be forced to actually try to understand what it is, and that is not an option.
He starts walking away, thinking the sensation in his stomach will fade soon enough, but it doesn't. It's tenuous, like a slight white noise in the background, but it's undeniably there and there's no way to stop thinking about it. Or is it?
He finally arrives home and grabs his medication bottle. If the pills are enough to muffle Rin's death flashbacks, surely they can be enough to get over refusing Gai a challenge.
As expected, the sensation starts fading out after a few minutes. This is fine. This is manageable. Being alive is manageable, as long as you don't have to feel that you are.
Kakashi had recently been transferred to Kushina's protection. Having to be so close to life and witnessing the couple's joy on a daily basis sure was uncomfortable, but the routine settled. Pill after pill, day after day, the ghosts and feelings were kept at a reasonable distance. Nights were still painfully uncomfortable, but the nightmares were dulled, as were the gut twitches during the day.
He wasn't thinking anymore. He didn't have to. He was a shinobi, an ANBU shinobi with that. A tool. Feelings, sensations, thoughts… everything was muffled, but it was a reasonable price to pay for sleep at night and being able to serve the only person he was left with.
And then the routine broke.
And then everything broke.
The full-moon night.
The demon's screams.
The destruction.
The deaths.
The funerals.
Kakashi adjusts his black kimono. Something about being surrounded by so much sorrow makes him very aware of the distance he put between himself and everyone in his life, including himself.
Finally, the ceremony comes to an end. He starts walking home. The voices feel too close. His all body is itchy. He accelerates. Starts running.
When he arrives at his home he is completely out of breath. The flashbacks on the other hand are stronger than ever. He searches frantically through his drawers. "Fuck, where is it!" He screams. He is usually a very organised person, but right now, every cell of his brain is being eaten by the ghosts that caught up with him.
His fingers finally find the bottle. Takes one, two, three, ten pills. Whatever it takes, but this has to stop. There's no way he's letting the feelings come back.
After a few minutes, the voices start to get blurry again. He falls to his knees. Try to catch up his breath. This is better.
Somehow, tears are running down his cheeks. But it's ok. He merely feels them and the feeling behind them is far enough from his consciousness now. His body is feeling numb. His vision gets blurry. Is it the tears or the pills? His ears start ringing. Definitely the pills then.
Something doesn't feel right. Nausea starts building in his stomach. "Fuck." He grumbles, gritting his teeth. The whole point was to stop feeling anything, but the physical side effects are making him painfully aware of every inch of his sick body.
"Fuck!" He slaps his fists against the floor. The tears are turning into heaving sobs. As much as he would want all of it to stop, his body is now definitely winning the battle over him. He has numbed away everything for too long and truth is, some things just can't be contained.
He's losing his dad all over again. He failed the only person he had left and that trusted him. At this moment, he sure isn't Cold-Blooded Kakashi, but Friend-Killer Kakashi on the other hand feels more appropriate than ever.
A knocking sound draws him off his spiral for a second.
"Kakashi!"
Who the fuck is that?
He's unable to form a proper sentence, not to mention getting up to open the door. He groans.
"Kakashi, it's me, Gai! I figured you might need some company tonight. Most of us have our teammates to mourn with but yours…" "Fuck." He thinks to himself. "That was really the worst way to put it."
The door opens. Gai is still in his funeral garment instead of his notorious green jumpsuit. This makes him look unusually mature.
Kakashi is uncontrollably sobbing, sitting on the floor before a puddle of tears and bile. He on the other hand is looking like the hurt teenager that he isn't usually showing.
Gai grabs a blanket, puts it on Kakashi's shoulder and sits next to him in silence.
They stay like that for most of the night, Kakashi trying to form words through his tears and mostly failing miserably, Gai punctually putting his hand on Kakashi's back.
Most people wouldn't think of Gai as someone who is able to spend a night in silence to comfort a friend, but most people forget that Gai too knows what it's like to lose a father. His youthful and passionate attitude isn't a cover, it is his genuine personality, but it thrives from cherishing every bit of life because you know what it's like to hurt. While Kakashi is at the moment fully unable to verbalize such a complex thought, this realization is being carved in his heart every second of the night.
"Kakashi"
Kakashi shakes his head. Gai is laying down next to him. Adult Gai.
"Lost again?"
Kakashi nods.
It's been decades now and though the trauma won't probably ever be erased, this fact has long been accepted, both by Kakashi and Gai. Gai has become quite good at knowing when Kakashi is caught up in it, and how bad it is. Today… today isn't that bad.
"I was thinking…" He starts.
"Yes, my love?"
Kakashi smiles and his eyes get wet. He squeezes Gai's arm a little more.
"I was thinking how alive you make me feel, and how I used to hate that so much, and now I can't ever get tired of it."