Archive of Our Own ^beta

Sitting at the edge of the campfire, Maito Gai was a hulking force of half-visible muscle. After all these years, Iruka knew his friend perfectly well: Gai’s serious expression revealed he was in deep contemplation. Against the fire, the thick black hair of Gai’s mohawk shone, as did his dark eyes. When he finally spoke, Gai’s voice had an unusual tenor to it, curious and considering.

“Iruka, do you think what we do is evil?”

Iruka shrugged. He pulled his black coat tighter around his form and pushed down the dark cloth mask from covering his mouth. His scratched out Konoha hitai-ate hung down low on his chest behind his coat. He was still clad in the same cream-colored turtleneck and pants that he’d been wearing all week; his clothes reeked from smoke and sweat, and the blood of a dozen men was still splattered over them. As Iruka ran a gloved hand through his shoulder length hair, Gai’s gaze redirected from the fire to Iruka’s face.

“Do you think that?” Iruka answered dryly. Sitting back, Gai spread his muscular legs in front of him, his heels nearly in the fire. The broken strands of Gai’s dark mohawk swung backwards, showing more of his burnt right ear and conspicuously featuring the long divot of his facial scar on his left side. He had already removed the additional ornamental layers of his regular attire – mainly his tear-away forest green coat. He was down to his skin-tight near-black spandex, a visible indicator that he felt secure in the forest and, as always, around Iruka. Gai’s orange-colored leg weights still clung to his calves and forearms, but he moved carelessly as if they were nothing.

They were not as innocent as they appeared: Iruka had watched Gai fling those weights through men before. Literally through men. It had been impressive before it was disgusting; afterwards Gai strapped the bloodied weights back onto his body, not pausing to clean them before they were on the run once more.

Gai rested his body weight on his palms behind him, studying Iruka with the usual somber attitude that overtook the man at night. In the day, Maito Gai amused their little trio with his exuberance and fearlessness, but he frequently became reflective after sunset.

Iruka did not change at any hour of the day or night. He maintained a perpetual, persistent resolve. He was the rock of the three. He was the island that they swam to and rested on when the oceans turned blood-red, the waves deadly, and the skies full of storms.

His companion rose both thick eyebrows at him. “I would say the twenty-seven dead civilians today make for good evidence.” When Iruka returned his stare without responding, continuing his indifferent expression, Gai looked straight at him and added pointedly, “There were children among the dead, Iruka. I know you saw them.”

Iruka’s lowered mask had left him open to revealing emotion, and Gai accidentally gave a knowing smile when Iruka flinched at the proverbial blow. He felt fury fly through him almost instantaneously. Both Gai and Kakashi were leagues more powerful than him: they knew forbidden jutsus, they could open the Eight Gates, they assassinated Kages. But Iruka was the inflexible moral center to their rampages, even if his skills were unquestionably inferior.

Kakashi had once said it was his expressive eyes that kept he and Gai sane before he had rapidly changed his mind – “No, it’s your hands. No, your voice. No, how you choke me when you fuck me without killing me. Yeah, that one. Definitely that one.”

But both Gai and Kakashi knew Iruka had a foolish tiny speck of sentimentality still left in him, and it was one very narrow subject: children. Although he had lost his parents to the Nine-Tailed Beast during its first release, Iruka looked back on his own childhood rather differently now. He wouldn’t say it aloud, but Iruka had come to view his youth as pleasant and bright as sunlight. Even his chuunin trials were now a memory to be treasured. His three years teaching at the Academy had been a sincere and fulfilling joy –

Before everything had gone dark.

Before Konoha had been burned off the map and out of existence.

Glaring at Gai across the fire, Iruka remarked evenly, “Did they remind you of Rock Lee?”

The flames took on a life of their own within Maito Gai’s eyes. Killing intent flooded the area, seemingly sucking all the air out of the woods, leaving an endless choking void behind.

Iruka felt nothing, not a single drop of fear. If Gai wanted to kill him, he would do so quickly. Iruka observed with simmering irritation as Gai slowly stood, only reaching down to grab his tear-away coat off the ground. He kept the scarred side of his face towards Iruka, his mohawk shifted in the other direction. Gai kept eye contact the entire time, unwilling to let Iruka get away with the comment. After a few more beats, Iruka did feel something, distant and mild, and he flickered his gaze away from his friend, staring deep into the actual burning fires instead.

He knew Gai had left on patrol when Kakashi’s voice drifted through their temporary campsite.

“Now, why would you bring up his old student? You enjoy seeing him upset?”

Iruka bunched his shoulders, jerking his black coat even further over his frame. His other hand fingered the edge of a kunai underneath the layers of cloth, and he thought about slamming the point through one of his fingers to distract himself from his frustration.

Kakashi was suddenly standing over him. Iruka didn’t flinch at Kakashi’s abrupt appearance: he hadn’t in years and he wasn’t about to start again just because Gai had gotten under his skin. He knew he had provoked Gai, and on purpose, too. He could tell he had done the other man wrong, but there was no going back now.

Iruka glanced up as Kakashi crouched in front of him. The other man slid down his mostly-destroyed Konoha hitai-ate over his Sharingan and removed his black mask to expose his nose, cheeks, and mouth. He was smiling wide, twistedly amused at Iruka’s expense.

“C’mon, Iruka, you aren’t really bothered by what we did today, are you?” he asked, cocking his head far off to the side. Kakashi’s hand effortlessly moved through Iruka’s rigid coat and caught the hilt of the kunai that Iruka was pointing into his skin, forcibly taking it from him. “I saw you kill at least three men. You didn’t even blink.” Kakashi’s other hand reached into his coat and prodded the dried spray of blood across Iruka’s cloth-covered collarbone. “You’re still wearing their suffering.”

Iruka shrugged Kakashi’s hands away. “No, it’s not like that.” He would have preferred to stare at the roiling flames but Kakashi’s body completely blocked the fire. His silhouette was strangely beautiful: his grey-silver hair had grown wild, looking like how it did in the old days, ever since he had Gai chop it all off during the summer. His roguish, thin body stood out under his massive black cloak.

The years had been exceedingly kind to Kakashi, whereas time had utterly betrayed Iruka and Gai, scarring and aging them at an unreasonably fast pace. In contrast, Kakashi had only grown sharper: his face had become more angular as he subsisted on less, and he showed his smile frequently, presenting the vision a handsome, devilish man who knew absolutely no limits. He had lost a shocking amount of weight, but some horrific strength had risen in proportion, as if his bones and muscles had been inordinately hampered by fat.

His body had dozens of new scars, but almost all of them were hidden underneath his black attire, a stolen slate-grey Mist ANBU flak-jacket, and his self-sewn cloak, internally decorated with pockets for explosive tags, kunai, and shuriken. Iruka had seen all of Kakashi’s new scars. He had watched Kakashi receive most of them, he had healed and tended to them, and he kissed each of them, over and over and over again.

Kakashi pocketed the kunai before he grabbed Iruka’s face, firmly, far too firmly. But soon he was asking casually, lightly, “So then, what’s up?” He was clearly considering whether or not he could kiss Iruka, which was their typical pattern when he returned from patrol.

But then again, Iruka also usually kissed Gai before he left on patrol, so things were not going well tonight.

Staring straight at Kakashi, Iruka answered without inflection, “It’s the ninth anniversary of Konoha being destroyed.”

Kakashi’s hold on Iruka’s chin tightened furiously before he noticed what he was doing and dropped away from Iruka entirely. His single black eye fixed on Iruka as rage visibly rippled over his emaciated but muscular form. He stood suddenly, more quickly than Iruka could follow. He seemed unable to speak for several seconds, before he, too, was glowering at the fire.

“The Nine-Tails being unleashed,” Kakashi muttered, almost inaudible.

Iruka rarely willingly covered his eyes anymore – they had too many enemies to drop his guard in such a stupid way – but he badly wanted to bury his face in his arms. He knew that Kakashi would hear him as he whispered so softly that he was practically soundless, “Naruto dying.”

Kakashi slowly turned to look at him. His single eye studied Iruka for a long moment.

He declared, tone flat and fatal, “You owe Gai an apology.”

Iruka did cover his face, then, as he restrained a displeased groan from escaping his throat. He shifted uncomfortably against the oak tree, trying to recede into his black coat. “Yes,” he sighed. “You’re right. I just wanted him –”

“To hurt like you,” Kakashi finished, at once helpful and horrible. His voice came out closer to Iruka; he must have decided to sit down beside him. He purposefully rested his shoulder against Iruka’s, pressing their bodies together, but he made no other move to comfort him. Instead, a long stretch of time passed in profound silence except for the erratic crackle of the campfire.

Eventually Iruka lifted his head from his arms and chanced a sideways glance at Kakashi. The red-and-black Sharingan was on the distant side under his friend’s ruined hitai-ate. Kakashi’s black eye slanted towards Iruka. “Yes?” he murmured.

“Do you think we could have done something different?” Iruka asked quietly. He knew his thoughts on the matter, but he and Kakashi hadn’t discussed it before, at least not in years. He rested his head on his arm, his long brown hair cascading over his black coat, as he studied his friend contemplating his question.

Kakashi didn’t turn to look at him. Instead, he moved his gaze upward, surveying the stars. He replied simply, slowly, “There were too few survivors from Konoha. And you know what happened to the others.” His voice audibly dropped with each word spoken. Kakashi paused before he leaned further into Iruka, forcing him to take some of his weight. His voice remained as level as always, but his words were surprisingly tender. “My only comfort is that we still have each other.”

Iruka watched Kakashi, becoming increasingly more alert. He pulled on the other man’s elbow, trying to redirect his attention back towards him. When Kakashi finally looked his way, Iruka knew his instinct was correct: his companion’s visible eye had grown misty with veiled emotion.

Iruka drew him closer, tilting his head as he did so. Their lips met in gentle reassurance. Kakashi was initially hesitant, as he often was, but Iruka guided the kiss to go deeper and grow in passion. Soon Iruka was atop Kakashi, straddling him, pressing Kakashi against the oak tree. He had to force his stiff coat aside to let Kakashi easily reach inside, but Kakashi’s outfit was effortlessly undone. Iruka adjusted Kakashi’s hands from frantically roaming Iruka’s blood-stained shirt to hold onto his shoulders, before he gripped Kakashi’s growing erection through his pants. At the sudden intimate pressure, the other man moaned carelessly, immediately slotting his face in Iruka’s neck and wrapping his arms around him.

Iruka could feel the metal of Kakashi’s half-destroyed Konoha hitai-ate grind against his shoulder. It was cold and haunting, a visceral trauma rubbing into his skin, but Iruka wasn’t about to be scared away from giving attention to the other man. Kakashi was breathing unstably, smothering gasps of pleasure into Iruka’s skin. With years of experience directing his hands, Iruka had no difficulty getting Kakashi’s pants down low enough to grab his bare cock and stroke him in deliberate, familiar movements. He could barely hear himself as he repeated low loving phrases to Kakashi, but he knew them all by heart anyway.

Some were perfectly clear – “I love you, I love being with you, I’ll love you no matter what.”

Others had emerged organically through terrible shared events from their life – “You did the right thing, both of your eyes are beautiful, I miss you so much when you’re not with me.”

Today, Kakashi only shuddered through his climax when Iruka kissed his jawline and declared quietly but insistently, “I want to be with you forever, I can’t imagine being anywhere else.”

He held onto Iruka so roughly, so terribly, that Iruka could barely keep his voice steady and controlled, but he did, because he had done so countless times with Kakashi, and pain mattered very little to him anymore. More than half of his sexual experiences with Kakashi and Gai ended up with bruises and torn muscles, but he’d grown to appreciate the anguish, expect it even.

As Kakashi clung limply onto him, Iruka pressed a gentle kiss into Kakashi’s hair and started to brush out the tangles that the other man had gotten from the day’s patrol. Iruka enjoyed the familiarity of their ritual; he could almost predict the moment when Kakashi started to relax even more underneath him, his legs uncurling and his arms dropping to his sides.

Soon, Iruka was stepping away from his old friend, bringing over their best blanket and covering Kakashi carefully. Drifting into slumber, Kakashi slowly slipped down from leaning against the oak tree and tucked into a lazy but rather small circle on the ground. He had gone silent since Iruka had started kissing him, a normal feature of their intimate interactions, but Iruka still continued to say soft comforting things, even as he moved away and started to look for any signs of Gai out in the woods.

He ultimately decided to go out into the wilderness and let Gai find him.

Iruka eventually discovered a truly oversized branch on an ancient oak tree and sat against the trunk, looking at the moon with singular focus. As he settled in to wait, he rebuttoned his rigid black coat and drew up his mask, settling back into his regular disguise.

His dead Konoha hitai-ate rested inside his coat over his sternum, as it had for the last several years. Those first few years, Iruka had kept the band of cloth and metal where he’d always placed it: on his forehead. He had wanted it there, so enemies were forced to remember Konoha, and that the village still existed in some way with Iruka and the other survivors still alive. After hunting down other shinobi, he would stare endlessly at the dried blood of their enemies sunk into the curves of the leaf mark… but there were so few Mist nin left anymore.

On the seventh anniversary, Iruka had begun religiously cleaning his hitai-ate, obsessively removing dirt and fluids from its surface, erupting into fury when the scratch-marks prevented the metal from returning to how it used to look. Around the same time, he started keeping it away from the prying eyes of those that hunted them.

Iruka’s hitai-ate was his, and his alone. It was not for strangers to see.

He wasn’t sure where Gai kept his, or if he even had it anymore.

In contrast, Kakashi had never changed the location his hitai-ate. Iruka had once watched Kakashi smash a man’s nose into explosive bloody bits by wielding the metal of his hitai-ate in particularly intense close combat. Later that night, Kakashi had run his fingers across the scratched Konoha symbol for hours – until Iruka carefully placed it back over Kakashi’s head, kissing his Sharingan shut once more.

Iruka’s shoulders and back radiated hurt from where Kakashi had held onto him, but the new ache made him feel alive when he felt so thoroughly dead in so many other ways.

Several hours later, Gai crashed into him.

Iruka’s breath was knocked right out of his lungs, and his hands senselessly grabbed at Gai’s spandex-clad chest as he tried not to lose consciousness. The other man pressed against him with all his weight and additional deliberate force, shoving Iruka against both the branch and trunk of the tree. A few semi-panicked seconds later, Iruka realized the suffocating feeling was also Gai’s unrelenting killing intent, rolling over Iruka in steady rhythmic waves.

He finally gave a gasping heave against Gai’s shoulder, and the man’s unbridled murderous chakra receded in response. Iruka clutched at Gai’s spandex-covered chest, trying to secure himself, but Gai’s thunderous voice poured through him, intensely startling him.

“Do not ever mention Lee again.”

Iruka wanted to recoil into the very wood he was being forced against. But, even though he demanded courage from himself, he found himself pressing his face down on Gai’s collarbone, tears instantly springing to his eyes. He blurted out in a frantic rush, “I’m so sorry, Gai. I never should have said anything.”

Above him, all around him, Gai emanated warmth and composure, but Iruka could feel the man’s lips hesitantly brush against his ear several times, although he did nothing more. After giving a wild shaky sigh, Iruka pressed up against Gai, desperately holding onto him.

“Gai, please, I just –”

“Kakashi didn’t remember the anniversary.”

Iruka went still against his friend and then suddenly started to cry.

Faced with such a poor reaction, Gai finally moved, forcing his arms behind Iruka and pressing him into an overly tight embrace. He adjusted so he was kneeling on one leg, and his immense tear-away coat surrounded them both.

Barely able to concentrate, Iruka tore at his mask, forcing it downwards. As tears ran down his cheeks, Iruka realized he was ranting into Gai’s chest, at first fragile but then increasingly infuriated: “I was there, I saw it. I saw him die. I saw the Nine-Tails emerge from him. I saw the Mist, everywhere, saw how they killed everyone – every single person – the Hokage! They even killed the –” Iruka struggled with the word, but his heart surged, ugly and strangled, and he finally hissed it aloud: “They killed the children.”

His nails dug through Gai’s spandex into the thick muscles of Gai’s chest and thought about biting down on the other man’s shoulder but instead he demanded indignantly, voice strung out with madness: “What else were we supposed to do but kill the Mizukage? And destroy Kirigakure? And kill every Mist left?”

Having pushed himself too hard, the throbbing pain from Kakashi’s earlier grip suddenly lashed through his muscles, and he forced himself not to convulse in his friend’s arms. Gai held him regardless, a profoundly over-muscled giant in comparison to Iruka, all strong limbs and ceaseless stamina. He let Iruka cry it out over a few lingering minutes, before Iruka meticulously composed himself and tried to get a better look at the other man’s expression.

He felt the slimy sensation of worry sneak up his torso and tear into his heart. His mohawk gone messy and awry, Gai’s facial features were dark, even in the pale moonlight. The undisguised deep scar from his left eye through the shaved side of his head screamed past violence.

Gai spoke in his usual boisterous daytime tone, but his voice was a fierce, soul-stealing whisper: “I do not regret defending Konoha, even with it gone.” Iruka tried to lock eyes with him, but Gai was staring over his head, through the forest and back through time. He gently dropped Iruka from his embrace and turned his hands onto the branch, which audibly cracked as Gai’s fingers crunched deep into the ancient wood. He unreservedly admitted into the darkness: “No, I regret I could not save my students.”

Before Iruka could interrupt him or even reach for him, Gai’s gaze snapped to Iruka’s, and he proclaimed with the roar of mighty animal restrained by a rusting prison cage, “I do not care if what we are doing is evil. What was done to us was evil. We must always defend Konoha.”

Gai’s expression shifted, and Iruka saw the vaguest, faintest version of Maito Gai from nine years ago, for just a second. A flash of wild joy, a sparkle of pride, before Gai’s night-time sobriety utterly oppressed him once again. He concluded stiffly, “Everything good in me died with Konoha.”

Iruka was mumbling, “No, Gai, no,” as he brought his arms around the other man’s neck, silently asking him to cover his body again. Gai wordlessly submitted, pressing fully against Iruka, their chests and groins coming into contact. He was such a heavy, formidable man that Iruka often had trouble rationally understanding that he could have an impact on Gai, but he had done it enough, he knew he could, even now on the ninth anniversary.

He reached down into the neck of Gai’s spandex, running his gloved hands over the bulging bare muscles of Gai’s back. Using new leverage, Iruka pulled him closer while breathing into his good ear, “You’ve done so much for me and Kakashi. You’re the best of us. You have to know that.” He pressed his hips upwards against Gai, causing the other man to groan very quietly. Iruka kissed his temple, softly, and he saw Gai tightly close his eyes. He whispered, meaning it truly, “You keep us alive.”

Gai shook his head so slightly it was nearly imperceptible, but Iruka caught it anyway. The larger man’s right hand moved from behind Iruka and then fell perfectly onto Iruka’s hitai-ate hidden far beneath his coat. Underneath him, Iruka stiffened all over, which only worsened as Gai said, voice potent and direct, “None of us could have saved them, Iruka.”

Iruka refused to drop away from Gai for fear of the honesty and vulnerability that damnably exuded from the other man. Instead, he sighed unsteadily into Gai’s black mohawk, “I know that.”

He still couldn’t confess all the things that haunted him about that day. How the Mist had killed almost all his pre-genin with gas jutsus, choking them, drowning them with chemicals. How Naruto had spun away from the Mist nin, obviously searching for Iruka, when the first kunai struck him. How Kakashi’s harsh grip on his ponytail ripped out half his hair as the man stole him away from the massacre, the trauma causing Iruka to never put up his hair again. How Gai’s bleeding eyesocket, a segment of his skull caved in, had dripped scarlet-red fluid onto Iruka’s face when Gai had anxiously examined Iruka just moments after appearing in front of him and Kakashi in the Forest of Death – and how that version of Gai still repeatedly appeared in his nightmares.

“Kiss me, please,” Iruka suddenly pleaded.

And Gai did with more passion than Kakashi could ever manage.

Iruka tasted all the agony and grief of the last nine years in their kiss. He gasped against Gai’s mouth when Gai pulled urgently at his coat and loudly broke the top two buttons in his insistence. Iruka quickly removed his hands from Gai’s back and undid the rest of his coat, instantly feeling Gai’s fingers clutch at his scratched hitai-ate before they dropped to Iruka’s hipbones, holding him down. When Gai first thrust again him, they were still clothed, so very clothed, but Iruka could feel the other man’s cock becoming hard and he let out a profanity-laced moan.

Gai stopped kissing him to ask firmly, “Did you take care of Kakashi?”

Iruka nodded vigorously, responding instantly, “Of course. He can’t sleep otherwise.” He leaned forward to continue their kiss, but Gai drew away again, surprising him. Between his obliviously messy black mohawk and the awful scar, Gai’s face was pure beauty and tragedy married together. The other man continued to rub against him, their erections sliding deliciously through spandex and cotton, but Gai stared down at Iruka quite seriously, his dark eyes catching the distant shine of moonlight.

“Are you doing this with me because you are sorry for what you said?” Gai asked quietly, concern threading his voice. But he hadn’t stopped pushing against Iruka, and he clearly wanted a certain answer, the one that would allow them to continue unrestrained.

Iruka pulled back further so he could see the entirety of Gai’s face.

Maito Gai still had the broad facial features, thick eyebrows, strong cheekbones and jawline from his youth. But nine years later, the man wore a new deep shadowed scar beginning in his left eye, spreading up and backwards across most of his half-shaved head, frightfully earned during Konoha’s final hour. He’d caught a fire jutsu a few years ago across his right shoulder, which had just barely struck him on his right ear as well, crispily biting away the cartilage. His bowl-cut had disappeared long ago: instead Gai had started shaving the sides of head, leaving the middle flowing in a ragged sort of mohawk, which he often swept towards his burnt right ear. With his hair leaning towards the other side, the huge scar on the left side of his face stood out prominently, as did his willingness to sacrifice for his two companions.

And his eyes – in the night, his black eyes filled with sorrow and small shreds of hope.

Iruka leaned forward and licked at Gai’s bottom lip. The larger man shuddered above him, and Iruka kissed up his cheek, drawing up to kiss the terrible scar starting at Gai’s eye. He ran his hand through the single messy strip of Gai’s hair while he kissed the length of the old wound. When Iruka found Gai’s ear, the fully intact one, he deliberately assured him, “I’m doing this with you for the same reason I’m with Kakashi every night.”

His voice never trembled when he said the words – to Kakashi or Gai – because he had said them for years, and he meant them, thoroughly, truly. Iruka said them again, because they were needed, they were always needed: “I love you. I want nothing else but to be with you – and with him. I only want to be with both of you.”

Gai’s massive chest moved in way that seemed suspiciously like a restrained sob, but Iruka didn’t call him on it. Instead, he continued kissing the scarred side of his friend’s face and was pleased a few minutes later when Gai began to wrestle with both of their pants, removing Iruka’s first and stroking him generously before tending to his own cock. He reached between Iruka’s legs with years of familiarity, using spit and lubricant to ease his fingers inside.

Iruka tried not to be embarrassed as Gai drew back and carefully watched Iruka’s expression change and contort with pleasure. The other man so thoroughly enjoyed seeing his effect on Iruka, it had become a standard part of their time together, although Iruka never truly overcame his mortification at being observed so intimately.

“Gai, please,” he eventually whispered, closing his eyes and pulling at Gai’s shoulders. He was always shocked at how Gai managed to perfectly remove his tight spandex in the many strange contexts that they were together. But he did it once again, easily, and pushed inside Iruka without any further warning, stirring a breathy moan from deep within Iruka.

Gai usually controlled himself when he fucked Iruka, though that wasn’t always the case. Tonight, he maintained a fearsome pace that had Iruka moaning at times but more often had him gasping harshly at each powerful thrust. His hands stayed clutched tight around Gai’s biceps to keep himself somewhat stable. Iruka struggled for a moment before getting his legs around Gai’s waist and he was soon working desperately to meet Gai’s every movement.

Unlike how he was with Kakashi, Iruka needed to say very little to Gai. Their bodies were wild unspoken messages to each other – vivid, obscene, impatient actions – that frequently rose to one particular sort of climax. Gai made dark sounds in his throat from his chest, but he rarely uttered a single word, let alone a full phrase. His attention was so distinctly and fully absorbed by Iruka’s reactions that he never did anything except listen to Iruka while fucking him, whatever his pace.

But, eventually, they always arrived at the same moment.

Sweat clung onto to Gai’s face, wet his scar, soaked his black mohawk. His dark eyes stared into Iruka’s too-expressive brown ones until he finally winced and gritted out, “Iruka, touch yourself” without stopping his demanding thrusts in the slightest.

Iruka slipped his hand between the two of them, stroked himself several sure times, and groaned out “Oh, Gai, fuck me,” which inspired agonized devotion from his friend. For nearly another minute, Gai drove into him relentlessly, and Iruka felt his body confusingly combine crazed protest and jolting pleasure.

Then the façade of sweetness was destroyed as Iruka caught the very beginning of his orgasm and yanked Gai towards him, which the man allowed, knowing what would happen next. When Iruka’s teeth sunk into his shoulder, Gai thrust only a few more times, but his movements were now chaotic, uncontrolled. The further lack of restraint caused Iruka’s teeth to tear his skin and shirt, and Gai reached his climax with a throaty growl, moving his scarred face aside so Iruka could have more room to leave marks on him.

Instead, Iruka took the opportunity to move closer to Gai’s ear. Reeling through his own orgasm, he determinedly stated, “You know how much I love you...” Closing his eyes, Iruka panted another three hushed words against Gai’s throat, mindlessly petting down Gai’s muscular arms, “Please forgive me.”

“Iruka” was all that Gai managed to groan, anguished and relieved at once. The oak tree behind them whined in protest as Gai’s hands redirected to grab its trunk, his grip smashing his fingers through the wood. His huge muscular form convulsed in the throes of orgasm, his tear-away coat cascading beautifully with his shuddering.

Sated and even a bit sinisterly pleased, Iruka watched his friend ride through the last bits of his orgasm. Gai adored, even worshipped, Iruka’s innocent ‘pleases,’ especially since he knew Iruka meant them so truly, purely. When Gai finally stared down at him disbelievingly, shaking his head back and forth, Iruka gave him a slight shrug. Iruka’s smile was mischievous as he remarked quietly, “I wanted you to say something, too. That worked, right?”

Gai pulled out of him, cleaned them off, slid his spandex back into place, and leaned back on the branch, all with practiced finesse. His small smile and shy eyes showed what Iruka was most concerned about: that Gai wasn’t still drowning in the ugly parts of the past, at least not right now. Iruka adjusted his clothing back to normal, methodically buttoning his coat and slipping his mask back over his face. The black cloth went straight across his old facial scar from childhood, following the mark like a worried lover.

While he studied Gai resting in the moonlight, Iruka thought about what he appeared like to the other man, to Kakashi, to those that hunted them, to those they killed. Iruka’s dirt-brown hair had grown long over the last nine years, hanging just a bit past his shoulders. He had taken to cleaning it ferociously since the seventh anniversary when he started focusing on his dead hitai-ate. His near-black eyes with their short lashes and defined eyebrows were all that he showed to the vast majority of the world. Iruka gave away no other portion of skin: he wore old Konoha ANBU gloves patched a hundred times over, and, while he’d had to try on two dozen pairs of shoes from enemies before he found ones that fit, he no longer wore standard-issue open sandals, only nin-modified boots now.

When Gai got him to pull down his mask, open his coat, push aside his clothes, Iruka was revealing more than he would to nearly anyone else in the world.

The only other person he would permit so close was Kakashi. And, most of the time, Kakashi fucked and got fucked with his clothes only barely more than slightly adjusted.

It was when Kakashi fully removed his clothing and approached Iruka that Iruka knew the other man needed something exceptional from him. The last time they had both been entirely nude about six months ago, Kakashi had cried – both his real eye and his Sharingan – and, for once in his life, Iruka had been at a total loss as to what to say. They didn’t have sex. He simply held Kakashi, expecting him to fall asleep as he always did when they were together.

Instead, Kakashi had whispered into Iruka’s hair, “We could have been something, just the two of us,” and Iruka had felt a horrendous wave of sympathy, sorrow, and revulsion at the words.

He couldn’t imagine that – only him and Kakashi – not anymore, not since a long time ago. Gai had been with them ever since Konoha burned. The first few months after the village’s destruction, Iruka had wanted nothing from Kakashi, rejecting him at every advance, until one day Kakashi had held onto Iruka’s hand and refused to let go. Iruka had cried quite a lot before that moment, but he had always done it alone, usually into his arms or a blanket. Holding his hand, Kakashi had forced him into a very non-consensual embrace… and then Iruka wept in his arms for hours. They’d kissed at the end of it and resumed their relationship in the ruins of the world they first met in.

For the next several months, it really was just Iruka and Kakashi running together in desperate passion, although Gai was always nearby, along with a handful of other jounin, a half-dozen chuunin, and one lone pre-genin, Shikamaru Nara.

Every one of them was dead now.

Iruka, Kakashi, and Gai were the last survivors of Konoha.

As Gai straightened suddenly, moving quickly to stand upright on the branch, Iruka thought about the first time they had kissed. It had been behind Kakashi’s back when the silver-haired man had gone out on patrol, the other survivors dispersed elsewhere in the woods for safety. Iruka had resisted at first as Gai pressed him hard against a tree, just like how Gai had done again tonight. But Iruka felt Gai’s need – in all sorts of ways – and he had ultimately surrendered to the kiss.

They had both startled when Kakashi had abruptly reappeared beside them and asked in his usual indifferent tone, “Are you going to fuck him too?” When Gai had started stammering out an apology (to both of them, Iruka had noted with a blush), Kakashi shrugged off his flak jacket and started pulling his shirt off over his head, saying mildly, “Well, c’mon, Gai, let’s go.”

They hadn’t repeated what happened next except for a handful more times over the last nine years, but Iruka remembered their first time together – the three of them together – all too well.

The forest exploded in the distance, and Iruka suddenly returned to the present.

The orange-red fire blossomed outwards, one terrific burst after another in a long curved line: Kakashi’s perimeter traps being triggered by incoming enemy. There were no screams, which showed that especially skilled ninja were coming to kill them.

Iruka had already slipped back into the deep tangle of branches farther up the ancient tree when the thirteen elite shinobi materialized in the woods around them.

Gai stood rigidly on the tree branch, waiting for them, alone.

“Maito Gai, we’ve been looking for you,” shouted one of them, his sickly yellow eyes glowing in the dead of night. He was crouched on a branch occupied by another taller man who held a huge scythe in one hand, the metal curve dripping with fluid violet-purple chakra.

Closer to Gai, a different nin – his face partially covered with what appeared to be the lower half of a Suna ANBU mask – called out, his high-pitched voice flushed with adrenaline, “Don’t think we can’t see your little chuunin hiding up there. We’re here to kill him, too.”

Gai stayed unmoving on the tree branch, as did Iruka tucked into the thick brush of the tree. Iruka couldn’t see Gai’s expression from his new position, but it didn’t matter, because he knew what his friend was doing, what he was thinking.

Gai was considering how best to kill the thirteen shinobi before him.

“Worse than missing nin,” hissed a petite shinobi further away, his blood-red hair matching his all-crimson attire. His hands were already aflame with a jutsu, and he was glowering so viciously that Iruka had to assume this assassination attempt was personal in nature.

The other mercenary nin varied in specialties, chakra reserves, style, village. Iruka observed them all, his heart pounding: a coalition of elite shinobi sent out to kill the last Konoha nin. No one leader united them. They were from the most notable hidden villages still remaining; they would each have their own distinctive approaches to murdering the last survivors of Konoha.

Two of the mercenaries were women; they stood in the far back, separate from each other, both silently examining Maito Gai.

Suddenly, the smaller one glanced up towards where Iruka was crouched, and he stiffened. Her killing intent shifted from a general sensation of suffocating the woods to being directed solely at him. She was clearly expecting to kill him first.

“It is a shame that you all must die,” Gai announced, not sounding remorseful at all, and his chakra moved in kind, blustering outward in a tornado thrust of wind. He ripped his arm weights off in one efficient motion as he sprung forward directly at the closest nin, who tried to dodge – but Gai followed him relentlessly, catching the man’s arm as the shinobi went sharply right.

His fingers crunching into bone, Gai jerked hard, and the man’s arm went with the motion, completely tearing off from the shinobi’s body. The three other nin who had started towards Gai scattered at the sight, pulling back in alarm, but Gai never left his first target. The nin, eyes wide and staring at the instant bloody absence of his limb, had no defense when Gai’s knee swung up and crashed into his chest, loudly flattening his ribcage into his spine.

When Gai dropped the first dead nin off the tree branch, he already in the midst of opening Six of the Eight Gates, bright green waves of chakra spreading off him in fearful waves of sheer force.

The two women began to move towards Iruka in tandem as the first of their coalition died – but then Iruka saw familiar blue lightning crackle into existence and shove straight through the one who had initially stared at him. The woman gasped soundlessly, gripping the pale hand that had emerged through her sternum, but she was dead when Kakashi tossed her down on the forest floor.

Using the same Chidori, Kakashi caught the other woman, punching through her chakra-born shield of spikes before stabbing her in the neck with two kunai, each sewn tight with explosive tags. As she reached up to grab and remove them, Kakashi snatched her hand out of the air, slamming another kunai directly into her wrist, and then kicked her away as he sought out his next victim, considering her already quite dead.

Ignoring the sudden fiery explosion, Iruka glanced back to Gai, trying to keep up with his friend, but Gai was a blur of green burning chakra as he tore through the dark silence of the night.

It was easier to follow the corpses.

There were a few more within the first two minutes, each falling to the forest floor below.

Kakashi flung himself off another dead shinobi directly at the scythe-wielding nin – then vanished as the deep purple chakra struck him – his dust of his dispelled clone providing new cover for the real Kakashi’s sudden use of the Fire Release jutsu. The fireball engulfed the enemy nin, but he moved out of most of it… only to find himself suddenly facing Gai, who had deliberately drawn a second assassin shinobi into the fray. The four of them were abruptly embroiled in an explosion of rainbow-colored chakra – Kakashi’s white-blue, the assassin’s blue, Gai’s green, and the scythe nin’s purple – and they moved fast, too fast for Iruka to follow, three releasing ninjutsu at breathtaking speed and Gai ruthlessly using taijutsu –

Iruka swallowed thickly as a sword pressed suddenly into his neck.

He shifted his gaze from the woods to the bleeding enemy shinobi in front of him.

The man was Sound, one of nin from Otogakure, the remnants of the village Orochimaru set up before the sannin had abandoned them in the wake of Konoha’s burning. Iruka had met Sound shinobi before, mostly through the second through fourth anniversaries, right after Orochimaru had remorselessly left the Sound to rot and die. Sound shinobi – even missing nin from Sound – tended to take out their frustration for being so badly used by attacking the last survivors of Konoha, which, of course, never went well for them.

His expression instinctively turning neutral, Iruka met the man’s burning black eyes. He was still perfectly clad in his black coat and mask: the only visible part of Iruka was the slight segment of his tan scarred face and his long brown hair. He stayed crouched in the tree as the Sound nin breathed heavily, staring at him with pure violence in his unblinking gaze. He was bleeding fiercely from a messy head wound, especially his right eye and ear; it was probably the result of Gai hitting him in the temple at full speed with Six Gates open.

After a moment, the man leaned forward, grabbed Iruka by the coat, and jerked him up, keeping the blade at Iruka’s clothed throat, cutting him only just slightly. Iruka didn’t flinch, easily going with the motion. Now standing, he could tell he was shorter and less muscular than the Sound nin but also much older, probably by a half-decade or more.

In some ways, Iruka found it sweet that the Sound nin thought himself so strong he would seek out the last survivors of Konoha – and that he had imagined he would win.

Behind them, nearby in the woods, Gai’s mighty roar of the Morning Peacock jutsu sent an insane fiery burst of a hundred explosive punches outwards, flattening a dozen trees and cutting off the scream of an enemy shinobi.

Iruka’s mask hid his smile, but his eyes curved in amusement.

The Sound nin caught the change, his own face darkening into full rage. He demanded, frantic and furious at once, “How has no one killed you yet?” His sword tight against Iruka’s throat, the man literally spat on Iruka, his saliva splattering on Iruka’s scarred cheek above the mask, “You’re nothing compared to them!”

His expression soft but still mostly covered, Iruka asked the nin simply, “Have you ever been with someone who can open the Eight Gates?”

“No,” the Sound shinobi snarled. His sword pressed tighter on Iruka’s clothed throat, slicing through fabric and tearing into his skin.

Iruka mused, holding the Sound’s gaze, “Or someone with a Sharingan?”

The shinobi glowered and stepped forward, but Iruka easily moved in parallel, watching as the Sound snapped out, livid and shaking, blood pouring from his right eye and ear, “No! Now shut the fuck up. Just shut up!”

Giving the Sound nin a fleeting look of pity, Iruka confessed in a sickly wistful sort of way, “It’s not always easy… but they love teaching me new tricks.”

The man went stiff, staring in sudden fear at Iruka.

Right before Iruka’s shadow clone slammed its heel into the Sound nin’s head wound. Kicking while upside down in a wild bout of taijutsu, the clone’s hand wrenched hard on the nin’s wrist, loosening his grip but not breaking it.

The clone’s attack allowed Iruka the time needed to pull out the seal scroll from his sleeve and slap the paper down on the Sound nin’s newly bruised wrist.

The Sound nin dispersed the shadow clone with a severe throat punch before going to grab the seal off his arm and thrust his sword into Iruka’s neck at the same time – but that was stupid, too, because Iruka had more than one shadow clone – and the second one came from behind the Sound nin, its arm mirroring the man’s, yanking roughly back on his forearm, keeping the real Iruka from having his throat slit.

As Iruka smoothly moved backwards, he watched as the Sound nin destroyed his second clone, and the seal took effect, only needing those few seconds to come alive.

The fuinjutsu fluttered into existence in a thousand black ink kanji symbols. The scribbles swamped the Sound nin, cascading over his skin, markedly pooling in the wounds of the man’s bloody eye and ear. His body’s chakra suddenly sparkled blue over his visible skin – then flickered out of existence, drowned by the seal jutsu smothering his abilities all at once.

All too slow, he tried to stop the seal with his own jutsu, but he had to drop his sword to form the hand seals, and suddenly Iruka was back in his space – but now Iruka was much closer to the enemy nin, his left hand clutching the Sound’s kanji-drenched right arm.

The man looked at Iruka wild and terrified, blood flowing like a waterfall from his eye, black marks floating over his flesh. He was so obviously unprepared for Iruka to shake his head pityingly, murmuring through his mask, staring at him dead in the eyes: “Your sensei should be ashamed.”

Kakashi’s tanto felt good in Iruka’s hand, so did the warm blood pouring over his fingers. He pushed harder, breaking through the Sound’s abdominal muscle, slicing into his intestines, finally finding the descending aorta. He could tell the moment he cut it as he continued to carve downwards, intent on opening up the wound even more: the blood gushed over his coat, soaking him, and the Sound nin staggered forward, nearly collapsing on him.

Iruka moved just in time, deeply disinterested in having the Sound lean against him during his death throes. He watched the nin smash into the tangled branches of the oak tree and shook fresh red blood off of Kakashi’s father’s sword. Iruka waited a moment, seeing that the seals were still swirling and active, before he sighed and plunged the blade into the man’s heart through his back. The Sound nin gave one terrific jerk before going utterly still – and the seals finally flickered and faded entirely.

Behind him, Iruka heard the familiar sound of Kakashi’s Earth Wall, the massive one with the bulldogs, springing up from the dirt, trapping some foolish shinobi who thought he could escape.

Iruka wiped the blood off on the Sound nin’s pants before he dropped down out of the tree, knowing there was several hundred feet between his perch and the ground. The fall allowed him to survey the moonlit forest: there were nine dead corpses that he could see, ten with his shinobi in the tree. Three were unaccounted for – but that only meant wherever Kakashi and Gai were, three others would be there, too.

Working to sense out his friends, Iruka realized with a start that Gai was much further away than he would have thought. In contrast, he glanced back towards their nearby camp, locating both Kakashi’s bright flashing chakra and the chakra embers of a dying enemy shinobi.

Kakashi was easy enough to find: he was crouched over the very broken legs of a lean white-haired young man, digging Iruka’s kunai in the flesh of the nin’s thigh. He was talking fluidly, his tone loose and contemplative. From behind, Iruka could tell that Kakashi had killed at least one shinobi in hand-to-hand combat; red blood was dripping down his silver hair like morning dew sliding off leaves. He was also rather chakra-depleted: Iruka recognized the stiffness in Kakashi’s deceptively casual movements and the furious tension in his form as he held himself upright.

He was a cat toying with an injured mouse, a bored predator taking joy in the suffering of his prey.

Iruka neared him, careful with his chakra and footsteps, making them loud enough that Kakashi could hear him and know it was Iruka, but not so intense as to disturb him.

But then he heard what his friend was rambling about while he was spinning his kunai in the enemy shinobi’s thigh muscle.

“Iruka was impossible to romance. Absolutely impossible. I didn’t know how ask him out. And Icha Icha was no help – have you read those? The author was from Konoha, but you know, the whole murder-suicide thing between him and – well, anyway –”

Kakashi was ceaseless, barely breathing, as he continued to describe how he first courted Iruka to the terribly incapacitated Snow nin. Deciding to make it perfectly clear he was there, Iruka moved slightly off to his right, still staying a bit behind Kakashi, where he knew the other man would get a glimpse of him with his good eye. The Snow shinobi certainly saw Iruka: he flickered his aqua-blue gaze to Iruka, his wet anguished gaze begging for a fatal intervention.

Iruka started to move to kill the man, but then Kakashi remarked effortlessly, not looking at Iruka at all: “It was ten years ago today that I finally asked him out.”

Iruka stilled.

His eyes went wide.

Kakashi continued speaking as if he couldn’t sense anything around him. Kakashi’s terrifying eyes were transfixed on the Snow nin’s leg wound as it pumped blood in waves over the man’s bare thigh. “It was our one year anniversary when the Mist attacked. Can you believe it? Obviously, the Mist didn’t know it was our anniversary, but sometimes, I think about how strange it is – that it happened this way. Such a strange coincidence.”

Iruka was racking his brain for what anniversary Kakashi was referencing. His brain instead unhelpfully supplied hundreds of skirmishes, battles, assassinations: nine full years of blood and flames and black death, wounds gushing red fluid and yellow pus, Gai’s horribly sunken skull with his black eyes, huge and panicked, staring down at Iruka…

Today… was he and Kakashi’s tenth anniversary? The anniversary of… their first date?

Kakashi pulled out the kunai from the Snow nin’s thigh, which caused the man to groan in a burst of confused pain, made worse when Kakashi shoved the weapon back through the same wound.

Kakashi’s voice was tighter and livid when he spoke again, now at a much quicker pace, “I was at the Academy with flowers in my hand when they killed Minato-sensei’s son. Can you imagine that? I watched his boy die with a bouquet of flowers in my hand.” Kakashi sighed, jerking up the kunai through the man’s leg, opening up muscle, making the Snow nin twitch and full-body shake. Kakashi continued to reflect aloud, mournful but his words wandering: “Well, what are you supposed to do? I saw Iruka – of course I did, I’ve always noticed Iruka, how couldn’t I notice Iruka? – and I thought to myself, no, no, no, we are not doing this again. I did this already, you see, with both my teammates, and I had just gotten a new one by courting Iruka, and I wasn’t going to let him die too. So, I stole him away. Ten years ago today, I asked the man out, and a year later, I stole him.”

Kakashi turned to look directly at Iruka. “Time flies, huh?” he asked, his voice flat but weak.

Iruka stared at him.

A long time ago, he would have been flustered beyond measure: he would have exploded in anger, demanding why the fuck hadn’t Kakashi told him about their anniversary, he’d had so many opportunities to tell him! Or Iruka might have burst into tears, breaking down, unable to absorb how horrible it must have been for Kakashi that Iruka never, ever remembered the anniversary of their first date, instead Kakashi had to watch Iruka spend it every year mourning Naruto’s death and torturously re-experience the burning of Konoha.

But it was nine years later – no, ten years later –

And so Iruka said quietly, “You should kill him now.”

Without looking away from Iruka, Kakashi threw the kunai through the Snow nin’s throat, the weapon audibly lodging in the back of the man’s skull.

Kakashi rose to his feet with all the beauty and grace built into bones. His huge black cloak was gone, lost somewhere out in the woods. He was a tall and fearfully lean figure with a wild mess of silver hair and exhaustingly intense eyes, one jet black and the other, the overly complicated red-and-black Sharingan. His black mask was still firmly in place, covering his nose down to his chest. He didn’t move towards Iruka: Kakashi stood so unbelievably still that he looked more like a statue than a man.

Iruka closed the distance between them; as he did so, he unbuttoned his stiff bloodied coat. He put away Kakashi’s father’s sword in its sheath on his belt just as he reached Kakashi.

The silver-haired legend looked down at him with his old unreadable expression, the one he had lost years ago, the one that Iruka almost never saw anymore. Kakashi’s violently dissimilar eyes narrowed as he loosely considered Iruka. He didn’t react at all when Iruka grabbed the front of his Mist ANBU flak jacket with one hand and touched his gloved fingers against Kakashi’s scarred cheek with the other. Iruka sounded choked as he whispered brokenly up to Kakashi, “I didn’t know you – you brought me flowers.”

Kakashi smiled slowly, softly as he looked down at Iruka. Bright red blood dripped from Kakashi’s silver hair onto Iruka’s shoulder, but Iruka only held onto him more tightly. His Sharingan still flickering and seeking to memorize everything around them, Kakashi remarked wistfully, “They were daisies.”

Iruka felt his heart implode inwards like a star collapsing in on itself. “My favorite,” he breathed. Iruka searched both of Kakashi’s eyes, even the Sharingan, the relentless jutsu captivating him on and off, making him feel faint and alive all at once.

“I’m so sorry,” Iruka suddenly professed, pushing his whole body against Kakashi’s, putting his arm around the other man’s slender waist. He looked up at Kakashi, desperate to be heard, truly heard, but Kakashi was already starting to retreat. His shrug suggested indifference, even though it was feigned, and he averted his gaze from Iruka’s, moving to shut his Sharingan.

Embarrassment obviously suffocating him, Kakashi murmured, “It’s not –”

“No,” Iruka interrupted harshly, and Kakashi instantly looked back at him. His black eye and Sharingan widened as Kakashi realized the intensity of Iruka’s disappointment in himself. He started to say something, but Iruka only shook his head and declared firmly, “I was selfish. You’ve suffered too long; I owe you the world, and you’ve carried this burden this whole time, saving me again from something horrible.” He was torn between glaring at Kakashi, furious that the man had kept the anniversary a secret, and weeping outright, because somehow he, the supposedly sentimental one of their trio, had forgotten something so sweet and fragile in the midst of their horrible guerilla war.

Iruka moved his hand from Kakashi’s scarred cheek, dragging down both their black masks before he drew his fingers through the man’s bloody silver hair. Iruka pulled Kakashi closer, gently bringing their mouths together. Before he kissed Kakashi, Iruka admitted, as shards of old and new memories finally collected together, “I understand now… the two of us, we would have been great. We’re lucky to have this, but – I would have loved to have seen those flowers.”

When they kissed, Iruka felt foolish that he had once thought Kakashi lacked passion.

He was suddenly bent over backwards, Kakashi’s lean form pouring over his, the man’s long fingers thick and entangled in Iruka’s loose hair. Kakashi bit his bottom lip and took immediate advantage of Iruka’s gasp of pain; his tongue conquered Iruka’s mouth, ruthless, relentless. His fingernails scratched deep into Iruka’s scalp, as if Kakashi was desperate to keep Iruka with him, pressed against him, now and forever. At the same time Kakashi used his other hand to grab Iruka from behind through his coat, forcing their groins together, rough and hard.

Enemy nin blood spread between the two of them, the spray on Kakashi’s hair suddenly transferring to Iruka’s face and the Sound nin’s blood saturating Kakashi’s Mist ANBU flak jacket. After nearly a minute of dizzying deep kissing, Iruka found himself gasping into Kakashi’s mouth, distressed and desperate to breathe. Kakashi let him loose only when Iruka started to go limp in his one-armed embrace, but he ripped Iruka’s mask further down his throat and suddenly sucked on Iruka’s neck, viciously intent on leaving a dark bruise behind.

Iruka moaned, weakening even more. His eyes fluttered shut when Kakashi released his skin and breathed hotly in Iruka’s ear, “I would fuck you but I know Gai just had you.”

Kakashi wasn’t done with him: he was licking long lines on Iruka’s bare neck, and he dropped further down, shoving aside Iruka’s coat, biting down on his cloth-clad shoulder. His hand gripped Iruka’s half-hard cock through his pants, wickedly inspiring full arousal. Iruka found himself clutching desperately at Kakashi’s shoulders, and he couldn’t help himself from thrusting into Kakashi’s hand, suddenly wanting more than anything to tear off his blood-soaked too-tight coat and get fucked with a tortured dead Snow nin twenty feet away from them.

Unexpectedly, Kakashi stopped moving.

Then he slowly lifted his head up off of Iruka’s shoulder.

Confused by the sudden change in his demeanor, Iruka followed Kakashi’s gaze over his shoulder to look behind them. He found Gai standing alone at the edge of the still-burning campfire. Their much larger friend was holding both his forest green tear-away coat and Kakashi’s oversized black cloak over one chivalrous arm. After a moment of stillness, Gai broke eye contact with Kakashi and shook his head, working his mohawk back into place, before he looked away from the both of them towards the campfire.

Iruka was terribly surprised when Kakashi immediately deserted him with ease.

He watched with increasing wonder as Kakashi drifted over to Gai, somehow both direct and cavalier at once. His arousal wavered and his blush faded as Iruka’s attention escalated uncontrollably.

Iruka hadn’t seen Kakashi walk like that in a long time. His was the stride of a predator, a sleek black panther stalking through the wilderness.

Gai had noticed, too, turning back his head to consider Kakashi’s approach. He brought his chin up as Kakashi stopped in front of him with his hands deep in his black pants pockets. Iruka found himself moving slightly to see Kakashi’s expression. When he finally got his first glimpse, delicate goosebumps sprang up all over Iruka’s skin.

Kakashi wasn’t just adopting the stance of a dangerous predator, his mask-less face radiated violence, too.

But it was the certain kind of violence that was usually directed at Iruka – the desperate, desirous, severe lust that had just earlier in the night bruised Iruka’s shoulders, made his muscles ache, and had a new bruise blooming on his neck.

Gai was staring down at his old rival, but then Kakashi snatched the front of Gai’s spandex, twisting the fabric in his fingers, forcing him closer. Kakashi seemed very nearly about to kiss him, their mouths mystifyingly close, when Gai said, his voice clear and strong, “If you need to take someone, you are welcome to have me, my eternal rival.”

Kakashi’s eyes – black and Sharingan – narrowed in dark pleasure, and he kissed Gai hard, so stirringly hard that Iruka felt himself instantly flushing, at once embarrassed and aroused to see his two partners together.

Gai’s arms went around Kakashi; he looked just as gigantic as he did with Iruka, except he was now obviously more unrestrained, practically hoisting Kakashi by the back of his thighs to crush their bodies together, as if he was determined to make them one. Iruka could see Kakashi’s arms force their way between their bodies and stopped only to scratch insanely at Gai’s back. At least one of his nails actually broke through the fabric and cutting into a jagged red line into Gai’s skin, the painful act only causing Gai to kiss him more forcefully, his bulging arms encircling Kakashi, violent and shameless in his cruel strength.

Kakashi looked like a dangerous madman in the arms of a scarred missing nin.

And, for the first time in a long time, Iruka felt like he was the third in their trio, not the one reluctantly shared by the other two.

He started at the memory of Kakashi kissing Gai during their very first time together, the three of them, eight years ago after Gai had first desperately accosted Iruka.

Iruka had stood in shock as Kakashi, shirtless and maskless, had yanked Gai down by the hair, forcing their mouths together, his hand going straight for Gai’s cock. And Gai had groaned in this lust-stirring wild way that had been just for Kakashi: he had spun Kakashi and shoved him against the tree where he had just pressed Iruka, his huge form totally encompassing the leaner silver-haired shinobi. They had kissed like they should have been kissing for years and years, and Iruka had felt so astonished and left out that he had started to leave, wondering what he would do with his life now that he was so obviously excluded and unneeded.

Kakashi had forced Gai away for a moment to speak sharply to him. “Iruka, come here,” Kakashi ordered before he slid his dark gaze back to Gai and remarked with a low delighted smile, “You should get him to say please. It’s so sweet, you’ll hurt inside.”

Looking at the two elite shinobi now, eight years later, Iruka didn’t experience the same feeling of worthlessness. Instead, he smiled, his hand drawing up to his face to hide his elation. He had wondered, over and over again, if Gai and Kakashi were actually comfortable with their unusual and complicated relationship, sharing Iruka every day and night for years on end. But, like so many things, he didn’t dare bring it up, not wanting to disturb the peace; he was so very determined to remain both men’s support and the heart of their trio.

Iruka found himself wandering over to Kakashi and Gai as they violently competed to kiss each other harder than how they were being kissed.

Iruka smoothed his hand over both of their shoulders at the same time.

Kakashi startled more than Gai, his black eye and Sharingan redirecting rapidly to Iruka’s amused and aroused face. In contrast, Gai only leaned further into Kakashi, taking advantage of his distraction, kissing Kakashi’s clothed neck in a strange delicate way. Gai slanted a look towards Iruka, winking outrageously at him, before he nipped at Kakashi’s throat, causing the silver-haired man to shiver all over and stifle a sudden excited sound.

“I think we should leave,” Iruka suggested with a sly smile.

The three of them were a bloody, bleeding mess, and thirteen corpses were spread over the burnt woods, with some parts of the forest still on fire.

Yet, even while blushing like an embarrassed schoolgirl, Kakashi remained impossibly dangerous. He pulled Iruka forward by grabbing the hilt of his tanto on Iruka’s belt before wrapping his long arm around Iruka’s waist while still clinging tight to Gai. Kakashi nuzzled Iruka’s neck with his nose, his scarred cheek and ruined Konoha hitai-ate rubbing against Iruka’s bruised shoulder. “I think,” Kakashi posed, as if it was an interesting philosophical question, “that you should fuck Gai’s mouth while I take him on his knees. What do you think, Iruka? Would you want that?”

Gai stiffened; his black eyes suddenly met Iruka’s over Kakashi’s mess of bloody silver hair. Iruka watched Gai’s already arousal-flushed face deepen in color in sincere surprise and real interest. They had not done that before – it was almost always Iruka servicing Gai – but based on his distinctly wanting look, Gai had a few other ideas that he hadn’t yet been brave enough to request.

Iruka only realized he was smiling mercilessly at Gai when Kakashi laughed against Iruka’s neck.

With his hand apparently between Gai’s legs, Kakashi purred in sincere satisfaction, “Oh, he’s gotten so hard at the idea,” and then Kakashi’s hand moved over and groped Iruka through his pants as well, and he laughed louder. “And you, too. Good. Let’s get out of here. We’ve got new plans for the night.”

Kakashi pulled away from the both of them, tugging his cloak from Gai’s grip, swinging the huge cloth over his shoulders. He glanced between them, looking dark and manic and thrilled, before he gathered the rest of their things by the campfire.

Iruka stared after him, somehow still shocked by Kakashi’s behavior after ten years. He looked back at Gai and found his friend just as surprised by his lifelong rival. They exchanged a knowing but incredulous look between themselves before Iruka moved towards him and stood on the tips of his toes to kiss Gai sweetly, softly, on the lips. Iruka whispered to him, fluttering his dark eyelashes coyly, purposefully trying to be ridiculous, “I promise to be gentle with you.”

Gai surprised Iruka by suddenly pulling him flush against him. The scarred side of his head went roughly against Iruka’s cheek. Gai’s mouth was close to his ear as he insisted, “Don’t be gentle. I want it as hard as you can give it to me.”

Iruka flushed out of his control, his fading arousal becoming steel-hard in an instant. He found himself blinking in astonishment as Gai drew away, giving Iruka a sheepish embarrassed smile, before he began to help Kakashi pack up their few belongings. Iruka was still dumbly staring at both men when they were finished a few minutes later. He managed not to trip as they started to run through the trees, an infinite variety of thoughts flooding his mind all at once.

Ultimately, the simplicity of it stayed strong and true –

Eight years. Nine years. Ten years.

It was the right time to celebrate their anniversary together.