When the Dust Settles

Mikoto is kind and patient as she explains to both boys, because for some reason, Gai stayed and Kakashi is too scared to question it, how to take care of Naruto. 

Most of it seems pretty straight forward, buy the powdered milk from the store and heat it up on the stove. Feed and then burp him. Kakashi isn’t too worried about having to get up every few hours to feed him, after all he isn’t a stranger to sleepless nights, be if from a mission or his nightmares. 

But then, Mikoto shows them how to bathe Naruto and that freaked Kakashi out. 

He was just so tiny and fragile and he really didn’t want to hurt him.

Surprisingly, Gai is the one to volunteer to bathe the baby and Kakashi makes absolutely no objections and opts to stand to the side and nervously watch. As he watches Gai carefully bathe the baby all the while blowing raspberries and making funny faces to make Naruto laugh, Kakashi tries not to think too hard about how easily Gai is falling into step with this. How he’d barely even questioned Kakashi about taking care of Naruto. 

After his bath, Mikoto, still with soot smeared across her cheek, set about showing Kakashi how to make a bottle.

Thank god Mikoto thought to bring diapers and some other things on her way over. Else Kakashi and Gai would’ve been fucked. They really were out of their league with this. 

As the bottle was warming, she turned and asked if either boys were hungry. 

Kakashi shook his head no. 

“Have you eaten anything today?” Mikoto asked gently, handing the now warm bottle to Kakashi. 

Kakashi blinked owlishly at Mikoto’s question as he tried to remember. Had he eaten today?? 

Unable to recall, He finally settled on shrugging. Mikoto gave him a disapproving look before spinning back around and opening the fridge. 

“Some omurice should be fine right?” She asked no one in particular. 

Kakashi felt that familiar warmth in his chest as he watched her bustle around the kitchen, only this time the warmth was accompanied by a deep sadness. 

*******

Mikoto left shortly after she made sure both boys ate along with the promise to be back the following morning to help Gai, Kakashi didn’t think he could bare to go just yet, get all the baby things from Kushina and Minato’s House. 

Kakashi couldn’t help but feel nervous as he watched as the door clicked shut, leaving him alone with Naruto and Gai. 

For a long moment, no one said anything, until Gai spoke up. 

“Hey, Kakashi.” He said quietly which was quite odd because Gai just didn’t do quiet. None of the Maito’s ever did. 

“Hm?” Kakashi turned to Gai. 

“Are you sure about this? I know that everything’s already been decided really but I just wanted to make sure you aren’t just doing this out of obligation. That you want this.” The whole time he was speaking, Gai’s eyes never left Kakashi’s one. 

“It is my obligation. I failed to protect Kushina. This is the least I can do” since I’m a terrible Shinobi. Kakashi didn’t voice the last part but he might as well have, what with how Gai was eyeing him. 

Kakashi didn’t like when Gai looked at him like that. It was as if he were seeing straight through him, picking apart his lies and staring at what lie underneath. 

Look underneath the underneath. 

That had once been Kakashi’s go to phrase. A mantra that he would repeat over and over in his head, something to keep him grounded, but right now it just made him want to laugh. 

Idly, Kakashi wondered just what Gai saw when he looked at him, but, he squashed that thought because now that he’s thought about it, he doesn’t think he’d be able to handle knowing. 

For the second time today, Gai doesn’t say anything, only stares at Kakashi, until the baby fusses, then Gai is across the room and lifting the fragile thing out of Kakashi’s arms. 

“Let’s get this little one to bed” Gai said, punctuating his sentence by blowing a raspberry. 

Kakashi watched in silence, as Gai carefully laid Naruto down in the makeshift crib they’d made.  

“It’s a little funny looking, but it’ll do for the night at least” Mikoto had said. 

Kakashi had not argues because he didn’t know anything better. 

“How are you so good with him already?” The words slip past Kakashi’s lips before he can think to stop them. They come out jealous and muffled underneath his mask. 

He chews his lip underneath the mask as Gai laughs. 

“You really think so?” He asks, cocking his head to the side in the way that Kakashi had grown to love. 

Kakashi wasn’t sure if his voice would betray him so he settled on nodding. 

Gai turned back to the baby and stared down at him for a second before sighing quietly. 

“I’ve had a lot of practice I suppose” he said with a laugh. Kakashi narrowed his eyes 

“But you don’t have any” Kakashi started. 

“Siblings I know” Gai finished for him. Gai made his way to the door and Kakashi followed him out back to the kitchen where Gai settled in a chair at the table. 

Kakashi took the one across from him. 

Gai let out a small sigh. 

“When my father died, I didn’t have enough money to keep the house so they relocated me to the village orphanage. I was the oldest one there so I more or less ended up taking care of the little ones” Gai punctuated his story with a shrug. 

“I didn’t know that” Kakashi said, voice barely above a whisper, “I’m sorry” he tacked on at the end, mostly because he felt like that was something you say.

That’s what everyone said to him when his father died anyway.  

Gai shook his head. 

“Of course you didn’t know. How could you have? It’s not like I told anyone or anything. And once I managed to graduate from the academy and take missions, then I was able to move into my own place” he finished, shrugging once more. 

Kakashi was at a loss as to what to say so he focused his attention on staring down at his hands that lay clasped together on the table. 

“Hey. It’s getting late. We should probably head to bed.” Gai says suddenly. Then, he’s standing and pulling Kakashi out of his own chair. 

Kakashi let’s Gai lead him to his bedroom, even lets him push him down onto his bed, but panic surges through him when he sees Gai turn away from him. 

“Wait!” Kakashi says loudly, rushed and half panicked. Gai stills and for a second, Kakashi’s worried he’s asking for too much so when Gai turns around to ask him “what for?” Kakashi is silent. He drops Gai’s shirt, he’d jolted forward and grabbed it in his panic, and focuses on his feet. 

“never mind” he mumbles. His face is heating up under his mask and it’s suffocating, but removing his mask is something he simply cannot do, so he forces himself to breath through it. 

Acting like nothing is wrong is a skill he’s perfected over the years. 

But Gai, sweet sweet Gai, his lifelong rival, his best friend, sees straight through his act like always and soon enough the lights are being turned off and someone’s pulling the blankets over him and its Gai. 

Gai pulls him up in bed and doesn’t hesitate when he wraps his arms around Kakashi’s smaller frame. 

At first it’s a little awkward, what with his face being buried in his eternal rivals chest, but it isn’t long before Kakashi finds his eyes stinging with unshed tears. He tries to blink them back but when Gai starts to rub his back, the dam breaks and Kakashi cries. 

He cries for Rin and Obito and how they’ll never get to have kids of their own, he cries for Minato and Kushina, who will never get to see their baby grow up, but mostly he just cries for Naruto, the baby who didn’t ask for any of this but got landed in the middle anyways. 

He cries until there's nothing left and then he falls asleep, Gai still rubbing his back.