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No feeling in the world like a kunai slicing you open. The bite of ice-cold metal and the slippery slide of your organs heeding the call of gravity. If Pakkun could have grinned around the chunk of bleeding flesh in his mouth, he would have because that would have been the way he wanted to go out. Grinning and taunting the missing nin stupid enough to pick a fight with Konoha’s Rokudaime Hokage.
But his mouth is kinda full and he is fading and they are losing – how are they losing a puny fight like this after all these years? – so the taunting would have made him look kinda out of touch with reality. Kinda like an old fart who hasn’t noticed his time has come.
So he just bites down harder, puts it all into his jaw, every last ounce of strength he’s got left, because if he can’t win, he’s at least gonna ruin this fucker’s day, and if he can’t even do that much, he’ll at least ruin his jacket by pissing and bleeding all over it. ‘Cause Pakkun’s a spiteful old cur like that.
The last thing he hears is Kakashi shouting his name. Hoarsely, desperately. Which makes Pakkun reconsider. No, if he’d had a chance, he wouldn’t have wasted his last breath on cussing out some missing nin, instead he’d have smiled his best doggy smile and told Kakashi, “I’m sorry, Kid, I never meant to go and die on you, but, you know, this is just the way it is, in all the books, in all the movies, the cute pup never makes it out alive.”
After all these years, it still hurts to think he might cause Kakashi pain.
The last thing Pakkun feels is an explosion of chakra, terrifyingly familiar.
No feeling in the world like waking up in a hospital room after closing your eyes for what you thought would be the very last time. The smell is terrible, of course, all gauze and disinfectant. And his stomach itches something fierce, making his hind legs twitch in a pathetic effort to scratch at the bandages, rip open his stitches and spill his guts on the floor. No, not a great idea, but the urge is strong.
Thankfully, there’s Kakashi. His hand a warm weight on Pakkun’s side, his comforting smell offering refuge from the constant olfactory onslaught that is the hospital. Pakkun can focus on that, burrow into it like he can burrow into the soft surface beneath him. Soft and somewhat unsteady, a pillow on Kakashi’s lap, he guesses.
Nearby, a heart monitor is emitting a steady sequence of beeps. Kakashi’s breathing is audible, slow and regular, almost lost among the ambient noise – distant murmur of conversation, footsteps, a telephone ringing somewhere.
“Pakkun?” Kakashi’s voice makes his ears twitch. He sounds so tired.
Pakkun has long since breached the surface of full consciousness, but opening his eyes is a challenge. His eyelids weigh the world; he can only imagine what kind of pain killers are still coursing through his system to leave him this drowsy and weak.
When he does manage to crack open one eye, his vision is blurry, bringing him to a world of fuzzy, chew toy-like blobs.
“I…” It feels like his tongue is flopping around in his desert-dry mouth like a stranded salmon. Kakashi looks down at him, with, Pakkun imagines since he can’t really tell, an expression of pure anguished concern. “…I need…”
Kakashi leans closer. “What do you need?” He’s gently stroking Pakkun’s back which feels really nice.
“…I… need…” Pakkun swallows against the fuzz on his tongue and gratefully accepts an ice-chip from Kakashi’s gentle fingertips, “…steak. Medium rare.” Now that he’s done some blinking, his surroundings are bleeding into focus and he gets to see the full effect of his words; Kakashi’s worry shifting into a mix of relief and fond exasperation.
“Sorry, but you’re on a liquid diet until further notice. Doctor’s orders.” Kakashi pats his head in mock-comfort, except it really is comforting, to both of them, Pakkun suspects. Not that he’d ever mention that, alpha male that he is.
“Fuck,” he grunts instead, remembering Bull’s description of the chemical foodpill-smoothies Kakashi had poured down his throat after he’d gotten injured fighting a tiger in the Forest of Death that one time. And that was Bull. Pakkun has seen him eat a diaper and enjoy it.
“How are you feeling?”
Pakkun grimaces, but he’s still got all his limbs and he can even wag his tail a little if he tries. “I’ll live.”
Kakashi for his part looks okay, too. No injuries that Pakkun can see at least; he’s just a bit paler and more tired than usual. His breath smells stale, though, like he hasn’t been eating anything but hospital food. In fact, Kakashi’s normal scent has acquired a smothering layer of hospital smell, which tells Pakkun that they’ve been here a while. Just going by how washed out Kakashi smells, Pakkun would estimate something like forty-eight hours.
“What happened?” he asks, though he’s got a pretty good idea already. He remembers the fight and the crushing wave of chakra. That power, the way it engulfed him in his last moments of consciousness, the way it swallowed everything in its terrifying destructiveness, yes, he knew that power. Knew exactly who it belonged to, even then.
So it shouldn’t really be a surprise when Kakashi turns the pillow on his lap a little, shifting Pakkun’s field of vision until he can see the person lying in the hospital bed in front of them.
“Geez,” Pakkun drawls, because, despite everything, he is shocked to see Guy like this. Again. “I thought his days of doing that were over.”
“So did I.” Kakashi’s fingers walk his spine as if he’s too lost in thought, too exhausted to remember how to pet a dog. His dog. Pakkun.
And Guy oblivious in his post-gate coma. White as the sheets, silent as the grave he seems perfectly eager to throw himself into.
But not without reason.
“If it weren’t for him, I’d be sashimi right now,” Pakkun points out.
Silence punctuated by three beats of Guy’s heart, then, “We let our guard down.”
Pakkun’ll have to take Kakashi’s word for it, since they were already in the middle of the fight when he was summoned. He remembers chaos; three Anbu on the ground, Kakashi trying to fight off four enemies, Guy cursing the terrain, hopping out of his wheelchair and hurling it at one of the missing nin. Fun times.
“He gonna live?” Pakkun has to lift his head off his pillow to get a good look at the unconscious Captain of Konoha’s Rokudaime Hokage’s personal guard. Not really worth the effort in his opinion, Guy makes for a shitty sleeping beauty.
“Yeah,” Kakashi says. His voice is gravelly with exhaustion. But also relief and tenderness. He hides it well, always has, and still loves to keep everyone guessing. Though by now even Naruto has caught on that maybe Kakashi-sensei and his bushy-browed bodyguard are more than friends.
Come to think of it, the whole Captain of the personal guard thing caused a bit of a stir too, when Kakashi chose Guy for the job and promptly had him move into the Palace. For weeks the newspapers were full of speculation and opinion pieces on the Hokage’s decision. Then, a maniacally grinning Guy declared on morning television that he would happily surrender the title to anyone who could beat him in a fight. I challenge you, young shinobi and kunoichi of Konohagakure, to prove to me that you have what it takes to protect our beloved Hokage! Show me how brightly the Will of Fire burns in your hearts!
That caused another media sensation, which quickly died down though, when no one took Guy up on his challenge. For obvious reasons.
Now, in this hospital room with his stomach itching and the delicious sensation of Kakashi scratching behind his ears, Pakkun can admit to himself that he was wrong about that too. Because of course he’s known for years. He’s known ever since that morning when then twenty-two-year-old Kakashi summoned him to deliver a message to the Third and the first thing Pakkun smelled when he appeared was Guy, all over Kakashi. He couldn’t stop himself from teasing him then – Huh, I guess you’ve finally entered this Springtime of Youth I’ve heard so much about – and the memory of Kakashi’s beet red face will never not crack him up.
Over the years, Kakashi’s and Guy’s scents have changed and mingled to the point where, at a great distance, even Pakkun might mistake one for the other, so all this wondering and guessing always left him cold. It’s a human thing, probably, to need words. Pakkun’s nose tells him all there is to know. Kakashi and Guy belong to each other. Ask any dog and they’d give you the same answer.
Anyway, at the time, he did think that Kakashi made Guy head of his personal guard just to have an excuse to bring him along on every official trip. Plus, since Guy refused to retire, giving him that position was pretty much the only way to keep him off the mission roster. It made sense.
Pakkun peers at Guy. If it weren’t for all those tubes going in and out of him, he’d look like he was sleeping peacefully. The slow rise and fall of his chest under his thin hospital gown; it makes him look so vulnerable.
And yet… It’s almost infuriating, how, after all these years, Guy can still do that. Come out of nowhere and kick everyone’s ass with a cheesy line and a sparkly grin.
“Guess I’ll have to thank him when he wakes up,” Pakkun grunts.
“You and me both.” Kakashi’s never been a heart on his sleeve kind of guy, but Pakkun’s been with him all his life – since he was a pup, small enough to sleep on the palm of Kakashi’s hand – so he’s got a pretty good idea of what’s going through his head.
For all his evasiveness, for all his dismissive, dry one-liners, the sighing and the occasional eye-rolling, even for all the dread he feels about the gates, Hatake Kakashi is not going anywhere. And even if he didn’t know that Guy was able to use the gates again, he always knew that Guy would do anything to protect him, just like Kakashi would for Guy.
Pakkun sighs. As a good dog himself, he gets it. He closes his eyes and breathes in the mix of hospital smell and Kakashi and Guy. “We’re gonna be here a while, aren’t we?” he mumbles, feeling sleep creep up on him.
If there’s a reply, Pakkun doesn’t hear it, only registers the gentle shifting of the pillow beneath him when Kakashi leans forward to take Guy’s hand.