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It’s hard to make things look organic. Yamato knows trees, loves trees, appreciates their stillness and their utility in a way he’s pretty sure no one else in Konoha does. After all, far too many people have leveled forests in their battles. They never consider who remakes them.
Time, water, wind and earth remake trees. Yamato can make them, too, but his turn out… blocky. The right angles of convenience and civilization.
He cocks his head at his newest attempt to make a maple. It’s decent. There’s a balance to be struck between the pressure he exerts to get everything growing and the tree’s natural desire to grow its own way. He’s finding that balance slowly. An inescapable fact about trees; they take patience. Naruto wouldn’t be able to do anything like this. He’d want to shadowclone his way out of it, fast and sloppy and effective but not necessarily lovely. Yamato wouldn’t say it aloud but he knows it’s clear enough looking at the things he makes; he likes elegance. He appreciates something made with care and effort and time. Of all the resources shinobi may have, time is the smallest. The way a shinobi chooses to spend time says something about what they value.
Yamato picks another patch of earth and breathes, staring into the undergrowth. He keeps his hands clasped and breathes and looks and there, there, it’s growing now, speeding up (he breathes) until it hits a certain height and girth and then the tree slows down, starts sending questing branches towards its neighbors. It is seeking sunlight politely. It is seeking its fair share.
It’s highly inefficient to waste this much time on a single tree that will be leveled next time Naruto reaches all nine tails, or Madara arrives with that Susano’o of legends, or some other Jinchuriki was a bone to pick—but they’re all gone, aren’t they? Only Gaara lived, and that was merely because Naruto is so stubborn he can keep the people he cares about from death. Somehow, he can bring the dead to life.
Resurrection is not Naruto’s gift, Yamato knows that. But sometimes it feels like it is.
Yamato can turn nonexistance into life. Nothing worth talking to, though. Trees are content in ways that humans never will be. They are still and when they die, it is with a gentle resignation. Oh well, this is what I got. Trees aren’t loud and determined to save the world. Trees don’t trick you, but they also don’t set out to protect the things they love most. Trees do not have your back in a fight. Trees don’t study each other and try to fit in because companionship is not important to trees. Trees do not change their natures. Trees don’t summon dogs when you are sad. They don’t forget to shower or brush their teeth, they don’t forget to do laundry, and they don’t leave porn novels open to suggestive pages around where you’ll just happen to find them.
Yamato appreciates trees.
He considers making one more, just one more practice tree, but he thinks about all the things in his life that are not trees and he turns and continues on his way to the rubble of Konoha.
There are a few buildings up already. Those elders who advise Tsunade and kowtowed to Danzo have commandeered one. Tsunade and Shizune have another. Theirs is right next to the hospital, which was another quick and dirty construction job. Shikaku has claimed a building for the purpose of planning a war. The Hyuuga are insisting another is theirs because why not give the oldest surviving clan a whole fucking compound when civilians and regular shinobi don’t have anywhere except the tent city?
Yamato left the builders of Konoha with the cleanest, straightest lumber he could generate but he did leave them. It’s not surprising that there hasn’t been much progress.
He goes looking for Rin. He could talk to Guy as well but Rin will be easier to find; he makes a beeline for the hospital. There she is, right where the receptionist sends him, in Exam Room 008 (written on a chip of wood in brushwork that would make Sai wince). Her hair’s glued to her head with sweat and grease but she’s sterilizing her arms and barking orders—they’re about to go into surgery on someone. Yamato stands silently by a wall. His requests are not important at this time. Perhaps he should try to find Guy. Or just go lie down. There must be free tents somewhere… He could build himself an inn, of course, but it feels rude to flaunt shelter in front of people who have nothing.
Rin spots him. “Yamato!” she says, a smile twitching the corners of her mouth. “Hey, he’s probably out back. I put him to work after he got dumped for Rokudaime. Lady Tsunade’s awake so we’re all good on the Hokage front. For now, anyway. Go congratulate him on weaseling out of responsibility again, I have a C-section to perform.”
Yamato gives her a half-bow, half-nod. “Thank you, Doctor Nohara.”
Rin laughs weakly at that. It is a laugh, though. “I dunno how someone as polite as you got stuck with that asshat.” And then she’s gone, yelling for a midwife. As if she hasn’t delivered dozens of babies alone by now.
Yamato wanders around the section of the tent city that is behind the hospital building. There aren’t really streets so much as gaps between cloth walls. There is so much chatter. At least two people are trying to have quiet sex, while four more have given up stifling moans and sighs. Yamato walks a little faster.
He sees Pakkun and slows down.
“Hey, kid,” Pakkun says, because he likes making Yamato feel weird about his age.
“Hello, Pakkun,” Yamato says. Because he’s polite.
“Boss is this way,” Pakkun says, and stumps off. When he’s not racing through the trees, he waddles. He’s a bow-legged little dog and there isn’t much he can do to hide that fact. Yamato follows him, blankfaced. It’s easy to keep a mask in place even without the actual ANBU mask.
“Boss totally ditched you back in the Land of Iron, right?” Pakkun says.
“Yes,” Yamato says, but he doesn’t really need to answer. The dog will keep talking anyway. Unlike Bull, Pakkun talks a lot.
“I dunno why they put him in charge of teaching when all he does is throw people in the deep end,” Pakkun says. “He’s good with kids, I guess. Well, he tries. I guess if you’re trying that’s something?”
“Maybe,” Yamato says.
“But, like, you two are shacked up and he still leaves you to clean up his messes,” Pakkun says. He makes a huffing sound that’s probably a laugh. “That’s the Boss for you.”
This time, Yamato doesn’t say anything. Cleaning up Kakashi’s messes is not something he cares about, except under very specific circumstances (paying for dinner all the time, for example). The fact that he appears to be doing most of the work around the house and village isn’t that important to him.
“Here,” Pakkun says, sticking his nose under the flap of a tent. “Make him take a bath, he still smells like that fucked up kid. With the eyeballs and the rage.”
“Sasuke,” Yamato says.
“Yeah, that one,” Pakkun sighs. “We got used to smelling the Nine-Tails all the time but Sasuke’s evil now. It stings.”
“I’ll let him know,” Yamato says, and ducks into the tent.
This one is different from where he had found Kakashi previously. It’s much smaller and there isn’t a cot. It’s just four cloth walls and a floor and, in one corner, a stack of basic field supplies. And Kakashi. Who is asleep sitting up.
Yamato sighs and sits down a few feet away. He rubs his forehead, fingernails bumping on his metal faceplate. He now owns exactly two sets of clothes and tactical gear. Everything else is rubble now. There are salvage teams digging through the wreckage on the borders of the blast radius but all the luxuries have vanished. People are scouting for electronics, haggling with civilian villages in the Land of Fire. Ninjas are semi-secret but even so, they need to be informed. Now more than ever, since there’s going to be a fourth war.
Kakashi’s head jerks up and he’s suddenly holding a kunai in his right hand, but he relaxes almost instantly. “Hey, Tenzo.”
“How was the trip back?” Yamato asks.
Kakashi shrugs. “Not bad. Sakura does a better job than me at nagging Naruto these days. I just had to haul that sensor girl to Torture & Interrogation’s temporary headquarters. It wasn’t too big a deal. You fix the inn?”
“Yes,” Yamato says. “They made me pay for a new mattress, though.”
Kakashi frowns. “We don’t have any money.”
“I had money,” Yamato corrects him. “Now, yes, we don’t have any money.”
“Pain fucked us,” Kakashi says around a sigh. The sigh turns into a yawn and he scrapes a hand through his hair. It doesn’t travel far before he has to tug his fingers free of the knots. “He fucked us bad.”
Yamato swats at the untamed mass of pale hair. “You need a haircut.”
Kakashi looks at him tiredly. “Not really.”
“You need a haircut and you need to bathe,” Yamato says, ignoring him. “Come on. They must have baths set up.”
“Nah,” Kakashi says.
“Pakkun,” Yamato says.
The little dog pokes his head into their tent. “Shinobi guys get to use the one on the west side and there’s a gender-neutral to the south. We’re not allowed at the north one cuz it’s for civilians and families. And east is girls-only.”
“Thank you,” Yamato says, hauling himself upright. He can stay awake a few hours more if it means he can get Kakashi to take a bath for the first time in what has to be a week. They should have done this in the Land of Iron but Naruto was busy having more feelings than he knew how to handle and they had to be supportive through that. Now is as good a time as any.
Kakashi’s eye is closed again.
Yamato hooks a hand under the man’s shoulder and drags him upright. “Come on.”
“You can’t even promise me sexy bathtime,” Kakashi whines. “It’s a public bath. There’s no point.”
“You smell terrible and you need a haircut,” Yamato says.
“No point,” Kakashi insists.
Yamato stares at the tent’s ceiling for a moment. “I will refrain from teasing you about being named Sixth Hokage if you come take a bath and let me trim your hair.”
Kakashi crams his hands into his pockets. “Shit. You know about that.”
“Yes, I know about that,” Yamato says. He holds the tent flap open and raises his eyebrows meaningfully.
“I got fired,” Kakashi mutters as he shuffles past him. “I was only Hokage for three hours. They didn’t even start carving my face on the mountain.”
“Yes, I’m sure you’re very proud,” Yamato says.
They walk off, an inch of space between their shoulders.
“The water coming off of you is grey,” Yamato points out. “This is what happens when you don’t bathe for a week.”
“Rin gave me a sponge bath at the hospital,” Kakashi says.
“That doesn’t count,” Yamato says. “Where’s the shampoo?”
“Here,” says Kiba, the only other man using the bathhouse. He tosses a bottle over. Yamato tries to field it but Kakashi is quicker. Kakashi dumps a palmful out and starts mashing it through his hair. Bubbles drip down and seep into the white cloth mask he has tied over his nose and mouth but Kakashi doesn’t seem to mind.
“Is it dog shampoo?” Yamato asks, because Akamaru is here and has a towel on his big fluffy head.
Kiba shrugs. “I dunno. I use it.”
“But Akamaru also uses it?” Yamato asks.
“If you aren’t sure you want to hear the answers, don’t ask the questions,” Kakashi says. He dumps a bucket of water over his head with some care, keeping his mask safely in place.
Yamato turns the shampoo over in his hands. There is no label. It’s generic enough that it simply says “SHAMPOO” on it in slightly smudged pink characters. It isn’t like it matters if it’s meant for dogs, Yamato tells himself. He scrubs some through his hair and rinses off. Kakashi has already moved to the soaking pool, which is clearly being maintained at a constant clarity and temperature by a mediocre jutsu. Yamato could do better. He learned to delegate a long time ago, though, so he lets it be.
It’s lukewarm enough that Yamato isn’t going to nod off in the bath any time soon. Kakashi has both eyes shut but he isn’t breathing like he’s asleep. He doesn’t want to talk, though. Yamato lets him be.
Kiba doesn’t. “Hey, Kakashi-sensei! I heard you were Hokage for, like, ten minutes! Is Naruto mad at you?”
“Dunno,” Kakashi says without opening his eyes.
“Bet he cried,” Kiba says with a snicker. “Oh man, you lived his dream and you didn’t even want it. That’s hilarious!”
Kakashi grunts.
“No way they’d make him Hokage at sixteen, though,” Kiba continues. “He’s way, way too young. I mean, even the Yondaime was in his twenties! You’re older than the Yondaime was, right Kakashi-sensei?”
“If you’re done, get out,” Yamato says, putting out his best scary face.
Akamaru yelps. Kiba scrabbles backwards on the rough stone floor. “Shit! Yeah, okay, you can have your privacy!”
Yamato keeps his scary face on until Kiba vanishes around the corner of the room that houses all the clothing cubbies. He risks a glance at Kakashi.
To the untrained eye, Kakashi looks as bored and tired as ever. He’s sunk down a few inches more into the pool, though, and there’s been an increase in the quality of the jutsu running on the water. It’s getting warm enough to be comfortable. The thin cloth of his mask is floating on the surface of the water.
“I’ll cut your hair,” Yamato says.
Kakashi blows some mouth bubbles but otherwise doesn’t move.
Yamato ducks into the cubby room. Akamaru whimpers when he sees Yamato and Kiba panics with his shirt over his head and tries to stuff his face through an arm hole. “I’m going! I’m going!”
Yamato considers telling him not to worry, but since he’s digging through his clothes for a kunai sharp enough to slice hair it probably wouldn’t be that reassuring. He simply picks his weapon and goes back inside.
Behind him, he hears Kiba say, “Uh… you think Kakashi-sensei’s in trouble?”
Akamaru barks.
Yamato snags a towel from the dirty pile that’s been abandoned by the entrance. He makes plenty of noise walking back over and settles down on the ground behind Kakashi, dangling his legs in the water on either side of Kakashi’s head. He tucks the towel firmly across his lap to 1) catch stray hair and 2) ensure things don’t look too…awkward.
Kakashi’s head rises a little, getting his mouth out of the water. “You don’t have to be devious if you want a BJ. You can just ask. No one’s here.”
“I am cutting your hair,” Yamato says.
“If I turn around, what’s going to be at eye-level?” Kakashi asks. His tone of voice is reasonable; he already knows the answer.
“Don’t turn around,” Yamato says. He rakes his fingers through Kakashi’s rat’s nest and starts straightening everything out. Ideally there’d be no tangles but Yamato would have to go to one of the other bath houses or find Neji or Lee if he wanted to find a comb in this ninja village, and he’s not invested enough to do that. He simply does his best with his fingers, then starts trimming with his knife. Kakashi doesn’t make a sound, even when Yamato is pretty sure he’s tugging too hard. His kunai is sharp but he still has the pull the hair taut enough to put up some resistance.
He has a lapful of pale hair by the time he’s done. “There.” He folds the ends of the towel in, stands up, and walks across the water to the edge of the bathhouse where the structure opens to the forest. He shakes the towel out with the wind, watching the silver fragments twinkle like metal in the air before they are blown into the shadow of the trees.
When he turns back, Kakashi is looking at him.
It’s rare to catch Kakashi not performing. Right now his head is sunk between his shoulders, both eyes are half-lidded. His gaze moves like a lazy fish, scanning Yamato’s body in random sections. He is still in the way he gets when he’s focused, intent.
Yamato releases the chakra around his feet and plops into the water.
“I was watching that,” Kakashi says when he resurfaces.
“I noticed,” Yamato says. He ducks beneath the surface again, just to make sure no small hairs are sticking to him. After a few long swimming strokes underwater he almost scrapes his knees on the sloped ground of the soaking pool. He stands up, wiping water from his eyes, and wades towards Kakashi. The water moves from around his ribs to around his hips, and then he’s bumping into the low seat that spans the edge of the pool. He sits down next to Kakashi, still that careful inch between them.
“Thanks for the trimjob,” Kakashi says. His emphasis rings oddly and Yamato laughs before he can think about the fact that Kakashi really did just make a horrible dirty joke at a public bathhouse.
“Maybe I can return the favor,” Kakashi continues when Yamato stops laughing.
“My hair is fine,” Yamato says.
“Just your hair?” Kakashi says.
Yamato looks over at him. “Are you paying me a compliment or offering to perform obscene sexual acts as payment for a haircut? I can’t tell.”
Kakashi shrugs.
“You’re as clean as you’re going to get,” Yamato says, suppressing a smirk. “Let’s go.”
“One of these days,” Kakashi grumbles as he lifts himself out of the water, “I am going to get you to flirt back.”
“Maybe I’m just more subtle about it than you are,” Yamato says. “After all, I’m probably going to get some action in the next half hour or so.”
“It’s likely,” Kakashi admits.
“Isn’t that the desired outcome of flirting?” Yamato says. He scrubs a towel over his legs and works his way up until the towel is draped around his shoulders.
“No,” Kakashi says, sounding shocked. When Yamato looks at him, the man’s eyes are wide with surprise. “Of course not!”
“Are you serious?” Yamato says.
“Flirting is a game,” Kakashi says. His hands wave through the air, a rare expressive movement as he seeks to articulate himself. “It’s an art. It’s a verbal dance.”
“What?” Yamato says, still not quite sure he believes Kakashi is saying things like this.
Kakashi makes a frustrated sound. Yamato maintains an expression of polite interest and marvels at the fact that he clearly struck some kind of nerve. He moves into the cubby room and digs for the clean uniforms he brought for himself and Kakashi.
“Flirting is like foreplay,” Kakashi says, following him.
“No,” Yamato says firmly. “Foreplay is foreplay.” He passes Kakashi a new pair of pants.
“Flirting is the foreplay before foreplay!” Kakashi says.
Yamato is very careful to keep the smirk off his face. “But the outcome is still intercourse, so I don’t see—”
“Flirting is fun because everyone knows what you want but you can’t say it explicitly,” Kakashi snaps. “Hence why it’s the foreplay before foreplay and hence why it’s a dance. You can do it in public and everyone’s kind of uncomfortable about watching it happen but it still happens and it’s fun.”
“Ah,” Yamato says. He can’t keep the smile away anymore. “I understand now.” He passes a hand through Kakashi’s hair as if he’s fixing it. It’s an untamable mess as always but he wants to touch this man suddenly, in a quiet way. This is something more personal than he was expecting. It’s a new perspective on something Yamato always found faintly amusing, frustrating, and charming.
Kakashi swats at his hand irritably. “Oh, fuck off.”
Yamato is still smiling. “I’m still not going to do it. Because no one would know what to think if I started giving you long, meaningful looks and saying that the topiary on top of your head needed a, ahem, trimjob.”
Kaskhi yanks his special undershirt on, tucking it into his pants and settling the mask in place before he crumples up the flimsy cloth one he wore to the baths. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
Yamato grips Kakashi’s bicep. His hand covers the ANBU tattoo that they share. “And that I’d be happy to perform that service for you.”
The Sharingan is closed but Kakashi opens his other eye wider. “Oh?”
“Of course,” Yamato says. “I don’t mind cleaning you up a little. Or a lot.”
It’s clear that behind the mask, Kakashi is grinning hugely. “Oh really?”
Yamato nods solemnly. He steps a bit closer. “Haven’t you noticed how much I care about your personal hygiene? It seems I have to take care of everything myself. Up close and personally.”
He pinches the fabric of the mask just under Kakashi’s chin and yanks it down. The crooked smile he knew would be waiting for him is there, faintly scarred and missing a few teeth. Yamato presses his mouth to one corner of that smile, then settles the mask back in place.
“Damn,” Kakashi says appreciatively.
“Let’s go,” Yamato says.
“Shit yeah, let’s go,” Kakashi laughs. He shrugs on his shirt and vest, rolls his sleeves up to free his wrists, and is tying on his forehead protector before Yamato can even pull down his own turtleneck undershirt. “Come on, I wanna see how much of that was just talk.”
Sometimes, Kakashi can be still and quiet and distant, like the trees Yamato cultivates and appreciates. Other times he’s focused, businesslike, urgent, determined. And sometimes, he smiles where Yamato can see it. He laughs into Yamato’s neck. He falls asleep in undignified positions that Yamato has to rearrange or else he’ll wake up with back pain the next morning and he’ll whine about it until Yamato gives him a massage. He hogs space but not blankets, taking up as much room as possible but completely indifferent to how much of him is covered. He sleeps like the dead or he wakes from the same nightmare, just like Yamato still wakes from his old nightmare. He is something changing and exciting. Kakashi is organic in the way Yamato strives to be, even when he’s sure he’ll always simply be blocky; it’s his nature. Yamato finds the untamed beautiful.