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Gai is crouching in a corner of an alley, clutching a stake. He's bleeding, which is probably what brings the vampire straight to him.
"Yo," Kakashi says, hanging practically upside down from a window of an abandoned building.
Gai hisses, "I'm busy!"
Kakashi snorts and gracefully falls out of the window and through the air to land effortlessly on his feet. Gai does not twitch, but he does think slightly resentfully that his rival is so much more annoying with several hundred years under his belt.
The guilt complex is worse though, as is the skulking in shadows. Gai doesn't envy Kakashi's longevity, though he will admit the abrupt onslaught of memories that showed up along with the surprising super strength had been incredibly disorienting for a while.
At least Dawn, who had shown up a couple weeks afterwards, had been incredibly supportive despite her initial surprise about him identifying as a man.
Kakashi is probably trying to be supportive too, in his own way.
"I can see that you're busy," Kakashi says, adjusting the mask on his face. His eyes linger slightly on the blood oozing from Gai's elbow, where he'd scraped it badly against the cement when he'd been thrown by the demon who had kidnapped his Watcher.
"Probably should have told you that Buffy is my sister and I'm the human manifestation of an interdimensional magical energy with the power to unlock the spaces between worlds," Dawn had said, right before being hauled off. "Gai, I'm not really the "blah blah blah do what I say or we're all going to die" type but our odds of survival will probably be greatly improved if you can escape and use my emergency cell hidden in your closet to call the Scooby Gang. You have two seconds to decide whether or not to do that before I let myself get kidnapped as a distraction. One."
"What," Gai had managed in response.
"Two!" Dawn had chirped and then really run out into the streets and screamed, "Hey, you, if you want me you'd better come get me!"
It is, unfortunately, not that different from having grown up a shinobi comrade of Kakashi's.
Gai's apartment is still two blocks away.
"Are you here to be helpful or not?" Gai asks suspiciously. In another life, he would have been thrilled to see Kakashi no matter what. In this one, this Kakashi manages to be even more confusing and mysterious. He comes and goes with even more irregularity than when he was ANBU. He likes to watch Gai struggle from afar and heckle him with semi-helpful comments, and disappears if Gai gets so much as a paper cut.
"I," Kakashi says, and his eyes are dark when he tears his eyes away from Gai's blood and looks him in the eye. "I want to be."
Gai lets out a deep breath. "Okay," he says. They'll just have to make it work, somehow.
Kakashi says, quietly, "I don't want to make anything worse, though. I'm afraid to hurt you."
The more things change, the more things stay the same. And yet, Gai doesn't remember Kakashi ever being able to be so honest with his feelings, Before.
Gai can't help an almost sardonic grin. He's someone else in this life than he was before, but his father is dead and his mother has been grieving Dai for so long that Gai can't remember the last time she looked at him straight in the face, especially since his face started to become more masculine. He is relatively popular at school, but since he's become a Slayer, he's discovered how lonely it is to have no comrades in arms.
He's not who Kakashi remembers either.
"As if you could," he says, even though Kakashi could, actually. He's had hundreds of years to understand how to be a vampire. Gai has had less than four months to learn how to protect himself from one.
Kakashi's eyes flash. He tilts his head. He's wearing almost exactly the same thing he'd worn every day as an adult in Gai's previous life. Gai wonders idly if he has to special order it. "Shall we make it a challenge?"
Gai's heart drops. It's gross and frightening to know that Kakashi can hear his heart rate spike and the cold sweat break out across his skin. Kakashi is a predator, and Gai may be a Slayer now, but he's still prey. This is a dynamic that they'd never had before, one with an inequality that maybe cannot be contained within their rivalry.
Can a rivalry even exist between hunter and hunted?
Gai is still afraid when he holds his (non-bleeding) arm out. "If you fail," Gai says, and then his imagination gives out on the realization that it could kill him.
Kakashi grasps his hand. "If we make it through," he says, "you'll let me help you train so you'll be safe from me if it ever comes to that."
"Okay," Gai says. Dawn has a lot of ideas about this and has been very impatient about Kakashi fleeing the scene all the time. "Challenge accepted."
Kakashi smiles behind the mask, but Gai hasn't forgotten yet how wonderful he looks without it. "Thank you," he says.
It's a challenge of faith. Gai remembers now that he'd always been good at those.
Gai shakes his head and smiles back. "Thank you for your support," he says.
Later, after they've called The Slayer (Buffy) and she appears with a swirl of magic with a redheaded witch and another two Slayers, and the demon is slain with impunity and they've saved the interdimensional Key, Kakashi disappears and Gai isn't surprised. Buffy and the others leave shortly after, though not before drinking all of his emergency bottles of water. Saving the world is busy and thirsty work. Gai will have to go buy more soon.
Gai and Dawn both take a hot shower ("I'm so tired of how gross getting kidnapped always makes my hair," Dawn says), and patch each other up, and order in some takeout. They've fired up something on her iPad to watch when there's a knock on the door.
Dawn says, "You'd better get that," with her eyebrows raised high.
Kakashi stands on the other side of the door, hands in his pockets. "Yo," he says.
Gai invites him in.