Chapter Text
On the whole, Kakashi never thought much about being an Alpha. His father died before giving him any kind of designation talk and the academy mostly listed the ways a ninja needed to conceal or could be manipulated by Alpha or Omega hormones.
He grows up with the assumption that being either is a detriment and hopes to be a Beta.
When he presents at 12, already a Chuunin, his rage at the unfairness only increases the boiling anger of his first rut. Minoto locks him in a room in his apartment for the three days it takes for the rut to break, then takes an exhausted Kakashi aside to have ‘the talk’. He explains that there’s advantages to each designation; Alpha’s get stronger faster and have greater chakra reserves, while Omegas have incredible healing and often heightened sensory perception. He tells him that it’s an honor to be the most virile of the sexes, as an Alpha his designation will be a great asset to the village.
But Kakashi knows the truth, he’s always known. Alphas are easy to anger and Omegas easy to overpower. Designations are just one more way the enemy can get the upper hand.
So, he perfects control of his scent and his outward reaction to others, thankful his predilection for masks helps smother the miasma of pheromones he’s now subjected to. He religiously takes the birth control pills, doesn’t fight the mandatory leave for his yearly rut (which he always takes alone), and basically tries to ignore his secondary gender.
It’s easy for a long time. He has no want to repopulate his disgraced clan, and the rest of Konoha seems to agree, leaving him to his porn and the occasional Beta male shinobi he sleeps with when the mood strikes.
Then he becomes Hokage, and suddenly the Hatake name isn’t so shameful after all. In fact, it's terrible that such a talented young man is wasting his years away unmated and childless.
At first, it’s just older ladies around the village asking when he is going to settle down, he’d make a great father, and they just so happen to know a young Omega…
Homaru and Koharu start dropping hints that the old Hatake compound could be fixed up easily if he found himself needing more room than the few spaces he uses now. They just so happen to know a contractor that specializes in family accommodations….
Then the Daimyo himself sends a letter all but declaring it is the Hokage’s duty to set the example of family life for the village, and being an unmated, childless Alpha looks weak to the other hidden villages. Kakashi wonders if the Daimyo thinks the Kazekage seems weak with his Beta lover Rock Lee.
Tsunada laughs herself silly. Apparently, as a Beta, she’d been spared the hassle.
“It’s not an order, just ignore it.”
Kakashi would very much like to, but soon the letter isn't the worst thing to happen to him.
It starts with a meeting with an ambassador from Iwakagure. It’s meant to be talks on how to strengthen the bonds of their villages, with shinobi exchange programs and infrastructure rehauls for Konoha. But it soon devolves into boasting about the accomplishments of the son that he’s brought along, who just so happens to be an unmated Omega. Kakashi grits his teeth through the whole ordeal, storming out of Hokage tower to the laughter of his guard. He makes sure Tenzou’s next mission is to oversee emptying a bog.
A few weeks later there’s a dinner at the capital where he’s sat between two Omega woman, single, and did you know Himari is an accomplished swordswoman and Yua has her own lingerie line? Kakashi can barely listen to the woman across from him extoling the virtues of the two very available woman, when their uncontrolled scents are making him not able to touch his food. They’re not even wearing scent dampening lotion and the cloying, sweet, smell is roiling his stomach.
He suffers half a dozen more such encounters before he starts getting paranoid over every invitation. He tries being firm but polite; no he’s not interested in taking a mate, no he’s never considered what his children would look like, why no he doesn’t actually think children are the greatest gift in the world, they’re actually monsters who get away with murder cause they’re cute. Well, he doesn’t say the last part, but he hopes it’s implied in his silence.
He ‘loses’ the addresses stuffed into his hand at the end of these encounters; one brazenly shoved in his pocket. He shuts down invitations to private estates, private gardens, and especially private rooms at hotels. He creates an elaborate series of hand gestures with Tenzou (who still stinks of rotting vegetation if you get too close, but doesn’t want to find out how much more vindictive the Hokage can be) to get out of uncomfortable situations while seeming natural.
The most depressing part is Kakashi doesn’t even know if any of these Omega’s actually want him as a partner, or are being pressured into it by whoever is hawking them. Some seem eager for the prestige of his position, and somehow that feels even worse. He’d rather apathy than ruthless ambition.
Kakashi has never wanted an Omega lover; besides their scents being too sweet, their bodies are too soft and easily bruised. Even Omega shinobi often end up specializing in range attacks, or as field medics. They’re great at stealth and espionage, if they learn to control their scents completely they make excellent ANBU operatives. But they often lacked the brute strength of Alphas, even of some Beta’s.
Kakashi learned early on in his sexual experiences that he was a fucked-up Alpha. He’s strong but had always been ripcord thin, and he rather enjoyed giving up control to bigger, stronger partners. Never completely, he always had a way out if he truly wanted it, but even the facsimile of being held down and made to take whatever the other person wanted was enough to wipe out the darkness inside him, leaving him floaty and light. No Omega could give him that.
Well. Except…
Maito Gai, like Kakashi, never let his designation define him. Unlike Kakashi though, Gai proudly exclaimed himself as an Omega, living in his emotions and bashing through every preconceived notion of what a ‘good Omega’ looked like. Gai was tough as beaten metal, tortured his body every chance he got and because of his designation healed fast enough to do it again and again.
Kakashi had tried to refuse their rivalry when Gai presented two years after him, he had an unfair advantage after all. But Gai had insisted; they were the yin to each other’s yang, the Springtime of their Youths intertwined, destined to push each other to greater heights. Kakashi had finally thrown a shuriken just to shut him up, but Gai had taken that as an agreement and launched into a joyful counter-attack.
Kakashi had (uncharacteristically) been stupid enough to think that Gai’s presentation would somehow make him weaker. But if anything, his fists moved faster, his kicks even harder, until Kakashi found himself winded, his arms pinned above his head and legs twisted into an impossible to escape hold.
“Yield rival?” Gai had panted into his face and Kakashi will never forget the exact moment he inhaled, intending to try and throw Gai off him, when his nose was assaulted with the overwhelming scent of pine and ginger. He had no idea where it was coming from until Gai had leaned closer, his neck inches away from Kakashi's face and the smell became even more intoxicating, saliva slicking his mouth.
“Yield. Get off me.” He’d been grateful his voice sounded normal through the viscous spit coating his throat, able to get as quickly away from Gai as he could. He’d never smelled an Omega like that before or since. Soon after, Gai surprisingly learned to control his scent (even with his abysmal chakra control) and Kakashi could stop lining his mask with Teatree oil. But he thought of the experience often. Thought of Gai’s scent, and his muscles, his vitality and unwavering desire to kick Kakashi’s ass and prove himself.
More often than not those thoughts would lead to him to fisting a hand around his cock.
He didn’t realize it at the time, but somehow Minoto must have figured it out. He started telling detailed stories about meeting Kushina, the smell of her intoxicating, her vivaciousness exhilarating. That someday Kakashi would find someone that made his heart leap, who would challenge him to be his best self. Mortification was always the predominant feeling during these talks, but Kakashi kept it hidden, or so he thought. Minoto would smile and ruffle Kakashi’s hair before he dodged away, tell him not to let his past keep him from creating his own future.
But Kakashi told himself it could never work. Gai wasn’t the friends-with-benefits type, he would want a partner, spoke enough about the Springtime of Love to make his romantic heart as obvious as his muscles. Kakashi’s hands were soaked in his friend’s blood, and no one deserved to be saddled with his ghosts.
He repeated it to himself often.
It only took a year for Kakashi to break and ask Gai out. Fucking designation hormones.
Gai had stared, his mouth dropped in shock, asked Kakashi to repeat himself. When the words didn’t change (but Kakashi’s embarrassment had mounted enough that he thought just body flickering away might be best) Gai’s face took on a severe look of concentration. Long, long moments later he burst into raucous laughter. Kakashi rocked back on his heels. Birds took off.
“You are messing with me Rival! Or perhaps practicing for some lucky kinoichi.” Here Gai had leered and Kakashi tried to melt into a puddle of mortification. “Fear not! You are an incredible specimen of a man and any Omega would be overjoyed for the chance to date you!” Gai then gave an enthusiastic thumbs up and suggested a race to Hokage mountain to celebrate Kakashi’s first steps in the Tango of Love.
He’d declined and disappeared immediately. He felt stupid and angry. Blamed everything on dumb hormones making him think he even needed a mate. That he wanted Gai of all people… that Gai would ever want him. Friend Killer Kaakshi. He tried to ignore the brutal twisting in his heart that read too much like sadness.
Incredible specimen of a man.
Maybe…maybe Gai really hadn’t understood that Kakashi wasn’t messing with him. A flash of pine and ginger and a brilliant smile had struck him. His past shouldn’t stop him from creating his own future. Maybe he could try again in a few months-
But then the Kyuubi attacked. And Minoto and Kushina died, and with them Kakashi’s frail hopes of something more for himself. So what if Gai might want him back, one of them would eventually die and if the other was very lucky, they would die soon after. Love was a fleeting, stupid feeling that only made death harder to bear.
He let himself be swallowed by ANBU, grateful he saw less and less of the muscle and height his rival was putting on. He didn’t need Gai. He didn’t need a mate. Those kinds of things weren’t for friend-killers, for Konoha’s sharpest, deadliest weapons. All he could rely on for a long time was the certainty of death.
When he’d finally crawled out of the shell of Hound, he’d been too riddled with guilt and horror at the atrocities he'd committed to think of Gai like that again. Gai, who himself was a jounin making a name for himself. Konoha’s Mighty Green Beast.
Kakashi had seen enough of life, of mated shinobi, to realize that while the loss could be devastating, for many it was worth the risk to be at peace even for a brief moment. He didn’t know yet if he deserved that peace himself, his ghosts certainly didn’t think so. Well, Rin possessed a romantic forgiving heart, and would want Kakashi to be happy. But the only person, not just Omega, he could see himself with was the last person he wanted to fully know the depths of his damage.
Gai acted like nothing had changed in the years of his absence, like Kakashi had merely been gone on a long mission. Their rivalry started up anew and Kakashi had been achingly grateful for it. But as time went on, as his psyche healed as well as it was going to, those old feelings crept back in. But surely, if Gai wanted more, he would have said something by now? He was not one to keep his desires to himself. If he wanted Kakashi, he would have stated it. Loudly. Likely in the form of poetry and Manly tears. But Gai didn’t seem to want anyone, which had suited Kakashi just fine. They would remain rivals and grow old together as bachelors.
Then Kakashi took on a genin team, then lost that team, and then his past came back to haunt him. Ghosts of his childhood were no longer ghosts and he had to re-mourn someone who had never been buried. He had to watch the person who had been with him through everything go through the Gate of Death. Watched that red light explode onto the battlefield and accepted the pain of a lost future where Kakashi had been just a little braver, one where he knew what Gai tasted like. Maybe they could have...
But Naruto did the impossible and brought his rival back from the hands of death.
Sitting at the Mighty Red Beast of Konoha’s bedside, Kakashi had to come to terms with the fact that at the end of all things, more than anything, he wished he'd been honest, that he'd at least tried to make Gai his mate. It wouldn’t have hurt more to lose him, because Kakashi already loved him. Was in love with him. Through a thousand moments, through a thousand shared memories, Gai was his most important person. His Man of Destiny.
Since then, Kakashi has filled a journal with the many ways he could broach the subject. It's stuffed with confessions, or tearful reciprocation of feelings, often devolving into graphic depictions of the sex that would follow. It scares him a little how easy he finds it to write in Gai’s prose.
He has also, in a fit of masochism, written the end of their friendship. Of Gai being unfailingly kind in his rejection, but pulling away in some stupid, self-sacrificing bid to give Kakashi room to get over him and find someone else. He cries after finishing that one.
He is terrified of a future without his life-long friend. Has already come perilously close during the fight against Madara, but instead of dying he had helped save them all and somehow lived. Gai should be the one having Alpha’s thrown at him left and right.
Except, no. Kalashi's hackles raise the instant he thinks it, his growl startling Shizune enough she drops a stack of papers. He helps pick them up and internally swears to stay away from that line of thought. But that night, as the shadows grow long and deep, he can’t stop imagining Gai’s belly swollen, resplendent smile lighting the handsome curves of his face. A half-formed Alpha walking beside his wheelchair. Kinder, stronger, saner than Kakashi can ever hope to be.
He gets no sleep and the master bedroom has gained quite a few more holes from various weapons by the time the sun rises. He’s tired and pissy all day. When Shizune slides the consent forms for Tsunade to briefly take over duties while he’s in his rut, some things start to make sense. It’s less than a week away, and his irritation and heightened obsession with Gai correspond rightly to it. He signs the paper, and tries to ignore the inevitability of nature. Tries not to obsess over asking Gai to spend it with him.
Kakashi storms out of his office two days later, hissing at one of the guards to discreetly escort the ambassador and his niece, who is clearly about to go into heat, back to their hotel. He probably could have handled it better than telling the man he was an irresponsible fool for making her travel in that state, but hopes the viciousness will deter any future attempts.
The worst part is, under the heavy rose scent she had smelled just faintly of pine. Memories of that long-lost scent have taken him over; it’s driving his body crazy. He aches to find Gai, to shove his face against his scent-gland and breathe him in. In the washroom he slaps water over his face and decides to walk to a nearby Teishoku-ya to cool down.
It's a non-descript place he has visited for years, enjoying their simple menu of traditional foods. He appreciates the thoughtful airflow that keeps scents moving out onto the street, even the owner's soft Beta scent is feeling like almost too much now in the lingering agitation.
As he's waiting though, a group of young jounin, mostly Alphas, walk in. Boisterous in word and scent, to the point Kakashi nearly breaks his chopsticks. He breathes gently through it, trying not to focus on the dismissive way they order their food, complaining at the lack of variety. Some kind of argument is happening between two of the men, and though he could care less, it's nearly impossible not to pick up snipettes about a bar and some woman that clearly preferred one of the Alphas over the other, which one that was is the point of contention.
Then there's a shove, a table shuddering under the impact and a hand raised and pulled back. Though what that hand was going to do will forever remain a mystery because Kakashi is right there, grip unyielding around the angry wrist.
The Alpha whips around snarling and even the carefully curated airflow cannot mask the bomb of Alpha-musk saturating the stall as Kakashi answers the challenge with lethal intensity. Blood drains completely from the other Alpha’s face when he recognizes his opponent as Copy Nin Kakashi, then his eyes dart up to take in the hat. The man sags in Kakashi’s grip, dropping to his knees in obvious submission. The rest of the jounins around the table are cowering in their seats, heads bowed with averted eyes.
Kakashi swells with vicious, righteous pride at their obsequious display, he won't need to dig his claws into them, just the Alpha in his hand...
"Hokage-sami..." The proprietor’s familiar gentle voice breaks him from the Alpha haze, and all at once he feels shame, overwhelmingly disgusted with himself. He looks at the prostrated Alpha, breathing deeply to calm himself further, perversely glad his scent is so overwhelming it's all he can smell.
"Your hands are a weapon for Konoha, not for petty posturing. You'd do well to remember that if you wish to keep your rank." He forces his hand to release the Alpha's wrist, digs in his pocket for all the money he has and leaves it on the counter before forcing himself to calmly walk away.
He wishes he had a book to latch his spiraling mind onto, but even that likely wouldn't stop how afraid of himself he is in this moment, not with the anger so close to the surface and his teeth refusing to stop aching. It was a gift of his mother, the sharper than average teeth, and his canines always feel bigger, more dangerous, whenever his Alpha nature is close to the surface.
He's supposed to go back to the office, but he can't get his scent back under control with the lingering aggression and need to rip something apart. He has no choice but to ninjitsu himself directly to the Hatake compound.
He tears off the hat and uniform, not stopping till he's only in his underwear, sweat beading all over his body. He goes to the kitchen and fills a cup with water, gulping the whole thing in one go, fills it again and dumps it over his head. He can't deny what's happening anymore, his rut is early and the only things his mind will catch on are going back to rip that Alpha to shreds, and being held down while his Hatake teeth dig into a delicious smelling, muscular neck.
The circumstances aren't ideal, but his mind is finally clear on one thing. He’s done being a coward.
He bites his thumb, sharpened teeth digging in more viciously than intended. The drops spill quickly onto the ground as he makes the appropriate hand signs and presses his hand into the kitchen floor. When the smoke clears Pakkun is staring up at him, takes one sniff and sneezes dramatically.
"Jeez boss, you stink. Is this what a human rut always smells like?" Kakashi's anger cools enough for him to chuckle.
"You're lucky. This is just the start." He pulls a scroll out of the hastily-stripped vest still lying on the ground, then hesitates. No, he's going to be brave. He reaches into a different pocket and pulls out his small journal. "I need you to give this scroll to Tsunade, and this- I need you to give this book to Gai after." He lets Pakkun take the scroll in his mouth and carefully tucks the book into the pouch on his back.
A muffled "Good luck boss." Comes from around the scroll and the dog is gone, out of the reach of Kakashi changing his mind like the coward he's been for years.
For better or worse, things have to change.