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silverfoxflowerTitle: Infatuation, This Fixation (or, Seven Conversations on the Same Thing and One on Something Completely Different)
Fandom: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Slash
Word Count: ~3700
Pairing: Kakashi/Iruka
Rating: R
Warnings: Non-graphic slash, details that don't follow canon
Fills: The Bodies/Body Parts square of my![[info]](https://silverfoxflower.livejournal.com/img/community.gif?v=3)
kink_bingo.
Notes: This is technically the first Kakashi/Iruka story I had ever written. There is another on my journal, I wrote it after this one and posted it before, largely because I couldn't make myself look at this for a long time. Now, I don't even know why I was so nervous. Rereading this, I have to say I completely fell in love with it all over again.But now I've probably jinxed myself and you're all going to hate it.
Beta: None, but I'm looking :) PM me if interested, especially if you're good at thinking up titles (obviously, I'm utter rubbish) and summaries.
Summary: Iruka thinks it's ridiculous, the reason Kakashi won't stop bothering him. That is, until he finds himself falling in love.
Disclaimer: No ownership was claimed in the making of this fic.
(what is this all about?)
"I have a thing for your neck,” Kakashi answered, unperturbed and completely, eerily, honest. He stood in the middle of Iruka’s half-dark classroom, garishly out-of-place among the small desks and simple jutsu instruction scrolls hung about the walls.
Iruka wondered if it would be impolite to laugh. He did it anyway, because he had nothing to lose. “That’s why you’ve been prepositioning me – most inappropriately, mind you – every day? Because you have a neck fetish?”
Perhaps he had underestimated his suitor’s seriousness. Iruka felt a flicker of alarm as Kakashi’s expression became dark. “You’re wrong,” The words were not sharp, but they held an edge of annoyance and were delivered without his customarily lazy drawl. “It’s not a fetish. I don’t have a thing for necks in general.” Kakashi walked closer, and even though Iruka was on the other side of the desk, he felt crowded into, overwhelmed. He couldn’t quite bring himself to meet Kakashi’s eyes as the copy-nin continued in a lower voice, “Just yours, Sensei.”
Iruka bristled and told himself that Kakashi’s intimidation (or was it seduction?) wouldn’t work. “Well,” He said lightly as he began edging around Kakashi, towards the door. The other ninja made no move to stop him, “I expected that you would have a weirder tastes, actually, with all the ero books you’re always reading.”
(just … dinner, right?)
It was the fifteenth time that day that he had scratched, rubbed, or kneaded at his neck. Iruka gritted his teeth, forcing himself to put his hand down and concentrate on grading papers. It was all Kakashi’s fault. Him and his strange not-fetish worming themselves into Iruka’s brain.
He just wouldn’t think of it.
After five minutes of wrestling with his own frustrating lack of concentration, Iruka found himself in front of the bathroom mirror, posing this way and that. What the hell was Kakashi on? Iruka’s neck was completely ordinary, a bit long, perhaps, with a severe tan line beneath the collar of his shirt.
Grumbling to himself, Iruka made his way back to his desk. A few minutes later, a fellow teacher stopped by with some test results. Guiltily, Iruka found his eyes flicking to the man’s throat, watching his bobbing Adam’s apple and wondering how their necks compared aesthetically.
Obviously, he was going crazy.
“Iruka-sensei,” The very object of Iruka’s frustration appeared at his elbow in a puff of smoke, causing Iruka, who really should have been used to this by now, to nearly flip himself off of his chair in surprise. “I was wondering if you would consent to have dinner with me after work.” Kakashi continued evenly, evidently unperturbed by the way Iruka flailed at the edge of his desk for balance.
It used to be that whenever the legendary Kakashi Hakate popped by Konoha Academy, a certain buzz would fill the school. Female teachers and students would swarm around corners, whispering in excitement. Younger children would trail, wide-eyed, after his footsteps. Everyone would ask, why, why is he here? Is there something wrong? Now, barely anyone lifted an eyebrow unless it was to smirk knowingly at Iruka, and it was a widely circulated fact that the village’s most eligible bachelor was courting a mousy schoolteacher. Iruka considered stalking to be the more accurate term.
With a resigned sigh, the sensei managed to straighten his chair, scraping up the last of his dignity as he carefully brushed off his sleeves. It appeared that not even their confrontation yesterday had deterred Kakashi’s sexual advances. Iruka was about to give his customarily sharp refusal (in the beginning, he had even invented excuses, until that became tiresome because he knew that Kakashi knew when they weren’t true), when something made him hesitate.
Much later, Iruka would look back and wonder when everything changed. The first crack in the wall. The beat of a butterfly’s wing which made an entire city sink under storm. The day when he succumbed to Kakashi Hakate.
“Just … dinner, right?” Iruka asked cautiously. “Don’t expect anything else.”
“Just dinner. Although I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to … anything else.” Kakashi’s expression was just as blank in the face of Iruka’s acceptance as it had been through all of the denials. Although to be fair, only one quarter of his face was actually exposed.
(what do you like about it?)
“Just tell me one thing,” Iruka shouldn’t have needed three cups of sake to scrape up the courage, but that was neither here nor there. Suffice to say, the room felt sufficiently warmer and the restaurant now brimmed with a cozy glow that made him want to talk, and talk at length. Iruka leaned over the table and asked confidentially. “What do you like about my neck?”
Kakashi glanced at the ceiling absently, silent for so long that Iruka began to think he was going to ignore the question completely. Finally, after a long moment, “It’s slightly paler than the rest of your body.”
Iruka blinked.
“It’s covered. By the collar of your vest, and your turtleneck shirt. You have a noticeable tan line.” Kakashi may have smiled. It was hard to tell with his mask. He had been making droll comments all night in an even tone of voice, and Iruka couldn’t for the life of him, tell when Kakashi was joking. The sensei found himself laughing along anyways, especially after the sake took effect.
The waitress came with their noodles and Kakashi thanked her with a nod.
“Is that all?” Iruka asked, proud that he retained enough coordination to snap open his chopsticks. He had once heard one of his female students talking about how snapping apart wooden chopsticks evenly would lead to good luck in love.
“It is … well formed. Graceful.” Kakashi pulled down his mask, and for the first time Iruka saw, rather than imagined, the smile on his face.
(is that all?)
They stumbled through the dark, veering towards walls and doors and a few times clipping a corner. Iruka continued his whispered protests the entire route, how he did not need to be supported, he really didn’t.
He hadn’t had that many to drink he just … didn’t remember the number. Still, the one time he had fought free of Kakashi’s arms, the world had spun so wildly, the lights spiraling like so many stars in dark spiral, that Iruka immediately latched on again, grumbling quietly to himself.
It had all been Kakashi’s fault in the first place, for being a better date than Iruka had expected, and yet more intimidating than he had ever imagined. After he had seen Kakashi’s bare face … it all seemed so absurd. That the most eligible bachelor in Konoha pursuing him for his … neck.
“704,” Kakashi read from the door sign. “Yours?”
“Let’s find out,” Iruka laughed quietly, like he had said something extremely clever, and tugged out his house key from his pocket. It took a few groping tries before Kakashi’s hand warmly and patiently guided his fingers to the keyhole, pushed forward until it clicked, and turned the lock.
The blatant innuendo made Iruka’s breath catch. He turned around, leaning against his unlocked door weakly. Was it anticipation or hope which rolled heavy and sweet over his tongue when Kakashi stepped forward, framing Iruka’s body with his forearms?
Perhaps it was the sake. But just sounded like something men said to excuse the actions they would soon regret.
For several minutes they just stood close, allowing the silence of the night sky substitute for words. Iruka took in several shuddering breaths and stared at the piece of Kakashi’s face he was allowed, the penetrating eye that seemed to slice through everything he was, down to the beat of his heart and his shameful, cowardly thoughts. It wasn’t even the Sharingan. It didn’t need to be.
“Why are you doing this?” Iruka whispered into small space between them, unable to stand the buzzing of his thoughts, chasing around his head and gathering his doubts. “You can’t- can’t expect me to believe that you fell in love with me because … I have a graceful neck.”
The moment the words tripped out, Iruka wanted to stuff them right back in his mouth. Using Kakashi’s own words in such a bitterly mocking tone … despite the fact that the one he was mocking was himself.
Instead of answering, Kakashi slowly exhaled, and Iruka shuddered to feel the breath on his own lips. Suddenly, he knew that his inibitions were too shredded to contain the sharp twist of arousal in his stomach, the lust which sparked at his fingertips like an impatient thunderstorm, the infatuation which awaited, dangerously, down the road if he allowed himself even one moment of indulgence- Then Kakashi leaned forward, pulled the mask off the bottom of his face, and sealed Iruka’s mouth with his own.
It was so unexpected that Iruka nearly jumped backwards and banged his head against his door. Kakashi chased him backwards, tracing the outline of his mouth firmly, as if mapping the lips, the teeth, the palate, the tongue. Iruka could feel his defenses crumbling at his feet, but with the hot slick of Kakashi’s tongue against his, there was no more reason to care.
Truthfully, the kiss was unskilled and over too quickly, yet Iruka was still left panting. “I knew you expected something else,” He mumbled clumsily into Kakashi’s collar, wondering if it was meant to be a joke, or perhaps just a statement to shift the attention from his sudden vulnerability.
“I hoped you wouldn’t begrudge me a taste,” Kakashi tugged his mask back over his mouth, and suddenly he was beyond Iruka’s reach, even though he hadn’t moved at all. “Probably’ll never again encounter you with your defenses this low.”
It wasn’t a teasing line, meant to be the start of something. It was a subtle good-bye. Iruka swallowed, suddenly feeling an annoying prickle in his heart. “So that’s … it, then. You’re gone?”
“I know when someone’s trying to hide from me, Iruka. On the battlefield, I would hunt them down.” Kakashi stepped away until no part of them were touching, leaving Iruka to shiver in the sudden chill. “But I had never had an intention to kill in this instance. You are, of course, free to run.”
“You can touch it, you know!” Iruka blurted out, unable to keep the edge of desperation from his voice when Kakashi turned to leave. “My … my neck, I mean. I won’t mind.”
For a moment, Kakashi paused, and in the darkness, Iruka couldn’t quite tell just where he was looking, what he was considering.
But, “I’d better not, thank you. Good night, Sensei.”
(why are you doing this?)
He found Kakashi in the waving long grass, by the river. When Iruka was a child, his parents called them the Singing Grass. He had not thought of this for a long time, but seeing them ripple and caress Kakashi’s prone body, Iruka thought that he, too, would have reason to sing.
“Aren’t you going to ask how I found you?” Iruka asked, after moving to stand next to Kakashi. They both watched the river ebb and swirl, flowing in a sleek, continuous line.
“I have never underestimated your tracking skills, Iruka-sensei,” Kakashi closed his eyes, perfectly content in the shade Iruka’s body threw over his face.
Iruka looked to the sky, speaking before nervousness could overtake him. “I’ve missed you, you know.” At the school. Waiting, for three days. Staying afterwards and staring at the door. He’d never mention aloud the self-loathing he had felt the day after their dinner, how he had curled in his bed, nauseated and panicky.
“I’m sorry.” Kakashi sat, leaning forward to rest his chin on his legs. Iruka could see a bookmarked and well-loved copy of Icha Icha at his feet. “I was trying to think up an answer to your question,” He hesitated. “One that wouldn’t make you want to run.”
“Which … question?”
“When you asked why I was doing this.” Kakashi repeated carefully, as if he had remembered every word.
Iruka had the sudden sense that Kakashi hadn’t done this as often as the rumors said. Perhaps he had never done this at all. And the thought made Iruka so giddy he sat down immediately, close enough that their thighs could brush if either were willing to lean forward.
“What have you thought of so far? I won’t … begrudge you if it isn’t perfect. As long as it’s honest.”
Kakashi nodded slowly. “The truth is, Iruka, I am not likely to live another ten years.”
“What?”
“The way I live, what I do, I don’t expect anything.” Kakashi didn’t specify his work, but Iruka knew what he meant. “If I see another day to put in front of this one, I am satisfied. A man like me,” And here he slid his eyes over to Iruka. “Can’t afford to lie in inaction.”
From anyone else, the line would have sounded overdone and melodramatic, a cry into the heartless darkness at the unfairness of it all. But Kakashi said it all so simply it made Iruka nod in recognition and strange misery.
Kakashi turned back to the river, his face blank. “I like your neck, Iruka-sensei. I catch glimpses of it, when you push down your collar and sweep back your hair. That is all.”
“Sounds … fair,” Iruka admitted in a small voice, and they both stayed, still and silent, as the grasses sang.
(what are you doing to me?)
They unspooled on the couch, the lines of their body fitting together more naturally than Iruka ever imagined. He could feel Kakashi’s heartbeat under his palm, just skin and rippling muscle protecting the fragile organ.
They had gotten better at kissing, or at least Kakashi had. Evidently, he now possessed the skill of sucking every breath from Iruka’s body, tonguing and nipping and tasting everywhere else so that Iruka didn’t even notice until Kakashi pulled away and he realized that there was no more air in his lungs.
These were the things he couldn’t believe he had ever lived without: the heat of Kakashi’s body, pressing him into the cushions, the tug of his gentle hands on Iruka’s clothing, stripping him methodically but with a touch of endearing eagerness, the small, chasing kisses he pressed onto every corner of Iruka’s mouth, as if he was reluctant ever to be parted.
Shirts were tossed onto the floor. Pants were half-way to joining them. Iruka said, “Bed,” and both of them knew what that meant.
Putting one day ahead of another, slowly kissing into panting stillness for a week. Now everything was about to change.
They came together as soon as their bodies touched the bedsheets, this time, Iruka rolling an unprotesting Kakashi underneath and straddling his hips.
“I never knew you were so kinky, Sensei,” Kakashi smiled, devastating without his mask.
“Shhh …” Iruka sat back on his haunches and tugged his hair out of its ponytail, watching Kakashi’s pupils dilate in the dim light. He swallowed, gathering his long hair in one palm and smoothing it all to one side of his shoulder. “I just … wanted to tell you …” Iruka gathered his courage and gently clasped one of Kakashi’s hands, dragging it to the curve of his exposed throat. “You can touch me, if you want.” And the words sounded so similar to the ill-received offer of that night that he felt an overwhelming anxiety.
Kakashi exhaled a shaky breath before he pressed his warm palm to the offered skin, gently, as if he was afraid it would scar. Iruka closed his eyes and shuddered at the feeling of fingers trailing down the length of his nape, learning him, memorizing him like an inkbrush moving over unfamiliar lines.
With words and soothing motions, Kakashi maneuvered Iruka downwards until they were lying so close Iruka could feel his breaths. Tentatively, Kakashi began pressing soft kisses alongside his caresses, keeping an eye on Iruka’s shifting expressions in order to categorize sensitive areas. Low moans, sharp breaths, the slight pinkening of his cheeks. Kakashi trailed his teeth along the muscle where Iruka’s neck met his shoulder and was rewarded with a soft exclamation of his name.
“K-Kakashi,” Iruka breathed, “What are you doing to me?” To his heart, he meant, which already seemed beat differently. To his body, which might ever again be able to live without Kakashi’s touch.
He could feel the smile against his skin as Kakashi elected to answer literally. “I’m doing what I’ve longed to for so long, dear Sensei. I’m discovering whether you’re ticklish,” He pressed his nails into the nape of Iruka’s neck, creating strong tingles that made the sensei gasp in surprise. “Where it makes you moan.” Kakashi tongued a slow line up the sensitive skin on the side.
Iruka made a soft sound as Kakashi rolled him under, burying him in pillows.
He was a dark god, crouched over Iruka’s body, purring huskily into his ear, “I’m finding the exact place where your scent is the strongest.” He nosed at the juncture between Iruka’s neck and his ear. “You drive me wild, every day.” He growled.
“Yes …” Iruka closed his eyes and rolled his hips, burning and hard, but still in no hurry.
“Choosing the exact place to leave my mark,” Kakashi’s eyes flickered downwards, a heartbreaking shade of silver. “Perhaps here,” He nipped an earlier-mapped area and heard Iruka hiss. “Or here,” He moved higher, “Here,” Kakashi trailed his lips even higher, sucking the skin carefully into his mouth. “You’ll be pulling up your shirt all day, hoping no one will see and question.” He smiled at Iruka’s indignant huff. “You’ll think of me every time.”
Iruka laughed quietly and let him, knowing that he would savor every mark Kakashi placed on him, and wear it with pride and secret longing under his clothes.
(what can i do to make you stay?)
“Don’t do this, Kakashi,” Iruka ground out, tears roughening his voice until it was painful to hear. “You can’t leave me.”
It was not raining. They were not outside in a clearing where Kakashi could bleed out dramatically and take his last breath in the cold, bitter air. They weren’t even alone.
The field hospital had been hastily erected in a half-crumbled storage shed on the edges of Konoha. Who knew that danger could come so close? Iruka now found his earlier delusions strange, that death would come swift and unexpected in the night, on some mission far from home.
The small tent was already cluttered with the injured, humid with their breaths and stench of blood. Sakura flitted around, ordering medics this way and that. Iruka, his shoulder bandaged, grasped at Kakashi’s limp body.
He was pale, feverish, but alive, at least. Sakura’s face had been set in a grim mask after she had seen to him, but she had already expended as much of her considerable skill as she could on her former teacher. All that was left to do was wait.
Middle in a string of Iruka’s curses, Kakashi’s eyes fluttered open. His lips cracked as he smiled, a weak shadow of his former grin. When he spoke, his breath rattled in his lungs. “I see I meet a fair welcome, Sensei.”
“Bastard,” Iruka breathed, smiling wide enough for the both of them.
Kakashi’s hand rose clumsily, groping its way towards Iruka’s face. Without taking his eyes from Kakashi, Iruka clasped the hand in his and drew it to his cheek, flinching at how hot it felt.
“Iruka, I-“ Kakashi dissolved in a fit of coughing, curling away, his body shaking with the tremors.
“Shhh … don’t talk,” Iruka pushed a flask of water to his hand and Kakashi drank deeply, as much as his body would allow.
“Shit,” Kakashi laughed darkly when he finished. “I’d always thought I’d die quicker … or at least in some far corner. So you wouldn’t have to see this.”
“Don’t even joke about that!” Iruka hissed. His greatest fear, sometimes clawing him awake at night, was the day he would open the door to a plain missive, Kakashi Hakate scripted in drying ink. Perhaps there would be other words, commendations of his service and a false excuse as to why he died, but still. All Iruka would see was Kakashi’s name and nothing else would ever again exist in his world.
Kakashi grew limp on the bed, eyes unfocused as his breathing began stuttering.
“No, no,” Iruka squeezed his hand tighter, begging Kakashi not to leave his grasp. “Stay with me, Kakashi, stay.” Suddenly, he began fumbling with the neck of his shirt, pulling it down and sliding Kakashi’s hand against his sweaty skin. “Tell me,” Iruka pleaded, “What you need … what, what I can do … anything.”
Kakashi seemed so, so still. Smaller than Iruka had ever seen him. For a breathless moment, he did not stir at all, but then, “Your pulse …” Kakashi murmured, his eyes still closed. Iruka gasped quietly as Kakashi’s thumb began rubbing against the side of his neck, pressing against the pulsepoint. “Your blood and life, so … so close to the skin. I can feel you live.” His mouth closed and he spoke no more, but his breathing seemed deeper, stronger.
“Alright,” Ikura closed his eyes and allowed warm tears to slide down his face. He pressed Kakashi’s hand into his skin, as close as it could get to the flickering rhythm inside of him. He imagined his own heartbeat travelling down the connection between them, stirring Kakashi’s to life again.
(why did you say yes?)
“Your hands, I think.” Iruka answered without preamble. Under the sheet, his slender fingers entwined with Kakashi’s own, sliding over the calluses, the thin scars and broken nails. Their rings rubbed together with a clicking sound.
Kakashi laughed, a beautiful sound and a beautiful sight. “That’s why you married me? Because you have some sort of hand fetish?”
Iruka raised his eyebrows wickedly, then tugged Kakashi’s fingers to his lips. Without breaking eye contact, he slowly began mouthing at Kakashi’s palm, the tender webbing between his thumb and first finger, the sensitive underside of his wrist. When Iruka began pressing lingering kisses to each knuckle, Kakashi cracked, surging forward to roll the laughing sensei beneath him with a rumbling growl.
“It’s not a fetish. I don’t have a thing for hands in general,” Iruka said, breathless, right before Kakashi pounced. “Just yours, husband.”
Fandom: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Slash
Word Count: ~3700
Pairing: Kakashi/Iruka
Rating: R
Warnings: Non-graphic slash, details that don't follow canon
Fills: The Bodies/Body Parts square of my
kink_bingo.Notes: This is technically the first Kakashi/Iruka story I had ever written. There is another on my journal, I wrote it after this one and posted it before, largely because I couldn't make myself look at this for a long time. Now, I don't even know why I was so nervous. Rereading this, I have to say I completely fell in love with it all over again.
Beta: None, but I'm looking :) PM me if interested, especially if you're good at thinking up titles (obviously, I'm utter rubbish) and summaries.
Summary: Iruka thinks it's ridiculous, the reason Kakashi won't stop bothering him. That is, until he finds himself falling in love.
Disclaimer: No ownership was claimed in the making of this fic.
(what is this all about?)
"I have a thing for your neck,” Kakashi answered, unperturbed and completely, eerily, honest. He stood in the middle of Iruka’s half-dark classroom, garishly out-of-place among the small desks and simple jutsu instruction scrolls hung about the walls.
Iruka wondered if it would be impolite to laugh. He did it anyway, because he had nothing to lose. “That’s why you’ve been prepositioning me – most inappropriately, mind you – every day? Because you have a neck fetish?”
Perhaps he had underestimated his suitor’s seriousness. Iruka felt a flicker of alarm as Kakashi’s expression became dark. “You’re wrong,” The words were not sharp, but they held an edge of annoyance and were delivered without his customarily lazy drawl. “It’s not a fetish. I don’t have a thing for necks in general.” Kakashi walked closer, and even though Iruka was on the other side of the desk, he felt crowded into, overwhelmed. He couldn’t quite bring himself to meet Kakashi’s eyes as the copy-nin continued in a lower voice, “Just yours, Sensei.”
Iruka bristled and told himself that Kakashi’s intimidation (or was it seduction?) wouldn’t work. “Well,” He said lightly as he began edging around Kakashi, towards the door. The other ninja made no move to stop him, “I expected that you would have a weirder tastes, actually, with all the ero books you’re always reading.”
(just … dinner, right?)
It was the fifteenth time that day that he had scratched, rubbed, or kneaded at his neck. Iruka gritted his teeth, forcing himself to put his hand down and concentrate on grading papers. It was all Kakashi’s fault. Him and his strange not-fetish worming themselves into Iruka’s brain.
He just wouldn’t think of it.
After five minutes of wrestling with his own frustrating lack of concentration, Iruka found himself in front of the bathroom mirror, posing this way and that. What the hell was Kakashi on? Iruka’s neck was completely ordinary, a bit long, perhaps, with a severe tan line beneath the collar of his shirt.
Grumbling to himself, Iruka made his way back to his desk. A few minutes later, a fellow teacher stopped by with some test results. Guiltily, Iruka found his eyes flicking to the man’s throat, watching his bobbing Adam’s apple and wondering how their necks compared aesthetically.
Obviously, he was going crazy.
“Iruka-sensei,” The very object of Iruka’s frustration appeared at his elbow in a puff of smoke, causing Iruka, who really should have been used to this by now, to nearly flip himself off of his chair in surprise. “I was wondering if you would consent to have dinner with me after work.” Kakashi continued evenly, evidently unperturbed by the way Iruka flailed at the edge of his desk for balance.
It used to be that whenever the legendary Kakashi Hakate popped by Konoha Academy, a certain buzz would fill the school. Female teachers and students would swarm around corners, whispering in excitement. Younger children would trail, wide-eyed, after his footsteps. Everyone would ask, why, why is he here? Is there something wrong? Now, barely anyone lifted an eyebrow unless it was to smirk knowingly at Iruka, and it was a widely circulated fact that the village’s most eligible bachelor was courting a mousy schoolteacher. Iruka considered stalking to be the more accurate term.
With a resigned sigh, the sensei managed to straighten his chair, scraping up the last of his dignity as he carefully brushed off his sleeves. It appeared that not even their confrontation yesterday had deterred Kakashi’s sexual advances. Iruka was about to give his customarily sharp refusal (in the beginning, he had even invented excuses, until that became tiresome because he knew that Kakashi knew when they weren’t true), when something made him hesitate.
Much later, Iruka would look back and wonder when everything changed. The first crack in the wall. The beat of a butterfly’s wing which made an entire city sink under storm. The day when he succumbed to Kakashi Hakate.
“Just … dinner, right?” Iruka asked cautiously. “Don’t expect anything else.”
“Just dinner. Although I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to … anything else.” Kakashi’s expression was just as blank in the face of Iruka’s acceptance as it had been through all of the denials. Although to be fair, only one quarter of his face was actually exposed.
(what do you like about it?)
“Just tell me one thing,” Iruka shouldn’t have needed three cups of sake to scrape up the courage, but that was neither here nor there. Suffice to say, the room felt sufficiently warmer and the restaurant now brimmed with a cozy glow that made him want to talk, and talk at length. Iruka leaned over the table and asked confidentially. “What do you like about my neck?”
Kakashi glanced at the ceiling absently, silent for so long that Iruka began to think he was going to ignore the question completely. Finally, after a long moment, “It’s slightly paler than the rest of your body.”
Iruka blinked.
“It’s covered. By the collar of your vest, and your turtleneck shirt. You have a noticeable tan line.” Kakashi may have smiled. It was hard to tell with his mask. He had been making droll comments all night in an even tone of voice, and Iruka couldn’t for the life of him, tell when Kakashi was joking. The sensei found himself laughing along anyways, especially after the sake took effect.
The waitress came with their noodles and Kakashi thanked her with a nod.
“Is that all?” Iruka asked, proud that he retained enough coordination to snap open his chopsticks. He had once heard one of his female students talking about how snapping apart wooden chopsticks evenly would lead to good luck in love.
“It is … well formed. Graceful.” Kakashi pulled down his mask, and for the first time Iruka saw, rather than imagined, the smile on his face.
(is that all?)
They stumbled through the dark, veering towards walls and doors and a few times clipping a corner. Iruka continued his whispered protests the entire route, how he did not need to be supported, he really didn’t.
He hadn’t had that many to drink he just … didn’t remember the number. Still, the one time he had fought free of Kakashi’s arms, the world had spun so wildly, the lights spiraling like so many stars in dark spiral, that Iruka immediately latched on again, grumbling quietly to himself.
It had all been Kakashi’s fault in the first place, for being a better date than Iruka had expected, and yet more intimidating than he had ever imagined. After he had seen Kakashi’s bare face … it all seemed so absurd. That the most eligible bachelor in Konoha pursuing him for his … neck.
“704,” Kakashi read from the door sign. “Yours?”
“Let’s find out,” Iruka laughed quietly, like he had said something extremely clever, and tugged out his house key from his pocket. It took a few groping tries before Kakashi’s hand warmly and patiently guided his fingers to the keyhole, pushed forward until it clicked, and turned the lock.
The blatant innuendo made Iruka’s breath catch. He turned around, leaning against his unlocked door weakly. Was it anticipation or hope which rolled heavy and sweet over his tongue when Kakashi stepped forward, framing Iruka’s body with his forearms?
Perhaps it was the sake. But just sounded like something men said to excuse the actions they would soon regret.
For several minutes they just stood close, allowing the silence of the night sky substitute for words. Iruka took in several shuddering breaths and stared at the piece of Kakashi’s face he was allowed, the penetrating eye that seemed to slice through everything he was, down to the beat of his heart and his shameful, cowardly thoughts. It wasn’t even the Sharingan. It didn’t need to be.
“Why are you doing this?” Iruka whispered into small space between them, unable to stand the buzzing of his thoughts, chasing around his head and gathering his doubts. “You can’t- can’t expect me to believe that you fell in love with me because … I have a graceful neck.”
The moment the words tripped out, Iruka wanted to stuff them right back in his mouth. Using Kakashi’s own words in such a bitterly mocking tone … despite the fact that the one he was mocking was himself.
Instead of answering, Kakashi slowly exhaled, and Iruka shuddered to feel the breath on his own lips. Suddenly, he knew that his inibitions were too shredded to contain the sharp twist of arousal in his stomach, the lust which sparked at his fingertips like an impatient thunderstorm, the infatuation which awaited, dangerously, down the road if he allowed himself even one moment of indulgence- Then Kakashi leaned forward, pulled the mask off the bottom of his face, and sealed Iruka’s mouth with his own.
It was so unexpected that Iruka nearly jumped backwards and banged his head against his door. Kakashi chased him backwards, tracing the outline of his mouth firmly, as if mapping the lips, the teeth, the palate, the tongue. Iruka could feel his defenses crumbling at his feet, but with the hot slick of Kakashi’s tongue against his, there was no more reason to care.
Truthfully, the kiss was unskilled and over too quickly, yet Iruka was still left panting. “I knew you expected something else,” He mumbled clumsily into Kakashi’s collar, wondering if it was meant to be a joke, or perhaps just a statement to shift the attention from his sudden vulnerability.
“I hoped you wouldn’t begrudge me a taste,” Kakashi tugged his mask back over his mouth, and suddenly he was beyond Iruka’s reach, even though he hadn’t moved at all. “Probably’ll never again encounter you with your defenses this low.”
It wasn’t a teasing line, meant to be the start of something. It was a subtle good-bye. Iruka swallowed, suddenly feeling an annoying prickle in his heart. “So that’s … it, then. You’re gone?”
“I know when someone’s trying to hide from me, Iruka. On the battlefield, I would hunt them down.” Kakashi stepped away until no part of them were touching, leaving Iruka to shiver in the sudden chill. “But I had never had an intention to kill in this instance. You are, of course, free to run.”
“You can touch it, you know!” Iruka blurted out, unable to keep the edge of desperation from his voice when Kakashi turned to leave. “My … my neck, I mean. I won’t mind.”
For a moment, Kakashi paused, and in the darkness, Iruka couldn’t quite tell just where he was looking, what he was considering.
But, “I’d better not, thank you. Good night, Sensei.”
(why are you doing this?)
He found Kakashi in the waving long grass, by the river. When Iruka was a child, his parents called them the Singing Grass. He had not thought of this for a long time, but seeing them ripple and caress Kakashi’s prone body, Iruka thought that he, too, would have reason to sing.
“Aren’t you going to ask how I found you?” Iruka asked, after moving to stand next to Kakashi. They both watched the river ebb and swirl, flowing in a sleek, continuous line.
“I have never underestimated your tracking skills, Iruka-sensei,” Kakashi closed his eyes, perfectly content in the shade Iruka’s body threw over his face.
Iruka looked to the sky, speaking before nervousness could overtake him. “I’ve missed you, you know.” At the school. Waiting, for three days. Staying afterwards and staring at the door. He’d never mention aloud the self-loathing he had felt the day after their dinner, how he had curled in his bed, nauseated and panicky.
“I’m sorry.” Kakashi sat, leaning forward to rest his chin on his legs. Iruka could see a bookmarked and well-loved copy of Icha Icha at his feet. “I was trying to think up an answer to your question,” He hesitated. “One that wouldn’t make you want to run.”
“Which … question?”
“When you asked why I was doing this.” Kakashi repeated carefully, as if he had remembered every word.
Iruka had the sudden sense that Kakashi hadn’t done this as often as the rumors said. Perhaps he had never done this at all. And the thought made Iruka so giddy he sat down immediately, close enough that their thighs could brush if either were willing to lean forward.
“What have you thought of so far? I won’t … begrudge you if it isn’t perfect. As long as it’s honest.”
Kakashi nodded slowly. “The truth is, Iruka, I am not likely to live another ten years.”
“What?”
“The way I live, what I do, I don’t expect anything.” Kakashi didn’t specify his work, but Iruka knew what he meant. “If I see another day to put in front of this one, I am satisfied. A man like me,” And here he slid his eyes over to Iruka. “Can’t afford to lie in inaction.”
From anyone else, the line would have sounded overdone and melodramatic, a cry into the heartless darkness at the unfairness of it all. But Kakashi said it all so simply it made Iruka nod in recognition and strange misery.
Kakashi turned back to the river, his face blank. “I like your neck, Iruka-sensei. I catch glimpses of it, when you push down your collar and sweep back your hair. That is all.”
“Sounds … fair,” Iruka admitted in a small voice, and they both stayed, still and silent, as the grasses sang.
(what are you doing to me?)
They unspooled on the couch, the lines of their body fitting together more naturally than Iruka ever imagined. He could feel Kakashi’s heartbeat under his palm, just skin and rippling muscle protecting the fragile organ.
They had gotten better at kissing, or at least Kakashi had. Evidently, he now possessed the skill of sucking every breath from Iruka’s body, tonguing and nipping and tasting everywhere else so that Iruka didn’t even notice until Kakashi pulled away and he realized that there was no more air in his lungs.
These were the things he couldn’t believe he had ever lived without: the heat of Kakashi’s body, pressing him into the cushions, the tug of his gentle hands on Iruka’s clothing, stripping him methodically but with a touch of endearing eagerness, the small, chasing kisses he pressed onto every corner of Iruka’s mouth, as if he was reluctant ever to be parted.
Shirts were tossed onto the floor. Pants were half-way to joining them. Iruka said, “Bed,” and both of them knew what that meant.
Putting one day ahead of another, slowly kissing into panting stillness for a week. Now everything was about to change.
They came together as soon as their bodies touched the bedsheets, this time, Iruka rolling an unprotesting Kakashi underneath and straddling his hips.
“I never knew you were so kinky, Sensei,” Kakashi smiled, devastating without his mask.
“Shhh …” Iruka sat back on his haunches and tugged his hair out of its ponytail, watching Kakashi’s pupils dilate in the dim light. He swallowed, gathering his long hair in one palm and smoothing it all to one side of his shoulder. “I just … wanted to tell you …” Iruka gathered his courage and gently clasped one of Kakashi’s hands, dragging it to the curve of his exposed throat. “You can touch me, if you want.” And the words sounded so similar to the ill-received offer of that night that he felt an overwhelming anxiety.
Kakashi exhaled a shaky breath before he pressed his warm palm to the offered skin, gently, as if he was afraid it would scar. Iruka closed his eyes and shuddered at the feeling of fingers trailing down the length of his nape, learning him, memorizing him like an inkbrush moving over unfamiliar lines.
With words and soothing motions, Kakashi maneuvered Iruka downwards until they were lying so close Iruka could feel his breaths. Tentatively, Kakashi began pressing soft kisses alongside his caresses, keeping an eye on Iruka’s shifting expressions in order to categorize sensitive areas. Low moans, sharp breaths, the slight pinkening of his cheeks. Kakashi trailed his teeth along the muscle where Iruka’s neck met his shoulder and was rewarded with a soft exclamation of his name.
“K-Kakashi,” Iruka breathed, “What are you doing to me?” To his heart, he meant, which already seemed beat differently. To his body, which might ever again be able to live without Kakashi’s touch.
He could feel the smile against his skin as Kakashi elected to answer literally. “I’m doing what I’ve longed to for so long, dear Sensei. I’m discovering whether you’re ticklish,” He pressed his nails into the nape of Iruka’s neck, creating strong tingles that made the sensei gasp in surprise. “Where it makes you moan.” Kakashi tongued a slow line up the sensitive skin on the side.
Iruka made a soft sound as Kakashi rolled him under, burying him in pillows.
He was a dark god, crouched over Iruka’s body, purring huskily into his ear, “I’m finding the exact place where your scent is the strongest.” He nosed at the juncture between Iruka’s neck and his ear. “You drive me wild, every day.” He growled.
“Yes …” Iruka closed his eyes and rolled his hips, burning and hard, but still in no hurry.
“Choosing the exact place to leave my mark,” Kakashi’s eyes flickered downwards, a heartbreaking shade of silver. “Perhaps here,” He nipped an earlier-mapped area and heard Iruka hiss. “Or here,” He moved higher, “Here,” Kakashi trailed his lips even higher, sucking the skin carefully into his mouth. “You’ll be pulling up your shirt all day, hoping no one will see and question.” He smiled at Iruka’s indignant huff. “You’ll think of me every time.”
Iruka laughed quietly and let him, knowing that he would savor every mark Kakashi placed on him, and wear it with pride and secret longing under his clothes.
(what can i do to make you stay?)
“Don’t do this, Kakashi,” Iruka ground out, tears roughening his voice until it was painful to hear. “You can’t leave me.”
It was not raining. They were not outside in a clearing where Kakashi could bleed out dramatically and take his last breath in the cold, bitter air. They weren’t even alone.
The field hospital had been hastily erected in a half-crumbled storage shed on the edges of Konoha. Who knew that danger could come so close? Iruka now found his earlier delusions strange, that death would come swift and unexpected in the night, on some mission far from home.
The small tent was already cluttered with the injured, humid with their breaths and stench of blood. Sakura flitted around, ordering medics this way and that. Iruka, his shoulder bandaged, grasped at Kakashi’s limp body.
He was pale, feverish, but alive, at least. Sakura’s face had been set in a grim mask after she had seen to him, but she had already expended as much of her considerable skill as she could on her former teacher. All that was left to do was wait.
Middle in a string of Iruka’s curses, Kakashi’s eyes fluttered open. His lips cracked as he smiled, a weak shadow of his former grin. When he spoke, his breath rattled in his lungs. “I see I meet a fair welcome, Sensei.”
“Bastard,” Iruka breathed, smiling wide enough for the both of them.
Kakashi’s hand rose clumsily, groping its way towards Iruka’s face. Without taking his eyes from Kakashi, Iruka clasped the hand in his and drew it to his cheek, flinching at how hot it felt.
“Iruka, I-“ Kakashi dissolved in a fit of coughing, curling away, his body shaking with the tremors.
“Shhh … don’t talk,” Iruka pushed a flask of water to his hand and Kakashi drank deeply, as much as his body would allow.
“Shit,” Kakashi laughed darkly when he finished. “I’d always thought I’d die quicker … or at least in some far corner. So you wouldn’t have to see this.”
“Don’t even joke about that!” Iruka hissed. His greatest fear, sometimes clawing him awake at night, was the day he would open the door to a plain missive, Kakashi Hakate scripted in drying ink. Perhaps there would be other words, commendations of his service and a false excuse as to why he died, but still. All Iruka would see was Kakashi’s name and nothing else would ever again exist in his world.
Kakashi grew limp on the bed, eyes unfocused as his breathing began stuttering.
“No, no,” Iruka squeezed his hand tighter, begging Kakashi not to leave his grasp. “Stay with me, Kakashi, stay.” Suddenly, he began fumbling with the neck of his shirt, pulling it down and sliding Kakashi’s hand against his sweaty skin. “Tell me,” Iruka pleaded, “What you need … what, what I can do … anything.”
Kakashi seemed so, so still. Smaller than Iruka had ever seen him. For a breathless moment, he did not stir at all, but then, “Your pulse …” Kakashi murmured, his eyes still closed. Iruka gasped quietly as Kakashi’s thumb began rubbing against the side of his neck, pressing against the pulsepoint. “Your blood and life, so … so close to the skin. I can feel you live.” His mouth closed and he spoke no more, but his breathing seemed deeper, stronger.
“Alright,” Ikura closed his eyes and allowed warm tears to slide down his face. He pressed Kakashi’s hand into his skin, as close as it could get to the flickering rhythm inside of him. He imagined his own heartbeat travelling down the connection between them, stirring Kakashi’s to life again.
(why did you say yes?)
“Your hands, I think.” Iruka answered without preamble. Under the sheet, his slender fingers entwined with Kakashi’s own, sliding over the calluses, the thin scars and broken nails. Their rings rubbed together with a clicking sound.
Kakashi laughed, a beautiful sound and a beautiful sight. “That’s why you married me? Because you have some sort of hand fetish?”
Iruka raised his eyebrows wickedly, then tugged Kakashi’s fingers to his lips. Without breaking eye contact, he slowly began mouthing at Kakashi’s palm, the tender webbing between his thumb and first finger, the sensitive underside of his wrist. When Iruka began pressing lingering kisses to each knuckle, Kakashi cracked, surging forward to roll the laughing sensei beneath him with a rumbling growl.
“It’s not a fetish. I don’t have a thing for hands in general,” Iruka said, breathless, right before Kakashi pounced. “Just yours, husband.”
