Kakashi was sitting on the edge of his bed, mask-less head in his hands, eyes closed, listening to Iruka move quietly about the room. Footsteps, a pause, and then the rustle of clothing. A cough and more footsteps. Then,

“Damn…” Soft, annoyed.

Kakashi glanced up, opening his eyes to look at Iruka for the first time since the chuunin left the bed. “What is it?” Soft, agitated.

“My button,” Iruka was standing near the doorway, half-clothed, shirt still missing and pants held up by his hands, “is broken.”

Kakashi sighed as he moved his hands away from his face then moved them back, fidgeting. “Come here.” The sound of a few footsteps and then Kakashi was staring down at Iruka’s feet, standing between his legs. An unbidden smile came up behind his hands and he looked up at the younger man. “Sleep with me?”

Iruka blinked and turned away, fully intending to continue his search for his shirt. “I already have, Kakashi.”

“No,” he said, grabbing Iruka’s wrist to hold him back, all humor draining out of his voice, “sleep with me. Just sleep, for the night.” He tugged at the wrist lightly, then turned it over so he was looking at the palm. “I can’t leave you alone yet, you’re still shaking. See? Look at your fingers…” He trailed off as he slipping his hand down the wrist, wrapping his hand around the shaking fingers. Another tug. “Come sleep with me, Iruka.”

“I can’t,” he began half-desperately, looking everywhere but Kakashi’s face, trying to pull his hand away.

“Are you scared?” Kakashi asked frankly, tracing a finger across Iruka’s hand, following the fold lines.

“No,” he snapped, finally succeeding in reclaiming his hand. “I don’t want your god-damned pity.” The last word was dripping poison.

“Pity?” Kakashi gave a short laugh. “Ain’t-”

“Isn’t,” Iruka corrected tersely.

“Ain’t,” Kakashi repeated, “pity. You’re supposed to be under watch. Unless you want some ANBU in your room tonight, I suggest you stay here.”

“ANBU?” Iruka was digging through a pile of clothes on the other side of the room with one hand, using the other to continue holding up his pants. He peered at something that looked like his shirt before tossing it to the side. “Why ANBU?”

“Hokage said you’re a threat,” the copy-nin replied, standing from the edge of the bed to wander towards Iruka. He paused on the way, grabbing a shirt.

Iruka snorted. “A threat? To the village? And can I have my shirt?”

He held out the shirt, pulling it away and grabbing Iruka’s hand again when the chuunin reached for the shirt. “She didn’t say to the village.” He looked pointedly at Iruka’s hand, tracing the fold lines again. The teacher paled and pulled his hand away again, holding it close to his chest. “Ah, well,” Kakashi shrugged, “if you go home, maybe you can get Anko to watch you.”

“She’d rape me,” Iruka said softly with a nervous smile. Kakashi began to smile back.

“Can’t rape the willing.”

“Exactly. She’d rape me.”

“So you’ll stay?”

“I guess,” he mumbled, giving a soft, defeated laugh. He let go of his pants, letting them fall to the ground, and looked at Kakashi expectantly. The jounin stared right back. “Pajamas,” Iruka finally asked, impatience seeping into his voice.

“I sleep naked,” he assured the teacher solemnly, lips lifting in the slightest smile.

“Pajamas,” Iruka repeated. “There’s no way in hell I’m sleeping next to you in just my boxers. You’re almost as bad as Anko.”

Kakashi adopted a hurt expression as he moved to a dresser, digging through the second drawer. “You don’t even trust your own comrades? Here-” and he pulled out two pairs of sweatpants, one that he kept and another that he tossed to Iruka who caught them reflexively.

Iruka tugged on the sweatpants, hopping to pull them up. When the elastic band snapped around his waist he rubbed his bare stomach absently, looking anywhere but the bed. Kakashi sighed as he pulled up his own pair, rolling his eyes.

“Come on, then. I swear, you’re so edgy.” He touched a fingertip to Iruka’s lips as the teacher began to respond, silencing him. “Just calm down and sleep,” he said, almost sternly, as he pushed the teacher down onto the bed. Iruka laid on his back, stiff and frozen, jaw set stubbornly. “God,” Kakashi groaned, grabbing one of Iruka’s hands. “Just relax, will you?” He began tracing the fold lines yet again, running a fingertip from side to side.

“I am relaxed,” Iruka snarled as he forced his body’s muscles to loosen.

“Liar.”

Iruka made a face at that, then rolled over onto his side, looking somewhere over Kakashi’s chest. “Why ANBU? Why not chuunin, or even jounin?”

“Tsunade-sama thought it’d be less embarrassing for people with masks to follow you around.”

“Of course. So that’s why…”

“Naruto’s one of my students.”

“Certainly.”

They fell silent then, Kakashi still running his fingers across Iruka’s palm, Iruka turned on his side, staring at Kakashi’s shoulder, at the ANBU tattoo. After a few minutes of the increasingly uncomfortable silence Iruka shifted, uneasy.

“Why do you keep touching my hand?”

Kakashi blinked slowly, running his fingertips across Iruka’s palm yet again. When the teacher hissed, annoyed, he answered. “You have a short lifeline, right here.” He turned Iruka’s hand so the teacher could see his palm.

“Oh. I do?”

Kakashi hummed his assurance, then traced the line again, this time with his tongue. At Iruka’s sound of rage he grinned, dropping the hand. “Should have more sex. You know, no regrets and all that.”

“Go to sleep, Kakashi,” Iruka said darkly, threateningly.

“Yes, sensei,” he said mildly.

!-!-!

When Iruka woke up the next morning he was tired, disoriented, sore, though he didn’t want to think about that right now, and late. Very late. Of course, it should be read that his being late corresponded with the fact that the sun was barely, barely beginning to peak over the horizon.

“Shit,” he snarled, eloquently, as he tried to roll out of a bed that certainly wasn’t his. A hand, which also wasn’t his, grabbed his arm, effectively cutting off his attempt at escape. “Damnit.” Yes, Iruka’s a very eloquent man in the morning.

“Where are you going?” It was drawled from the lips of one Kakashi, whom Iruka suddenly had a very strong urge to punch. Or shag. He wasn’t quite particular on which.

“My classes-”

“The academy’s still closed. Try again.”

“Naruto-”

“Is in the hospital, which doesn’t allow visitors for another-” here the copy-nin dropped Iruka’s arm so he could roll over and peer blearily at a clock “-three hours. Come back to bed,” he concluded, whining.

Iruka wasn’t quite sure what to do. On one hand, going back to bed had its perks, many, many perks. On the other, going back to bed had not such perky things, he just couldn’t think of them at the moment. He blamed his lack of concentrating on the non-perks to the hand, another one not belonging to him, rubbing his lower back, now and again dipping beneath the waistband of his sweatpants. Or rather, Kakashi’s sweatpants. Because he was in Kakashi’s apartment, right? But he’d been in the hospital, with Naruto, making paper cranes, and he was sure that had something to do with Icha Icha Paradise, but he wasn’t quite sure what, and Kakashi really was making it way to hard to concentrate, what with that hand.

“Ah,” Iruka said, not quite sure what he was ‘ah’ing. Kakashi obviously took the ‘ah’ as a yes, since he grabbed the waistband of the sweatpants, tugging backwards so the confused chuunin fell on a sleepy but most happy jounin.

“Good,” Kakashi all but purred.

“Ah,” Iruka repeated most ineffectively, blinking as hands slipped far past the waistband. “Oh, shit,” he groaned, pushing at Kakashi’s hands. “Wait, wait, wait. Oh, shit. Shit!”

“Am I that bad?” Kakashi looked almost hurt.

“What? No. Wait, stop, let me think. Sex?” At Kakashi’s bland look Iruka nodded to himself. “Right, sex. We had sex, because Naruto’s in the hospital and Sasuke left. Right?”

“Yes?” Kakashi ventured.

“Right,” Iruka replied, looking inanely proud of himself. Then again, to be able to make semi-coherent sentences with those god-damned hands touching him, he had a right to be proud. “We had sex, and then you were upset. Yes, you were upset. Agitated? Why?”

“I was not upset or agitated,” Kakashi grumbled, “I was tired.” Iruka’s look was most dubious. “Tired,” Kakashi repeated, groping Iruka for emphasis. “Me, Itachi, coma. Ring a bell?” This time Iruka’s look was shamefaced.

“Oh, god,” he groaned. “I forgot. Then you had to take care of Team Seven and” said a little harshly “me.”

This time Kakashi leered at Iruka, squeezing his hands on thin air most suggestively. “Taking care of you had very good advantages.”

“Because we’re fuck buddies?” Kakashi looked surprised at his frankness and Iruka shrugged idly. “Aren’t we? Stress is bad, sex is good, so we’re fuck buddies. We’re not in love, thank god, and we’re not friends. We can barely even call each other acquaintances. So, we’re fuck buddies.”

Kakashi had grown still as Iruka spoke, humor slowly becoming a little more fake on his face. “You should go home now,” he stated calmly, pushing the teacher away so he could swing his legs off the bed.

“You’re angry again,” the chuunin noted, looking faintly amused as the jounin rode over him, still talking.

“I’m sure you have a lot to do, we all have missions-”

“So you wanted to be friends?” Amused.

“-so just go home.” Calm breaking

“Or more than friends?” Amusement becoming pity.

“Go home…” Almost pleading. A touch to an elbow and Kakashi was pulling away, finally angry. “Damnit, Iruka, just go home!”

Iruka scowled, shoving himself off the bed to go collect his shirt. “‘Stay here,’ ‘go home.’ Make up your mind, Kakashi.” He tugged on his shirt, growling incoherently at the tangled sleeves, then bundled up his pants in his arms. Kakashi made a small noise then, pointedly looking at his sweatpants, still on Iruka’s body. When Iruka noticed the stare he scowled more. “I’m sure you’re not such a child that you won’t even let me borrow a pair of pants. You ruined mine, so it’s your fault, anyways.”

“Just get out.”

“Fine.” It was snapped out angrily as Iruka stomped over to the door, wrenching it open. “Fine, fine, fine!”

“Fine!” Kakashi roared back as he slammed the door, Iruka barely out of the way. There was a shriek of rage from the other side, then silence except for the stomps fading away into the distance.

!-!-!

“You two are so stupid,” Anko murmured, amazed.

“Go to hell.” Iruka was trying to ignore the jounin perched on the edge of his desk by staring at a pair of scissors, imagining stabbing them into the heart of a certain copy-nin. Or any jounin, really. Right now, anyone connected in any way, shape, or form to Kakashi had Iruka’s wrath focused upon them, and that meant most, if not all, of the jounin.

“And join you? No thanks. But really, it’s been nearly a week. Are you two such children?” When the murderous glare moved from the scissors to her she help up her hands appeasably. “Just say you’re sorry.”

“How can I say I’m sorry? I didn’t do anything.” The teacher slammed his head back down on his desk, snarling darkly under his breath.

“What’s wrong with him?” Genma asked wonderingly as he wandered into the teachers’ lounge, flicking his senbon in Iruka’s direction.

“Will you damn jounin just leave me alone?” Iruka’s head was still against the desk, his eyes shut tightly, but he was pointing a shaking finger in Genma’s direction.

“He had a falling out with Kakashi,” Anko said absently, petting the chuunin’s head soothingly.

“There was no falling out! There can’t be a falling out unless there’s something to fall out of!” He slapped Anko’s hand away irritably, raising his head from the desk to glare at her again.

“Like his ass?”

“You’re dead, Anko!”

Genma wandered out of the lounge much as he had wandered in, biting his senbon absently as he tried to ignore the screams of rage and cries of desperation.

“Damnit, Iruka, put the scissors down!”

Or at least, he tried to.

!-!-!

Kakashi was pissy as hell. His team had been destroyed, one third wandering away to join the ye-olde-random forces of evil, one third was still in the hospital for trying to pull a stupid stunt as soon as it had gotten out, and the other third was no where to be found. He’d heard rumors that she’d gone to study with the hokage, but regardless, he didn’t know what was going on. He’d been off on missions the majority of the week, he was tired, grouchy, and he was still mad at Iruka. He wasn’t quite sure why he was mad, just that when Iruka had classified everything away so easily, it’d made him want to hurt the chuunin in any way possible.

He stomped into his apartment, slamming the door shut, before he froze. Someone had been there before him, something was out of place. After deciding it’d actually take too much energy to search for any possible traps, as unlikely as they were, and that it’d actually be something of a relief to die and be done with this shit, he stomped further into his apartment, looking around grumpily. Nothing had touched the bed, the cluttered shelves were still the same, but…ah, there! He edged closer to the counter, reaching out a hand gingerly. With a poke, a book with a familiar pink cover fell to the floor, a piece of paper fluttering after. He caught the paper as it fell, unfolding it to read it.

Kakashi, you bastard.

I was told (and here a few lines were crossed out. If Kakashi held it up to the light just so, he could just barely read ‘by some bastard jounin who never keep their damn noses out of other people’s damned business’) that I should apologize to you. So I’m sorry. And thank you for the use of your book. It was most alleviating.

I’m sorry for destroying your first book, and I think I’d like to be (here the word crossed out was ‘acquaintances’) friends. I think. (More crossed out words that said something similar to ‘even if you’re still a bastard’) So there.

Iruka

(and here a few lines were crossed out. If Kakashi held it up to the light just so, he could just barely read ‘’) (here the word crossed out was ‘’) (More crossed out words that said something similar to ‘’)

Kakashi picked up the pink book next, flipping through it thoughtfully. In truth, he wasn’t sure if he should hurl the book across the room or laugh hysterically, or maybe even a bit of both. After a few minutes, he decided. He smiled.

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