Disclaimer: Don't own Naruto.
Author's Note: I got this idea while working on an original story. Really frustrating when you can think of something for everything but what you're working on. I've been, for no apparent reason, obsessed with Phantom of the Opera lately. Mid-terms are next week which means three hours stuck in a room with an evil Chem teacher that hates me. Lovely.
But on the bright note, I'm going to Epcot tomorrow, the cold down here is finally gone (it is simply not meant to be as cold as its been in Florida) and next week is a three day week when White Collar starts up again!
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"The optimist already sees the scar over the wound; the pessimist still sees the wound underneath the scar" Ernt Schroeder
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Iruka wasn't a nosy person by nature. His mother had taught him that other people's business was their business and that was the end of that.
But that didn't stop his curiousity from burning every time he shared a bed with his lover. Kakashi was slender, all whipcord muscle, pale skin and scar tissue and Iruka rather likes him that way. But that doesn't stop him from memorizing the scars and learning all the marks that had been left on Kakashi from a harsh life. Some, Iruka can recognize. He has some similar scars, like the thin, hardly there scars of kunais that had been thrown long ago. And he needn't wonder of the one over his left eye. Nearly all of the jounins and chuunins of their age group knew about it.
But there are others that made Iruka's scar on his nose itch just by seeing them. Whip slashes, burns (acid or otherwise) knife marks, marks left by uncounted surgeries…just too many marks.
Iruka lightly traced the whip scars and the outlines of the burns on his side. He'd never asked where Kakashi had gotten his scars from; knew that he wouldn't talk about the past. He didn't like the past and certainly not the times when he'd been hurt so badly.
Beneath his hand, Kakashi's stirring, though still lingering on the edge of sleep. "The war with Cloud Village. I got knocked unconscious and woke up in a prison camp. They barely kept people alive there. Kept them too weak to fight back."
Iruka rubs the scar gently, kissing the man. He tries to balance out his curiousity with the endless patience he'd gotten as a teacher. Kakashi was a little more open than Iruka had thought he would be, but nearly all of the stories were of pain and captivity; of shame that left shadows swirling behind mismatched eyes.
Iruka hopes that when Kakashi speaks about his scars that he's putting a decidedly dark past behind him and not simply reliving old pain.
Scars were the wounds that never entirely healed, but he hoped that Kakashi's were finally beginning to close over properly.