Iruka hated nights like this. He wasn't supposed to be sleeping alone tonight, but Kakashi was late. It could be argued that, since Kakashi was late so often for so many things, Iruka should be used to his tardiness.

But Kakashi was never late when returning home from an S-class mission.

Iruka had come home from his shift at the mission room, hoping to find Kakashi exhausted and already curled up in bed, as he so often was after a difficult assignment. Instead, he had returned to an empty apartment. Kakashi was officially a day and a half late in returning home – and Iruka was worried sick.

::

As Iruka lay in bed, trying to sleep, his mind insisted on reminding him of all of the horrible things that could have happened to keep the silver-haired man from coming back. He ran through all of the things that could have gone wrong, all of the things that some unknown enemy could have done – could currently be doing – to Kakashi. He lay there, damning his imagination and damning his memories of the consequences of various high-class missions-gone-wrong.

Kakashi should have been back early yesterday afternoon. Last night, the brunet had attempted to comfort himself by remembering the details that Kakashi had been allowed to tell him before leaving. There were any number of things that could have delayed the completion of the mission – or maybe Kakashi was hiding out somewhere, waiting until it was safe to head home. His justifications for the jounin's lateness hadn't helped much and Iruka had hardly gotten any sleep, barely enough to function through the day.

Tonight, though, Iruka couldn't ignore the possibility that Kakashi was hiding out somewhere – too injured to head home. As his lack of sleep and the difficult day he'd had caught up with him and he drifted off, the last picture that flashed through his mind was of Kakashi, covered in blood and barely breathing.

::

Iruka snapped awake in the middle of the night. He'd felt the mattress sink. He turned his head toward Kakashi's side of the bed. The bathroom door had been left open, a dim light seeping out and illuminating the still figure seated on the edge of the bed. The strong back was hunched and even in the soft glow Iruka's eyes could pick out lines of tension running through the arms that rested on bent knees. As Iruka inched closer, his sight took in Kakashi's drooping silver hair and eyes that were staring intently at hands that were rubbing at each other, almost as though they were scrubbing at something.

In the faint light, normally pale skin seemed too pink and Iruka realized that Kakashi had showered without him hearing. Iruka's thoughts flashed back to a rainy night years ago when Kakashi had been away and Iruka had woken up to the sound of a shower.

As Iruka's hand reached out and ran through silver hair that was still damp, he remembered getting out of bed and walking into the en suite and finding a nude Naruto frantically scrubbing blood off of his body as tears streamed down his face.

As his hands moved down to overly tense shoulders, he remembered checking Naruto for injuries before wrapping him in a towel and leading him to bed.

His fingers caressed skin warm from being scrubbed raw, subtly searching for wounds, as he remembered listening to Naruto sob out the horrors he'd witnessed – and committed – on his first S-class mission.

As he grasped the still wringing hands in his own, soothing over them as his arms wrapped around Kakashi from behind, he remembered Naruto clinging to him, begging his foster father to tell him he wasn't a monster.

Being shinobi held a different meaning for people like him than it did for people like Kakashi and Naruto. Because of their skill – their raw power – they were asked to do things that no human should ever have to do. The sheer number of people that Kakashi had injured, maimed, or killed in his lifetime surpassed even the large number of students that Iruka had taught in his own time.

Kakashi and Naruto needed to be able to shut down their emotions completely in order to cope with what they saw and did during missions – they had to become machines, and when they returned home, they had to deal with returning to themselves: either facing their actions or remaining numb forever.

As Iruka gently guided the still tense body down to the mattress, it became painfully obvious that Kakashi was still fighting, still not completely home. This didn't happen after every mission and Iruka found himself wondering what could have possibly happened. As he looked into a dulled grey eye and softly kissed the scar covering a tightly closed red one, he realized that he didn't want to know.

Kakashi's upper body was covered in scars, some faint and old, some newer and raised. Every so often, when they made love, Iruka was sure that he found a new one – or two, or three. This time, he took his time kissing every single one, before returning to his lover's emotionless face, kissing unmasked lips. He smiled as he saw the recognition in the gray eye that now followed his every move.

The eye watched as he kissed his way back down the toned body, caressing, licking, kissing the flesh that was quickly hardening under his touch. The eye filled with an emotion that Iruka would never be able to name as he grabbed the lube from the bedside table. Hands that had previously rested on sheets moved to caress Iruka's thighs and hips as he used his slicked fingers to prepare himself.

Two mismatched eyes locked on brown eyes as Iruka positioned and lowered himself, eyes never wavering as he was filled slowly and completely, a sigh escaping as hands moved from his thighs to his chest, to his arms to his shoulders – touching so gently they could barely be felt.

Iruka started to move as he felt eyes and hands exploring the long familiar territory of his body. He shifted with the body beneath as their positions were switched, his body lowered to soft sheets by gentle arms. He sighed as the body above his began to move – in and out, as carefully as if he was made of the finest blown glass. He tangled his hands in drying silver hair as kisses were pressed to his neck and chest, worshipping the tan skin.

Flesh moving against flesh and harsh breaths were the only sounds as Kakashi made love to him more gently than ever before. It was slow, almost lethargic, but contained a desperate quality as the body above and inside his begged to feel something, as hands softly stroked him, silently crying out to be reassured that they could bring more than pain and death. Iruka leaned up and kissed lips and breathed into ears that desperately needed to be told that they did not belong to a monster. He looked into eyes that needed to see something more than blood and mouths opened in pained screams. He rested his forehead against Kakashi's, willing him to understand:

No one can make me feel like this but you.

::

Iruka wrapped Kakashi's heavy form in his arms, not allowing him to move away. He could feel the tears from Kakashi's left eye landing on his bare chest now. Tangling his hand gently in the sweat-dampened silver hair, he said the words that he knew Kakashi needed to hear most:

I love you, too.

Kakashi began to sob.

::

There were two major differences between nights like this and the other nights that Kakashi stayed in Iruka's bed. On mornings after nights like this, Iruka would wake up cradling Kakashi in his arms, instead of being cradled; and he would find a pile of clothes on the bathroom floor, soaked in blood, discarded by his uninjured lover.


A/N: I hope you all enjoyed this. It's another part of the Affirmation of Life series of one-shots.

The rest of them can be accessed on my profile. There will be various pairings, both romantic and platonic.

I hope you like reading them as much as I liked writing them. As always, feedback is always appreciated.

Beta'd by my ever-brilliant and ever-beautiful friend, the-yaoi-squirrel! Please keep in mind - this is the first sex scene I've ever written... O.o I'm a bit nervous and unsure about the final product.

Written while listening to "Listen to the Rain" by Evanescence.