A/N: Still don't know if it's bad for me to be using these themes. Oh well. Here it goes again!
35th Theme: Hold My Hand.
Rating: T.
Genre: Humor, Romance.
Summary: Kakashi has to get his wisdom teeth taken out, but he'll need just a little support from Iruka to get through it.
"I am not taking my mask off for that…that…that butcher."
"Kakashi, he's a dentist. You have to take your mask off for him to get in your mouth."
Kakashi crossed his arms obstinately, narrowing his one visible eye at Iruka. "Then he can just stay the fuck out of my mouth."
Iruka's warm eyes hardened to something like flint—that wasn't his teacher-look, or his angry-boyfriend look. That was his shinobi-look, and Kakashi had a split second to wonder why the chuunin had never made it to ANBU Black Ops with a look like that before he was cowering on the sofa.
"Get up, akanbo," Iruka said, "And go brush your damn teeth. If you don't get your wisdom teeth taken out, you're going to keep having those migraines you love to complain about so much, and when you get one in the middle of a mission and can't make your Sharingan work right because of it, don't come crying to me."
"I am not a baby!" Kakashi insisted, getting to his feet and stalking to the bathroom to do as he was told. "I just don't want some madman poking around in my mouth…or posting pictures of my bare face all over Konoha…"
"Dr. Higorashi doesn't even know who the hell you are," Iruka said, his voice gentler now that he knew he had won the battle. "I even gave him your name as Sharingan no Kakashi—that's what most of the civilians know you as—and all he asked was if you were a ninja."
"I love the way you lower my self esteem, Rukababe. Really, I do," Kakashi muttered. He pulled his mask down and bared his pearly white, slightly crowded teeth. Wonder if they'll stop being so close together when I get those other ones yanked out? He thought idly, lathering his toothbrush full of the disgusting lemon-flavored toothpaste that Iruka was so partial to. He himself preferred cinnamon, but he had run out the morning before and hadn't bothered to buy any.
"I thought you would appreciate the fact that he didn't know you," Iruka said, leaning against the doorframe of the bathroom. He hadn't bothered to dress yet; he was bare to the waist and his hair hung in lank bits around his face. "That way you won't panic about something as absurd as…ah, what did you say…'some madman posting pictures of your bare face all over Konoha.'"
Kakashi looked up from the sink after he spit out a mouthful of lemony foam and stuck his tongue out. Iruka's sarcasm could be antagonizing sometimes, but as long as he stood there in all his half naked glory, Kakashi would forgive him.
Kakashi rinsed his mouth out and spit once more, patting his face dry and pulling a clean mask out of the drawer on his side of the sink. He pulled it over his head but left it pooled around his neck until it was time for he and Iruka to actually leave.
"So, how bad is this going to hurt?" Kakashi asked, as he watched Iruka go through the ritual he himself had just performed. "Shuriken to the shoulder bad, or kunai in the gut bad, or what?"
"Ah hash mish oush whesh Ah wash abush ifeefsh," Iruka began, his mouth full of toothpaste.
"Say wha?" Kakashi cocked a silvery eyebrow and waited for Iruka to rinse.
"I said, I had mine out when I was about fifteen," Iruka wiped his mouth on the towel and reached into his own drawer for a ponytail holder, "I couldn't go on missions or anything for about a week and I had to live off soup, but it didn't hurt."
"You're telling me some tooth doctor ripped out four of your teeth from underneath your gums and it didn't hurt?" Kakashi asked, his eye wide.
"No, dummy. They put you to sleep, you don't actually feel them taking the teeth out," Iruka insisted. He crossed back into their bedroom and opened the closet, searching for a clean uniform.
Kakashi blanched. "Put you…to sleep?" He repeated, his voice squeaking on the last syllable.
"Yes, Kashi, sleep," Iruka's voice was condescending. "Would you rather them do it while you're wide awake?"
"No," Kakashi's eyes roamed over the planes of Iruka's back before the tight tshirt hid it from view, then his mind refocused on the issue at hand. "But…how do they put you to sleep, exactly? Is it like breathing gas?"
"Oh no, they don't do that anymore," Iruka tossed Kakashi's uniform to him and closed the closet. "I think it's an injection."
Kakashi swallowed hard. Ex ANBU jounin though he may be, Hatake Kakashi did not like needles.
At all.
"That…they don't…they don't put you under for the shot, by chance?" Kakashi asked, trying to get dressed and block Iruka's progress to the door at the same time.
"That makes no sense, lovedove," Iruka grinned. "Don't worry, the injection doesn't hurt that badly. Now, shall we walk, or am I going to have to teleport you?"
"I'll walk," Kakashi answered, a little too quickly.
The walk, of course, took an agonizingly short amount of time. Once they reached Higorashi Dental Associates, Kakashi was near to sweating blood. His breath was coming in shallow gasps, and everything seemed to be growing…darker…
It all jerked back to bright hot reality, however, when Iruka saw through this ruse and slapped him on the back of the head.
"Suck it up, Kashi," Iruka said. "I'll go with you to meet the doctor, but after that I have to get out, okay?"
Kakashi tried to insist that this was not in any way okay, but Iruka was leading him by the hand to what would be his operating room and pretending not to hear.
The doctor came in a few minutes later and went over the protocol of wisdom tooth extraction with Kakashi. The jounin tried to protest—loudly—when the doctor informed him that not only would his anesthesia be in the form of an injection, but that there would aslo be an IV. Iruka's face, however, told him that resistence was futile. He accepted his fate quietly.
"I'll be back to set up your IV in a moment, Hatake-san," Dr. Hirogashi bowed slightly and left the room, and Iruka got up to leave as well. Suddenly, Kakashi's fear of needles seemed overpowering.
"Rukababy?" he asked timidly, looking back over his shoulder to see Iruka. "Will you do something for me?"
"What is it now, Kashi?" Iruka asked, pausing in the doorway. The doctor was coming back down the hall, the equipment for the IV in his hand.
"Rukababy…hold my hand? While they're putting the IV thingy in? Please?"
Iruka opened his mouth to say something smart, but his lips curved in a smile instead.
"All right, lovedove. I'll hold your hand."
