A/N: Happy birthday, Iruka! 26th July. It was as if fate told me to update. Not only is it his birthday, but the 25-review quota was filled. Here you are, and I hope you enjoy the read!
This was fun for me to write. One of my favourites. I'm hoping it'll be equally enjoyable to read. This is where chapters stop being one shots and start being mildly continuous from previous chapter. Mildly, mind you.
Disclaimer: *Checks legal documents*. Nope. Still not mine.
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The next time he saw Iruka was nearly a week later, when he had returned to the village with a rather quiet entrance, especially considering the fact he was supporting a bleeding Anko, who was close to death with mixed issues of severe blood loss and a near fatal amount of chakra depletion.
That's my girl, he thought with an almost smile. A fighter to the bitter end. She had unconsciously punched one of the medic-nin in the face—hard—when they grabbed her wrist to detect a pulse. Instincts flared the strongest when you were weakest, after all.
Anko had been whisked away, surrounded by worried, jabbering medic-nin, and after Kakashi was spared a brief physical examination, he was forced to debrief mission details. Sure, Kakashi was hurt, his left wrist broken in three different places, an a deep gash in his lower shin, but to ninja, especially one of his caliber, they were survivable, and therefore bearable during mission debriefings.
Wearily, he told the ANBU that stood before him of the minor difficulties they encountered, and the surprise attack that left Anko in such a state. However, they completed their task without casualties—on their side at least—and in the end, that was all that really mattered.
His voice was raspy and quiet as he reported, the ANBU replying so infrequently that Kakashi felt he was lecturing a monologue to the man—or was it a woman? ANBU outfits were getting more and more androgynous every time they upgraded. All he could really be sure of was that the person was young-ish, their stance firm and slightly proud, if Kakashi could garner anything from their body language. Staring into the unsympathetic, unfeeling, dark eye holes of the glinting porcelain mask, the jounin could not help but think, I wonder how young you are to still feel pride. I wonder if you've been through what I've been through; the darkness and the violence and the bloodshed. I wonder if you've ever seen all your comrades die and couldn't get your mask off before you sank to your knees and vomited. I wonder and wonder, but I don't care.
As he waited in the sterile hospital waiting room to be treated properly, (he still needed to set the bones and get a few stitches instead of the rough patch job he was given to tide him by), wincing almost imperceptibly from the too-harsh electric lights hanging above him, his nose crinkled at the antiseptic stench in the air, a by-product of cleaners and over-conscious hygiene regimes, his attention was momentarily diverted when the sound of a scuffle broke out from his left.
Turning his head tiredly, he saw a pair of white-suited medic-nin forcibly restraining what he immediately recognized as Umino Iruka. He caught himself analysing him as a threat, eyes keep darting to the left, attack right for blind spot and sweep out his feet, and decided that he needed to calm the fuck down. When he was sizing up schoolteachers as threats, it was about time he lay down.
Blinking in an effort to wake himself up without moving too much, Kakashi finally realized that the man—Iruka—was growling, his eyes lit up with panic, and his hair in a disarray from being woken up, thrown in a sloppy ponytail.
"What the hell happened to her?" Iruka all but hissed venomously. "I was fucking told by Raidou that's she's hurt! If he thought it was important enough to stop by at one in the damn morning, then Anko must be pretty beaten up. Son-of-a-bitch, let me go! I need to see her!"
Kakashi checked the time—a plain white clock on the wall that had been ticking jarringly for the past hour just clicked over to quarter-past one. He could hear the ticking noise with a new clarity as he focused on it. It reminded him of an old nursery rhyme. Tick tock went the clock and the girl bent down to suck the— Wait. That mightn't have been a nursery rhyme after all. Icha Icha Poetry? Man, he hoped that didn't actually exist and was just some delusion conjured up by his tired brain. Shaking his head, he tuned back into the argument ensuing near him.
"Umino, sir, she's in the operating theater! We can't let anyone in except family, it goes against protocol," panted one nin as she tried to hold him back, the man nearly slipping past them.
"Screw protocol. She's damn well been my sister since the Nine-Tails attack," snarled Iruka, worry clouding his judgment. He stiffened when a hand latched firmly on his shoulder, but his eyes didn't widen when he turned to see Kakashi connected to the arm keeping him in place. A single nod to each of the harassed medic-nin, and they left quickly and silently, trusting in the jounin the keep the scarred man in line.
Shit, what do I say now? Kakashi was panicking calmly on the inside, his eye showing none of his inner conflict. Should have thought before I acted. Oh crap; he's looking at me! I don't know what to say now though. Stupid instincts, stupid reflexes, stupid brain—
"I'm sorry."
The words escaped Kakashi before he could analyze what exactly he was apologizing for. Was it for stopping Iruka's rush to see Anko, or was it because he didn't protect her well enough? Or maybe he was just saying sorry for how shit things were in general. It was hard to tell, but Iruka seemed to appreciate the gesture nonetheless, and his shoulders sagged slightly.
Still feeling the tense set of muscle beneath his fingers, he added, "She'll be fine by morning. Iruka, she'll make it. If Anko can keep up with Ibiki, then this is a trifle for her." He was going to say Orochimaru, but thought better of mentioning that particular disgraced teacher.
A garbled laugh bubbled from the younger man, who looked immediately contrite for laughing at such a time. The teacher turned to say something, but his gaze landed on the badly wrapped bandages around Kakashi's leg which were slowly turning crimson with soaked blood, his eyes rising upwards to land on the hastily placed split on his wrist before the chuunin finally shook his head in disbelief.
"That has to hurt. Hatake—apologies, I meant Kakashi; please come here," Iruka asked politely in a strained voice, pulling the man into an empty examination room. He motioned for the jounin to be seated on the table while he looked through cupboards, rummaging quietly as he searched for things to help the injured Copy-Nin. Iruka walked back to the silver-haired nin with a tarnished silver tray laden with equipment and supplies.
He looks more comfortable now he's doing something, mused Kakashi as he watched the other scan the label of a blue bottle before popping it open with a kunai.
Silently, Iruka passed him two pills and told him to swallow them to get rid of the headache he surely had. It was a remarkably good guess—Kakashi displayed no signs of pain or discomfort, but the banging in his head was getting a touch annoying. He only ran a curious and slightly suspicious eye over the rounded white tablets before downing them dry. He wouldn't try poison me in a hospital, Kakashi decided, a small part of him laughing at his overzealous paranoia, whilst another was shaking his head in disbelief. Another part of him wondered since when was his psyche split into several members each doing their own thing.
Injecting the jounin with a mild numbing agent, Iruka set to work setting the bones properly.
"You a healer as well as a teacher?" asked Kakashi interestedly, not the least bit concerned about who was treating him—he had a sort of faith that Iruka wouldn't be wholly incompetent once he had shut up the voice that kept him scanning for poisons and threatening movements.
"Well, I'm not officially trained as a full medic," answered Iruka distractedly as he adjusted the bones in the older man's wrist with a mixture of delicate twists with his fingers and well-placed jabs of chakra, "but since I work with children who play with weapons, I'm needed to have a pretty good knowledge of a basic patch job, so I took a few courses. I'm surprised that the other ninja let you sit for so long without doing this themselves."
"Eh. They had better things to do," shrugged Kakashi, who was feeling much better since the resonating ache of his wrist was now removed from the picture. Gently, it was slid into a sling supported by his neck, and Kakashi watched the concern from the other man with a cheery, if slightly droopy, eye.
Tightening the final knot on the split with a firm tug, Iruka crouched down to observe the bleeding wound in Kakashi's calf.
While the chuunin's head was practically at crotch height, Kakashi couldn't help but joke, "Haven't I read this porno before?"
What Kakashi didn't expect was Iruka to snap right back and say, "No doubt you have. I think it's the eighth book in the Icha Icha Violence series." Without even looking up, Iruka injected Kakashi with a local anesthesia to numb the area before cleaning it with a sharp-smelling rubbing alcohol.
"What?" gaped Kakashi. "There's a eighth in that series out already?" No, no, no! I couldn't have missed a book release while on a mission? What the hell?
"No," laughed Iruka as he started stitching the wound shut. "I was just messing with you. Actually, I haven't even read the Violence series yet."
Kakashi knew better than to move while the other was working away studiously on his leg, so he simply frowned sternly, even though most of his face was hidden, Iruka understood the non-verbal message from the jounin. Firmly, Kakashi stated, "You can't joke about porn like that."
"I just did," remarked Iruka with near indifference, a hint of humor tugging his lips up. Clean white bandages were quickly and efficiently being wrapped around the jounin's leg, which felt infinitely better with the attention. Alas, Kakashi was well aware that both injuries would burn like heck when he woke up the next morning, when the numbing agents surely would've been erased from his system.
A silence fell over the pair as Iruka finished up. Drowsy from the medicine, Kakashi felt especially brass about social protocol, (which was saying something), and felt it was the perfect time to quiz Iruka about his personal life.
"So, you know the Hokage personally?" This question had been playing on his mind a bit in the earlier hours of his mission, when he was still mulling over everything he heard when he crossed Iruka with Anko.
"Yeah," said Iruka without embarrassment or pause. "He was there for me a lot as a kid. I guess, in an unofficial way, he became by mentor. But he's like that to a lot of people. We still get together every other day, when our schedules are free to have tea, play chess and talk though." Leaning back on the counter, Iruka's eyes seemed to be staring at some far off world, obviously remembering a particularly fond memory as he smiled slightly.
"And do you care to explain why Anko calls you her 'little brother'?" asked Kakashi, snapping the chuunin out of the spell he was in.
"That's because we're both orphans, and we've sort-of adopted each other because of it," replied the other haltingly, as if having trouble explaining it. "After the Nine-Tails attack, I was left parent-less and was depressed to the point I would have needed medical attention. The loneliness was getting to me, but then Anko showed up at my house one night and unceremoniously began to teach me how to cook. Somehow, we got closer with every lesson until she stopped teaching me altogether; she finally said I was good enough that I could cook for her. However, we still meet up at least once a week, and we're as close as siblings, you could say."
Kakashi had known Anko for many years, and he'd never known that she could cook. He pretty much said as much to the chuunin.
"Yeah," smiled Iruka warmly. "You'd never pin her as the type, but she's a good cook, and I learned many things under her careful eye. Without her, I'd be burning water. Though, ironically enough, she can't cook dango—which I thought was fairly simple. I think she just finds the treat better had when someone else takes the time and effort to make it, especially considering how many she can eat in one sitting."
They talked for a great deal longer than that, passing the time in wait of the end of Anko's surgery. The conversation carried both the signs of actually enjoying the other's company, sincere interest, but also the slightest hint of distraction, both men trying not to think too had about their mutual friend stuck under the eye of the medic-nin. As time passed and moonlight faded more gradually from the room, Iruka eventually sat on top of the counter to face the Copy-Nin relaxing on the table, conversation constantly flowing, even though it became stilted at times when a sensitive topic was accidentally breached—like the full extent of Anko's injuries.
Around four in the morning, Anko was declared safe and was expected to be fully operational within a month by a quiet ninja garbed in white, clearly exhausted from his efforts. Kakashi caught Iruka's eye for one fleeting moment, and he tipped his head forward in an understanding nod telling the younger man to hurry on ahead. The jounin would give them their privacy for today. He'd come back later after he went to the memorial stone. After I make a pit stop to my apartment and crash for a few days, he thought with a warm longing for his bed.
Contradictions. So many variants and false ideas. Kakashi had still not pinned down Iruka fully. Today he'd probably be later than usual. After all, he had a lot of things to tell Obito at the memorial stone; his mind was racing from both the memories of the mission, as well as the mocha-skinned man who he could no longer call a stranger.
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A/N: There we go. Some serious bonding time between Kakashi and Iruka. (Was it just me, or did that come out sounding dirty?)
