Iruka woke up late the next morning. It was one of the side effects of chakra depletion – the body craved extra food and sleep. A glance at the clock revealed that it was past eleven, and Iruka swore softly before climbing out of bed. He'd wasted the whole morning, but he couldn't deny that he felt much better. His chakra was restoring nicely. In a few more days his system would be back to normal.
Once he'd washed and dressed, he tested his chakra levels by trying to sense where Kakashi was in the flat. The other chakra signature was faint, but he managed to pinpoint Kakashi's presence in the lounge. Pleased, he wandered through and found Kakashi sitting on the couch with his legs stretched out, a pile of books in front of him that he must have devoured during the night. There was another of Iruka's paperbacks held loosely in his hand, but he was watching the doorway before Iruka had even entered the room.
"What were you doing just now? I felt your chakra surge."
"It's fine, I was just seeing if I could feel where you were."
Iruka moved into the kitchen and started reheating last night's leftover takeaway.
"Could you?"
"Yeah, but not very well." Iruka leaned against the counter beside the microwave. "It's weird that you have my chakra. I mean, I've never really felt my own signature the way I do other people's. It's like looking at your own clone for the first time. Even though you've seen your own face in the mirror a thousand times, it's not the same."
"When I first started staying over at your place, I'd sometimes catch my reflection without the mask and jump out of my skin," Kakashi admitted. Iruka laughed. "I'm serious. Before I stopped wearing it around you, I only took that thing off at home. I wasn't used to the sight of my face anywhere else."
The microwave dinged brightly and Iruka took his plate over to the breakfast bar, facing into the lounge.
"How do you feel?" he asked. "You're chakra depleted too, technically."
"Maa, I've had it worse."
"That didn't answer the question."
Kakashi lowered the book to his lap, his thumb caught between the pages to hold his place. "Honestly, it sucks. I'm not depleted all that much, but it's not getting any better and I can't do anything about it. It's just this constant state of feeling tired and weak but not being able to sleep it off."
"That sounds awful."
Kakashi shrugged one shoulder. "It's bearable, and when I'm distracted by something else I stop noticing it, but the nights are – unpleasant." He looked down at the book.
Iruka lowered his chopsticks. "I'm sorry I slept for so long. You must have been so bored. I wouldn't have minded if you'd woken me up, you know."
"There's no point in both of us suffering." Kakashi slid down on the couch, bending his knees so he could lay his head on the armrest. "I think that's why I thought it was hunger at first, when my body was craving your chakra. It's sort of the same concept – I need energy and usually I'd get that from food or sleep but right now the only place I can get it is you."
"In a day or two I can give you enough chakra to fill your system."
"I'm looking forward to it. But!" Kakashi held up an admonishing finger. "Don't overestimate yourself. Make sure you have enough to keep your own levels safe."
Iruka ducked his head to hide his smile. "OK."
Kakashi nodded seriously and relaxed back onto the couch. "You know the main reason why I'm looking forward to it?"
"Because you won't feel tired?" Iruka said slowly.
"That'll be great, but what'll be even better is that we can touch."
"Oh," Iruka breathed. "Of course. Once your system's full, your seals will stop trying to drain me."
"I'm going to give you so many kisses," Kakashi said. "I've been saving them up. Every time I've wanted to kiss you, I've added a mark to my mental tally."
Iruka snorted. "No you haven't!"
"Of course I have. This is no joking matter, Iruka."
"What's your tally up to then?"
"Twenty-seven," Kakashi said without missing a beat.
Iruka pushed his empty plate away, trying not to laugh. "That's a lot of kisses."
"What, is that already too much for you? I didn't think a mere twenty-seven would be more than you could handle." Kakashi raised an eyebrow in challenge, and Iruka couldn't help but grin.
"I couldn't handle them all at once," he said. "You'll spoil me."
"Twenty-eight," Kakashi hummed. "I love spoiling you."
Iruka stood up to go and cuddle up to him on the couch, but caught himself and instead picked up the plate and took it over to the sink.
"You better deliver now you've promised. I'll be counting."
Kakashi opened his book again, pillowing his head beneath one arm, his lips still curved up smugly.
"I wonder where I have to kiss you to make you lose count."
Iruka shivered pleasantly. For the first time in a long while, he felt like he was home.
It was about two o'clock by the time the knock came at the door: three quick raps on the wood that caused Iruka to exchange a glance with Kakashi before getting up hurriedly to answer it.
Gai was standing outside. His eyes were puffy, as though he hadn't slept well in a while, but his back was straight and his shoulders were set.
"You're looking for Kakashi."
"Is he here?"
Iruka nodded and stepped aside, gesturing for Gai to enter. Once over the threshold, Gai paused and started to toe off his sandals, but Iruka gave him a light push towards the lounge.
"Don't mind that, just go."
Gai nodded without looking at him and took steady steps down the hall. He disappeared through the doorway, and Iruka leaned against the wall, letting the muffled voices wash over him. He'd known Gai for years, but since he'd become involved with Kakashi he'd got a much closer look at their friendship. Once, Kakashi had bought an expensive brand of chocolates, opened the box and eaten the two with the cinnamon filling – Gai's favourite – before passing them off to Gai with a shrug and some story about how they'd been a gift and he hadn't liked them. The memory still made Iruka smile.
Before Gai's arrival, Iruka had been working at the coffee table, but now he headed towards the bedroom to find some chore to keep him busy. As he passed the lounge, he glanced in. The two men were caught in a tight embrace, Kakashi still without his mask. Kakashi caught his eye over Gai's shoulder and then Iruka turned and silently padded to the bedroom.
It was twenty minutes before Iruka heard Kakashi laugh in the other room, and he took this as his cue to re-enter. He found them sitting close together on the sofa and felt a small pang of jealousy before his gaze fell on the book and all of his notes still spread out on the coffee table.
"Iruka, please accept my deepest apologies for being rude when I got here," Gai said.
"Don't be ridiculous, you weren't rude at all."
Kakashi had followed Iruka's line of sight to the coffee table and now he stood up.
"We'll get out of your hair and let you work," he said. "I'm going to head out for a bit."
"Are you sure?" Iruka asked, at the same time Gai said, "You don't have to."
"I'm well enough to walk to the Tower," Kakashi said. The words were for Gai, but he was looking at Iruka. "Nothing will happen."
Kakashi's chakra depletion wasn't really bad enough to stop him from walking the short distance to the village centre and showing his face in the jounin lounge or the Mission Room, but there was always the danger of someone getting too close and noticing that Kakashi's skin was a little too cold, or his breathing wasn't constant. It wasn't an observation that came naturally, and any intuition that something was wrong would likely be put down to Kakashi's brush with death and continued bad health, but there was always a chance that someone would try to see beneath the underneath. Shinobi were observant like that.
"Be careful," Iruka said.
There was a brief pause before Kakashi replied.
"I'm sure I will be."
Iruka hung back in the hall while Kakashi pulled on a mask and a jacket, and then the front door closed behind them. Iruka went into the lounge and sat at Kakashi's end of the sofa, expecting to feel his lingering body heat. The cushion was cold. He let his own body heat seep into it and then closed his eyes, pretending for a moment before moving down to the floor.
Iruka had been going back over the personalised seals he'd made for Kakashi and comparing them against both the guidelines in the book and what he'd actually drawn on Kakashi's body. It was a slow process, and so far he'd found one mistake that he thought must have caused the seals to wrench the chakra from his body.
He couldn't continue working on his copy of Kakashi's seals until he'd checked every inch of them for mistakes, and he couldn't do that without Kakashi present. Instead, he began compiling into a neat list the references to books and scrolls scattered throughout the many sheets of paper so that he could send an ANBU to fetch the research materials he'd need. The task turned out to be harder than he'd anticipated: most of the references he'd cited were bloodstained, illegible or so vague that he wasn't sure if they were genius or absolute rubbish.
The cuts on his left arm itched. There were still stitches in the deepest two, one slashed dangerously close to his wrist and the other running lengthways down his arm from wrist to elbow. Iruka scratched them through his sleeve, then winced at a jolt of pain. A damp patch slowly soaked through the fabric. He ignored it.
It was easy to pretend that nothing had gone wrong when Kakashi was in the house with him, smiling at him as though he were happy. It was easy to pretend, when Kakashi was there, that they would be all right even if Iruka failed.
As he was completing the list, another knock came at the door. This one was quieter and somehow nervous, as though the visitor were hoping no one would answer. Iruka sighed, annoyed, but got up to answer it and wasn't entirely surprised when he opened the door and found Outsuki standing outside.
"Outsuki-sensei, please come in."
Outsuki toed off his shoes, glancing down the hallway after each one.
"Kakashi isn't here," Iruka said.
"That's fine," Outsuki said. It came out like a sigh of relief. "I came to talk to you. In fact, it might be better that Hatake-san isn't here right now."
"Really."
"Well, the topic is a little delicate."
That caught Iruka's attention. He led the way through into the lounge and hastily gathered up his notes into a messy pile before gesturing for Outsuki to take a seat.
"I've been speaking to my colleague," Outsuki said. "The one who performed Hatake-san's surgery. She specialises in seals, so she'd probably be more useful to you if you needed to discuss your work, but since Hatake-san is primarily under my care at the moment, I've given a lot of thought to his condition."
"You have?" Iruka suddenly felt guilty for not offering him tea.
"Of course. And it looks to me as though there's another issue with curing Hatake-san, besides modifying the seals."
"What issue?"
Outsuki paused. "It's the matter of – well, I did some calculations and it's certainly not as bad as it could be, but the problem still remains –"
"Please just tell me."
The doctor hesitantly met his eye. "Since you revived him, Hatake-san's body has been in a suspended state, but before then it had already started to degrade."
Iruka sat very still. If Kakashi's cells had already started to break down, he would need to reverse that process – if such a thing were possible.
"The damage isn't anywhere near as bad as it could have been," Outsuki said. "Hatake-san was dead for approximately four days, but his body was placed inside a sealing scroll very soon after death. It was the kind intended to transport food, so the preservation seals slowed down the decay almost to a standstill. And when his body arrived back here, it was mostly stored in the mortuary cold room where the temperatures again have preservative effects –"
"How much?" Iruka asked. "How much damage was there?"
"I can't say exactly without a tissue sample to examine, but I've tried to establish a timeline and my best estimate is that there's maybe five hours' worth of decay."
Iruka had seen corpses in various states, but he was no expert on death.
"What does that mean?"
"The different cells in the body break down at different rates, but decomposition does start immediately. Essentially, the cells start attacking themselves and the internal organs start to putrefy, although Hatake-san's body hasn't reached that stage yet," he added quickly. "But his cells have started breaking down, and if we can't fix that, his organs won't be able to function."
Iruka almost laughed. "Every time I think there's hope, something else comes up."
"I think it's possible," Outsuki said. "Not for someone of my level, but I think I know who could do it. Do you know how chakra healing works, Umino-san?"
"Chakra is naturally involved in the healing process, I know that much. The more developed someone's chakra pathways, the faster their natural rate of healing."
"Yes, exactly. Chakra is basically another name for energy. Your body needs it to move or grow, and in most people that's all it does – it's something passive that can't be controlled. But in people who can mould chakra, the system develops over time. By controlling it and using it in the shinobi arts, our bodies start to produce more energy and our conscious and subconscious control get better."
"Subconscious control?"
"That's where healing comes in, because it's not something you can consciously improve, but faster healing is a side effect of improving your overall chakra control. For example, when you were first learning to use barrier seals, you could only create a barrier around yourself, but when you improved your control, you could be more specific and aim the barrier to protect others. Right?"
"That's right."
"It's a little more complicated than that, but it's the same idea. Usually, in civilians or genin, chakra targets a wounded area in general and spreads energy equally through the cells to help healing. But once your chakra control improves, chakra can be distributed more accurately, so the cells that need more energy get more, and the less damaged cells get less. It's much more efficient and promotes faster healing."
Iruka tugged at the end of his ponytail, trying to visualise what Outsuki had described.
"Healing jutsus work the same way," Outsuki added. "But the effect is much stronger because all of the chakra is focused on healing. Whereas the injured person's chakra is also being used for powering their muscles and organs. Chakra can't be consciously focused unless it's been moulded through a seal or jutsu."
"So, basically, healing jutsus take a lot of chakra and concentrate it all on healing," Iruka said slowly. "I get it. So you're saying that if we had a medic who had both incredible chakra control and a large supply of chakra, they could manage to heal Kakashi at a cellular level and repair all the different stages of damage. But is that possible when the cells are already dead?"
"In theory. Obviously there's never been a case quite like this, but I did hear about a successful treatment of early stage gangrene which was performed by the medic I have in mind. It's the same principle – the flesh is dying, although in this case while still attached to living tissue. Usually there's no cure for gangrene, and as far as I'm aware the process has never been repeated."
It sounded too good to be true.
"Who's the medic?"
"Senju Tsunade."
Iruka made a sharp noise.
"Tsunade of the sannin? I thought she'd quit the shinobi life when she left Konoha."
Outsuki nodded. "She did. But if we can convince her to come back, I really believe she could do it."
"Do you even know where she is right now?"
"No, but I'm sure Sandaime-sama could track her down if he doesn't already know. He was her cell captain, after all."
Iruka shook his head in disbelief. Everything was too complicated. It was too hard. But he would try – he had to try. There was no other option.
"All right. Please let me know if you're able to find her. If not, is there anyone else who could do it?"
"No one I can think of. It's a rare combination, to have that much chakra and such accurate control."
Iruka stared at his pile of notes. It looked pathetic; inadequate to the task at hand.
"This is going to take a long time."
"Yes."
Something about Outsuki's tone made Iruka look up.
"Is there something else?"
The expression on Outsuki's face told Iruka they'd reached the part of the conversation he didn't want to broach. Iruka almost wished he hadn't asked. How could it possibly get worse?
"It's about Hatake-san's eye," Outsuki blurted out.
Iruka closed his eyes. "You can't save it."
There was a pause as Outsuki tried to work out how to say no. Iruka didn't look at him.
"For whatever reason, the eye didn't stop degrading when Hatake-san's seals were activated. The decay is much more substantial. Over twelve hours."
"Fuck," Iruka breathed.
"We also can't entirely stop the process now. We can slow it down with cold and preservation seals, but it'll be irreversible within a few days, if it isn't already."
"A few days?" It was almost a shout. "Why did you tell Kakashi you could re-implant it? You must have known all along that it was never an option. The timeframe is – it's nowhere near –" He stopped and swallowed hard.
"It was the only way to persuade him," Outsuki said flatly. "He was in too much danger. We don't know whether or not his flesh can become infected. If his eye had caused tissue damage in his brain, there would be no chance of reviving him."
"So you lied."
"I did what I had to do to ensure the best outcome for my patient. Lying isn't always the worst option."
Iruka turned on him, furious. "You don't think he has the right to know?"
"He'll react better after he's lived without his eye for a few days. Even now, he's adjusting psychologically. And for that reason, I'd prefer it if you didn't tell him yet."
Iruka stood up. "I won't lie to him for you."
Outsuki also stood, watching him warily. "Will you lie to him for his sake? This isn't about his right to know – this is about his right to find out in a safe environment. It's only been two days since he returned from the dead. Hasn't he gone through enough trauma in the past forty-eight hours?"
That was true, but Iruka wasn't convinced that spreading out the bad news was the answer.
"I don't understand you," he said. "You're acting like you care how he feels, but every time you're in the same room you shy away like he's some kind of monster."
Outsuki ran a nervous hand along his hairline.
"He makes me – uneasy," he confessed. "But I'm trying to overcome that. He was placed in my care and I take that very seriously."
"You have some strange ideas about how to care for him," Iruka snapped.
Outsuki shifted to his other foot. "I understand why you're upset, but this is a very complicated issue. Medical ethics are rarely black and white but this is especially delicate."
"It looks black and white from where I'm standing! If I'd permanently lost an eye, I'd want someone to tell me. Otherwise how could I trust my doctors? If they'd hide something that important from me, I'd wonder what else they weren't telling me."
"What will you tell him if you can't cure him?"
And just like that the fight was over.
"I mean, I don't want to be negative," Outsuki carried on, even more nervous now that Iruka had stopped shouting. "But if you realise that there's no possible way, you'll have to make the choice whether to tell him or whether to keep him hanging on. And you'll have to decide what to do – is it ethical to let him carry on the way he is? What if he doesn't want to live like that? Could you deactivate the seals if he asked you to?"
"Get out."
It was barely more than a whisper, but Outsuki winced.
"It's a worst case scenario, but you might have to think about this eventually."
"Get out."
Outsuki glanced around, as though hoping back-up would spring out of some hidden corner, but then he gave up and bowed clumsily before moving out into the hallway. Iruka heard him step into his shoes, and then there was a moment's pause before the front door closed.
Kakashi crashed down on Gai's sofa, exhausted, and Gai hovered over him anxiously.
"Can I get you some tea? Some food?"
"No thanks," Kakashi said. "I'm fine, it's just been a while since I've seen so many people at once."
They'd visited the jounin lounge in the Tower, and Kakashi had spent a careful forty minutes acting frail enough that no one would touch him. The hug Gai had given him had been nerve wracking enough without a room full of less emotionally wrecked shinobi commenting on how cold he was. But it had been the right thing to do, to face them all at once. At the very least, Iruka shouldn't have to put with too many more visitors now.
Gai sat gingerly beside him, as though any sudden movements would finish him off.
"I couldn't help but notice," he said, "that you've been very vague every time someone's asked about your condition."
Ah. In hindsight, Kakashi should have realised he couldn't put Gai off for long when they were alone. But he hadn't wanted to go straight back to Iruka's, for reasons he was determined not to analyse.
"The Hokage asked me not to talk about it," he said, which implied all sorts of things by itself without being an outright lie. He didn't like lying to Gai.
Gai nodded. "Then I suppose I shouldn't ask you about it."
"I'd tell you if I could. Actually, it would be nice to talk about it with someone."
"Surely Iruka knows?"
"Yeah," Kakashi muttered. "Iruka knows."
He didn't know what had gone wrong. That morning he'd been so happy when Iruka had finally woken up and come to keep him company. Watching Iruka make breakfast and then sitting together in the living room had been a welcome slice of normality after the endless night. There'd been comfort in the routine, and if he'd ignored the bloodstained sheets of paper Iruka had been working from and the stillness in his own body, he could almost have convinced himself that everything since his mission had been a disturbing dream.
And then Iruka had said be careful, without even realising, and the illusion had been broken. It wasn't a bad thing to say – Kakashi couldn't imagine how such a command could possibly hurt him – but it was the tip of a dangerous iceberg. It brought back fresh memories of the operating table. His hand curled defensively at the thought.
Gai was watching him.
"Is anything else bothering you? Something you can talk about?"
Kakashi smiled wryly behind the mask. Such a typical Gai question – vague enough to let him slip out of it, but open enough to show real concern. He was about to brush it off, but then paused.
"Yeah, sort of. I mean, I can sort of talk about it."
Gai sat and waited for him to put the words in order.
"After I got back from my mission, Iruka did something. It wasn't intrinsically a bad thing, and he still doesn't know what the consequences were, but it hurt me."
"Physically?"
"Yeah." The skin beneath his eyepatch should have crawled at the thought – it should have itched and ached, but he felt nothing. "And I decided not to tell him about it because he's already been through a lot, what with thinking I was dead and having to look after me now. But I can't stop thinking about it."
"I did notice," Gai said slowly, "that when we left Iruka's house you didn't kiss him goodbye like you usually do."
Kakashi had been hyper aware of it too, of Iruka's expression when he'd taken a half step towards Kakashi and then faltered.
"So the problem is that Iruka doesn't know," Gai said when Kakashi didn't respond, "and you want to tell him but you're conflicted because you know he'll feel guilty."
"More than guilty," Kakashi muttered. "And I'm scared that if I say it out loud I'll get angry at him, and he doesn't deserve that. It wasn't his fault. It really wasn't, and I know that, but I just." He remembered the way he'd felt standing outside Iruka's flat the day before, the feeling that hurting Iruka would bring him some closure. He hadn't felt that way since – felt sick at himself at the thought – but the possibility scared him.
Gai rested a hand on his shoulder and squeezed.
"If I'd hurt you without realising, I'd want to know. I'm sure Iruka feels the same way. And I think that the longer you keep it bottled up, the angrier you'll feel."
"Yeah, maybe." Kakashi scrubbed a hand through his hair. "Hey, Gai. Have you ever…?" Have you ever wanted to hurt someone you love? "Have you ever had to do something like this? Tell someone a harsh truth?"
"I've had to tell my students things they didn't want to hear, but that doesn't really compare."
"Fuck, my team. I wonder what's going to happen to them. I won't be able to teach them – maybe not for a long while."
"It's not the end of the world if you're replaced with a temporary jounin-sensei. I'm sure your precious students will love and respect you just as much once you're back in action. But maybe you should focus on one problem at a time."
Kakashi couldn't help but think that that would be easier if he didn't have so many damn problems.
"I think I'll talk to Iruka."
Gai smiled and patted him on the knee. "He'll understand. Iruka is very empathetic, and he knows you're going through a difficult time right now."
"Yeah."
So was Iruka. And the largest part of Kakashi didn't want to add to the stress he could already see in every line of Iruka's body, but Gai was right – they needed to talk about the sharingan. Not only because Kakashi felt like the knowledge would rip him open from the inside, but because preventing another tragedy was more important than upsetting Iruka. For all he knew, if he didn't impress Iruka with exactly how much damage he could cause, Iruka could be the next person hurt by an accidental command. By telling him, Kakashi might be protecting him.
It was all true, he knew that objectively. But the justification sounded weak even inside his own head.
Gai insisted on walking him back to Iruka's, taking a detour through Kakashi's flat to pick up some more of his things. He spent enough time at Iruka's that he kept some essentials there – clothes, a toothbrush, a spare mask – but not enough to last him a long-term stay. Gai saw him right to Iruka's door, but didn't come inside, which Kakashi was grateful for. If he needed to have a difficult conversation with Iruka, he didn't want to wait around getting more and more worked up about it. Better to rip the plaster off and deal with the pain.
Iruka was still sitting in the lounge, staring at the sheets of paper on the coffee table. He didn't glance up when Kakashi entered the room.
"Still working?" Kakashi asked. "You should take a break."
He expected Iruka to argue, but instead he nodded and raised himself from the floor to the couch, curling one leg beneath him.
"I'll make you some tea," Kakashi offered.
"Thanks."
Kakashi filled the electric kettle and placed it on its stand, then opened the cupboard and selected a mug. He was facing away from Iruka, but could feel his presence like a shadow in his peripherals.
"How was it, seeing people again?" Iruka asked. His voice was scratchy, as though he had a sore throat.
"Tiring. But nice. Did anyone come round while I was out?"
The kettle boiled and clicked off, and Kakashi belatedly remembered that he hadn't prepared the tea leaves.
"Outsuki-sensei was here for a bit."
Kakashi glanced back. Iruka was staring out through the window.
"Oh? What did he want?"
"He had some good news. There are a couple of stages to reviving you and he'd been thinking about the medical part. He's possibly solved a problem."
"Who knew he'd be good for something?" Kakashi closed the tea infuser and dunked it in the mug, watching the colour spread like weak ink through the water. "What was the problem?"
"Making sure your body's healthy when I take off the seals. It's a bit technical."
"Well, I'll trust you to deal with the complicated parts."
They both lapsed into silence as Kakashi waited for the tea to brew. It seemed to take a long time.
Iruka was still looking out of the window when he brought the mug through. He placed it on the coffee table instead of delivering it into Iruka's hands, and then sat on the armchair. Might as well get this over with.
"I need to talk to you. About the commands."
Iruka's head jerked around. "Did I do it again?"
"Yeah, you did. Before I left."
"What did I say?"
"Nothing serious. You told me to be careful."
Iruka's shoulders relaxed. "Oh. Well, that's all right, isn't it?"
He was missing the point.
"No, it's not all right. It's not about what you said, it's the fact that you didn't notice how you'd phrased it. You can't keep doing this, Iruka."
"I didn't mean to. It's difficult to watch my words all the time, but I am trying."
"That's not good enough."
He didn't like this. He didn't like talking to Iruka like he would a misbehaving genin, but he needed to be firm. If he lost his resolve this early, he knew he wouldn't push through to the heart of the conversation. He was prepared for Iruka to argue, had the retort ready on his tongue.
"I'm sorry."
Kakashi waited for more, but Iruka looked down at his hands and didn't speak. The silence stretched out a little, and Kakashi didn't know whether it meant Iruka was taking him seriously or not seriously enough. He'd never known Iruka let someone speak to him this way.
"I know you're trying," Kakashi said, "but it's not enough. If you're not careful, someone's going to get hurt."
"Hurt?" Now Iruka did look at him. "I wouldn't say anything that irresponsible! Not even by accident. I promise."
"You already have," Kakashi said, and stopped. He couldn't do this.
"What are you talking about?"
He had to do this.
"You told me to let them cut out my eye."
Iruka sat very still, and then jerked clumsily to his feet and made it into the kitchen before retching into the sink. Kakashi was instantly on his feet. He'd expected a bad reaction, but not this.
"Iruka," Kakashi said, taking a few steps across the room. "I know you didn't realise at the time that I'd have to do what you said, and I don't want to upset you, but I needed you to know."
Iruka was still bent over the sink, a hand clutched in his hair, his face turned away. Kakashi took a few more steps towards him.
"It doesn't matter that I didn't know," Iruka said. His voice was hoarse. "I still fucked up and it's not all right."
Kakashi didn't argue, and hated himself for it.
"It's my fault the seals didn't work on your eye in the first place. I don't know what I did, but there must have been some mistake. I keep messing up over and over." He gripped the side of the counter. Kakashi could see the tendons in the back of his hand like thin ropes pulled taut.
"Hey, look at me," Kakashi said. Iruka didn't move. "Iruka, it's going to be OK. I mean, the doctors said they can maybe give me the sharingan back, so there's still hope, right?"
Iruka was silent.
"And you've been working really hard today, so you're going to make progress soon. I have faith in you. But until then we've just got to deal with this as best we can. Like this morning. I really enjoyed talking to you like nothing was wrong. The only thing I can't stand right now is that I can't touch you, but we can fix that soon."
Iruka slowly lowered his hand from his head and straightened up. "Would that be enough to make it better? Having enough chakra?"
Kakashi relaxed a little. Maybe that's all Iruka needed – what they both needed – a nice, simple goal to keep them going.
"Yeah, that would make me feel much better. I'm looking forward to it."
"I could do it now."
Shit. Iruka wasn't looking at him, but Kakashi could see the expression on his face. He took two steps back.
"No, you're still not strong enough. We need to wait a couple more days."
"I just want you to know how much I care about you," Iruka said. He nodded to himself, as though listening hard to the buzz of his own thoughts. "I can't do anything else, but I can prove that."
"You don't have to prove anything." Should he make a run for it? Call the ANBU?
Iruka took a shaky breath, preparing himself for something, and Kakashi knew what he was going to do. There was no time to run.
"Iruka, don't."
Iruka finally turned to meet Kakashi's eye.
"Take my chakra," he said. "Take as much as your body needs."
The hunger surged, and Kakashi felt it consume him. The next moment was a blur of skin bruising under his grasping fingers and Iruka screaming because of him, because Kakashi was killing him.
He didn't uncurl his fingers when Iruka slumped unconscious in his arms. Kakashi laid him down on the kitchen floor and swore desperately, but didn't let go.
