Apparently, hair was important to everyone. People commented on his "change in style", some implying that it was a welcome change and others clearly hinting that it had been a mistake. But everyone certainly commented. He had looked practically the same for ten, fifteen years now, and even before that his style had never wavered. It wasn't something he had consciously done, but was rather a byproduct of his laziness and disregard to his looks. With maybe a bit of self-disgust thrown into the mix.

Kakashi would have rather had no one mention his hair, not because he cared about being the topic of conversation but because for just a few minutes somedays, he could forget about the life he had helped ruin, about the man wasting away in a hospital bed, but every time someone brought up his hair he was forced to remember why it was he had taken his own blade to it.

And he truly couldn't blame anyone other than himself. And Tsunade. And maybe even Iruka. But he also knew that blaming Tsunade was a waste of time, she had made hundreds of such decisions before and would continue to make similar decisions as time continued. She had an entire village to consider. And blaming Iruka was selfish. He had chosen to go, according to Tsunade, and that had been his choice to make but it didn't make what had happened to him his fault. He was a victim.

So Kakashi continued to blame himself. He had made a choice that had ruined, was ruining a man's life. He had seen, even as he completed the jutsu on the scroll that he was substituting someone else into his place. True, he had forgotten, willfully even, the choice he had made in those few crucial moments. He had known what horror he had sent someone too. Kakashi had been selfish in those moments, not afraid of death maybe, but afraid and had chosen to let someone else carry that pain instead of him.

It wasn't even the first time he had chosen to send someone into a situation full of torment. But this time, he felt it, in a way he hadn't even been sure he could still feel. Which was why he couldn't leave Iruka alone. It was why he couldn't forgive himself and it was why he would keep his hair shorter.

And it was why, every day, he went to watch the emaciated, wounded body of a once vibrant man die a little more.

Because it was worth the price.

Some part of Iruka's brain recognized he wasn't normal. That he wasn't "Iruka" anymore. But despite that feeling he felt like "Iruka" for the first time since he had disappeared from Konoha. He wasn't the same, but maybe just for a few minutes he could pretend that he was.

Still he couldn't pretend long given that his hands, his arms, every part of his body that he could see looked nothing like he remembered. It didn't feel like the body he had grown up with, it didn't feel like it belonged to him. If he thought about it too much he always started to think that maybe it wasn't really his body, that he had somehow ended up in another. But when he looked in the mirror he saw enough of his old self that he knew it was his, and not another's.

He could see his eyes, his bones, his mouth. He recognized himself, in a way that probably had less to do with his appearance and more to do with instinct. Because as much as he did recognize, there was so much that had changed. The person behind his eyes what different, so the expressions both in his eyes and on his face no longer matched who he used to be. His skin had lost all of its youth and color, it was now pale, sickly, and hung from his bones like it was barely attached.

But what was behind his eyes, what was in his head was a change so drastic he didn't even know what to feel about it. There was anger, and sadness, and fear. But they were distant as if there was a wall between them and him, and they were muffled as if he had cotton in his ears.

When he looked at himself, he knew he should feel something, but he didn't. When he thought about what he had become he knew he should feel something, but he didn't. The little he did feel was from those first days, those first weeks. And he had trapped those feelings in a box way down inside.

A box he could not touch, could not open.

A box that he could not keep closed when he slept.

He woke screaming with emotions he couldn't control only to feel the emotions and the few memories that did surface slip from his grasp and disappear, like holding smoke.

Logically he knew he was ill, that this was very wrong, but he couldn't feel that it was truly a problem. He wasn't bothered by it. Maybe even preferred it, if he were honest with himself. It was easier after all.

The days came and went, sometimes in dragging, slow minutes and other times in rushing hours and flashes. He remembered people coming to see him, the nurses most frequently, Tsunade regularly, and occasionally Ibiki and Kakashi. Ibiki made sense, in a roundabout sort of way. A man that good at fucking up someone's mind probably knew best how to deal with the aftermath. Why Kakashi came, Iruka didn't know, and had felt so unsettled when he thought about it, he had chosen instead to ignore the idea all together. Dealing instead with what was current, what was present.

Ibiki and Kakashi always came together. Tsunade sometimes came with and sometimes a nurse came instead, but there were always three of them. They came every three days or rather they had twice. So today was another three days and Iruka expected to see them in his room sooner or later.

He never really remembered what happened when they came. The first time he had slept until the next day. The second time he had not, but had instead been so erratic he had been drugged instead. They were doing something, clearly, and it had to do with what had happened to him. The torture and the rape. He knew that much just from looking at himself, from what he could feel. He still wasn't sure if he hoped what they did helped or if he would rather that they just stopped altogether and let him be.

Ah, they were here. He settled himself back into the hospital bed and looked at them as they entered. Tsunade looked concerned, but in a resigned or maybe a reserved way. Ibiki looked like Ibiki, his face a solemn mask. His eyes moved and landed on Kakashi. The man looked the same as he always had, except different in some way. Iruka was not afraid and yet some part of him reacted with such revulsion that he was shocked, and yet still even more strangely he was glad to see the man, or as close to glad as his current emotionally barren self could get.

The one dark eye held with Iruka's, another face that was so commonly masked behind indifference, but this time Iruka thought he saw more, he thought maybe he saw regret and something so powerful Iruka did not know what it was. But he saw, nonetheless that Kakashi was perhaps just as ruined as he felt.

And some new cruel part of Iruka was pleased.

He wasn't at all sure why he had done it. The situation in which he found himself now, certainly couldn't have been the result he had wanted. But somehow, he had been unable to stop himself reaching for the man as he had gone to leave, following Tsunade and Ibiki out of the room. Nevertheless, Kakashi had halted, turned back, surprised to look at him where he lay in the hospital bed.

Now they sat, Iruka on the bed, legs dangling from the side, and Kakashi in the chair he normally occupied while in the room, a chair very near the head of Iruka's bed.

They were also silent. Not that Iruka preferred that, but rather he had opened his mouth to speak, multiple times and had been unable to say anything, the words unformed. Hell, he had stopped the man and hadn't even formed a question yet. But something still pushed him to this. He needed to talk to the man. He needed to talk to Kakashi.

Kakashi looked like there was more than a few things he wanted to say as well but that those words were just as stuck, or perhaps he was fighting the words he wanted to say instead. The man certainly seemed to be fighting a demon or two these days. Which, okay, maybe wasn't completely abnormal, but rather the fact that there wasn't even the lackadaisical veneer hiding the torment was.

Iruka was tired of waiting. Tired of sitting here staring at a man who held at least some of the answers. So, tongue tied or not, it was time to start talking.

"Why is it you?" A rather incomplete question, so to clarify, "Why do you come here with them, why do you help with," he gestured vaguely, "whatever it is they are doing?"

Kakashi's face twisted ever so slightly, the corner of his eye twitching, then a resolve firmed this expression and he met Iruka's gaze. "Two reasons: one, you being there in that place was my fault; two, they used me, my image against you."

Well, Iruka thought, reason two sure didn't make a lot of sense but it might explain some of the, feelings, Iruka felt because of the man. Iruka might not remember most of what had happened to him but he did remember the events leading up to it and he could not agree with reason one. That was stupid. It was Iruka's fault that he had ended up in that place. It had been his idea and he had forced it on Kakashi, whether Kakashi knew it, or as was fairly clear, not.

But Iruka wasn't going to argue that, at least not now. So instead he just nodded. Then asked, "They are transferring the emotions and the memories to you."

It wasn't a question, but Kakashi's nod confirmed it. Why he had needed the confirmation he hadn't known. But he had it. And again, that part of him that had become twisted and cruel, or maybe a part of him that he had somehow buried deep and forgotten he had, was glad to hear it.

Another non-question, "You asked to do it."

Another nod.

Then Kakashi had signed up to be tortured. Which really seemed like a rather self-harming plan that Iruka wouldn't have assumed Kakashi would make. Either Kakashi was not entirely the man Iruka had thought he was, which was completely plausible, or something had changed about the man which was also completely possible. And for some reason Iruka felt a need to know which it was.

"Tell me what happened. After I left Konoha I mean, I remember that much."

Kakashi looked so extremely uncomfortable, he actually shifted, squirmed where he sat. He looked rather like a child who had been caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar and as if he would like nothing more than to run away from the current predicament.

Iruka would have none of that. He intended to get the answers to his questions one way or another.

But Iruka knew at least some of what was holding Kakashi back. Iruka's mind had been so unable to handle what had happened that it had shut down, erased memories, and changed his personality to some still yet unknown degree. Still, with some strange kind of certainty, Iruka knew that remembering and being told what had happened were completely different. It was like hearing it from Kakashi would somehow be less real, would be more like a story of what had happened to someone else. And that was manageable, even if he still couldn't handle the actual memories themselves.

And he was sure he wanted to know. At first, he hadn't been sure at all, but even just a few days later, the missing memories, the blankness, and the consuming presence of what had happened to him, was all Iruka could focus on. It was his whole life whether he wanted it to be or not.

So yes, he would like to know what had happened.

Iruka met that one dark eye, held Kakashi's gaze with the intensity of his conviction and to his surprise he saw acceptance flicker through the man's features. With an almost inaudible sigh, Kakashi settled back into the hard-plastic chair and began.

There was no visible emotion coming from him, not now, it was like he was beginning a mission report. "I still don't know everything. But, well, I can tell you what I do know. And I can tell you what I found when in the forest, what you were like when I found you again."

Iruka started. He hadn't known that Kakashi had brought him back. Now hearing that, he really shouldn't have been surprised but he still was.

"You had actually escaped yourself, you were already in the woods outside the walled perimeter. I felt a chakra signature and hunted it down, clearly that was you. You were not exactly in your right mind, not surprisingly, you thought I was fake, either a hallucination or genjutsu."

Here Kakashi paused, hesitating, almost reluctant, but he continued, using professionalism as a mask for whatever he was uncomfortable sharing.

"The interaction between us was atypical, you vacillated between trying to seduce me and trying to have me kill you. Eventually, your body, wounded and weakened, gave out. You passed out, at which point I brought you back to Konoha." Kakashi clearly hoped to leave it at that.

Iruka felt some internal part of himself balk at knowing he had tried to seduce this man. He had more than one reason to feel embarrassed about that. But on the surface where his emotions were so muted, instead he only felt a light curiosity about it. He would have to learn why he had become the kind of person to use sex as a tool. That certainly hadn't been part of his personality before.

And maybe Kakashi was feeling awkward about that, but knowing what he knew about Kakashi that seemed rather odd, and not particularly fitting. This was a man who read porn anytime and anywhere. This was a man known for sex and wasn't ever shy about it, in fact practically the opposite. Not that he was known for being a romantic, certainly not, but sexual exploits came hand in hand with stories of the Copy nin's fighting prowess.

So, the likelihood of this man being upset that someone had thrown themselves at his feet begging for it, essentially, shouldn't be causing this reaction. Unless of course there was more to it, like he had taken advantage of the situation.

Which was a thought.

Not one Iruka entertained very long though because that didn't seem much like Kakashi either. Why would he bother?

So maybe it was something else or maybe something small that just bothered Kakashi disproportionately. Given the circumstances it must be something like that.

But still, he clearly wanted to skip past something he felt about the situation, though the retrieval itself seemed so straight forward and well, easy. Maybe…

Well that wasn't exactly a good thought.

Maybe it was that he had taken advantage. Kakashi had said that they used Kakashi's image against Iruka, but what if the revulsion wasn't from that, what if it was from something Kakashi had done himself? Iruka usually was pretty good at spotting genjutsu, so it seemed strange that he would feel so strongly about the man himself rather than having aimed the revulsion at the appropriate target.

That was not comforting at all.