It's been forever, I know. I'm kinda failing at life right now so –shrug– And I've lost most of my interest in writing fanfiction. In any case, I made book covers for about half of my stories so if you're reading them, just take a little look, 'kay?

o0o

Iruka glanced at his dining partner from under his lashes, trailing his fingers along the worn wood of the bench in front of him. Naruto seemed happy enough, but he was slightly more subdued than normal. He'd cheerily answered all of Teuchi's questions about how he'd been and what he'd been doing for the past few months, most likely exaggerating the awesomeness of his so-called 'heroic deeds', but as soon as Teuchi had left to deal with another customer he'd lapsed into an uncharacteristic silence.

Iruka tapped his chopsticks on the inside of his bowl and lifted a string of noodles experimentally before letting it drop back into the soup. He didn't really feel like eating.

"Hey, Iruka-sensei?" Naruto's voice was quiet, and that in itself sent warning shivers down Iruka's spine.

He centred his gaze on the bowl in front of him, unwilling to see what expression his self-proclaimed little brother was wearing. "Yes, Naruto?"

"Do you really like Kakashi-sensei? Like, you stay with him because you want to?"

Iruka's head snapped up. "Who said that I don't?" he hissed, only realizing he was stupid to take out his anger on Naruto when the blond flinched, looking upset.

"I don't know. Everyone's saying it." Naruto shrugged his shoulders and waved his arms around a little too much, as if gestures would save him from the horror of his beloved sensei being truly mad at him. "Sakura-chan said that Kaka-sensei is disgusting and that he led you astray."

"I'm sorry for yelling, Naruto," Iruka said softly, though inside he was boiling with rage. "Please don't tell Kakashi that Sakura said that. It would upset him a lot."

"So you really do like Kaka-sensei?" Naruto asked, expression hopeful.

"Yes. I really do like him," Iruka answered gravely, "I like him a lot."

"That's good. I'm happy," Naruto said, sounding relieved. "Kaka-sensei pretends to be all tough and everything but I reckon he seems really lonely, ya'know? I always thought that he needed to have a friend and you're the best friend anyone could ever have, Iruka-sensei!"

Iruka couldn't help but smile at the naïve praise. "You know that Kakashi's not just my friend, right?"

"Yeah, yeah." Naruto waved a hand dismissively. "That other stuff doesn't really matter. It just makes you even closer than friends, right? You need someone too, Iruka-sensei, and I think Kaka-sensei is really nice even though he pretends not to be."

"Yes, he is," Iruka agreed, deciding he might be a little hungry after all and starting to pick at his ramen.

"Huh." Naruto practically inhaled a large clump of noodles, causing Iruka to wonder when on earth he'd started his second bowl. "It's weird though, everyone seems so angry about you two being together. I don't get it."

Iruka sighed and prodded his dinner again. "I don't really get it either. It's just because we're both men, and people let that bother them for some reason."

"What's got my two favourite customers so upset, hm?" Teuchi butted in, noting the despondent air surrounding the two.

"Iruka-sensei and Kaka-sensei are dating," Naruto said unashamedly, startling Iruka into choking on his mouthful, "And people are acting so weird about it."

"Oh." If Teuchi was surprised he didn't show it, instead appearing to think about the situation carefully. "That's probably because all the women are jealous."

Iruka raised his eyebrows but kept his mouth tightly clamped shut so as not to choke again. There was no way this conversation could get much worse, right?

"How come?" Naruto asked, curiousity peaked.

"Because Umino-san is a good catch," Teuchi explained. "He's good with children, kind, patient, and not too shabby-looking either. They're just mad that Hatake-san snatched him up first."

Iruka choked on air.

Naruto let out a long, "Ooooooh," as if that explained everything. It probably did, in his head.

"And Hatake-san probably has his own admirers," Teuchi continued, wrapped up in his own tale. "He's tall, strong and handsome. The silent type."

"He's not actually handsome," Naruto informed him. "Kaka-sensei has a stupid, normal face."

Iruka knocked him lightly on the side of the head. "Naruto, you're thirteen. You don't know what handsome means. You have to look at all of him. He has –" He stopped himself suddenly, not even sure himself what he had been going to say.

Naruto grinned. "Iruka-sensei, you're turning red."

Iruka mentally willed his blush to disappear. It didn't work.

"You know," Naruto said thoughtfully, "Kaka-sensei always hides all of his body, not just his face. I think I've only ever seen his toes and his fingers before. How can people think he's good-looking when that's all they have to go by?"

"Sometimes covering up makes people want to see what's underneath even more," Teuchi rationalized. "Kind of like how a present is always more exciting when it's wrapped up and you can't tell what it is."

Naruto wrinkled his nose. "Yeah, but who'd want to unwrap Kaka-sensei?"

"Can we please stop talking about this?" Iruka was sure that he must be red to the tips of his ears by this point. "Kakashi is an off-limits topic from now on, okay?" Despite feeling incredibly embarrassed Iruka was also oddly happy that Naruto and Teuchi-san could just sit there and chat about his unconventional relationship without malice or disgust. It was a relief, to say the least.

Naruto pouted. "But it's so interesting. He's all wrapped up like a mummy or something. Hey, you must have seen more of him than just his toes, Iruka-sensei. Is he like, really really white? Like, the sun bounces off of him and blinds you?"

Iruka grit his teeth. "If you'd just paid attention earlier you would know. At no point today was he wearing a shirt."

"Yeah, I guess, but he was all bloody then. It was hard to tell."

Teuchi decided then that it was a good time to delicately remove himself from the conversation and check up on other customers, possibly because it looked like Iruka was about to boil over.

"Naruto," Iruka said with false brightness, his teeth clenched together, "How is Jiraiya-sama doing?"

Naruto's face lit up. "You know, Iruka-sensei, I can summon frogs…"

o0o

Iruka slipped his shoes off and padded quietly into his bedroom, glad that Naruto had gone to do some sort of 'observation training' with Jiraiya, firmly pushing aside the niggling question of what exactly the boy was going to 'observe'. He loved the kid, but dealing with that much energy all at once for long periods of time got stressful fast, and Naruto had never learnt that sometimes it's nice to just sit and relax in silence.

Feeling weary but happy, Iruka picked up the note his self-proclaimed younger brother had written for Kakashi – who looked like he hadn't so much as twitched a finger since they'd left – and read it half-heartedly.

Iruka-sensei 'nd me are gonna have ramen. You can come if your not to lazy but you have to pay for yourself 'cause Iruka-sensei's paying for me. Your face is boring and you shouldn't make people wanna see it by hiding it. That's false advertissmint.

Iruka smiled and let the note float back down onto his desk before crouching down beside the bed. "Hey Kakashi, Naruto thinks your face is boring," he whispered. Carefully avoiding touching the jōnin in the bed he folded his arms over the duvet and studied his lover's sleeping face. "I think it's sweet. Well, you're sweet. Your face is gorgeous, though I probably wouldn't say that to you if you were awake."

Kakashi's eyebrows knit together and Iruka was struck once more by the odd way he failed to look peaceful in his sleep. "You must have had such a tough life, Kakashi. There are so many expectations piled onto prodigies, and even if you pass them all you're still not successful enough. I saw it in Sasuke and even Hinata, dissolving under the weight of her father's expectations. You – I'm sure you were everything your father dreamed you would be, everything Konoha wants, except for the fact that what you want is me." Iruka sighed and closed his eyes. "I wonder, how old were you when you realized you didn't like girls? How long have you been keeping this secret? It must have been so hard for you… so lonely. How many years have you been holding people at arms length?"

He could only imagine a teenage Kakashi struck by the realization that he could never, ever love someone openly in his own village, the village he'd spent his entire life working to protect. "I'm sorry that they can't see you like I see you. It's hard knowing that you've spent all this time building walls around you to keep people out when all you really needed was someone to come in."

They must have come close to coming down, with team seven. Naruto is hardheaded enough to break down anyone's walls. I wouldn't hesitate to bet that Sasuke's betrayal nearly destroyed you. I never even thought about how it would affect you, back then. I was too busy worrying about Naruto and beating myself up over how I failed as a teacher, and I truly believed you were above caring for anyone. I was just like everybody else, fooled by your pigheaded façade.

"I'm not so arrogant that I think I can save the world, I'm happy to leave that up to Naruto," Iruka said quietly. "But I do think that I can save you. And at the same time, you can save me."

Iruka stood up and stretched, his back clicking, before pulling off his shirt and, after a moment's thought, his pants. He looked down at himself, standing there in only his underwear, and then at the jōnin sleeping in his bed. Scratching at the scar over his nose and feeling silly for continuing to talk to someone who couldn't hear him he said, "I feel a bit weird getting into bed with you like this, but my pajamas are currently under your head and I don't want to sleep in the clothes I've been wearing all day. I guess you're not going to wake up for a long time anyway, so… you'll never know."

Wriggling under the covers a safe distance away from the jumpy jōnin, Iruka smiled and closed his eyes. "Goodnight, Kakashi."

o0o

Iruka woke up before his alarm, blinking his eyes open to thin streams of pre-dawn light streaking the bed grey. Sometime during the night he'd managed to curl himself around Kakashi, his feet tucked under the jōnin's calves and his chin in the crook of a pale shoulder. He silently thanked every god he could think of that the jōnin was still passed out cold and couldn't see his inescapable blush, and vowed that Kakashi would never find out he'd been involuntarily cuddled.

Despite the overwhelming desire to stay exactly where he was Iruka reluctantly extracted himself, shivering as his feet hit the cold floor. He glanced back longingly at the decidedly warm figure in his bed, then turned away with determination. Even if he had the time to lie around in bed all day he had the feeling that Kakashi wouldn't appreciate being used as a life-sized teddy bear.

He found it weird how easily he'd accepted the jōnin as a partner. He'd always been open-minded and when he'd realized that he maybe felt something for Kakashi he'd acknowledged it for what it was, but he hadn't expected to physically desire the jōnin so quickly. Kakashi was nothing like a woman. His entire body was made up of hard, toned muscle and flat planes, the only thing soft about him his hair. He was slightly taller than Iruka, as the chūnin had found out the previous night, lying toe to toe with him. He'd always sensed that Kakashi was tall, but the permanent slouch threw him off. He probably seemed taller than he tried to appear anyway, simply because he was so thin.

Iruka let his eyes sweep across the lines of the jōnin's face and allowed himself a small smile. "You're a real sweetheart but you never let anyone know it. Dummy. Though I suppose you have enough reasons to hide yourself away." He shook his head. He still couldn't imagine what it must have been like to be so powerful, to be looked up to by envious adults when you were still only a child. It was easy to assume that such reactions would have caused Kakashi to grow into an arrogant, prideful adult rather than the shy recluse he'd somehow become. It was probably the deaths of all of his precious people that kept him grounded, Iruka realized, and wondered just how Kakashi would have turned out had his father or his sensei lived to this day.

"Get a grip, Iruka," the chūnin mumbled to himself. "If you keep thinking about him and not the thirty pre-genin you're supposed to watch then you are going to be hung, drawn and quartered by those brats."

He turned resolutely towards his wardrobe and did not look back at the bed once. Well, maybe once. He was only human, after all.

o0o

"Tsunade-sama, this has come from Suna."

Izumo walked briskly into the Hokage's office, tossed the scroll down on her desk, did a sharp about-turn and left. Tsunade watched him go with one eyebrow raised. It definitely wasn't her imagination. Those two – him and the spikey haired brat he was always paired with – had been treating her with increasingly less respect lately, and she had no clue as to why such a change had come about. At times they almost seemed hostile.

Tsunade shrugged to herself and slipped a long, manicured nail under the seal on the scroll to break it. She had more important things to worry about than badly behaving chūnin gophers. She peeled open the roll of parchment, her eyes widening as she read the first line. She'd only asked Shikaku to send a runner to Suna yesterday, and yet she'd already gotten her reply. He must have sent a bird. I knew he was appointed Jōnin Commander for a reason. Though, for the answer to come this quickly the Kazekage must have sent his fastest bird as well.

She skimmed through the document, her eyes flicking up and down the page at an alarming speed. When she'd finished reading she dropped it onto the desk and sighed heavily, before barking, "Shizune!"

Her harried assistant snapped to attention, nearly dropping her pig.

"Go get me that spiky-haired chūnin," she demanded.

o0o

"Er, Iruka?"

Kotetsu flinched as thirty pairs of beady eyes swiveled to hone in on his face. Iruka, with one eyebrow raised and a hand on his hip, looked like he was about to start tapping his foot in impatience at any moment. "I need to talk to you?" he gushed out, congratulating himself silently on the fact that his voice had barely wavered. He remembered the last time Iruka had punished him by making him watch over the little demons, and he was in no hurry to have that repeated.

"Yes?" Oh shit, Iruka was using the teacher voice on him. What had he done to deserve it?

Kotetsu gulped heavily. "Uh, privately?" He gave a wavering smile to show he was genuine and transferred his weight to his other foot nervously.

Iruka studied his face for a moment before turning back to his class. "No one moves, got it?"

A shiver swept its way across the classroom with all the force of a Mexican wave. Iruka grinned to himself. That reaction meant he had a safe five minutes before all hell broke loose, and what Kotetsu had to say was unlikely to take over five minutes. He slipped out the door, Kotetsu backing out in front of him, and pulled it shut softly behind him. "So, what's so important you had to disturb me in the middle of work for it?"

Kotetsu collapsed against the wall. "Geez Iruka, do you think I like getting stared at by those creepy brats? I wouldn't come here if I didn't have to. And you're damn scary when you're teaching."

Iruka chuckled and scratched his nose self-consciously. "I'm sorry. You just caught me at a bad time, that's all. I still have half an hour more theory to go and they've been restless ever since lunch. I was hoping I'd get through it unscathed, but now they'll just want to know what you came here for and not concentrate on anything else." He paused. "What did you come here for, seeing as you don't want to be here?"

"Tsunade-sama said to tell you that she wants to see Kakashi-san as soon as he wakes up," Kotetsu said. "No one else's orders would make me step foot in this godforsaken building."

Iruka frowned. "Why does she want him?" he demanded. "She was the one who said make him stay in bed. Is she going to send him on another mission?"

"I don't know." Kotetstu shrugged, uneasy in the face of his friend's anger. "I would assume so. I mean, she sent me here when she could have just called you over after you finish work, and she looked pretty grim when she was talking to me."

"Ko, I can't do that." Iruka's voice wavered between angry and unhinged. "She can't do that. He had broken ribs only last night. If he goes to her and she sends him on a mission he'll die. He doesn't have the energy to handle any type of fighting. I can't send him to die, Ko. Not when he's only just starting to live."

"Ah, I may have been mistaken?" Kotetsu said awkwardly, tugging on the bandage over his nose. "It's probably just that she wants to do a check up on him."

Iruka dredged up a smile. "I'm sorry, Ko, I shouldn't be taking it out on you. Shooting the messenger and all that." He laughed shakily, spoke bitterly. "It's just that if she calls to him, he'll go. It's crazy, right? He's so loyal he'll run to serve his village while still fatigued from the last time he played hero, wagging his tail like the dog he is, and what does the village he's dying to protect do? They call him unnatural and shun him."

Kotetsu averted his eyes, unsure what he could say to that. Iruka continued on heedlessly. "I know all this, and yet I do exactly the same thing. I'll fight and die for this village, even if I'm no longer sure I want to be labeled a part of it." He clapped a hand on Kotetsu's shoulder and grinned, his eyes an icy contrast to the heat of his smile. "Don't worry, Tsunade-sama will get to see Kakashi when he wakes up. I'm loyal; I can't deny an order from the top. Get out of here." He gave Kotetsu a half-hearted push, and nodded at the confused stare the older chūnin directed at him. "Go on," he said in a gentler voice. "I know you hate being in the academy."

Kotetsu nodded and hightailed it. He didn't know much, and even his lover thought he was kind of dumb, but he did know one thing: he never, ever wanted to be on Iruka's bad list.

o0o

Iruka dragged his hands through his hair for what seemed like the fortieth time, his elbows digging grooves into the oak of his desk. The children had stared bug eyed at him when he'd stormed back into the classroom, catching onto his bad mood quickly and being perfect little lambs for the rest of the lesson, which would have been great if he actually remembered what he'd taught them.

He sighed. He didn't even know what he was so upset about, really. He was just judging based on assumptions. Tsunade-sama could want Kakashi for something totally innocent. Iruka shook his head. No. I have a really bad feeling about this.

He didn't want to go home, because Kakashi would just be sleeping. And if he wasn't sleeping – Iruka prayed that he was. The jōnin needed all the rest he could get before being sent off again to god-knows-where. He had no doubt that Kakashi would do anything the village asked of him, and the fact that Tsunade was not above using that upset him more than anything.

When he looked up again it was getting dark. Shit, Umino, sometimes I think you're trying to do yourself in. You know how people have been treating you lately and yet you always put yourself in stupid situations like this. He briefly toyed with the idea of using a henge before dropping it. It would only create suspicion from those who could recognize it and possibly land him in more trouble. Besides, he had his pride. He didn't want to be afraid of walking around in his own village.

He shoved his books and papers into his bag haphazardly. Better to leave sooner rather than later, he reasoned, though he was probably already too late to make that decision.

o0o

The trip home was blessedly uneventful, though he wanted to kick himself when he was thoroughly startled by a cat streaking past. You're supposed to be alert, not on edge, he told himself crossly, and was rather relieved when he caught sight of the warm glow of his apartment.

Wait, warm glow? Why are my lights on? His heart sunk to below his knees. Kakashi, you should have just kept sleeping.

He opened his door to find not one, but two sets of eyes turning to look at him. "Iruka-senseeeii!" Naruto screeched, and Iruka braced himself for the following flying tackle hug. "Kaka-sensei sucks at Go Fish."

Iruka glanced over the boy's head, his eyes meeting Kakashi's, who just shrugged and gave him a wan smile. He looks really pale. Returning his attention to the kid clinging to him, Iruka mock-growled and scrubbed his knuckles through the blond hair. "You better not have gone and woken Kakashi-sensei up. He needs to rest, you know."

"No way," Naruto protested. "He was awake when I got here. He opened the door for me."

Iruka, sensing something off about that statement, looked back at Kakashi.

"Well, not even complete chakra depletion could help me sleep through what he calls 'politely knocking'," Kakashi said with a rueful smile, rubbing the back of his head. "I don't mind so much, though it would be nice if my opponent knew more complex games than Go Fish and Snap."

"Hey hey, Kaka-sensei." Naruto let go of Iruka and swiveled around to glare at the jōnin. "Are you calling me stupid?"

"Not at all," Kakashi said calmly. "I simply think you can sometimes be a little obtuse, that's all."

Naruto frowned, his whole face scrunching up in concentration. "I bet that's a bad word, isn't it? Iruka-sensei, what does it mean?" Iruka didn't answer fast enough, so Naruto continued regardless. "Well, you're – you're –"

Gay, Iruka's mind supplied helpfully, and the guarded look on Kakashi's face meant that he was thinking the same thing. Please Naruto, anything but that. You can't be that obtuse.

"You're lazy," Naruto said triumphantly, and the tension in the air dissipated. "You read those stupid books all the time and you're always late, you baka-sensei."

Kakashi relaxed noticeably. "Yes, I am. I apologise, and must concede that you are charmingly obtuse."

"Eh?" Naruto blinked, confused, before deciding the best course of action was just to leave it be. "Hey, Iruka-sensei, what's for dinner? Kaka-sensei said he wouldn't make me anything, and I didn't eat anything before I came because I know you're the best cook ever."

Iruka sighed. "Did Jiraiya-sama not feed you anything while you were away?"

"We ate in places with lots of pretty girls and stuff." Naruto flapped a hand disinterestedly. "There was nothing as good as what Iruka-nii can make. Or ramen. Hey, if you don't want to cook you can just buy me Ichiraku, right?"

Iruka chuckled and rubbed the boys head affectionately. "No, I'll cook you something. Just stay out of the kitchen and don't bother Kakashi-sensei too much."

He sent Kakashi an apologetic smile before moving to the kitchen, his ears catching the excited, "Hey Baka-sensei, we should play Snap!"

Iruka shook his head, smiling affectionately. Poor Kakashi. I better make something fast and easy to put him out of his misery. He lost his smile as he reached for the saucepan, remembering his current position. Legally, I should already have told him to go see the Hokage. But I just can't. He looks like he's going to fall apart any minute. There is no way he could go on a mission in the condition he's in now. It's not fair.

Iruka ground his fists against his forehead in frustration. Tsunade-sama probably doesn't want more work at this time of night anyway, he told himself stubbornly. I'll tell him in the morning. That way he gets another at least twelve hours of sleep. I'm not really breaking the law. I mean, it's not as if I got a written order to do it.

"Hey."

Iruka jumped at the touch on his arm and whirled around, fists up. Kakashi held up his hands in defense. "Sorry. You looked worried about something."

Iruka bit his lip and looked away. "You, baka," he spat out, making up his mind, "I'm worried about you. You shouldn't be standing right now; in fact you shouldn't even be awake! Go back to bed." He gave the jōnin his best mock-glare before frowning, realizing for the first time that he couldn't hear any noise. "What have you done with Naruto?"

Kakashi grinned cheekily. "Maa, nothing?"

Iruka's eyes widened as his mind flashed through all the ridiculous and dangerous things the crazy jōnin could have done to his ex-student. "What did you do?" he demanded.

"Nothing. Hey, calm down." Kakashi brought both his hands up to cup the sides of Iruka's face, his palms cool against the chūnin's overheated skin. "I was just kidding, he's in the bathroom. Do you really think I have the strength to do anything to him right now? If I tried he'd probably beat me and then I'd never live it down. But you," Kakashi shifted one of his hands to run a finger along the scar on the bridge of Iruka's nose, making him shiver, "You're coiled like a spring. You're hiding something from me, right? Are you going to tell me what's really got you so uptight?"

Iruka stared at him. I can't tell you, not right now. If I tell you then you'll either leave straight away or not sleep properly wondering what she wants you for. Kakashi was usually pale, but right now he bordered on chalk-white. That is, with the exception of his horribly dark ringed eyes. He must have been staring too long because Kakashi's hands retreated from his face, and the jōnin was looking anywhere but at him. "I'm sorry," Kakashi muttered, "It's none of my business. You're allowed to have secrets."

The jōnin looked so despondent that Iruka would have done anything to comfort him, but when he opened his mouth to speak he was interrupted by the shrill shriek of his self-proclaimed little brother. "Hey, hey, if we're all in the kitchen then it means the food's ready, right?" He peered around Kakashi only to notice that Iruka still had the empty saucepan in his hand. "Ah, Iruka-sensei? What's wrong?"

"Nothing, Naruto." Iruka gave a half-hearted smile, unsure quite how to divert the boy's attention from his unusual ineptness.

"Iruka has decided that we're going to have pot ramen tonight," Kakashi put in cheerfully, ruffling the blond's hair with a little more force than necessary. "It's a really nice idea, isn't it, Naruto?"

Naruto's eyes flicked between Kakashi, who was smiling demonically, and Iruka, who was staring gob-smacked at Kakashi. He rubbed the back of his head with his hand and laughed awkwardly. "Ah, you know what? I'm just gonna go to Ichiraku's instead, yeah. I'll, um, bring you guys back something if you want it."

"That's fine, we don't need anything," Kakashi said genially, placing his hands on Naruto's shoulders and manually propelling him out of the kitchen. "Have fun, go out with some friends."

The door was slammed shut on his stuttered, "Ah, y-yeah," and Kakashi slumped against the doorframe, drained.

"Why?" Iruka asked, utterly confused.

"Before you complain, my intention wasn't to kick him out completely. He decided that himself," Kakashi said, sliding down the wall to sit against the door with his legs out in front of him. "But I am glad that he's gone."

"Why?" Iruka repeated, unable to get his brain around any longer words.

Kakashi stared up at him. "Have you seen yourself? You're like a rabbit, flushing hot and cold and twitching at the slightest noise. You were in the kitchen for ten minutes and all you did was grab a pot." He glanced meaningfully at Iruka's right hand. "Which you're still holding. Even Naruto realized there was something wrong."

Iruka flushed and retorted, "Have you seen yourself? You look like a – a ghost!" He waved the pot in the sitting jōnin's direction. "And you're so exhausted you can barely stand up!"

Kakashi blinked at him, surprised, before letting out a burst of uncontrollable laughter, wincing and placing a hand against his recently healed chest. "You're right. We do make a fine pair, huh?"

Iruka chuckled, unable to help himself. It was either laugh or break down completely. "Yeah. I guess we do."

"Come here." Kakashi beckoned with his hand. "As comfortable as your doormat is, I don't really want to fall asleep on your floor. Help me up?"

Iruka moved forward obligingly and grabbed the jōnin's wrists. "You don't want something to eat?"

"No. If I eat then sleep straight away it'll go straight to fat. I'm not particularly hungry anyway."

"Worried about your weight?" Iruka chuckled and almost stumbled backwards as he pulled too hard and Kakashi's weight crashed into him. "You are pretty heavy."

Kakashi shook his head against Iruka's shoulder, the wispy hairs on the side of his head brushing against the chūnin's cheek. "Would you pity me if I said that it's not weight issues but my effectiveness as a killing machine that decides my diet? Because if you would, I'm not telling you."

Iruka said nothing and wrapped his arms around the jōnin, squeezing tightly, partly to stop him from collapsing back onto the floor and partly because he wanted to give some comfort, even if it wasn't allowed.

After a while of just standing and swaying slightly, Kakashi mumbled something unintelligible into his collar. Iruka prodded him. "Say again?"

Kakashi lifted his head with what seemed like an extreme effort and mumbled, "Your bed."

"My bed?"

"Am I…?"

"Are you what?" Iruka, cocking his head to one side, noticed that the jōnin's cheeks were turning pink, a fact that highlighted all the more just how white he'd become. "You mean, are you allowed to sleep in my bed? Because the answer is yes, if that's what you want."

"You too?"

Iruka clucked. "Only if you can actually manage to sleep with me there." He remembered waking up tangled around the jōnin and blushed. There was no way he wanted to repeat that with a lucid Kakashi.

"Yes," Kakashi whispered, and pushed away from him in the direction of the bedroom.

Iruka watched him stumble for a few steps before walking over and ducking under his arm, wrapping his own arm around the jōnin's thin waist. He growled at Kakashi's noise of protest. "Just let me help you, okay? It's okay to accept help sometimes, just don't think anything of it."

Kakashi, too drained to put up a proper fight, simply let himself be manhandled down the hall and onto the bed. His eyes closed fully when his head hit the pillow and he blinked twice to keep them open. "You, too?"

Iruka smiled softly. "Yes, me too."

Kakashi nodded once, decisively, and closed his eyes again. Iruka stood and watched him for a moment. Tsunade can't be asking to see him to send him on a mission, can she? He's weaker than a civilian right now. It must just be some paperwork thing. Deciding he'd probably been stressing out over nothing, Iruka stripped off and slipped between the sheets beside his lover. I doubt it matters that much. I'll tell him in the morning.