When Kakashi comes back the next night, no one is close to, or literally, dead. There's no adrenaline in the jōnin's blood, no teartails on Iruka's cheeks, and Kakashi knocks on the door rather than hiding in a tree.
It's a pleasant change. A good omen, Iruka thinks, for the future. Or perhaps just a new precedent to reset the years of missed chances.
When Kakashi's fingers fall to replace his mask after a sip of tea, they hesitate, then drop to his lap. Iruka smiles around the liquid that warms his belly. The mask remains down long after their cups are empty and Iruka's voice has grown hoarse.
That's an even better one.
The night after that, Kakashi shows up at his window rather than his front door. As long as it's not a tree branch, Iruka can't bring himself to complain for more than a minute.
The amused crinkle of Kakashi's eye and tilt to his head probably means he can see the flush to Iruka's cheeks isn't quite from anger.
That night, Kakashi removes his mask before Iruka can even set the kettle to heat.
He tastes of coffee and mint. After the tea, he tastes just as good.
When Iruka comes home from the Academy to find a torn piece of paper sitting on his kettle, adorned with only a scribbled henohenomoheji, he knows what it means. It doesn't make him happy. Not exactly. Kakashi can't tell Iruka how long he'll be gone, or where he will be going. He can't say if he's likely to come back at all. If Kakashi is gravely injured, Iruka won't know until he's recovered. If he dies in the line of duty, Iruka may never know until he sees the name appear on the memorial stone. That's what being part of ANBU means, and this note only reinforces the complete anonymity in which Kakashi now lives.
But the note doesn't hurt, either. Because although Iruka knows all of that, although he goes home to an empty bed, wakes up in the night to the image of a lifeless gray eye, and spends the hours until sunrise looking into the forest for a hint of silver…
Iruka is hopeful.
The note is something more than a notification.
It's a request for a rain check.
It's a vow that Kakashi will try to stay safe.
It's a promise for the future.
It's nearly three weeks later when Kakashi shows up at his doorstep with a bag of groceries and an enticing smile. The food tastes so good, Iruka hardly remembers to be embarrassed that Kakashi knows him well enough to guess his kitchen is full of nothing but instant ramen, dry chicken, and cheap frozen vegetables.
That forgetfulness might also have to do with the nerves that electrify him when he invites Kakashi to stay the night. He backtracks quickly, saying that nothing has to happen—which is true—but apparently Kakashi isn't any more keen to wait than he is. It's another intimacy, another piece of trust Kakashi is giving him, even if it has been had by others before.
Intellectually, Iruka is aware of the differences in their levels of experience, both on the field and in the bedroom. He's aware that Kakashi has had multiple partners before, including those more attractive and skilled than Iruka. But he doesn't really think it matters. Not when Kakashi's hands search for him in every moment. Not when they cling to him desperately, leaving vibrant heat as tangible as splashes of candle wax against his skin.
Kakashi removes Iruka's shirt as if he's never wanted anything more, and readily accepts a return of the favor. Kakashi is as gorgeous as Iruka remembers from the academy room, all sleek lines and sinuous muscles. There are a few more scars than Iruka recalls. He will never get the history behind most of them, stories sealed behind emotional walls or legal classification. It doesn't matter. Iruka can touch them now, taste them, and see the man that they made. That means far more than a story ever could.
In other aspects of their relationship, Kakashi has been content to allow Iruka to lead, whether it's broaching a new conversational topic or choosing what type of tea they drink. Tonight, he is not. He moves with eager assurance. Iruka's scalp tingles as Kakashi slides the tie from his hair, dark waves caressing his shoulders. Kakashi tangles his hands in them, smoothing the strands between his fingers as his mouth explores from Iruka's neck to his collarbone and beyond. Rosy stains erupt in the wake of Kakashi's tongue and canines, stacking tension with each diligently placed brick.
That tension threatens to snap when Kakashi falls to his knees. He looks up at Iruka with a charcoal eye, pupil blown wide. He pushes Iruka's remaining two layers past his hips, wraps his fingers around Iruka's thighs, and suddenly Iruka is enveloped by the sweetest suction. Iruka gasps. He has to squeeze his eyes shut for a moment, because Kakashi wastes no time and takes him alarmingly far, alarmingly fast. Consequently, Iruka is alarmingly close to finishing, alarmingly fast.
When Iruka can breathe again without shooting off like a genin, he wraps his hand in soft silver strands.
He is enraptured by the sight before him.
Despite their positions, Iruka standing and Kakashi kneeling on the floor, there is nothing submissive about Kakashi in that moment. He is glorious and powerful, taking to pleasuring Iruka as if it's an S-rank jutsu he wants to make his own. And really, Iruka has always been Kakashi's, but never has he been so thoroughly contented by that fact. Kakashi's hair crumples between Iruka's fingers and his lips stretch around his length. When his fingers dig into Iruka's thighs and pull him deeper, Iruka can do nothing but tremble in the face of Kakashi's remarkable efforts to make him come before they can even get to the bed.
Knocking off Kakashi's hitai-ate, Iruka bares every inch of his lover that he can. He revels in sheer gratitude.
Because this is his.
For the first time, Iruka sees the entirety of Kakashi's face, both eyes included. He traces the rough edges of the scar with his thumb as Kakashi's sharingan opens. The red glows stark against shades of white and pink and silver, but it isn't the swirling tomoe that capture Iruka's breath and soul.
It's the dilated pupil in it's gray partner. It's the liquid that wells there and slips, as a single tear, down Kakashi's unscarred cheek.
It's the love and devotion that Iruka can never doubt again.
"Kakashi," Iruka murmurs the name as a reverent prayer, but also as a plea to stop. The static of Kakashi's chakra is building behind his navel now, seeping into his muscles and making his thighs tremble, and Iruka doesn't want this to happen quite yet. He wants to give something to Kakashi first, to show how thoroughly that adoration is reciprocated. Kakashi ignores the request and Iruka hisses in rising pleasure. He tugs Kakashi's hair and slips a hand around a pale, unscarred throat, exerting just enough gentle pressure to urge him back. Kakashi follows unwillingly, lips swollen and shiny, brows furrowed.
Iruka is very close to questioning his own sanity over it, himself.
He takes a second to gather his nerves before they set off a chain reaction, and smiles reassuringly. It's not easy to stop touching Kakashi long enough to stumble back to the bed, but he does it, because he has a goal in mind, has had it for weeks.
He fumbles in his dresser drawer and pulls out a small bottle, holding it up to forgo words.
Not everyone is interested in what Iruka is asking for, and he can live with it if Kakashi isn't—but he wants it. He wants to feel Kakashi, in every way he can. It transcends a physical urge and becomes an emotional desire. One that he expresses with an embarrassed flush that almost overrides the awareness that he's sitting nude on his mattress, glistening interest on full display.
Kakashi laughs, high and gleeful, and only the pure joy of the sound keeps Iruka's stomach swooping in something other than mortification. The eager way Kakashi shucks his pants and presses Iruka onto his back also helps dispel any lingering doubts. He braces himself with one hand beside Iruka's head (unintentionally tugging on his hair a little painfully, but that's hardly important), and the other wraps around Iruka's fingers and the bottle.
Iruka captures Kakashi's stretched lips for his own. For several seconds, Kakashi seems to forget where they're supposed to be going with this, losing clear direction for the first time in the evening. Iruka gives him a reminder with a tilt of his hips, pressing them together intimately, shuddering as he feels Kakashi's erection against him. Kakashi hisses in pleasure, jerking in an instinctive bid for more, but he gets the message. He pulls back just enough to open the bottle and slick his fingers, the bland scent of silicone filling the room. Iruka hears a thump that he presumes is the bottle falling to the side. He can't take his eyes off of Kakashi long enough to check.
Kakashi is miles of pale, scarred skin, as lovely and ethereal as moonlight. He is lean and deadly, and every inch of that precise strength, his indomitable intent, is focused on Iruka.
Iruka wants to touch, to feel, because it's hard to believe such a beautiful creature could even exist in the mortal world.
But he does.
And he belongs to Iruka.
Iruka belongs to him.
Anticipating the cool touch of Kakashi preparing him, Iruka shifts his legs further apart. It's only the heat of Kakashi, hard against him, that keeps him from feeling self-conscious about the vulnerable position. But instead of the sensation he expects, Iruka feels Kakashi's breath falter, lips stuttering to a halt against Iruka's, and Kakashi's shoulder tense.
It takes an embarrassingly long moment, in which Iruka opens his eyes and sees the furrow of Kakashi's brows, the concentrated way his eyes squeeze shut, for Iruka to realize.
Kakashi is preparing himself.
"Oh," Iruka breaths.
Many more realizations follow that first one.
There was no logical reason for Iruka to assume that he would be the one penetrated. Perhaps it's conditioning from his very limited experience with sex. Perhaps it's because he still has trouble remembering that Kakashi is just as invested in this as Iruka is. Maybe it's difficult to envision someone who had the power to lead a shinobi nation opening himself so easily, without question, for someone like Iruka.
Either way, he realizes that he has absolutely no issue with the direction Kakashi has taken them. He has considered this before, in his guiltiest of thoughts. He's found release to the image of Kakashi on his bed, against a wall, in the shower, on the floor, over his desk—just about everywhere that Iruka has ever been, and some he hasn't. But there was always a strange disconnect, some small part of him that never believed it could be real.
Now, it's very real.
His final realization, as he takes in the rigidity of Kakashi's body, the tightness in his features, is that Kakashi hasn't done this before.
"Oh."
Iruka swallows, eyes wide with awe. Kakashi's eyes flicker open and a bead of sweat slides down the curve of his neck. Kakashi tilts his head questioningly, but he doesn't stop moving. Although the uncomfortable set to his muscles is still there, his erection hasn't flagged. His gaze burns and sparks as brightly as a bonfire, sending shockwaves of lust down Iruka's spine.
Then he twitches, and Iruka doesn't think it's from pleasure. He swallows down his wonder and remembers he isn't a passive partner in this whole thing. He doesn't exactly have a plethora of experiences to draw upon, but he does know that this isn't supposed to hurt.
"Let me," Iruka murmurs roughly, too loud between their harsh breaths. He braces Kakashi's narrow hip with one hand and slides the other to meet Kakashi at his entrance. He twines their fingers, spreading the slickness to his own.
Kakashi's forehead drops to Iruka's, his breathing deepening and hands fisting in the sheets beside Iruka's head. It takes a minute of slow, easing movements, of soothing circles and gentle brushes and tender slides, but Kakashi slowly opens to him, softening and yielding to his patience.
But really, it isn't patience at all, because Iruka enjoys every second of it.
For as long as Iruka has been on the edge now, he isn't viewing an orgasm as the culmination to reach. Not his own, at least. He loves the pressure of Kakashi's weight hovering above him, the slow circles that Kakashi rubs against him after Iruka adds more lubrication. He relishes the way Kakashi becomes more involved again as his pain eases, drawing a gasp from Iruka by paying wet attention to his earlobe, nipping sharply at his jugular, sucking a bruise into his shoulder.
By the time Kakashi considers himself ready, they are both overheated and dancing on a precipice, but it's an edge Iruka wants to live on for the rest of his life.
It's a miracle he doesn't fall off entirely when Kakashi's molten heat envelopes him.
Iruka has often thought of Kakashi as a honed weapon, or a feline predator. Those aren't enough.
Kakashi moves against him, savoring each sweet drag of flesh, the sweat that builds between their skin.
They aren't nearly enough.
Kakashi is a force of nature, raw and primal. Iruka is consumed by him, as a single leaf within the eye of a tsunami, only resisting destruction through the grace of the storm itself. Kakashi is his most beautiful, Iruka thinks, when he holds nothing back. When his emotions flood him to the point of breaking and they flow forth like rapids. Iruka is the white foam riding atop that sheer power, in awe that he's allowed to touch at all.
And Kakashi does allow him to touch. He allows Iruka everything, and gives all of himself in return. He swallows Iruka low groans and sighs and returns them with his own, exposing himself in so much more than body.
He trusts Iruka with everything.
"Beautiful," Kakashi whispers as a shiny drop leaves a trail down his cheek. Iruka's fingernails leave crescent marks on Kakashi's hips. "Warm," he groans as he rises on shaky thighs. "Thank you," he mindlessly praises as his lips begin to tremble. "Yours," he gasps as he sinks down until he's cradled in Iruka's pelvis, connected intimately.
'Love,' Kakashi taps against Iruka's collarbone as bliss takes him.
Iruka doesn't know if he says more, because his heart beats madly in his ears. Every sense is so focused on Kakashi that rhythm loses meaning, and all that exists is the sweet press of Kakashi against him.
His ecstasy is blinding, because Kakashi's is.
When he can see again, Kakashi is watching him, and Iruka sees every word in the soft glow of his face.
As Kakashi collapses on top of him, slick evidence trapped between them, Iruka rubs circles into his lover's spine.
Not out of comfort, or sympathy—out of a simple desire to, and a knowledge that it will be accepted.
The next morning, Iruka wakes from a dreamless sleep. He's warm despite the cold room. Long arms are wrapped around his stomach, keeping his back pressed to Kakashi's front. Iruka knows Kakashi is awake when he nuzzles into Iruka's loose hair, brushing his lips against Iruka's neck without form or thought.
Kakashi is sleep-warm and tender. This apartment has never felt safe to Iruka. Nothing really has, since the Kyuubi attack.
But with Kakashi's strength surrounding him, it's hard to feel anything else.
"Where else are you hurt?" Iruka asks as he sets the medical kit on his knees, rifling through it for the wound cleaner. It has seen substantially more use in the last few months than it had in the several years prior.
Kakashi is perched on the edge of his bathtub, fully clothed except for his usual fingerless gloves. "Nowhere." He reaches out his hands obediently, allowing Iruka to gently hold them while he examines the damage. He cuts a suspicious glance up at Kakashi, who opens his eye wide in earnesty that is utterly out of place on his features. "You can't really think I would lie to you. Iruka, I'm hurt."
"I do, and you aren't." Iruka frowns as he holds Kakashi's right hand, the worst of the two, close to his face. The skin is inflamed and bloodied, but the damage is mostly surface level. Several layers of skin are ripped and torn. Iruka would say it looks as though Kakashi was shredded by animal claws, except the individual lines are too wide and blunt for that, and the skin surrounding the striations is chafed like low-grit sandpaper. The confines of the damage to Kakashi's hands is also highly unusual. It spans both palm and knuckles, unlike most defensive wounds. His first thought was lightning or fire chakra, but there's no sign of heat damage. "Weren't you wearing gloves?"
"If I was, they certainly didn't work very well."
Iruka peers up, but although Kakashi's mask is lowered, he's just as hard to read as ever. He sighs and pops the cap on the wound cleaner, holding Kakashi's wrist over the tub while he pours a generous amount over his hand, twisting it to catch each side. Kakashi doesn't make a sound despite the sting. When Iruka dabs at the torn skin with gauze, the pad comes away a dark rust color.
The wounds were clear of debris to begin with, but Iruka diligently cleans them despite. As he does, doubt creeps into his mind like vicious kudzu, wrapping vines around his heart and sinking ice in his stomach.
"Kakashi," Iruka says quietly. He smooths his thumbs over the inside of Kakashi's wrists, over blue veins trapped beneath translucent skin. Kakashi seems strangely fragile in this lighting; washed out and corpse-like, other than the crimson blood that puddles in the tub. "The medics didn't heal these because you didn't have them when you came back. Right?"
The bathroom is too quiet, the room too small. When Kakashi finally speaks, he keeps his eye trained on Iruka's fingers. His throat sounds as tight as Iruka's feels.
"I wouldn't have let a medic heal them."
Kakashi has a tendency to answer in roundabout ways, even when he's actually telling the truth. But in this case, Iruka takes it as confirmation.
"Can I?"
Kakashi's jaw flexes and his fingers twitch in Iruka's grip. He feels cold. He looks cold.
Slowly, he nods.
Iruka rests the backs of Kakashi's wrists on his knees and gathers healing chakra, focusing first on the palms, which have taken the worst damage.
No.
Which Kakashi damaged the most.
Iruka can see what they are now. He wasn't entirely wrong; they are claw marks. Just not from any summons or beast.
They are from Kakashi himself.
The sharp scent of iodine burns Iruka's nostrils. Nausea churns in his stomach, but he concentrates on his task and Kakashi's deep, controlled breaths. He works until all that remains are the smooth, pink lines of tender new flesh.
They sit for several minutes longer. Kakashi seems to be waiting for something, but Iruka doesn't know what.
He wants to yell, to shake Kakashi until he explains why he would hurt himself, and why he would make Iruka heal it.
He also wants to hold Kakashi until whatever caused this is gone, whisper meaningless comforts and kiss every inch of his skin like it would actually solve anything.
Instead, Iruka settles on the only truth he knows.
"I don't want you to hurt yourself."
Kakashi meets Iruka's eyes. His own is intent, searching. Iruka grips Kakashi's wrists tighter.
The air leaves Kakashi in a single, long breath. His shoulders droop, his eye closes, and he rocks forward until Iruka is half-supporting him, the metal of his hitai-ate cool against Iruka's forehead.
"Yeah." Kakashi sighs. "Ok."
Later, Iruka asks him if it'll be that easy.
"Not easy." Kakashi says. He is combing his newly healed fingers through Iruka's hair, spreading it on the pillow in some abstract pattern only he can see. "But now I have a reason to try."
When Kakashi wakes him the next morning, it's with too-strong tea and a tickle of damp hair. He mutters something about breakfast, and Iruka stumbles to the shower. By the time he's out, there's steamed rice with fried eggs and green onions waiting for him (apparently the closest thing Iruka had to a vegetable in his fridge).
Kakashi must have gone home at some point because his uniform is fresh and he tastes of a toothpaste too minty to be Iruka's. A light bubble expands in Iruka's chest.
That means Kakashi plans to spend long enough with him today that it matters.
It's a day off from the Academy, so Iruka only has a mission desk shift starting after lunch. Kakashi could be called away at any moment, of course, but they don't talk about that. They don't need to. It's a fact of life for shinobi, as inevitable as breath for the living.
The limited time together, the uncertainty, the risks—they are all worth it.
Iruka would rather have a single night with Kakashi than months with anyone else.
They work together on dishes from breakfast, Iruka washing while Kakashi dries. Their hips and elbows bump as they trade off plates, and Kakashi's hands pause for a long, strange moment. Then, he suddenly speaks.
"Will you come to the memorial stone with me?"
Iruka nearly drops a cup back into the sink, reflexes managing to save it just in time. Kakashi's lips twitch for a moment as if heading for a smile, then quickly flatten. Iruka is starting to learn that Kakashi's face, even exposed as it is now, is far less expressive than Iruka's could ever be.
He looks forward to learning the other ways Kakashi expresses himself.
"I want to introduce you to them." Kakashi says. "If you want to."
The weather is getting cold, winter rolling in with frigid spikes that remind him of a scratchy blanket he still has to ask about, but Iruka is no stranger to the memorial stone at any time of year. He remembers freezing snow sloshing into his boots, winds so fierce that they cut at his cheeks like a sandstorm. He remembers waiting for someone who never came.
Iruka doesn't have to wait anymore.
They kneel before the memorial. Kakashi places his left hand on the stone, leaving fingerprints against a single name amongst dozens of others. It's an old name, higher than those of Iruka's parents, high enough that it must have been there before the Kyuubi.
Kakashi is quiet for several minutes, but then his right palm covers Iruka's, and he begins to speak.
"Obito. I know you said you'd rather eat a slug than hear about my love life, but..."
Iruka swears that, when Naruto comes home, he'll bring him here, too. Umino Ikkaku and Koharu valued family above all else.
It's only fair that they meet Iruka's new one.
Iruka is never going to change the world.
He isn't a brilliant leader like Kakashi. He doesn't have fountains of determination and power like Naruto. He doesn't have the patience or the intelligence of the Sandaime.
One day, the name Hatake Kakashi will appear on the memorial stone, and there is nothing Iruka can do to prevent that. He stays home, and he waits, knowing that every mission that Kakashi goes on could be the last.
But he no longer focuses on the moments Kakashi is gone. He doesn't count the empty days, and each spare second isn't wrought with uncertainty.
Instead, Kakashi expands to fill every space in Iruka's life. The times they are together become more important than the times they're apart. Iruka's bed dips down in the middle instead of one side. Fresh eggplant stocks the fridge. Silver stubble scratches Iruka's cheek instead of a blanket, and sometimes Kakashi hums while he's in the shower.
Home has always been a set of memories to Iruka. His father's laugh, happy voices, his mother's shampoo, her fingers in his hair, a lipstick smile. He never gave up the idea of having that again, but for too long, he searched for it from the dead. He searched for a way to regain what he lost.
But home doesn't have to be set in stone. There are no requirements, no idyllic standards to meet. Home is the place that the strongest bonds lead. For the Sandaime, it was Konoha. For his parents, it was their cozy little house, with a large fireplace, each other, and Iruka.
Kakashi isn't used to having a home, either in place or person. He takes incredible leaps at times, then withdraws for days or weeks, as if suddenly realizing how far his inner self has been exposed. Sometimes, Iruka thinks Kakashi fights himself more than he does the enemy.
But he always comes back. As long as he lives, he always will.
So even when the eggplant goes bad when Kakashi's missions take too long, even when the sheets are cold, even when green eyes haunt Iruka's dreams, even when Kakashi returns with blood on his clothes and skin like ice… Iruka finds happiness. Because none of those things are important. There's always more eggplant to buy, more dreams to have. Kakashi will always keep him warm when it counts.
What matters is that Iruka no longer has to wait to be found.
Because Iruka has found his home.
He's found Kakashi.
Iruka's wish on the night of the summer festival finally comes true, and Kakashi's message along with it. Iruka feels it, even on the days when his apartment is empty. He feels it for both of them.
'I hope you're alive and well.'
'Mission accomplished'