Disclaimer – Is there a movie coming out about Izumo? Hmmm, well then I guess I still don't own Naruto. I do own a dead plant though.

Warnings Male/Male date action. Jonin silliness. You have been warned.

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Water Runs Red – Chapter 12

Despite his injuries, Iruka made good time getting to Konoha and they arrived before the sun was up. By the time they walked through the gates, Iruka was starting to slow and limp more than a little.

Kakashi walked with Iruka towards the center of town, "Iruka? Are you sure that you're OK? We could stop at the hospital."

Iruka shook his head, "One of the perks of the job is getting to use the ANBU medics. They gossip less. We need to get this to Ibiki and debrief anyways."

Kakashi nodded and followed the other man towards the Torture and Interrogation portion of the ANBU building. At 3AM, there was no need to hide where they were going. Just before they entered the building Iruka asked, "What are you doing tonight, I guess it would be tonight, say 8PM?"

Kakashi frowned, trying to think if there was something he should be remembering, "I don't think I have anything."

"Good, then you can pick me up at 8."

Iruka ducked through the door and walked straight to a desk where an ANBU member was completing reports. The man didn't bother to have his mask on inside the building at this hour. He looked up, "Need me to get Ibiki?" Iruka nodded and kept walking towards Ibiki's office.

The ANBU member nodded to Kakashi with a muttered, "Hatake-san" as he pulled out a scroll and brushed a bloodied finger across it, dispatching the bird that appeared.

Kakashi followed Iruka into Ibiki's office and leaned up against a wall. Iruka was digging though his pack and pulling out the notebook he had written on earlier.

Iruka then pulled out a blank mission report scroll from Ibiki's desk and started filling it in with amazing speed. Kakashi glanced over at the chuunin. He had definitely not been lying about how many missions he had done for Ibiki. He flew through the ANBU format report, which was vastly different from the standard format.

Even though Iruka was writing extremely quickly, his penmanship was perfect. Every kanji character perfect, without the strokes running together. Kakashi made a mental note that yes, Iruka did have room to talk when he bitched about Kakashi's penmanship on mission reports.

When Iruka got to the listing of injuries portion he turned to Kakashi, "You didn't manage to hurt yourself in the hotel, right?" He almost kept a straight face but started to smile when Kakashi looked confused.

"Hmmm. Hatake Kakashi – No injuries. Umino Iruka – cuts, abrasions, etc within mission parameters, referred for medical evaluation. Leave a blank for Ibiki to sign and that's all of it."

He leaned back, "This is the part that sucks about getting here god awful early -- Ibiki takes longer to get here than it takes to fill out the mission…"

"You were saying?" The door opened and Ibiki walked in.

Iruka smiled, "Morning, sweetness."

Ibiki grumbled, "Report."

Iruka yawned and stretched, almost catlike, "Mission successful. I need to modify the profile on Gatu-bastard, but here is the message. Its in code and I couldn't decipher it in the time I had so I just brought it in its raw form." He handed over the notebook, "Incase the positioning is relevant I also wrote it on a sketch of the man's back, but I don't think it is." He also handed over the mission report, "the report is done as well, and I left a spot for you to send me to the medic."

Ibiki looked at Iruka, "That bad?"

Iruka shrugged, "Not the worst ever, just some internal injuries that could use some chakra infusion."

Ibiki nodded and smiled, "No problem. Get off with you. Go see a doctor. I need to talk to Kakashi."

Iruka nodded and bowed formally. With a mischievous smirk he stood up, "I will leave you and my babysitter alone …" Before anyone could comment on the inflection on 'alone', he left.

Ibiki sighed, "Well, he seems in better spirits than I expected. How did it go?"

Kakashi paused to think of what he should say. "I hate missions like this." When Ibiki looked up from the report, Kakashi continued. "I was freaking useless. There was no way to succeed in the mission and not let that man hurt Iruka. All I could do was treat his injuries when he got back to the hotel room."

Ibiki nodded, "Did he break?"

Kakashi wasn't surprised at the ANBU terminology. ANBU often broke after a bad mission; the human mind could only take so much, even if that human was a shinobi. He had lost count of how many people he had patched back together after they broke. He wasn't sure how many times he had broken only to be patched back together. "No. He wasn't in great shape, but he would have been fine without backup."

He paused before asking a question, "Why aren't these missions done by ANBU? Why chuunin?"

Ibiki looked over at Kakashi, "ANBU tattoos its members, that's a liability. When a kunoichi isn't tattooed, no one asks questions, if we didn't tattoo a man, they would. Chuunin are less noticed as well. Without being able to use their undercover abilities and undercover missions, most of the guys wouldn't get jonin rank anyhow. I know it seems odd, but they really are the best for this work."

Kakashi shook his head, "It just seems like too much to ask."

"They know what they are in for, and they can leave at any time." Ibiki sighed, "Look, I know. I hate sending them out. I hate sending Kunoichi on those missions too, but we need the information and sometimes it is the only way to get it, you know that. Go get some rest."

As Kakashi stood to leave, Ibiki put a hand on his shoulder, "Thank you for going on this mission. I know you didn't have to accept, but I didn't want to send him alone again."

Kakashi nodded, he was certain Ibiki would not tell him what happened last time he sent the chuunin out alone. He made his way home. He was all the way in his bed before he realized that he had a date in a little over sixteen hours.

The next day, Kakashi was less late than normal to watch his team train. He had found out that the nominations for the chuunin exam would be tomorrow. Asuma and Kurenai had told him they were putting both their teams up for it. Kakashi was feeling like he should put his three up. They were good. They weren't perfect, but they were good. The exam would test them and not be easy, but he wouldn't be surprised to see them make it though to the final stage of the test. He put them through their paces more than usual that morning, under the premise of thinking they had slacked off while he was gone.

He was reading his book less than usual today too. Tonight was his date with Iruka, and he still wasn't sure how that had happened. He was pretty sure dressing in his uniform was not going to cut it for this.

After sending the kids home, exhausted and dirty he decided to get ready for his date. When he stepped out of the shower, it started to occur to him if it really was a date. It seemed like an invitation to a date, but normally he was the one initiating dates, and not that frequently either. Maybe it was just going out for drinks as friends?

Kakashi walked around the apartment as he pulled on jeans and a thin black turtleneck. Once his facemask was on, he decided to go with his normal forehead protector to cover his eye. He'd just take the safe route and dress appropriately for either friendly drinks or date drinks.

As he picked through leftovers in his fridge, he started to wonder why he was going on a date, if he was going on a date. Where was he going to go on his date, anyways? Iruka had said drinks and not dinner, if he had said dinner; Kakashi would have known it was a date. Drinks could mean anything, but it had been right after Iruka had teased him about having said hot. He still couldn't believe he had told the chuunin that he looked hot.

As the time of the meeting approached, Kakashi left his apartment and started to walk towards Iruka's. He didn't think bringing flowers was appropriate. Heck, he wasn't even positive it was a date. Plus, Iruka didn't seem that much like the flowers type.

He knocked on the door of Iruka's apartment and heard movement inside, "Just a second." Was called out from inside the apartment. Iruka pulled the door open a little over a minute later and gestured Kakashi in. Iruka's hair had the color washed out of the roots but the blonde was still at the ends, Kakashi was also surprised to see the chuunin's hair was not up in its usual ponytail. Iruka was dressed in brown Khaki's and a deep green T-shirt. Iruka turned and gathered some folders off of the couch and walked back over to Kakashi. "I'm sorry about this, but I need to drop these off at the Hokage's office, then I'm free."

Kakashi smiled, "No problem. They sure seem to be keeping you busy." He glanced at the huge stacks of folders still in the chuunin's living room.

Iruka laughed, "Yeah. Stupid Chuunin exam coming up."

Kakashi nodded, "Do you need any help carrying that stuff?"

Iruka obviously didn't need help, but he handed some of the stack over anyways, "Sure." Iruka kept up a light conversation as they walked to the Hokage tower. He talked about how the chuunin exams this time were going to be huge; they already had information from several of the other hidden villages showing the attendance was going to probably be double what it normally was. Also that many of the people this time had previously been in the exam so the number passing the first exam should be greater. It seemed like no time before they were at the Hokage tower and Iruka was dropping off paperwork with a promise to stop by first thing in the morning and finish up everything before the meeting. Kakashi assumed he meant the meeting where the jonin-sensei would say which leaf teams were ready for the exam.

As they left, Kakashi joked, "I guess tomorrow's meeting is one I need to be at on time."

Iruka laughed, "Only if you don't want me to have the Hokage ANBU your ass."

Kakashi laughed, actually laughed. "Bah, already you're threatening to send ANBU after me. Where do you want to go for drinks?"

Iruka shrugged, "Anywhere you want to go."

Kakashi lead the way to a little bar Asuma sometimes went with him to after missions. It was one of those places where shinobi and civilians mixed. When they got there the place was busy, but not packed and Kakashi lead Iruka over to a booth in the back.

Iruka smiled after they placed drink orders with a waitress. "I wanted to say sorry for being an ass to you earlier."

Kakashi was noticing how nice Iruka looked with his hair down like that. He could see why the younger man kept it up though, it seemed to have a mind of its own and kept getting into Iruka's face, but Iruka looked very nice brushing the blonde tipped locks away.

"I should be the one apologizing, I mean… It would have been better to just talk to you instead of, well instead of being typical me." Kakashi shrugged, "Well Pakkun is happy, evidently they were very good dog biscuits."

Iruka was glancing through the appetizer menu when he laughed, "I should have known that you would act like that though, I blame it on having a really bad hangover." The waitress came back and put their drinks down, Kakashi had ordered sake and Iruka had ordered something more complicated.

Kakashi looked at the Chuunin's drink order while the younger man ordered appetizers; he hadn't heard what the man had ordered when he placed his drink order. He had a bottle of beer, and a shot glass of a clear liquid and a small plate with a couple of slices of lemon on it.

Suddenly Kakashi felt a familiar presence. He looked up in time to see Asuma and Kurenai walking towards him. As the waitress left, Iruka noticed too and muttered, "Incoming."

Kakashi watched as the younger man hid most of his chakra and set his elbows on the table, hiding most of his scar behind his fingers. Asuma walked over and thumped Kakashi on the back, "Hey, I didn't expect to see you out."

Kurenai was behind Asuma and was looking at Iruka without seeming to stare. Kakashi could tell the instant she figured out who it was because her red eyes widened.

Asuma was oblivious, and had evidently been drinking before they reached the bar. Kurenai's eyes narrowed as she looked at Kakashi. "When did Kakashi become so social, this is the second time this week I've seen you out?"

Asuma leaned into Kakashi to whisper into his ear, but being a little tipsy, his whisper was loud enough the other two could hear him as well, "So is this a date?"

Iruka allowed half of his mouth to curl up into a smile and Kakashi had a distinct feeling that Iruka was enjoying Kakashi rapidly think of the best way to answer that question.

Kakashi decided to dodge the bullet and use the fact that Asuma and Kurenai were still trying to keep up the façade that they weren't seeing each other romantically, "Are the two of you on a date?"

Asuma straightened up, "We decided we wanted to get some drinks since we aren't training the Genin tomorrow."

Kurenai finally spoke, "Perhaps none of us should drink too much, since we all have to be at the meeting in the morning." Her gaze was fixed on Iruka when she said it.

Iruka frowned, "I wouldn't worry about me making it to the meeting."

Kurenai shrugged, "I'm just saying, since you weren't at the mission desk the day after the party."

Kakashi cleared his voice; ignoring the fact that Asuma finally realized that the other man was Iruka. "It would have been difficult for him to be at the mission desk since he was on a mission himself."

Asuma looked at Kurenai then at Iruka, they looked like there was more to this. "A mission?"

Iruka smiled sweetly, his standard 'I'm just a chuunin, please take your mission scroll' smile. "Oh, you know. Same old same old, just a little thing that needed to be taken care of before the exam. The paperwork with such things never seems to end."

Kurenai smiled, "Ahh, a bureaucratic emergency I am sure. I didn't realize such things were considered missions."

Kakashi was surprised at the venom in her words. For his part Iruka was not rising up to the bait, but Kakashi could see the tension in the other man's shoulders. He wasn't sure what the exchange meant, but he felt the need to reassure Iruka in some way. Maybe the other man wasn't sure if this was a date either.

The dots were connected quickly in Kakashi's mind, what good was being a genius if he couldn't think his way out of this mess. If Iruka was in doubt about it being a date, then obviously he had intended for his invitation to be able to be seen as a date. If Iruka was leaving open that possibility, then that would mean Iruka was open to this being a date, so all Kakashi had to do was to treat it like a date and it was a date.

Kakashi laughed, "I don't know. I mean paperwork can be pretty dangerous, he has to put up with my mission reports after all." With that, he reached out and grabbed Iruka's hand. He hoped that Asuma and Kurenai wouldn't notice the awkwardness and instead just notice the gesture.

Iruka replied sweetly, probably more of a smile than intended when Kurenai's mouth partially dropped open. "Kakashi, you have managed to dodge everyone I've thrown back at you."

"That's pure luck on my part, you have a wicked throw."

Asuma was looking from Iruka to Kakashi and then he grabbed Kurenai's arm, "We should probably not disturb their date." He paused for a moment as if waiting for someone to correct him on the 'date' thing before pulling Kurenai off through the bar and away from the other two.

As soon as they were gone, Iruka relaxed, "Thanks."

"No problem. She can be a bitch sometimes. What does she have against you?"

Iruka took a deep breath, "I was on a mission once with one of her former students. Her student didn't come back in the best of shape. She was rather upset at me."

Kakashi nodded, "I see."

Iruka shrugged, "Thanks for your help though. Somehow I think Asuma is going to be giving you a hard time for a while."

"A hard time for what?"

Iruka looked at Kakashi and then smiled, "I see." He turned back to his rather complicated drink as the waitress set down some yakatori appetizers. Iruka looked up at Kakashi while smiling, "So this is a date?"

Kakashi could tell Iruka was up to something. "Yeah. If that's all right with you."

Iruka picked up a piece of lemon and took Kakashi's wrist in the other hand. He rubbed the lemon onto Kakashi's wrist. Then he took a pinch of salt and put it in the palm of that same hand. Still holding onto Kakashi's wrist, he took the shot glass of clear liquid with his other hand.

The jonin didn't move, he watched as Iruka lean forward to his hand and licked, yes licked the salt out of his palm. The fact he was being licked by a very handsome man barely had time to register in Kakashi's mind before Iruka was looking up at him. For a second those brown eyes closed as Iruka drank the shot very quick and then leaned back down to suck the lemon juice off of Kakashi's wrist.

Kakashi was speechless. While speechless was normal for him, having his wrist sucked at by an extremely sexy man was also not normal.

Iruka looked up at Kakashi as he let go of the other man's wrist. He smiled, "Thank you for the bail out."

Kakashi swallowed, "No problem, anytime. Wow."

Iruka picked up a skewer of chicken and started to pick at it, "Wow?"

Kakashi nodded, "Yeah, wow. I've never seen that before."

Iruka giggled, in a manly fashion, but it was still a giggle, "You should see the non censored version of that move."

"That was censored?"

"The mask" Iruka made a gesture as if that explained it. "Lemon on the lips and salt on the neck." Iruka smiled, "Then again there may be some more creative modifications out there as well.

"Creative?" Kakashi laughed, "I think I see what they mean about some groups being a bit 'wild'."

"Really? I thought my strict teacher thing would have ended those wild rumors."

"In all honesty, I thought the rumors were off base. I mean, when I was asking my students about you, it was like you were a step away from sainthood."

Iruka shrugged, still smiling, but a much more honest smile than the one he normally wore, "Yeah. Naruto would probably attack you for corrupting me by taking me drinking."

Kakashi chuckled, "And Sakura with those big green eyes sniffling something about, 'Kakashi-sensei, how could you!'"

Iruka laughed as he polished off the last of the yakatori, "If you aren't careful, Sasuke might even grunt in your general direction."

Kakashi's visible eye closed as he tried not to laugh at the image. "He isn't the most talkative."

"He's a good ….ahhh" Suddenly Iruka's look went from relaxed and happy to irritated. "Damn it."

"What's wrong?"

"My presence is being requested and whoever did the summoning has the grace of Naruto." He reached back and rubbed his shoulder, "Damn that hurt."

"So that's why you have a tattoo." Kakashi was very familiar with the summoning abilities of the ANBU tattoos; he still regretted the day he got that thing since it was basically a leash allowing him to be summoned at any time.

"Yeah. Look, I'm sorry; I have to go before someone gets pissy. Umm, maybe I could get a rain check?"

Kakashi smiled, "How about dinner tomorrow? 6pm? I'll stop by your place?"

Iruka leaned over and kissed Kakashi's lips through the mask, "It's a date." With that, he hurried off leaving Kakashi to finish his Sake alone, or it would have been alone if Kurenai and Asuma weren't still in the bar and saw Iruka leave.

Kakashi barely had time to finish his drink when Asuma plopped down next to him. "That was a short date."

"He had something come up." Kakashi was watching Kurenai carefully as she sat down.

She frowned at him, "You should be careful Kakashi. That one will chew you up and spit you out. Unless that's what you're looking for."

"Look, I don't need you two watching out for me." Kakashi made his way past Asuma and walked out of the bar. Kurenai acting like that was unexpected. When he sensed Asuma following him, he checked to see if she was with him. When he determined Asuma was alone, he slowed down to let the other man catch up easily.

"Kakashi, sorry bout that."

"I didn't realize there was bad blood between them."

Asuma lit a cigarette, "Yeah, I don't know the whole story, but she doesn't trust him. Normally she is pretty good at knowing who to trust."

"I thought you thought I was a good judge of people."

"Kakashi, it isn't like that. She told me things, things she probably shouldn't have told me about him. He's been around; he's been around a lot."

"I know."

"Doesn't that bother you?"

"Does it bother you thinking of the people Kurenai has slept with?"

"She's a kunoichi. That would be like judging her for the people she's killed."

"Look I appreciate your concern, but I can have dinner or drinks with who I like."

"Look, I just don't want to see someone checking off Hatake Kakashi for the hell of it. Just so some chuunin nobody can say been there done that."

"I don't want to have this conversation and don't ever call him a nobody in front of me again, or I will show you exactly how far I can kick your ass."

"Whatever." Asuma stalked off, leaving Kakashi to wander his way back to his apartment.

Kakashi lay in bed thinking, why did he let Asuma's words get to him so much. He knew his friend spoke first and thought second, or maybe third. Was it that Iruka was right? If a kunoichi did things it was excused, but he had to hide his actions so carefully because even what did get out marred him as unworthy. Kakashi couldn't help thinking, what if everything was known to the rest of the shinobi. Its like being in ANBU, you don't want anyone to really know what you do, except with ANBU there is a sense of pride at being in the organization and an amount of respect for the achievement. He'd have to talk with Iruka after the meeting tomorrow. He should be in a good mood after all, knowing that nine of his most recent students were being nominated for the exam.

---------------------- Notes -------------------

Poor Kakashi. Could be he any more wrong with his final thought?

Well this pretty much wrote itself. Obviously, the next thing is the chuunin exam argument. I will be following the Manga continuity from this point forward instead of the anime.

Thanks for everyone who is reading and reviewing. This is probably the last update for the next few days, but I would love to hear what everyone is thinking so far.