Disclaimer – If I owned Naruto, there would be a swimsuit issue (every single week).

Spoilers – This contains spoilers for the anime and manga. I am not sure of the exact chapters and episode numbers, but it is well beyond what Cartoon network is showing. It is also beyond what is released by VIZ in English manga. Specifically Chapter 172 page 18. how much story can I shove between the panels of page 18? A lot :)

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Water Runs Red – Chapter 22 (edited for Fan Fiction dot net - see note at bottom)

He ran as fast as he could through the hallways connecting the Torture and Interrogation building to the Administrative building and that in turn to the exit just across from the hospital. He ran across the area between the two buildings before landing at the window to Kakashi's hospital room. They had moved him there while Iruka was away on his mission. He saw Kakashi sitting up in bed and Gai was there talking to a woman with blonde hair and big breasts. He opened the window and slipped into the room just as Gai was saying, "—please take a look at my student Lee."

Kakashi looked over to Iruka. Kakashi was dressed in only a black turtleneck with a built in mask. His forehead protector wasn't on and he had obviously just been woken up.

Gai stammered, "Iruka-sensei, your youthful vigor has returned. I would love to ask about your recent mission but Tsunade-sama must see my beloved student."

Iruka blushed and giggled as he bowed low to Tsunade, "Thank you Tsunade-sama for healing Kakashi-kun. It is an honor to meet you, but I have some urgent unfinished business with Kakashi-san that needs to be dealt with." He glanced over at Kakashi who definitely looked like this was way to confusing for this soon after being woken up from a several day coma. Tsunade looked a little confused that a blushing and giggling chuunin had entered the room via a window.

Before Gai could pull Tsunade from the room to go and look at Lee, Iruka was on Kakashi's bed with a knee on either side of the man's hips. Using his hands to cover as much of Kakashi's face as possible, he closed his eyes and pulled the mask down to below Kakashi's mouth. He then promptly hid the center portion of Kakashi's face with his own head as he kissed him.

Completely ignoring everyone else in the room, Iruka held Kakashi's face in the palms of his hands and lightly kissed the other man's lips. Gently he brushed them with his own lips, parting his mouth to let his tongue slide alone the depression between the jônin's upper and lower lips. As Kakashi gasped, Iruka slid his tongue into Kakashi's mouth, as he tasted his boyfriend.

Kakashi wrapped his arms around Iruka, pulling him tight to him as he returned the kiss. He may have just been woken up, but he had Iruka on his lap kissing him and he did have good reflexes -- he was after all a jônin. He pulled the chuunin into him, allowing the other man full access to his mouth. After being unconscious for so many days, his mouth and throat were dry, but the sweetness and moisture of the other man's mouth were better than any liquid he could think of. Kakashi ran his tongue along the underside of Iruka's tongue.

Iruka whimpered slightly and then nipped at Kakashi's lower lip before pulling back and breaking the kiss. He smiled, his eyes still closed as he replaced the mask covering Kakashi's face. He heard someone clearing their throat behind him and turned to look at Tsunade and Gai.

Tsunade had an eyebrow raised and a distinct pink across her cheeks. Gai was just staring, mouth open and silent. Tsunade spoke with a smirk, "Make sure the brat gets some rest. He can be checked out in a few hours"

Iruka nodded and bowed his head, his cheeks flushed. Somehow, the fact he was kissing his boyfriend in front of the new Hokage hadn't managed to connect in his mind until this moment, "Yes, of course. He needs rest." He smiled as Tsunade lead Gai from the room and then turned back to Kakashi, his cheeks red.

"Umm, good morning?" Kakashi looked more than a little dazed.

Iruka gently kissed him on the forehead, still sitting on him. "Can I get you anything?"

Kakashi wrapped his arms around Iruka, "That was a much nicer wakeup than the one Tsunade gave me."

Iruka sighed as he leaned into Kakashi, "I'd hope so. I wouldn't want to have to get jealous with a Sennin. She'd kick my ass."

Kakashi raised an eyebrow; he was keeping his Sharingan eye closed by keeping on eye closed. "Jealous?"

Iruka smiled and took off his own forehead protector and carefully placed it over Kakashi's red eye. "Uh, huh. I realized something." He leaned forward and kissed Kakashi's nose right above the mask, "I'm falling in love with you."

Kakashi's visible eye widened as Iruka closed his eyes again and pulled the mask back down. Iruka kissed the older man again, his lips forceful and warm against the cooler lips of the jônin. Iruka nipped at Kakashi's upper lip before pulling back again.

A nurse lightly tapped on the door before walking in. When she entered, Iruka crawled off the bed. She smiled and looked down at the ground, a very cute gesture, when she realized she had interrupted something.

"Hatake-san, I have some medicine for you. Tsunade-sama said you can leave in four hours as long as all the tests come back clear." She walked over to Kakashi and handed him some pills and a glass of water. "Tsunade-sama specified you have to be checked out by someone who will be responsible for taking care of you until you are feeling better."

Iruka smiled at the nurse, "I'll check him out." He tried to keep the smirk off his face at how he phrased that. "Tsunade-sama already had me promise to make sure he rested."

The nurse smiled as she checked Kakashi's vitals, "I want to see how he can handle solid food while he is still here, but assuming everything comes back fine, you can get him out of here at five."

The door flew open and an orange blur burst into the room, "Baka-sensei! Old lady Tsunade said you were awake!"

Iruka, with a practiced ease acquired through teaching slapped the boy upside the head. "Naruto. First, you should knock when entering a room. Second, do not call Tsunade-sama that. Third, don't yell in a hospital." He evidently was not fazed by the fact he was yelling just as loud as the blond boy had been.

"Yesh!" Naruto held a hand to his head, "Iruka-sensei what are you doing here? Will you buy me ramen?"

Iruka sighed, "I am visiting Kakashi-sensei." He looked over at the wounded puppy-dog look that Kakashi was giving him (even one-eyed it was pitiful). "I think your sensei needs some rest and for the nice nurse to get him some food. In the meantime, I can take you to get ramen. First I have to tell Kakashi-sensei something in private, wait for me at the elevator."

The blond boy nodded and ran out of the room nearly as fast as he ran into it. Iruka grabbed Kakashi's forehead protector from the nightstand and put it on since Kakashi was wearing his, and then leaned over to whisper into the jônin's ear. "I promise I'll take very good care of you tonight." Then smiling, he left the room, simply saying he'd be back around five.

Iruka left and took Naruto to the ramen stand and bought the boy enough bowls of ramen that if he only had his teacher's salary, he'd be in trouble. After a time, he waved goodbye to the boy and walked back to the torture and interrogation headquarters. It was still too early to check out Kakashi, but he wanted to make sure he wouldn't be interrupted this time.

He knocked on Ibiki's door and walked in when the man called out for him to enter. Ibiki nodded at Iruka and gestured for the chair, "I was hoping you'd show up and I wouldn't have to track you down."

Iruka smirked, "You mean have Genma track me down."

Ibiki shrugged and smirked, "Same difference. I talked to Tsunade-sama and she wants individual meetings with each of the squad tonight." He raised an eyebrow as Iruka frowned at the news, "I thought you'd appreciate the recognition? The four of you are being talked to before the jônin even. The only ones before you are the ANBU captains. Just the captains."

Iruka nodded, "I do, I just was hoping for one night off. What time was she thinking?"

Ibiki leaned back in his chair, "She was going to start at eight and figured an hour per. She has the third's summoning scroll for you guys so she'll request you individually."

Iruka nodded, "Can I request last?"

"I don't see why not, can I ask why?"

"Kakashi is getting checked out of the hospital in a few hours and I wanted a chance to get him situated." He tried smiling at Ibiki, knowing full well the man was immune to it. The jônin didn't look like he was buying that excuse at all. "OK, the truth. Every damn time I have a date with Kakashi there is an interruption. It makes figuring out things damn near impossible, so if I simply had a six hour window where I was reasonably sure we could figure things out, I'd be able to know what the hell I am thinking."

"So, you are romantically involved with Hatake." Ibiki didn't seem surprised. Iruka running off to the man's apartment in his half-collapsed state probably was more than enough of a hint.

"Trying to be, but this undercover thing is hell on the social life. I figure with the academy closed for a bit, I might have half a chance."

Ibiki shook his head, "I'll make sure Tsunade-sama calls you last. I'll also be discrete about the reason."

Iruka tried not to smile, "Ibiki-san, umm, she …." He scratched the back of his head as he looked around the room, trying to think of how to phrase this. "I may have lacked some discretion in front of her."

"Sometimes I think I stay at this job just for the entertainment value of you guys. What did you do?"

Iruka smiled, "We get so much entertainment out of you too." He laughed a bit, "I might have accidentally burst into Kakashi's hospital room and kind of kissed him before my brain completely realized who was in the room."

Ibiki laughed, one of his rare true laughs, "You kissed Kakashi in front of Tsunade-sama?"

Iruka nodded, "And Gai-sensei was there too."

"I wish I had installed a camera in that room."

"To see Tsunade-sama's reaction or just for the inner pervert?"

"Yeah yeah yeah, get out of here and go get that boyfriend of yours out of the hospital. I can't give you a lot of time off from missions though, but I'll try to not give you anything tomorrow."

"Thank you" With that Iruka got up and left to go and get Kakashi.

When Iruka got to the hospital, the same nurse was on duty. She smiled at Iruka as he walked in, "I'll bring the papers to check out Hatake-san."

"Thank you very much." He returned the smile and continued to Kakashi's room. The jônin was sitting up in bed in his uniform without the vest, looking a little better than he had been. He still looked exhausted. "Hey, sexy."

Kakashi looked up at the unfamiliar pet name and raised his visible eyebrow. "Good mood?"

Iruka sat on the edge of the bed and leaned into him, "Wonderful mood. I'm getting you out of here and I have the rest of the day off! Well, I have a meeting at midnight or so, but until then I have the day off. The academy is closed and I finished my last mission in a third the allotted time."

He was helping Kakashi into his jônin vest, with probably a little more hands on of an approach than was actually needed when the nurse walked in with the paperwork. She smiled at them, "I brought the paperwork Umino-san."

He smiled and took it from her and started to fill it out, "Thank you very much, is there anything I should know about his condition?"

She kept smiling at them as she explained, "He needs to get a lot of rest and to eat simple foods, nothing too spicy. Soups or lightly grilled foods would be best. Other than that, no real restrictions. Physical activity should be limited to what he feels up to."

Iruka thanked the nurse again and then helped Kakashi out of bed. He didn't say anything when Kakashi walked out of the hospital under his own power without any help; he just walked next to him. When they reached the street, Kakashi finally spoke, "So, I take it your behavior means I can try for another date?"

Iruka smiled, "My behavior means that you don't have to try. I told Ibiki I needed some time off because I was checking my boyfriend out of the hospital."

"Really?" Kakashi chuckled, "So you're going to be taking care of me tonight?"

"I promised I would take very good care of you." Iruka didn't bother to hide any innuendo from his statement.

"You really are in a good mood today."

"Nothing can destroy …" Iruka's smile abruptly fell as he saw two figures approaching. "Fuck. I should know better than to tempt fate."

Kakashi turned to look at Asuma and Kurenai walking towards them, "Yo."

Asuma and Kurenai walked up to them, Kurenai spoke first, "Just woke up and already on a date, Kakashi?"

Kakashi scratched the back of his neck and gave her his happy eye curved smile, "Yes."

Kurenai seemed surprised by his agreement, but Asuma butted into the conversation, "Have you had anything to eat yet? We were hoping to talk with Iruka-sensei, but we could all go someplace and get a bite to eat?"

Kakashi looked at Iruka, and seeing no objections, he answered, "Just some horrible hospital food. I think whoever makes the ration bars makes the hospital food."

Iruka and Asuma both laughed at that and even Kurenai managed to smile. Soon they were all at a table at a small restaurant not far from Kakashi's house. It only took a few glances at the menu for Kakashi to figure out what he could order that wouldn't net him a kick under the table from Iruka and soon they were waiting for food to arrive as they sat in a relatively secluded area of the restaurant.

Asuma finally broke the silence, "Iruka, we want to hear your side of the story about the mission where Kurenai's old student was injured."

Kurenai scowled into her drink; obviously, she already thought she knew everything about how that mission went. Kakashi seemed genuinely curious.

Iruka moved his water glass a bit, as he watched the liquid move in a lazy circle. "It was a mission to grass country. There was a group of missing nin who had started running the area's more illegitimate businesses a few years before. Keiko was assigned to be my partner. There were three teams of two that were sent in.

"We found where one of the missing nin often went and per instructions were to try and find the rest of them using him. Unfortunately, luck wasn't with us. I had previously interacted with the guy. I made the mistake of telling that to Keiko. She argued that since there was a good chance I would be recognized that she should be the one to go in. I was the senior member and should have been the one doing the infiltrating.

"Our equipment was less reliable then, we've worked out a lot of the kinks in it since then. The nature of the work means we can't use the standard radio sets and modifying them never worked well enough to be able to really hide them. So anything as small as the transmit …" He paused as the waitress brought everyone's food to them. Once she was gone, He reached a hand under his uniform and took out his navel piercing. It looked like a simple barbell piercing, but Kakashi already knew it wasn't

"This is one of the transmitters." He placed it down on the table, "Keiko went undercover and I stayed behind to monitor, Everything seemed to be going well. They were in a public park in the town and had been relatively quiet, so when there wasn't any conversation for several minutes I didn't think too much of it. When things were quiet for another five minutes I tried jacking up the volume of the receiver. The transmitter was working and I could clearly hear the sounds of the park, but I couldn't hear anything else."

He spun one end of the transceiver and the round ball easily fell off. "Her transmitter came apart and it was lying in the park. She never even realized it happened. I've had it happen; it's hard to notice. By the time I tracked her down I was too late to prevent what happened. Luckily, his guard was down and I managed to kill him. Keiko was right about it being too dangerous for me to go in. When the poison was kicking in to kill him, he recognized me. Had I gone in, he would have killed me before anyone had a chance to do anything."

He looked over at Kurenai, "I'm sorry for what happened, but I did the best I could under the circumstances."

She nodded, "I'm sorry, too." She looked over to Kakashi, "Kakashi, I should have had a little more faith in your judgment."

The rest of conversation over dinner centered on more currant events. Asuma leaned back in his chair, "I hear you brought in a live missing-nin this morning, Iruka?"

Kakashi raised an eyebrow and looked at the chuunin, "Really?"

Iruka smiled and shrugged, "She wasn't nearly as high ranking as we were hoping for. Oh well, a sound missing-nin is still a sound missing-nin."

Kurenai raised an eyebrow, "Sound?"

Iruka shrugged, "I probably shouldn't have said that, but from her appearance it was pretty obvious, but maybe the gate guards didn't pick up on that. There was no way I was going to hide in the forest for twelve hours waiting for the sun to set and make my way in all secret."

Asuma took out a cigarette and lit it, "Gai had said that you had barely regained consciousness at Kakashi's before Ibiki was there giving you a mission."

Iruka nodded, ignoring the surprised look from Kakashi, "We're short handed; everyone has to try and pull as many missions as they are able to."

Asuma smiled, "Kakashi, I bet no one told you that this idiot almost killed himself running off to see your unconscious self instead of going to get medical attention?"

"No, no one mentioned that. You were injured?" He looked at Iruka.

The chuunin tried to brush it off, "Oh it was nothing." When Asuma snorted at that, he knew no one was going to buy the 'it was nothing' thing. "Well, I was sent off on a mission to grass the morning of the day you were attacked by Itachi. Unfortunately, I had depleted all my chakra shortly before that so I had probably taken a little too much chakra powder for it to be considered completely safe."

Asuma shook his head, "He really is modest." When Kakashi looked over at him, the gruff man continued, "Kurenai and I should head off, and unless I am mistaken, you should be resting."

Iruka and Kakashi left the other two jônin as Iruka continued to lead Kakashi to the man's apartment. He leaned slightly against the taller man, "Well at least I don't think your friends will be shooting me glares from across every room any more."

Kakashi smiled, "I'm glad. You shouldn't be glared at, but I won't let their opinions influence who I date anyways." He looked over at Iruka as they entered the apartment. "So what brought about your change of heart, not that I'm complaining?" Once Kakashi was inside the apartment, he leaned over, pulling down his mask, to kiss Iruka's lips before replacing the mask.

"When I realized I cared enough about you that I came here when I was totally out of my mind going through withdrawal from Chakra powder. Life's too short to lie to yourself about your feelings. I decided I really am falling in love with you, so I am going to do my best to get you."

Kakashi smiled, "I'm not running away, so I should be very easy to catch."

Iruka was breathing heavy as he walked over to Kakashi. "Kakashi, I want you…"

Suddenly, Iruka was in Kakashi's arms, the jônin reached out to hold the younger man without thinking. Iruka has the mask down and was pressing Kakashi back to the wall with the sheer force of his kisses. His motions were almost desperate, as he tasted the other man's lips, forcing his tongue into his mouth.

Iruka unfastened Kakashi's vest, not even bothering to remove it before he started to tug at the man's shirt. The vest was keeping the shirt on though, so Iruka quickly unfastened Kakashi's pants.

------- This has been edited from the original for full version see notes at bottom -----

Kakashi took a gasping breath, "Iruka ... slow down." He swallowed as suddenly Iruka dropped to his knees in front of him, pulling his pants down after spending all of five seconds undoing his weapons pouch. A low moan escaped his lips as he placed his fingers on the chuunin's hair, undoing the hair band and forehead protector before entwining his fingers into the brown locks.

The man was amazing. All the noises the younger man made were incredible. In the after glow of their lovemaking, Kakashi held his lover as the man snuggled into him, completely spent. The last words Kakashi heard before drifting to sleep in his lover's arms were the other man whispering, "I love you."

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

For the full version it's on my live journal account (remove the spaces)

Scribblesitm . livejournal . com / 2049 . html

How this fits in the Manga – ch 172, page 18. Panel 5 is the events that happen right before/ as Iruka enteres the room. Tsunade leaves and the events on page 19 begin, BUT we miss a very long examination of Lee since that's boring and it wasn't drawn, THUS the reason the 6th Panel on page 18 shows Naruto with Iruka.

Please review, I would love to know what people are thinking of this. Updates should be back on their every other day or so schedule. I still plan to have this done by the end of the month.