Kakashi stayed at Iruka's side all night. Silent and still, but with chakra enhanced alertness. The tension within the pale man, watching over the darker one, who seemed stiller yet, would have been clear to even the most casual observer. Except that here, in the heart of the desert, in the dead of night, there were no observers. Not so much as a single stray lizard.

He couldn't resist a wry smile at the irony of the situation. This was exactly what he had longed for so many times. To be out in the field with his sweet lover, under the great black dome of sky, with nothing and no one to interrupt for hundreds of miles. For despite his longing, he dare not touch him. Somehow he was sure that he should not risk awakening Iruka from Itachi's jutsu. The copy nin felt his jaw clench tight with worry and frustration, he knew from hard experience just how painful and dangerous they could be. So he passed the night watching the play of moonlight and starlight on Iruka's skin. The flutters and ripples in his hair as it was toyed with by the unrelenting desert wind. But mostly he watched the passing expressions on his face as he dreamed. They seemed to be happy dreams at least, and he was glad for that small blessing.

The sun was already climbing into its arc across the southern sky when Iruka's eyes opened. He looked around as if he wasn't sure where he was. In truth he wasn't. The winds that had blown through the night had rearranged the perfect symmetry of the dunes into massive smooth bulges. Like a body in the morgue covered by a tan canvas sheet. Only the mountains on the eastern horizon looked the same.

He sat up abruptly, but before Kakashi could register his relief, he'd been grabbed with the ferocity of a predatory animal. Kakashi's whole being wanted to shout with joy, as he felt the tiny spark of fear that Iruka's anger always provoked. But Iruka wasn't angry and he didn't shout at him. He kissed him, plunging his tongue into his mouth with the same desperation that he's shown the day before. And this time Kakashi was more than willing. After a long night of keeping his distance he needed this too. He pulled closer, responding to the kiss, pulling his lover onto him, ever mindful of his scarred back as he rolled onto the sand. When lack of oxygen eventually forced him to break away, he tugged off his headband and threw it aside. If there was the slightest risk that he could lose this man then he wanted to save every moment that they still had together. Save it and keep it forever.

For Iruka reality was merging seamlessly with his dream. Kakashi kissing him, holding him, loving him. But as he tilted his chin to take up where they'd left off, he felt a presence behind his eyes, looking into the copy nin's mismatched blue and red. He felt a hand within his hand stroke the perfect line of his partner's jaw and trace a path down to land on the tense muscles of his belly. The hand's eventual target twitched in eager anticipation against his thigh and he felt a smirk from deep inside.

HE shuddered and shoved Kakashi back and away.

"No! Don't touch me! He's enjoying this, enjoying you. It's the old sennin. He can feel you through my blood, feel your hands on me, and mine on you."

Kakashi lay gasping next to him, his pale skin blanched to paper whiteness. "What are you saying? You mean I can't make love to you? Please Iruka I need you, forget about him, this is about us. The two of us, here, now, together."

Iruka could feel hot tears leaking from his eyes. "You don't understand. He's here too, inside me. He feels what I feel, sees what I see, and I won't share you, especially not with him."

As Kakashi looked closely he could see him too. The wolf's long hard stare, deep within Iruka's soft brown eyes. He reached for his headband and retied it as he rose to his feet and turned away, trying hard not to scream.

"Come on then. We need to keep moving anyway."

Iruka stood up behind him, reading his pain from the stiffness in his slouched shoulders. He reached out to wrap an arm around his shoulders, but then thought better of it and let the arm fall back to its place by his side. Now was as good a time as any, there could be no 'right time' for what he was about to say.

"Kakashi, there's something I want to ask, will you promise me something? A big something?"

Kakashi turned around but avoided his eyes. "Of course, anything. You know that."

A small, strangled catch in the teacher's throat made him startle. Suddenly all his attention was on the other man with the focus and intensity of a high powered laser.

"If… if I lose it. If the blood takes over, promise that you won't let me become a tool to that monster. Just thinking that he might use me to hurt someone I love is more… more than I can stand. If that happens, if I lose control and can't get it back, promise that you'll kill me."

They stood facing each other as the mid-morning heat beat down on them, for what could have been a few minutes, or an eternity.

A small puffy cloud passed across the sun, darkening them with its shadow. Kakashi scowled at it then cupped Iruka's face in his hands and stared into his beautiful brown eyes. "I promise."

Iruka put his hands over the other man's and broke his gaze by slowly shaking his head. "Liar."

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Jiraiya was puzzled.

It was an unfamiliar, even shocking, feeling for the great Toad Hermit. A rank he'd accomplished without the advantage of a blood line limit, or of genius like his famous student Yellow Flash. Of course he had power, and guts, and cunning, no one other than his old teammates could match him in that. Although Sakumo's kid was moving up fast. But his greatest strength had always been his unwavering certainty, his ability to take in a situation at a single glance and just know. Refined by half a century of peeking and prying, it had made him the perfect spy.

So why couldn't he understand the chakra traces he was feeling around him now? They'd become increasingly stronger as he's moved further away from the village. Never more than ghostly hints, and never enough to allow him to catch more than a shimmer of sensation, and each one very slightly different, like the taste of apples from different trees growing in the same orchard. But distinctive none the less. It was demon chakra, and it definitely wasn't Naruto. The Kyuubi was only too familiar. Both in the unleashed fury that he could still feel seared into the landscape of Konoha, and the contained rage within the boy. No, it wasn't fox, but it was similar. A carnivore that liked to hunt, and liked to kill even more.

Something in it reminded him of Sakumo, and of Kakashi too, but it wasn't dog either. It was too distant, too unfriendly, more like a wolf than a dog. But there hadn't been any wolves in the forest in more than a century, and the last wolf demon he'd heard of, Makami or something like that, was just a legend. If he'd existed at all he'd gone to ground more than a thousand years ago. Of course foxes were renowned for their cunning, and wolves weren't far behind, and demons were just as famous for their patience. They could afford to be. So why was he picking up smudges of wolf demon? No… of people possessed by wolf demon? But at such low intensity that it barely registered. Surely if Makami was nearby every shinobi in the village would have felt it, and after their experience with the kyuubi they'd be running in the streets in panic. Naruto would be having a fit.

None of this made any sense at all.

As if that wasn't enough there was something else that was making him just as uneasy. In his decades of wandering he'd learned to recognise the distinctive tang imprinted on each ninja's energy by their village's signature jutsus. When he's set out on this mission he'd expected to be able to tell from that alone where this new threat was coming from. But in the chakra residues lingering in the trees, he could feel every one of them. Was there a massive alliance of all the other villages against Konoha? And if so, why was the chakra so weak, nothing beyond that of genins and chuunins? No one would send a team without at least one jouninon a serious spying mission.

As he reached a large oak the Toad Hermit felt the unmistakable sensation of water, the touch of a Mist nin, whereas not ten yards back he'd felt Sand. He rested the palm of one massive hand against the rough bark and breathed deeply. The tree was bigger than the others around it, shading out the growth of underbrush beneath. And unlike most of the trees it was still holding onto most of it's leaves, although they had long since turned dry and russet brown, whispering like conspirators against him in the gusts of November breeze. The nin had probably spent a night sheltered in the oak's branches, no more than a week or two ago, watching and spying, just as he would have done. So where was he now? And why oh why, did he carry this taint of demon with him?

Oooooooooooooooooooooo

Team Gai had returned to Konoha to find themselves promptly sidelined. So now, a few days later, they were in a corner of a training field, apparently along with almost every other Konoha genin, chuunin and jounin. It seemed that every ninja in the village was out training, like in the last week before a major tournament. They were relying on Neiji to keep them safe from the constant hail of projectiles, Tenten was sharpening her pile of weapons and Lee was stretching.

"I still think we should go back out there and look for Gai-sensei." He grunted between two sets of double back flips.

Tenten searched out a clean spot on her rag and dipped it into the metal polish. "The whole village is in a state of emergency, no one's allowed to go anywhere."

"And that's exactly why we need to find him. If something bad happens we'll all be a whole lot better off with Sensei here than without him." Lee coiled his body into a fighting stance.

"Maybe he got new orders, from a bird, like we did before."

Neiji moved his head almost imperceptibly, to adjust the position of his blind spot. "Jiraiya-sama knows something. I could see it when he asked about him. I just don't think that he knows that he knows yet."

Just then an orange blur barreled into them, trapping Neiji under him and sending the other two flying with the combined chakra blast from the impact. Damn, wouldn't you know it? If he'd moved a moment later he'd have seen him coming.

"Oh ha, sorry guys. Guess my control's off a bit. I've got too much energy, been cooped up for days sorting through scrolls."

Neiji sat up and ran his fingers through his hair to smooth it down. He looked at Naruto coolly. "You know I can do something about that overactive chakra of yours if you like."

"Uh? No, that's ok. We just came to see if you want to come to Ichiraku's with us for dinner. We're all going over there. The owner's making a whole big pot of pork ramen, just for us, for free. To thank us for working so hard to protect the village."

Tenten laughed. So even the civilians were getting antsy from the uncertainty hanging in the air like an axe about to fall. "Well he wasted his money. Ichiraku's is the last place in the country that you'd let an enemy destroy."

Naruto grinned his foxy grin. "Guess you're right about that." Then his smile faded. "I just wish Iruka-sensei was here to share it with us. Kakashi-sensei too I suppose."

Tenten reached up to put her arm around his shoulder, and it seemed such a short time ago that she'd had to reach down. "Still no word from them?"

Lee sparkled as he sprang to his feet. "Maybe they're on a mission with Gai-sensei. The three greatest sensei's in Konoha, united together, undefeatable, strength genius and… and…." Somehow monumental bad temper didn't seem to fit.

Naruto shook his head. "Sakura said that the old lady is really worried about them both. She likes Iruka-sensei a lot. Kakshi-sensei too, more than she lets on."

Neiji might have looked at him… or maybe he didn't. "That's right. I bet Sakura knows everything that goes on in the Hokage tower."

As if on cue, Sakura came panting up to them, red-faced, with irritation and embarrassment as much as with exertion. It had only taken Naruto a couple of seconds to get out of her sight, and she was supposed to be watching over him.

Neiji looked at her too… or again maybe not. "So, Sakura-chan. You're Hokage-sama's apprentice. Surely you can tell us what this emergency is all about?"

She glanced quickly at Naruto and giggled nervously. "Er no, not really. I think it's mostly a precaution. I expect she picked up some rumours and doesn't want to risk getting caught off guard again, like we did two years ago."

Naruto twitched his whisker marks into a smile. "Yeah, Baabaa-sama over reacts to everything."

Inner Sakura sighed with relief. Despite her years with Kakashi-sensei she'd never mastered the art of telling lies. But as she'd hoped, Naruto at least seemed to be straightforward enough to take what she said at face value. Although she knew there was no way in the world that she'd fooled Neiji.

Tenten gave her a suspicious glance too, as she scooped her weapons into two sturdy bags and gave one to each of her boys to carry. "Come on, let's eat Ramen. Will Shikamaru be there, I'd like to hear what he thinks of all this."

Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

The storm clouds had thickened and darkened through the day, promising the kind of tumultuous downpour that only deserts seemed capable of, as if in overcompensation for their infrequency. Kakashi eyed them suspiciously. Maybe, just maybe, if they were lucky, the storm would hold off until the following day. He really wanted to keep moving through the night, and if it rained, in the dark that would be impossible.

He shivered as a blast of air from the incoming front stirred the sand around them. It was cool where they were sprawled, catching a few minutes much needed rest in the shadow of a dune, as they munched their unappetising rations. That's the way it was in the desert at this time of the year. Too cool in the shade but too hot in the sun, until the sun went down, then it would be cold everywhere. And always too dry, except when it rained, then it was much too wet.

"Come on Ruka, you good to go?"

He received a heart-stopping smile in response. It warmed his soul even though he could sense the strain behind it.

"With you Kakashi? To the ends of the Earth."

He tried hard to ignore the fatigue evident in the way Iruka pulled himself to his feet. He had been pushing the chuunin to his limit all day, and he wasn't about to stop. It would take genius beyond his to find a better balance between his obligation to get back to Konoha as soon as possible, and his need to get Iruka the kind of help only Tsunade could give.

Suddenly he was surrounded by something he couldn't ignore, the scent of blood.

Iruka must be in worse shape than he'd thought. He,d been clumsy enough to scrape the nails of his right hand over the back of his left as he stood up, leaving four scarlet lines. Instantly they were enveloped in mist. But that didn't make sense, not here, in the heart of the desert. It was too hot, and there wasn't enough moisture in the air to form mist, not yet. He looked more closely at the scratches in Iruka's hand. His big hairy hand.

Gai?

The large muscular jounin flashed his nice guy pose.

Now Kakashi was seriously confused. Why the hell was he in the middle of the desert with Gai? And holding his hand? He realised that his mask was down and moved to pull it up. But he didn't get a chance. The moment he let go Gai took off running.

Kakashi ran after him, catching up in a few strides. That didn't make sense either. Since when could he match Maitai Gai for speed so easily? He grabbed an arm and held the green beast from behind as he continued to struggle. Kakashi's brain reeled with confusion. Was it an illusion? He hitched up his headband to check. Even through the sharingan the bulky man looked the same. But Gai was surprisingly easy to subdue, too easy, more like a chuunin than one of the most powerful jounins in Konoha. He twisted his captive's arm behind his back and almost dropped it in surprise. The reddish mist was pouring out of the wounds on the back of his hand He yanked the hand higher and got a yelp of pain in response. The man he was holding relaxed immediately and slumped into him. He seemed smaller, slighter.

As the mist dissipated he could smell Iruka's hair and skin against his face.

"Kakashi?" The voice was small and breathless. "I'm sorry, I lost control and he took over. I didn't try to hurt you did I?"

"No I'm fine, really, just startled. I wasn't wearing my mask and I er, saw things."

"What things?"

"Well you looked… different." As he was speaking he pulled his mask back into place, trying to assess Iruka's reaction without making direct eye contact.

Iruka watched him smooth the fabric into place along his cheekbones. He took a step closer so that no more than a fraction of an inch separated their bodies. Kakashi could feel the moisture from his breath in the dry desert air.

He raised his hands to Kakashi's masked face, spreading tan fingers over white. "I can't bear it."

Iruka let himself collapse into the other man choking back emotion. "I can't touch you, I can't kiss you and now you'll have to wear that damn mask all the time to protect yourself from me. I won't even be able to look at you." His voice became a whisper. "I can't live like this."

Kakashi eased down his mask and kissed Iruka's forehead softly.

Iruka pulled away glaring at him. "No! Don't do that, I told you. Put that damn thing back in place."

He sank to his knees on the sand, gasping in rough breaths. Clawing at handfuls of the gritty substance, as if getting a grip on the sand would let him get some kind of grip on a reality that had become just as unstable.

When he spoke his voice was hoarse and broken. "If he wants to share my feelings then let him feel this."

Kakasi wanted nothing more than to hold him, comfort him, make soft noises in his ear and promise that everything would be alright. But he couldn't. Even he wasn't that good a liar. There was nothing he could do or say that would make any of this alright for either of them. He was losing control, not like Iruka in a big shattered mess, but one tiny crumb at a time. He pulled up his mask.

A moment later he felt a tiny ping against the metal of his forehead protector, a cool trickle down his brow and spreading dampness in the fabric over his nose.

His heart sank to new depths. It had started to rain.

Him.

"Come on Ruka, it's not so bad, I wear it all the time. When we're back home, and have this all straightened out, I'll be in your face so much that you'll be begging me to put it back on."

Iruka tried, really tried, to smile. But he just didn't have any smiles left in him.

Oooooooooooooooooooooo

A/N/ OMG. What have I done to the poor guys? No nookie until they find a cure, if ther is a cure, if they can get home. And what will they find when they get there? And if Iruka hadn't stopped him would Kakshi have found himself having sex with…. Gai? Aargh… need tissue… eyes starting to bleed.