Disclaimer:
Some dickhead on eBay outbid me at the last minute. Damn my luck.
Fragile: Handle With Care – Chapter Four
The door opened into a small room, devoid of furnishings save for one wooden table, and a gaudy plastic chair near the bedside. A shock of white hair and skin nearly as pale made it difficult for Iruka to distinguish the figure from the starched sheets he laid under.
The chuunin hesitated, afraid that his mere presence in the room might taint its stark sterility. Tsunade's hand at his back gently urged Iruka forward. His footsteps echoed off the walls, and the hollow sound was unnerving. He was vaguely aware of the Hokage and the special jounin following closely behind, but the vast majority of his attention was fixed on his comatose lover.
The shallow rise and fall of Kakashi's chest gave the teacher some measure of comfort, but it was the only indication that the man was still alive. "We've got him on some pretty powerful pain-killers, so he's not feeling much of anything right now." Iruka tore his eyes away from the form on the bed at the Hokage's words. But her features were as blank as the white walls surrounding them.
"How long until he wakes up?"
Tsunade frowned. "It's hard to say. We just gave him a dose of sedatives and muscle relaxants, so he'll probably be out for at least another ten or twelve hours. Of course, you're welcome to stay here with him, if you like. I'll go find you something more comfortable to sit in."
Iruka could only nod numbly in acknowledgement, as the Hokage left the room. After a few minutes, the silence became oppressive, and Ibiki could feel the chuunin's tension levels rise. Iruka's hands were clenched tightly at his sides, and his eyes threatened to overflow with tears. "This wasn't supposed to happen…" he said, his voice so soft that if Ibiki had not been listening for it, the comment would have gone unheard.
The teacher screwed his eyes shut, and the tears could no longer be held back.
"You're Hatake fucking Kakashi!"
But the man on the bed remained unmoving, and Ibiki was unfazed by the outburst. He had expected that too. The special jounin suddenly felt much older than his twenty-seven years. He had watched this same scenario play a hundred times before, and it never got easier. 'But maybe that's better,' he thought. 'The day it starts to get easier, I'll know I've been doing this for too long.'
Ibiki moved slowly, so as not to startle the anxious man before him. He placed his hands on Iruka's shaking shoulders in the most comforting manner he could. But he wasn't going to placate the chuunin with lies. Iruka deserved better than that. "Everybody breaks," the jounin began softly, feeling the other man tense at his words. "It's just a matter of how long they can hold out before it finally happens."
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Tsunade walked down the hospital hallway at a brisk pace, desperate to leave that room, even if only for a few minutes. In the years since she had become the Fifth Hokage, Tsunade had come to care for all of the people in her village with a fierce protectiveness. But Kakashi and Iruka were different. She had witnessed their relationship from almost the very beginning,
The pair had thought they were being sneaky, but to anyone who knew them, it was obvious. In the way Iruka would be out of sorts until team seven returned from a mission, or the way Kakashi would drop by the teacher's classroom to deliver a forgotten lunch. Tsunade couldn't hide her feelings of pride and affection for the two after everything they had gone through to get to the point they were at now.
'Now…'
The Hokage forced that thought from her mind as she focused on her task. Tears wouldn't heal the Copy-nin, or bring any peace to the chuunin teacher, but at least she could try to make Iruka comfortable during his long wait.
Tsunade turned a corner and immediately saw a low, well-padded chair that would suffice and bent down to lift it up. She started her trek down the long hallway that led to the intensive care wing. She winced slightly, as each of her long strides caused the sharp corner of the chair to bang against her hip. But the sharp pain she felt served as an ample distraction for the emotions she was working so hard to suppress.
The Fifth set the chair down gently in front of Kakashi's room and reached for the door handle.
"You're Hatake fucking Kakashi!"
The sheer grief and helplessness of Iruka's words stopped Tsunade before her hand could even touch the metal. She remained frozen as the desperate cry echoed over and over in her mind. Without warning, her outstretched hand made contact with the door in front of her when Tsunade's legs refused to hold her weight any longer.
She thought briefly that it was lucky no one was nearby to witness her moment of weakness as she slid to her knees. One hand flew to her mouth, muffling her sobs as the gravity of the situation hit her.
Tsunade closed her eyes and let the tears flow.
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Iruka stood rigidly still; the finality of the special jounin's words rooting him to the spot. 'Not wounded…not incapacitated…broken…'
"You've seen people recover," the teacher said, his voice admirable steady, eyes never leaving the man on the bed. "Even broken, it's not impossible to fix whatever problems he'll have, right?"
"It's always possible…" Ibiki offered, but he wasn't sure Iruka even believed his own words. "We'll know more after he wakes up. Then we can go from there."
"Yeah…" the chuunin responded half-heartedly. He reached a hand down and brushed Kakashi's cheek lightly. The circles underneath the jounin's eyes were made even darker by the contrast of his pale skin. It looked as if Kakashi had barely slept at all since his mission had begun.
Iruka moved his hand to run careful fingers through the jounin's silver hair, the strands clumped together with dirt and dust from the road. Iruka's frown deepened as his fingers met with resistance. He pulled his hand away from the offending knot and saw…
Blood.
A large patch of his lover's hair was caked with dried blood.
Iruka once again had to fight the urge to be sick. He wasn't normally squeamish about things like that; one could hardly afford to be in his line of work. But knowing that it was Kakashi's own blood matting that lovely silver hair was almost more than the chuunin could handle.
The Hokage chose that moment to open the door, and Iruka's attention was thankfully diverted to the woman standing in the doorway. Tsunade picked up the chair she had brought and carried it into the room. As she covered the short distance, she kept her eyes firmly on the ground in front of her, not willing to look either man in the eye. It was obvious to both that she had been crying, but neither mentioned it, much to her relief.
"Thank you, Hokage sama," Iruka said quietly, after she had set the chair at Kakashi's bedside. He sank bonelessly into it, feeling suddenly drained.
Tsunade stepped back with one last look at the figure lying in the bed. "The hospital staff will notify us when he wakes up." She bit her lip once, lightly, before continuing. "We're going to do everything we can to bring him back. I swear it."
Iruka looked up at the Hokage and offered her a weak, but genuine smile. That was more reassuring to him than any empty promises could be. He nodded once to the pair, and they slipped quietly out of the room.
The chuunin teacher leaned forward and gently interlocked his fingers with Kakashi's, careful not to disturb the IV that was inserted near his elbow. He sat like that for a long time, running his thumb back and forth over the jounin's calloused hand. But Iruka's weariness began to take its toll, and the chuunin soon gave in and laid his head next to Kakashi's shoulder.
The other man's slow, but steady in and out breath had an almost hypnotic effect, and Iruka felt his eyes drift shut.
"I love you."
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Author's Note:
Sorry for the long wait. I wasn't really looking forward to this chapter, so I wrote 'Hypothetical Question' instead. Which, you should all go read, if you haven't. –smile- Shameless plug…
Not really all that happy with this. It was just so impossible to write. Took me several days. I kept getting all these ideas for chapters…that aren't this one. –sigh-
So in this chapter, we actually see both of the lines that brought this whole fic into being. The first is Ibiki's line, which also happens to be the summary of the fic. The second being the 'Hatake fucking Kakashi' line. And this is how fanfiction is born. Like a bastard child, really.
Although, after I wrote the part where Iruka talks about 'fixing' Kakashi, I couldn't really be serious anymore. This is mostly due to the fact that I just finished translating a doujin that has some…interesting dialogue. Ummm…long story short, Kakashi gets a fever and says "Iruka sensei…use your semen to fix me, please " I kid you not. It really is a cute story though. It's called "Beautiful Life" if anyone's interested. I'll be scanlating it once I get back to the states, but that's not for another five months or so…
I'm now off to write the next chapter. It's a flashback, so I promise it'll be better than this one. Really. I want to try to get it out this week, since I'll be on about a one month hiatus. As part of my program, I have to go somewhere that's not Tokyo, so I'll be staying in bumblefuck, Japan until mid March. So until next time, my lovely readers.