Iruka yawned loudly before slowly turning to Hound, "You have a lot of explaining to do, Kakashi."
Kakashi tensed at the sound of his name whilst he was in his ANBU persona. Normally, if an ANBU's identity was found out, they would quickly perform a mind erasing jutsu on said person. However, the Third Hokage had not ordered it to be done on Iruka. He scratched the back of his head nervously. Now that it was all out in the open, it did seem pretty bad that Iruka-sensei had been stalked by the majority of the ANBU team regularly. Iruka turned to face him, ready to scold him, before he blinked slowly, and his body suddenly collapsed.
Hound caught Iruka's limp body easily before it hit the ground and sighed as Iruka lay limp in his arms, the dirt and grime evident on his body from his running. Kakashi held him close before he maneuvered the brunette's body and carried him bridal style. He surveyed his surroundings before he found the only one who had such a mastery of genjutsu. There was only one person who would use genjutsu on a comrade. Raven was sitting on a tree limb across the street. Hound sighed, "Why would you use genjutsu on him?"
"To let him sleep." Raven was always a stoic character; it was hard to tell what his intentions were most of the time, typical Uchiha. "Do not worry, Hound, he is dreaming his deepest desires." Raven looked down from the tree before he swiftly vanished from sight. Kakashi shook his head exasperatedly, he hoped Iruka didn't think it was him who knocked him out. He gently adjusted Iruka in his arms and carried him the rest of the way to his house. He glanced down, and Iruka was sound asleep with a pleasant look on his face.
Kakashi briefly wondered what Iruka was dreaming of that could make him look so peaceful. When he arrived back at the teacher's home, Iruka would probably be displeased by his breaking and entering into his home again, but he didn't have much choice. Much of Iruka's stuff had been misplaced in the confusion, and he wasn't sure where the chunin would keep the key to his home anyway. Kakashi easily picked the lock to the front door and disabled all of the traps Iruka had left. He made a note to set some traps himself before he left, ones that were a little less predictable than Iruka's.
Iruka shifted slightly in his arms, and Kakashi cursed himself briefly for not disabling the traps fluidly enough for Iruka not to wake up. However, the gods were on his side as Iruka only nuzzled further into his chest. Kakashi stilled, his heart racing; he had never been in this situation before. To be more exact, he had never cared enough about the person he was carrying to even bother being gentle before. He had helped many other wounded ANBU back to their homes from time to time, but he had never taken such precautions with them.
Kakashi made his way through the home and down the hallway to Iruka's room. His chest felt tight, and his heart was racing. Everywhere Iruka touched him, it felt as if it were on fire compared to the rest of his body. Kakashi's hands felt clammy, and his stomach churned with butterflies. Suddenly, he was worried he'd been wounded worse than he previously thought.
He hastily made his way to the room because he wasn't sure what was happening, but he needed it to stop. Kakashi carefully placed Iruka down on the bed before slowly taking off the other's shoes to make him sleep a little more comfortably, before he quickly covered him with one of the blankets to keep him warm. He paused to take a moment to look at Iruka's contented face whilst he slept. Kakashi gulped before he hurried out of the room and put his hand over his chest. His heartbeat was racing to an abnormal level, and his face was suddenly flushed due to simply looking at Iruka's sleeping face.
Kakashi was panicking at this point over what was wrong with him, he couldn't recall taking a hit to the chest that could cause delayed chest pains. He schooled his features, even though no one could see behind his mask, he didn't want to give anyone opportunities to use it against him because he couldn't control his behavior. Kakashi quickly assembled some traps in place of the ones he had disabled. It didn't matter much anyway because several eyes were watching his every movement. Iruka needed to get curtains.
The silver-haired jounin continued hastily making his way out of the home and stopped to take a breath of fresh air after he closed the door behind him. Kakashi ran a hand through his hair in stress over the appearance of such symptoms so suddenly and briefly wondered if they merited a trip to the hospital or not. As he calmed himself outside, he quickly used a teleportation jutsu to his own home. Once in the safety of his own home, Kakashi took off his ANBU mask and carelessly chucked it onto the couch in the living room. He sighed, he wasn't sure what exactly had happened to him back there, but the symptoms had disappeared after he had time to steady himself.
Kakashi habitually took out his favorite Icha Icha romance novel and gazed slowly at the cover. He dropped it as if he had been burned after realization slowly dawned on him over what exactly was happening to him. Kakashi had read it himself many times, but never once had he ever felt the emotions described in his favorite book series. He was feeling, for one of the first times in his life. It had been so long he'd forgotten what it meant to feel something for another person.
He covered his lower face with his hand as a blush spread slowly across his masked face. If he were honest, he was feeling more than simple friendship for the chunin. Kakashi sighed as he sat down on the couch and quickly schooled his emotions. Nothing good would come out of him falling for Iruka-sensei like he was. He closed his eyes as he let his tired muscles relax, and he let his body fall perpendicularly on the couch, knocking the ANBU mask to the floor. For the first time in a long while, sleep claimed his consciousness before he could stop it.
….
Iruka woke slowly and wiped the sleep away from his tired eyes. He looked around, not quite sure how he got home last night. The last thing he remembered was talking to Kakashi before everything went blank, as his exhaustion took hold of his body. Iruka blushed as he realized he had fainted in front of one of the most esteemed ANBU in the village. His mortification was worsened by the fact that said ANBU had carried him to his house, even while he was in his weakened state after the same mission.
Kakashi had done so much more whilst on their last mission, and yet he had still fainted before the other. Iruka angrily threw the blanket off himself because he had embarrassed himself in front of the other once more. He looked outside the window and sighed as he looked towards the trees, where the ANBU who had probably watched him while he slept concealed themselves. Iruka stood up; the least he could do was make them tea if they were so fascinated by his dull life. He made his way to the kitchen and put a pot on the stove to boil.
Iruka felt terrible, Kakashi had probably used up almost all of his chakra reserves trying to protect him just so they could get back to the village. Then he became a burden once more by fainting on the poor man whilst in the middle of talking to him. Iruka made some simple cucumber sandwiches to go with the tea, because if the other ANBU were anything like Hound that meant they didn't eat much. He only hoped he'd made enough. Iruka opened the window and set the finished tray of tea and sandwiches on the windowsill. It still felt like he was being watched, so he probably was.
Iruka wondered if they could even somehow see him when he showered. He blushed; that would be a major invasion of his privacy, even that would be too far! Iruka closed the door to his bathroom. Luckily, it had no windows, but he wouldn't put it past them to have some sort of jutsu up their sleeves. Iruka cringed, he had been too distracted by the ANBU to notice he had made a mess in his pants whilst he slept.
The dream had been like a slap to the face, it had been about the masked ANBU. Iruka shook his head quickly, trying to wipe that thought away, but it remained ingrained in his brain. He had had a wet dream about Kakashi, a dream where Kakashi had touched him in ways he never thought could arouse him. Iruka sighed, trying to make sense of the situation. He was definitely attracted to the other, but that could be in a number of different ways! The ANBU had a certain charisma about himself that Iruka respected.
So, his blatant respect for the sheer power and charisma of the other led to it being misinterpreted in his dream as him being sexually attracted to the silver-haired jounin. Iruka nodded to himself, that seemed like a plausible explanation. Coupled with the fact that he had been too nervous to take care of himself before the mission, it had also been a while. Which is how such a dream could occur. Another scarlet blush made its way across his scarred face. It still didn't change the fact that he hadn't been too opposed to all of the things that had happened in his dream.
Iruka shook his head, he wasn't going to go down that route this morning. Firstly, he needed to shower and get all of the gunk and grime off his body. Secondly, he still had a job to do even if he now knew the ANBU's true identity. Regardless of his dream, he still needed to make sure Kakashi was okay. Kakashi had a bad habit of letting things go until he absolutely couldn't carry on. He wouldn't tend to his wounds or eat if Iruka wasn't there to help him. Iruka turned on the water in his shower and let the water heat up to a comfortable temperature. Now, he just needed to figure out how exactly he should act when he went to see Kakashi later.