Archive of Our Own

He’s been acting insane. He knows he has.

Kakashi watches from his spot in the trees- for his patrol -as Iruka, now Iruka-Sensei, leans back in his chair at his teachers desk as the last students leave for the day. Through the window and the distance Kakashi can still see far too many details he shouldn’t be privy to. Like, the way beads of sweat cling to Iruka’s temple, make his base layer shirt cling at the upper arms, the way his throat moves while he’s drinking from his water bottle. His eyes follow a drop of water that escapes, traces down his chin and neck and disappears under his shirt. His eyes follow the bottle as it’s returned to the desk, locked on to the part his lips had touched.

Before any other Anbu check in on him he closes his cursed eye again, and it is a curse. For all the ugly, painful reasons and the petty, selfish ones like, now he can replay the relief on Iruka’s face after a long drink of water in agonizing detail. So, naturally, he cannot help but replay it. In agonizing detail.

He’s been acting insane. He knows he has.
A knock he shouldn’t be able to hear because he shouldn’t be listening for it, shouldn’t be funneling chakra to his ears for it, pulls Iruka out of his personal moment of reprieve and Kakashi watches as that beautiful face turns away from the window.

He can’t help it.

He quits being Anbu. It almost kills him, but Iruka got a second job as a desk clerk. Only nin who take normal Konoha missions talk to the desk clerks.

That Danzo is corrupt and evil factors into his decision too, but the split of the weight is not one he’d ever admit to.

Now, at his rank he’ll likely never get a ‘normal’ Konoha mission… but they’ll be processed the same way.

Iruka thrusts yet another rejected report back, pushing it into Kakashi’s chest, and Kakashi has never been jealous of paper before, but there’s unfortunately apparently a first time for everything. Kakashi folds his hand over the papers. Fingertips barely grazing the outside of Iruka’s hand. Kakashi knows it’s not physically possible, but he feels the sliver of skin burn at the contact. He takes the report back and Iruka might genuinely hate him for it but the next version is actually worse.

He gets it explained to him like he’s one of Iruka’s students, after the 12th unusable mission report. Bent over Iruka’s desk side by side, shoulders brushing as Iruka’s fingers trace Kakashi’s scribble and Kakashi makes sure he’s paying perfect attention. He takes mental notes on the smell of Iruka’s hair, the smell of his clothes and the way it mixes with what Kakashi assumes is his deodorant. He nods along to an explanation on the economic importance of expense reports being properly filed as he memorizes the curve of Iruka’s long, thick eyelashes until he feels confident he could write out the mathematical function and chart it on a graph.

In the fraction of a second it takes Iruka to blink, Kakashi allows the sharingan to flare to life and then his headband is back in its covert position. Iruka’s still talking and Kakashi could take a bath in his voice even if he sounds vaguely irritated but all Kakashi sees, all he sees the rest of the night playing in his mind over and over, is that snapshot. In perfect, lifelike imagery he sees Iruka’s eyelashes flutter down and barely begin to lift. He sees the warmer areas on his face where the blood was rushing beneath the surface, likely from frustration but a blush is a blush. Or is it?

Would Iruka blush the same from a well-timed compliment? Or, if not one for flattery, would he blush under more intimate and physical affection? Would it spread still first beside his eyes, creep over his cheeks to meet on his nose, the way it does in anger? If Kakashi kissed him wherever he wanted most to be kissed, touched where he most wanted to be touched, would he maybe instead see that beautiful rose flush bloom first in his cheeks instead, spreading to his ears and shoulders. Maybe his chest?

There’s a mission report on his kitchen table, while he lays in bed pondering blush routes. It’s absolutely covered in red ink and at some point the notes in the margins just became frantic question marks across the pages. It might take him a few days to get it up to snuff but in the meantime he had another report overdue by two months hidden in his floorboards guaranteed to get him more one on one time with Iruka’s flushed face.

It only takes a few more months for Kakashi to have memorized nearly the entire possible register of Iruka’s speaking voice. That is, of course, paired with discovering exactly how many shades of red his face can get when he’s yelling. It’s probably worrying how much Kakashi finds himself mentally deteriorating in proportion to how badly it looks like Iruka wants to strangle him with his bare hands. God, those hands. The rough fingerpads from years of training, and training the children of the village. The smooth skin between fingertip and palm and then those, just slightly rough palms. Less than an active duty nin, and maybe a sore spot of Iruka’s if rumours were given any credence but all Kakashi can think about is how molding his cheek to that palm would feel. Those fingers against his scalp. His nails over Kakashi’s skin.

He’s brought back into the present moment by the sudden absence of the beautiful cacophony Iruka’s ire had taken the shape of and he refocuses his eye to see Iruka staring at him with a deep crease between his eyebrows, as if trying to determine something. For Konoha’s most notorious killer it’s probably not good that Iruka’s discerning gaze has him feeling so…exposed. Laid bare.

Vulnerable.

Kakashi can do what he’s practiced and shut every flicker of emotion in his face down without breaking even a figurative sweat, but… What would it feel like?

To be seen… and seen by Iruka…

It’s a selfish thought he kills immediately, inner walls raising in a second. Not even alone in the safety of the night sky does he let himself explore that fantasy. At least, not often. It’s one thing to admire from afar, and from… a little too close, perhaps. It’s another entirely to even consider a reciprocal… what, even? Interest? Fascination? Desire?

Love?

Whatever he was trying to find it’s clear he doesn’t, and Kakashi focuses once again on the way an almost imperceptible sigh escapes Iruka’s lips as he straightens the paperwork on his desk. Kakashi’s report, waterlogged and half blank.

Kakashi must be coming down with something, for how off his game he is today. How distractable. Because for a second he thinks Iruka just looked at him and said “Come on.”

And then, impossibly, “Dinner. Your treat.”

Kakashi’s grateful for the fact that his body and brain are so accustomed to working asynchronously, because his mind is clearly deteriorating rapidly, but his body manages to put its hands in its pockets and follow Iruka out the door with a nod that seems to satisfy.

The list of things Kakashi is learning you can be jealous of has grown astronomically within the last four dinners he has attended with Iruka. Iruka, who politely averts his gaze when Kakashi eats, even though Kakashi is more than quick enough to not need the assist. Iruka, who always gets a tiny drop of broth by the corner of his mouth. Iruka, who has no idea that Kakashi has genuinely put as much focus into mapping the dimples that appeared when he laughed as he has into the assassinations of clan heads.

Initially on these dinners Iruka would still bring up the horrible reports Kakashi handed in, would vent about his day at the desk, keep things tethered even tenuously to their work. Now Kakashi got to sit next to the man at whatever restaurant he’d picked that week, on Friday Nights, which were becoming their nights in Kakashi’s head. A dangerous thing, one that stoked Kakashi’s possessive, obsessive nature into overdrive if left unchecked and, well, Kakashi certainly wasn’t exactly leaving it… checked. And he got to listen to Iruka talk about whatever he wanted. Whatever he thought. Whatever he thought about the bits Kakashi contributed to the conversation, careful still to keep a protective distance, though protective for whom was getting…blurred.

If he felt really daring he could see something in Iruka’s eyes that felt like a spark. An ember, glowing, flaring to life with the barest breath of attention. Kakashi’s attention. And oh, oh God that was a much more dangerous thought than any other because the idea that he was affecting Iruka in even a fraction of the way Iruka affected him… intoxicating. Intoxicated. That’s how he feels. He feels intoxicated when Iruka leans back in his chair and laughs. He feels intoxicated when Iruka’s arm brushes against his as he walks the other man home, a formality so unnecessary almost nobody else bothers to do so, leaving them mostly alone in the moonlit streets.

He feels intoxicated when Iruka stops at his door, cheeks and nose a little red from the cold, and maybe something else.

He feels intoxicated when he finds himself sitting in Iruka’s living room, knee gently brushing Iruka’s from his seat on the floor as Iruka pours them a tea.

Intoxicated stops carrying enough meaning to explain how he feels when Iruka leans in closer to whisper some half-joke half hope notion into Kakashi’s ear about his confounding mix of perfect self control and complete lack of capability when it came to handling anything Iruka needed handed in efficiently.

“Maybe,” Kakashi says, mouth a little dry, fingers subtly pressing into his own thigh, “My self control is as perfect as you think.”

Iruka laughs, it’s not his normal, full laugh. The one he lets out with Naruto or his friends or on rare occasions Kakashi. It’s softer. Bemused. Fond. Kakashi’s, too. From what he can tell.

“You should be careful,” Kakashi finds himself murmuring as Iruka continues to lean in closer than he needs to. He can’t say more. So much of his life, his training, the parts that are so intricately woven in both, won’t allow it. You should be careful to not give me so much. You should be careful not to get this close. You should be careful with what you want- He thinks it as Iruka regards him shrewdly and despite knowing he can’t, he definitely can’t, he feels like Iruka hears it all anyway.

“I don’t think so.” Iruka counters easily, “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

He’s so wrong it would take Kakashi’s breath away if he still had any. Instead he feels the warmth from Iruka’s leg as it presses a little bit closer against his own. He presses against Iruka as well before steeling himself again but this time Iruka doesn’t let him retreat. Doesn’t let him close off, rebuild his walls and climb behind them.

He teases Kakashi. Like he knows he can. And he can.

“Oh no, the Great Kakashi wants something. Quick, somebody stop him.” Iruka tilts his head playfully and the warm glow of the nearest lamp catches that infuriatingly perfect dimple next to his unfairly beautiful lips.

Yes, Kakashi thinks, somebody stop me.

“What could it be?” Iruka is all mirth and mischief and it takes the extra years right off his face and well, Kakashi’s only a man. Despite everybody’s best efforts.

Nobody stops him.

Iruka’s skin is hot under Kakashi’s hand as his palm slides up the side of his neck slowly but with purpose, coming to rest cradling his jaw and thumbing the bone. He can feel the muscle in his cheek jump as Iruka’s lips part in shock, any further words dying in his throat as his mind clearly rapidly cycles through attempts at rationalizing Kakashi’s behavior. Well he’s welcome to try, Kakashi thinks, but I haven’t had any such luck.

Finally, blinking rapidly but not moving out of his grasp, Iruka manages to stammer out his name and Kakashi simply tilts his head to indicate he’s listening as he decides, oh hell why not, and with his free hand brushes away some stray strands of hair that seem to have escaped Iruka’s ponytail and fallen around his face. The man in question swallows hard as Kakashi looks at him.

“Kakashi,” Iruka’s voice is stronger now, and a warm hand comes up to grab Kakashi’s wrist under the hand cradling his face. It’s not hard or to make him let go, he thinks at least, rather to ground him in reality, this reality, and reach him. And reach him it does.

“You.” Kakashi murmurs, eyes half closed and voice gravelly, “I want you.”

“What would you do,” Iruka whispers back, “If you had me?” His lips don’t brush against Kakashi’s when he speaks, but his breath does and Kakashi breathes in on instinct as if he could drink Iruka down through his exhale.

He takes a moment to answer, not because he has any doubts but because he knows a defining moment when he sees one. Because Iruka’s going to know, irrevocably, and if it all goes to shit Kakashi wants to make sure that out of all of it Iruka knows he means it.

“Everything.” He replies.

When he answers his lips brush against Iruka’s and the resulting jolt through his heart unmoors him entirely, so when Iruka presses closer after the initial touch his stomach swoops like he’s in free-fall. Kakashi had wondered, in his weakest moments, if kissing Iruka would evoke in him the urge towards unrepentant passion or near religious reverence and now that it was finally happening Kakashi found, with warm, sweet lips against his, that his only instinct was to follow Iruka wherever he led them. To a chaste finish, to one of their beds, to the end of the world. All of the above. Rinse, repeat. Repeat. Repeat.