Slash 100: 28. Touch
I’ve always meant to do a full long story based on this idea, but I really doubt I’ll ever get around to it. This scene, though, I felt was too great to go completely to waste. So, look, a convenient story line for my Slash 100. Whee!
…Yes, the poison is supposed to be the Naruto world equivalent to HIV.
Additional Disclaimer: This was partly inspired by Rent, and written while listening to it. So, if it seems influenced that way, that’s why.
028. Touch
Iruka ran his hands under the warm water, watching idly as the white bubbles swirled around the gaping drain his sink. They were spinning with no control until they reached the inevitable end and disappeared.
The thought was close enough to his own life that Iruka shuddered.
His last mission had gone well enough, when you looked at it on paper. He’d successfully disposed of his target and gotten the documents he’d been sent for, returning in a timely fashion. It would get a mission completed stamp on it.
What would go over looked by the chuunin at the desk who would file it away would be the report of Iruka being poisoned, and the cure unable to be found. It was a poison unique to the country he’d been traveling in. The poison itself would not kill him, but instead would destroy his immune system, and something as simple as a cold or an infected paper cut would be his undoing.
Tsunade could do nothing to fix it, only slow down the inevitable, and give him more time. In the end, though, it wouldn’t matter. He would die from this.
Worse than that, though, was how contagious the poison was. It lived in his blood, and if anyone somehow got any of his body-fluids inside themselves, it would get them too.
For the most part, this wasn’t a problem, but…Kakashi. All the things they’d been in the past, it was over now. They could never be like that again. There would always have to be a barrier between them, be it skin or something else.
Iruka could feel that familiar clenching in his chest at the thought of how this must be affecting his lover, but he looked up at the mirror with dry eyes.
Kakashi was going to have to watch him die. There was nothing the Jounin could do; no way he could fight this.
It was completely unfair, and Iruka had tried several times since Tsunade’s diagnosis when he’d returned, two weeks ago, to push Kakashi out of his life. To let his beloved Kakashi go so he wouldn’t have to have any more pain in his life.
Every time he’d tried, the words had gotten caught by this familiar ache in his chest-the kind that could be cried out if he had the tears to cry.
All his tears seemed to have disappeared after Tsunade had promised him that his name would go on the stone, regardless of the fact that he would be going on no more missions.
He looked up at the mirror, his brown eyes seeking out those in his reflection. He could see in them the same confusion and anger now burning in his stomach. The same hatred he felt as he thought that Kakashi would still be coming back to him.
‘You always said you’d do anything to help him,’ Iruka heard his own voice mock in his head. ‘You said you loved him. You don’t, or you’d let him go now. Spare him your weakness, because you failed as a shinobi. It is you’re punishment, and you’re too scared to even face it alone, like you deserve.’
As the brown eyes continued to stare at him, to judge him for being such a weak shinobi he couldn’t let go of a loved one, Iruka lost all control of his already raw emotions. He needed to make the voice stop, make those eyes stop staring. Furious, he did the only thing he could think to do. He punched them.
The glass shattered instantly under his chakara filled fist, with pieces of the mirror clawing into his skin in retaliation. He didn’t care, but continued to mercilessly pound the mirror with first his fists and then just hitting it with his palms until both his hands were raw and bleeding and all that was left of the mirror was a handful of shards on the ground.
Only then, it seemed, was he able to cry. The tears started falling with the last piece of glass, breaking against the ground with it. Once started, they didn’t stop. He sunk to the ground, his hands leaving twin bloody trails along the white tile on the wall, as his body shook with uncontrollable sobs.
The front door opened and shut again. “Iruka, you home?”
Kakashi. He couldn’t let Kakashi see him like this. Couldn’t let his lover see how weak he was. Iruka tried to stifle his sobs, but it seemed the harder he tried to control them the louder they got.
“Iruka? Are you alright?” Kakashi was getting closer now.
He feebly tried to hide his bleeding hands under his arms, smearing blood on his white shirt. “D-don’t…”
Too late. He heard the Jounin freeze in the doorway, seeming unable to comprehend what he was seeing, before he darted into the small space with a curse and crunch of glass. He knelt by his lover’s side.
“What happened, Iruka?”
Honestly, he couldn’t say even if he wanted to. How was he supposed to explain to Kakashi how badly he wanted to let him go, to spare him the pain, but selfishly couldn’t do it. Because he was frightened of facing this all alone.
The Jounin grabbed Iruka’s upper arms in a gentle but firm grip, pulling his shredded hands into view. He cursed, seeing the damage that had been done, and reached to remove the glass.
Iruka jerked his hands back in a near panic. “Don’t touch it! If it gets in you’ll die! Don’t touch it; don’t touch me, Kakashi, please!”
The pain he saw in Kakashi’s visible eye was enough to cause the pent up tears to fall faster, breaking against the ground with a tiny splash when they hit. As he’d thought, the crying had unleashed the words that had gotten caught in his chest, and they came tumbling out to break as well.
“Please, Kakashi, leave me alone. I’m going to die, we both know that, and I don’t want you to suffer for my mistakes! I couldn’t stand if…if you got sick…if…”
Kakashi watched him in silence for a while before getting to his feet and heading towards the door.
Iruka’s hands slid along the floor, leaving crimson trails, as he tried to hold onto something to keep him from reaching out for the man he loved as he walked out the door. The chuunin squeezed his eyes shut, grinding his teeth together to try and keep the agonized sobs inside.
He’d done it, and so what if Kakashi had been so ready to walk out on him. It was better this way. It was…
More crunching of glass, and soft fabric on his face. Iruka snapped his eyes open to find Kakashi, now maskless and with his Sharingan uncovered-but with his ANBU gloves on-kneeling in front of him again.
The Jounin sought out his lover’s eyes with both his own, holding his gaze and refusing to let him look away. “I will not abandon you. There’s no one in the world that deserves this less than you do, and if you think I’m going to leave you to suffer alone…”
Iruka tried to protest, but the gloved hand placed firmly over his mouth to try and calm his erratic breathing prevented more than a muffled strangled sob from escaping.
Kakashi removed his hand from Iruka’s mouth, and used it to brush the bangs hanging in Iruka’s face away. The older man’s mismatched eyes were so soft, sad, and filled with pain that a fresh wave of tears found their way into an existence with a shaky sob that tore Iruka’s raw throat.
“I know you want to push me away,” Kakashi whispered, using his gloved thumb to wipe away some of the tears, “and I know why. But please, ‘Ruka, don’t. I can’t bear to see you hurting so badly. Don’t make me just sit back and watch you suffer.”
“You can’t help me,” Iruka’s voice was bitter as he finally looked away from his lover’s eyes, pretending to himself that his blurry vision is what caused him to think he saw tears in both of Kakashi’s eyes. “This is something we can’t fight.”
“We can try. Iruka, it’s not like you to just give up. Please don’t start now.”
“Why not?” He didn’t fight it as Kakashi pulled him close to his chest, and simply tried to resist the urge to cling to him with his sliced up hands. “Tsunade said I could have as little as weeks…”
“And that you could have as much as years. In either case, do you want to spend however long you have left in a state of misery? Do you think I want you to suffer like that? Wouldn’t it be so much better to hold on a fight for the happy moments you can have?”
Iruka laughed, a wet almost sob like sound. “I don’t want you to suffer because of me.”
“I won’t, as long as you let me stay beside you. I know it will be hard. I know it’s going to hurt when you…” Iruka could feel it as Kakashi’s voice caught in his throat, and the Jounin swallowed hard. “But I would rather be beside you, suffering with you, than forced away and suffering all the more because I can’t be where I belong.”
The brunette was clinging to Kakashi now, ignoring the pain in his mutilated hands. “I’m scared, ‘Kashi. Scared of accidentally causing you to suffer the same fate because I was stupid, careless…like today. Scared of leaving you, and Naruto, and everyone I care about. Scared of what’s going to happen when I…when I die.”
Kakashi’s chest stilled under his face for a moment as the Jounin inhaled sharply at the word, before slowly letting it out. One of his gloved hands found its way up to rest on the back of Iruka’s head, holding him in place as the Jounin rested his bare chin on his beloved’s head and lead him sob into his chest.
“I’m scared too, ‘Ruka.”
Surprised, the chuunin jerked back to stare up into his lover’s face. He could not deny the twin tracks of tears slowly sliding down the pale cheeks.
“I would die to protect you, and it scares me that I can. Do. Nothing.” Kakashi clenched his fists on his lap and his eyes shut tight as more tears fell. “I’m scared of going on without you there to help me when it’s all too much. Scared that I won’t be able to go back to how I used to be now that you’ve taught me how to really live.”
Those eyes opened again, and Iruka found himself captivated by the whirling spirals in the crimson orb, and the deep raw pain in the dark blue.
Kakashi’s voice was even as he spoke, no matter how fast the tears fell down his bare face. “But I would suffer this a thousand times over rather than never have you. Never,” the Jounin reached out his gloved hand, running it over the side of Iruka’s face, “never touch you again…never hold you…I couldn’t do that. Not now that I have you. I’m not going to let you go, ever. You’ll always live with me.”
Iruka was going to ask, anger rising like bile in his throat, how that was even possible when Kakashi carefully grabbed the chuunin’s wrist and pulled the bloodied hand up to his chest and rested it over the Jounin’s own racing heart.
“As long as this still exists, I promise you that I will not forget you and everything you mean to me. You’ve changed me…so much…Ru-my-ru. And the Gods themselves will not be able to take that from me.”
Iruka closed his eyes, resting his head so his ear was against Kakashi’s chest, the steady rhythm soothing for the moment the fears that were tearing his soul apart. “And I will never leave from right here, no matter what happens. I promise.”
…Yes, the poison is supposed to be the Naruto world equivalent to HIV.
Additional Disclaimer: This was partly inspired by Rent, and written while listening to it. So, if it seems influenced that way, that’s why.
028. Touch
Iruka ran his hands under the warm water, watching idly as the white bubbles swirled around the gaping drain his sink. They were spinning with no control until they reached the inevitable end and disappeared.
The thought was close enough to his own life that Iruka shuddered.
His last mission had gone well enough, when you looked at it on paper. He’d successfully disposed of his target and gotten the documents he’d been sent for, returning in a timely fashion. It would get a mission completed stamp on it.
What would go over looked by the chuunin at the desk who would file it away would be the report of Iruka being poisoned, and the cure unable to be found. It was a poison unique to the country he’d been traveling in. The poison itself would not kill him, but instead would destroy his immune system, and something as simple as a cold or an infected paper cut would be his undoing.
Tsunade could do nothing to fix it, only slow down the inevitable, and give him more time. In the end, though, it wouldn’t matter. He would die from this.
Worse than that, though, was how contagious the poison was. It lived in his blood, and if anyone somehow got any of his body-fluids inside themselves, it would get them too.
For the most part, this wasn’t a problem, but…Kakashi. All the things they’d been in the past, it was over now. They could never be like that again. There would always have to be a barrier between them, be it skin or something else.
Iruka could feel that familiar clenching in his chest at the thought of how this must be affecting his lover, but he looked up at the mirror with dry eyes.
Kakashi was going to have to watch him die. There was nothing the Jounin could do; no way he could fight this.
It was completely unfair, and Iruka had tried several times since Tsunade’s diagnosis when he’d returned, two weeks ago, to push Kakashi out of his life. To let his beloved Kakashi go so he wouldn’t have to have any more pain in his life.
Every time he’d tried, the words had gotten caught by this familiar ache in his chest-the kind that could be cried out if he had the tears to cry.
All his tears seemed to have disappeared after Tsunade had promised him that his name would go on the stone, regardless of the fact that he would be going on no more missions.
He looked up at the mirror, his brown eyes seeking out those in his reflection. He could see in them the same confusion and anger now burning in his stomach. The same hatred he felt as he thought that Kakashi would still be coming back to him.
‘You always said you’d do anything to help him,’ Iruka heard his own voice mock in his head. ‘You said you loved him. You don’t, or you’d let him go now. Spare him your weakness, because you failed as a shinobi. It is you’re punishment, and you’re too scared to even face it alone, like you deserve.’
As the brown eyes continued to stare at him, to judge him for being such a weak shinobi he couldn’t let go of a loved one, Iruka lost all control of his already raw emotions. He needed to make the voice stop, make those eyes stop staring. Furious, he did the only thing he could think to do. He punched them.
The glass shattered instantly under his chakara filled fist, with pieces of the mirror clawing into his skin in retaliation. He didn’t care, but continued to mercilessly pound the mirror with first his fists and then just hitting it with his palms until both his hands were raw and bleeding and all that was left of the mirror was a handful of shards on the ground.
Only then, it seemed, was he able to cry. The tears started falling with the last piece of glass, breaking against the ground with it. Once started, they didn’t stop. He sunk to the ground, his hands leaving twin bloody trails along the white tile on the wall, as his body shook with uncontrollable sobs.
The front door opened and shut again. “Iruka, you home?”
Kakashi. He couldn’t let Kakashi see him like this. Couldn’t let his lover see how weak he was. Iruka tried to stifle his sobs, but it seemed the harder he tried to control them the louder they got.
“Iruka? Are you alright?” Kakashi was getting closer now.
He feebly tried to hide his bleeding hands under his arms, smearing blood on his white shirt. “D-don’t…”
Too late. He heard the Jounin freeze in the doorway, seeming unable to comprehend what he was seeing, before he darted into the small space with a curse and crunch of glass. He knelt by his lover’s side.
“What happened, Iruka?”
Honestly, he couldn’t say even if he wanted to. How was he supposed to explain to Kakashi how badly he wanted to let him go, to spare him the pain, but selfishly couldn’t do it. Because he was frightened of facing this all alone.
The Jounin grabbed Iruka’s upper arms in a gentle but firm grip, pulling his shredded hands into view. He cursed, seeing the damage that had been done, and reached to remove the glass.
Iruka jerked his hands back in a near panic. “Don’t touch it! If it gets in you’ll die! Don’t touch it; don’t touch me, Kakashi, please!”
The pain he saw in Kakashi’s visible eye was enough to cause the pent up tears to fall faster, breaking against the ground with a tiny splash when they hit. As he’d thought, the crying had unleashed the words that had gotten caught in his chest, and they came tumbling out to break as well.
“Please, Kakashi, leave me alone. I’m going to die, we both know that, and I don’t want you to suffer for my mistakes! I couldn’t stand if…if you got sick…if…”
Kakashi watched him in silence for a while before getting to his feet and heading towards the door.
Iruka’s hands slid along the floor, leaving crimson trails, as he tried to hold onto something to keep him from reaching out for the man he loved as he walked out the door. The chuunin squeezed his eyes shut, grinding his teeth together to try and keep the agonized sobs inside.
He’d done it, and so what if Kakashi had been so ready to walk out on him. It was better this way. It was…
More crunching of glass, and soft fabric on his face. Iruka snapped his eyes open to find Kakashi, now maskless and with his Sharingan uncovered-but with his ANBU gloves on-kneeling in front of him again.
The Jounin sought out his lover’s eyes with both his own, holding his gaze and refusing to let him look away. “I will not abandon you. There’s no one in the world that deserves this less than you do, and if you think I’m going to leave you to suffer alone…”
Iruka tried to protest, but the gloved hand placed firmly over his mouth to try and calm his erratic breathing prevented more than a muffled strangled sob from escaping.
Kakashi removed his hand from Iruka’s mouth, and used it to brush the bangs hanging in Iruka’s face away. The older man’s mismatched eyes were so soft, sad, and filled with pain that a fresh wave of tears found their way into an existence with a shaky sob that tore Iruka’s raw throat.
“I know you want to push me away,” Kakashi whispered, using his gloved thumb to wipe away some of the tears, “and I know why. But please, ‘Ruka, don’t. I can’t bear to see you hurting so badly. Don’t make me just sit back and watch you suffer.”
“You can’t help me,” Iruka’s voice was bitter as he finally looked away from his lover’s eyes, pretending to himself that his blurry vision is what caused him to think he saw tears in both of Kakashi’s eyes. “This is something we can’t fight.”
“We can try. Iruka, it’s not like you to just give up. Please don’t start now.”
“Why not?” He didn’t fight it as Kakashi pulled him close to his chest, and simply tried to resist the urge to cling to him with his sliced up hands. “Tsunade said I could have as little as weeks…”
“And that you could have as much as years. In either case, do you want to spend however long you have left in a state of misery? Do you think I want you to suffer like that? Wouldn’t it be so much better to hold on a fight for the happy moments you can have?”
Iruka laughed, a wet almost sob like sound. “I don’t want you to suffer because of me.”
“I won’t, as long as you let me stay beside you. I know it will be hard. I know it’s going to hurt when you…” Iruka could feel it as Kakashi’s voice caught in his throat, and the Jounin swallowed hard. “But I would rather be beside you, suffering with you, than forced away and suffering all the more because I can’t be where I belong.”
The brunette was clinging to Kakashi now, ignoring the pain in his mutilated hands. “I’m scared, ‘Kashi. Scared of accidentally causing you to suffer the same fate because I was stupid, careless…like today. Scared of leaving you, and Naruto, and everyone I care about. Scared of what’s going to happen when I…when I die.”
Kakashi’s chest stilled under his face for a moment as the Jounin inhaled sharply at the word, before slowly letting it out. One of his gloved hands found its way up to rest on the back of Iruka’s head, holding him in place as the Jounin rested his bare chin on his beloved’s head and lead him sob into his chest.
“I’m scared too, ‘Ruka.”
Surprised, the chuunin jerked back to stare up into his lover’s face. He could not deny the twin tracks of tears slowly sliding down the pale cheeks.
“I would die to protect you, and it scares me that I can. Do. Nothing.” Kakashi clenched his fists on his lap and his eyes shut tight as more tears fell. “I’m scared of going on without you there to help me when it’s all too much. Scared that I won’t be able to go back to how I used to be now that you’ve taught me how to really live.”
Those eyes opened again, and Iruka found himself captivated by the whirling spirals in the crimson orb, and the deep raw pain in the dark blue.
Kakashi’s voice was even as he spoke, no matter how fast the tears fell down his bare face. “But I would suffer this a thousand times over rather than never have you. Never,” the Jounin reached out his gloved hand, running it over the side of Iruka’s face, “never touch you again…never hold you…I couldn’t do that. Not now that I have you. I’m not going to let you go, ever. You’ll always live with me.”
Iruka was going to ask, anger rising like bile in his throat, how that was even possible when Kakashi carefully grabbed the chuunin’s wrist and pulled the bloodied hand up to his chest and rested it over the Jounin’s own racing heart.
“As long as this still exists, I promise you that I will not forget you and everything you mean to me. You’ve changed me…so much…Ru-my-ru. And the Gods themselves will not be able to take that from me.”
Iruka closed his eyes, resting his head so his ear was against Kakashi’s chest, the steady rhythm soothing for the moment the fears that were tearing his soul apart. “And I will never leave from right here, no matter what happens. I promise.”