Mission's Gift- Chapter Twelve

[kita_the_spaz]

Chapter Twelve

It felt like a forge had set up shopkeeping inside his head.  His skull rang with hammer blows as he cautiously cracked open an eye.  Iruka relaxed as he recognized his bedroom.  He was lying curled on his side and Shimo slept peacefully right beside him.  Had Shimo been colicky again?  That would account for both the pounding headache and Shimo being in here rather than in his cradle.  He reached out to touch the baby’s skin, wondering if he was running a fever.

The glint of silver on his ring finger brought the whole night crashing back and he twitched.  That slight movement made him suddenly and uncomfortably aware of the warm, breathing presence at his back and he froze.

“Awake now?”  Rumbled a deep and heartbreakingly familiar voice, right in his ear.

“Kakashi-sensei!”  Iruka sat up fast and then groaned and clutched his head.

“Here.”  A hand came into his line of sight, holding a glass of water.  He took it and the hand returned with a pair of white tablets.  He looked at them suspiciously.  “They’re over-the-counter painkillers.  I found them in your bathroom.”  Kakashi sounded amused.  That made Iruka decide it was worth the risk and he swallowed both pills.  Maybe, if they were poison, they’d kill him quickly and put him out of this misery.

He jerked as fingers touched an incredibly painful spot on his temple.  Iruka hissed and flinched.

“Sorry,”  Kakashi apologized.  “You gave yourself a good whack when you fell.  Hold still, I want to see if it’s stopped bleeding.”

Forcing himself to remain still, he endured the surprisingly gentle touches.  “Looks good.  You’re going to have a nasty bruise there, though.”

“Why are you here?”  Iruka gritted.  “Enough of this stupid game.”

“How many times do I have to tell you it’s not a game, before you believe me?”

Iruka squinted past the pain in his head to look up at Kakashi, sitting beside him on the futon.  “I’m not going to believe you.  Ever.”  Iruka rubbed the bridge of his nose, the thin line of scar tissue cool against his fingertips.  “You have the fucking council beat at manipulation.  I’ve never been so expertly played in all my life.”  His laughter had a harsh edge.  “So what’s next?  Are you going to take him from me?”

“I told you I wouldn’t take Shimo from you.  Why won’t you believe that?”

Iruka didn’t answer, picking up the sleeping baby and cradling him close to his chest.  He buried his nose in Shimo’s hair, and Kakashi was surprised to smell the salt tang of tears.  “I suppose it doesn’t matter, after all.”  Iruka murmured quietly, his voice small and broken.  “He’s safe from those bastards now, and that’s all I ever wished for.  After all, it does no good to yearn after what you can’t have.”

“Iruka…”  His voice made Iruka look up and those brown eyes were so dull and lifeless that it sent a pang through Kakashi’s chest.  He’d never seen the chuunin-sensei’s eyes so dead.  Not even when Iruka had been at Naruto’s bedside, worried that that boy wouldn’t wake from his disastrous encounter with Sasuke.  He hadn’t had the nerve to speak to Iruka then, sure that the blame for Naruto’s injuries could be laid squarely at his own feet.  He’d only dared to visit the boy when Iruka was gone.

“Why this, Kakashi-sensei?  Why are you doing this?”

“I would do anything to keep Shimo safe.”  He thought that might ease the dull color of Iruka’s eyes, but if anything, it did the exact opposite.  It hurt to see eyes like that in something that wasn’t a lifeless corpse.

“Of course.  I should have known better.”  Iruka fixed his dulled gaze on the infant in his arms.  “I think I’d like you to leave now, Kakashi-sensei.”

“No.”

For a second anger brought life back to that dead expression.  That small defiance lasted only an instant, but it assured the copy-nin that the real Iruka was in there somewhere.  “I’m not leaving until we’ve talked.”

Iruka managed a credible imitation of his usual snort.  “That would be new.”

“Meh?”

“We don’t talk.  Most of our conversations wind up being arguments.  You can’t deny that.”

“No.”  Kakashi wasn’t sure whether to be taken aback by Iruka’s blunt tone or amused by the truth of his statement.  He settled on something somewhere in the middle.  “But this time I think we have to.”

“It’s a little late for pre-marriage counseling or discussion.  Last I heard, we were already married.”  Iruka stared at the play of light on the ring on his finger.  The band wasn’t new and looked like it had been well-worn, tiny scratches marring the dully gleaming surface.

“It was my father’s.”

Iruka jerked his head up to stare at the jounin.  “What?”

“The ring.  It was my father’s wedding band.  He wore it constantly after mother died when I was just a child.  The one and only time he ever took it off was the night he died.  I found it in a box with hers on his desk.”  Kakashi lifted his hand and displayed the ring on his own finger.  His single eye looked melancholy.  “I’m wearing hers.”

Iruka was taken aback and looked at the ring in this new light.   He’d never thought Kakashi could be sentimental about anything.  Even when he’d found out about the copy-nin’s daily visits to the memorial, he’d mentally classified it as duty and loyalty that drew the man there.

Tentatively, he reached out and touched the band on Kakashi’s hand.  The jounin let Iruka pull his hand close to look at the rings side by side.  “I’m sorry.”  The apology was so soft that Kakashi barely heard it.  But the damp eyes that looked up at him had lost that dead look and regained something that he might have termed hope.  “I’ve been so scared, ever since the day I overheard Sankakukei in Tsunade-sama’s office.  I’m not a brave man, Kakashi-sensei.  I’m a little bit of a coward, I think, though for Shimo’s sake I would fight the entire village.  I’ve been scared of losing him since the first time I walked back into the gates with him in my arms.  I’ve been scared of your reaction to the truth about his birth.  I’ve been terrified that you would hate me.”  Iruka’s voice wavered and he looked down to hide fresh tears.  “I didn’t think I could stand it if you hated me too.”

“Too…?”  Kakashi managed, more than a little startled by Iruka’s sudden apology and confession.

Iruka laughed weakly.  “What’s Naruto going to think when he comes back home to find out that I have a baby?  He’ll hate me if he finds out the truth.”

“No!”  Kakashi’s forcefulness startled the chuunin and he blinked up at Kakashi.  “You’re a fool if you believe that, Iruka.  Naruto… you mean the world to him.  He always told me that he was trying so hard to be the best so that you would be proud of him.  Your opinion of him counts more than anyone else’s.”

Iruka shivered a little, but his bowed back was slowly straightening.  Kakashi decided to elaborate, hoping to return Iruka to the strong man who’d openly defied him.  “You remember that mission where he picked up that awful fever?  He was still sick when we got back from Wave country.”  At Iruka’s tentative nod, he went on.  “When the fever first hit him, it was really high, so bad we had to give him cool baths in the river to bring it down some.  Sakura and I took shifts watching over him while he slept.  He would dream horrible fever-dreams that would wake him screaming.  He always called out for you.  Once he called you Iruka-otousan.”

Red stained Iruka’s cheeks as he stared at Kakashi.  “He did?”

Kakashi nodded and watched as Iruka slumped.  He’d have thought something was wrong, but the chuunin graced him with a smile so wide it was blinding.  “Thank you for that, Kakashi-sensei.”

“Mah, it’s only the truth.”   Kakashi risked a grin behind his mask.  “You think we can talk now without you trying to kill me or maim me?”

Iruka met his gaze and nodded, leaning back against the pillows with Shimo still cradled to his chest.  He hummed softly to settle the sleepily stirring infant.  Kakashi was pleased to see the life had returned to those chocolate eyes.

Iruka sighed, looking down at Shimo.  “What do you want to talk about?  If it’s the life-partnership, we can go our separate ways, and go about life the same way we always have.  You can come and train Shimo and spend time with him whenever you wish.”

Kakashi tipped his head.  “Don’t you think, considering that you had already filed change of residency papers, the council might find it odd that we continue to maintain separate residences?”

“I filed?  I’d still like to know how my signature got on those papers!”  Iruka snapped, his cheeks flushed red.  “I’m relatively certain I would have remembered signing a life-partnership agreement.  Minus the giving birth to a son, I haven’t had any real life-altering events occur, so there are no gaps in my memory in which I might have been drugged and forced to sign papers.”

Kakashi flushed and Iruka watched in fascination as the red crept up over the edge of the mask.  The jounin sheepishly scratched the back of his head.  “Ah, here’s where we run into a bit of a gray area…”

He was fixed by the schoolteacher-look-of-absolute-doom. “Explain.”

“Well, you had already been called before the council and we didn’t have a lot of time to come up with a solution.  Did you know that Sakura can forge your name?  I wouldn’t be surprised if she knew how to forge the old lady’s official seal and stamp.  Tsunade called her in to put your signature on those papers.”

Iruka looked mortified, the fingers of his free hand clenching on the leaf-patterned comforter.  “Sakura-chan is in on this?”

“Meh, if it helps, I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know the whole story.”

Iruka’s glare promised a slow and painful death that probably involved boiling oil and a funnel, or at least an anthill and a liberal application of honey.  “Sakura-chan was the brains of the three on your team.  What makes you think she hasn’t figured it all out by now?”  He went on, visibly seething.  “And what she doesn’t know, she can find out.  She is Tsunade-sama’s apprentice!”

“Iruka.”

Iruka flinched and had to remind himself that according to Kakashi’s (admittedly loose) view on things, the man had every right to drop any honorific.  It was yet another reminder that he was trapped by a nightmare version of a long-held dream.

Kakashi caught the twitch and sighed under his mask.  Iruka was too used to thinking of him as the enemy.  “Iruka, we’ll both go to any extreme to protect Shimo.  I think working this out would be a good way to start.  Like it or not, in the eyes of that horde of old bats, we’re life-partners.  If we give them reason to doubt that, they’ll look for another opportunity to take Shimo away.  And next time they might wait until I’m out of the village to try it.”

Iruka shuddered and had to force himself not to tighten his hold on his son.  “I’d fight.”

“And lose.”  Kakashi’s voice was blunt.  “Not to doubt your skills, Iruka, because I’ve got the injuries to prove those, but the council can afford to hire men who’ll be more than happy to kill you for money.  And you won’t be able to stop them all.”  He grimaced.  “And knowing that flock of carrion crows, they’ll be more than happy to use it as an excuse to start another damned war.  Even though they know we’re short on manpower, thy still want to prove our strength to the other nations, and that will get us all killed if we don’t stop them.”

Iruka trembled but looked up.  “I’m trapped into this aren’t I?”

This time it was Kakashi’s turn to flinch.  “I’m not trying to trap you, only to tell the truth of the matter.”

Shimo chose that moment to wake with a cranky cry.  “He needs changing.”  Iruka rose and carried the infant over to the low dresser that dominated one corner of his small bedroom.  Kakashi watched Iruka deftly strip Shimo, his hands sure and steady.  His voice was so low Kakashi could barely hear it as Iruko opened a drawer to pull out a diaper and powder.  “But I am trapped.”  He whispered as he made short work of cleaning the baby and diapering him.  “I’m trapped in a gilded cage.  But under the gold and the glitter, the bars are cold iron.”

He didn’t look back as he carried Shimo down the hallway.  The sight of that painfully stiff back made Kakashi wince and he followed.  Iruka ignored him as he heated a bottle for Shimo and fed the baby.  When he looked back at Kakashi, his eyes were world-weary and sad, and looked like the chuunin was one step away from wearing that frighteningly dead look again.

“I can’t.”  He said simply.  “I can’t pretend to a relationship where there isn’t one.  I can’t be content with that, not even for Shimo’s sake.”  He smiled.  “It’s a very pretty dream you offer me, Kakashi, but it’s still a hollow one.”

He turned his back and went into the living room, where he sat on the couch, cradling Shimo.  “I’ll die to protect him.  I hope you won’t, because he’ll need you there to teach him.”

Kakashi was stunned.  Iruka spoke so casually of throwing away everything, of taking the same coward’s path out that Sakumo had!  He resisted the urge to shake the chuunin out of his apathetic state.  Iruka seemed to sense what he was thinking and met his eyes, one corner of his mouth coming up in a sad little smile.  “I won’t dishonor this ring by taking the easy path out.  I will fight to save him from the council.  They’ll kill me, but it will cost them.”

“Don’t!”  Kakashi’s voice felt strangely thick in his throat.  “Fight to save him by staying alive to raise him.”

Iruka’s smile was as sad and tired as his eyes had been.  “You’re not a fool, Kakashi-sensei.  I don’t want the pretty wrappings, I want the dream.  I want to be your life-partner, but not if it’s an empty sham made to fool the council.  Why do you think I volunteered to have him?  Because I thought he was all of you that I might ever get.  And I was satisfied with that, right up until the day you broke my jaw.”

Iruka’s laugh was sharp as broken glass.  “And there you were, wanting in his life… and mine by default.  The dream became a nightmare.”

“You…”

“Are a fool for loving the unattainable Copy-nin?  I already knew that.”  Iruka smiled bitterly.  “I fell in love with a dream, but the more I got to know the man, the deeper I fell.  But I knew you would never be mine.  It was there every damned time I saw you with that damnable orange book in your hand, proof that I would never be something you wanted.  And oddly enough, Umi was the final nail in the coffin of my dreams.”  His voice was angry now.  “I managed to kill my dreams as surely as if I had used a kunai.”

Kakashi could only stare, his normally glib tongue long ago deserting him.  It took three tries to manage, “What?”

Iruka deflated, his anger draining away.  “Damn you,” He whispered.  “Damn you for being something I could never have.”

“You…”  Kakashi was stunned.  He felt as if he’d taken the worst of an exploding tag to the back of the head.  He’d never thought of the chuunin-sensei that way.  Kami, he’d barely thought of the man much at all!

Iruka’s sudden laughter was dry and bitter, sharp enough to leave wounds.  “Yep.  Umino Iruka. The idiot who fell hard for the infamous Sharingan Kakashi; the man of a thousand Jutsus - the man who reads porn in public.  I’m a fool who fell in love with someone who barely knows me from the next Mission room worker.”  He cradled Shimo closer, his voice oddly broken, as if he were swallowing back sobs.  “I gave up my life and for Hokage’s Sake… even my gender, to bear a child by you!”

Shimo squalled in protest at the too-tight embrace and Iruka gasped, his tanned face going pale.  He relaxed his hold so quickly that Shimo, squirming, nearly slipped from his grip.  Kakashi sat beside the chuunin and reached over to steady the baby.  To his surprise,  Iruka sighed and released Shimo into his hands.  Kakashi pulled the baby close to his chest as Iruka looked away, his posture wounded and defensive.

The copy-nin looked down into bright brown eyes in an open, trusting face and felt a part of his heart (a part he thought had died long ago with his sensei) warm and swell.  Tiny fingers gripped his own pale, scarred ones and something in him broke, releasing a flood of tenderness for Shimo.  His son.

He caught Iruka watching him with a yearning gaze and a wistful half-smile.  He was surprised by the relief that expression brought him.  It had hurt to see Iruka so anguished.  It had hurt.  Pausing, Kakashi considered that truth.  He looked down at the baby in his arms, watching absently as those tiny fingers gripped strongly at his hand.  He found a smile curving his lips at the strength in the infant grasp.

He had never given a thought to having children, too focused on being the deadly Copy-nin of Konohagure.  But now that Shimo was here, in his arms, he couldn’t imagine not having him there.  And Iruka had given that to him.  Sure, it had involved a web of deceit and lies, but… the end result was more than he ever could have imagined.

Solemnly he looked up into that yearning, half-hopeful face.  He imagined never seeing that smile again and felt a pang.  “I don’t love you, Iruka.”  He said at last.  “Until Shimo came into my life, I wasn’t sure that I was still capable of loving anyone.”

Observing the sudden pained look that twisted those scarred brown features, he knew the truth.  “I don’t love you yet, Iruka.  But I think I could learn to.  No…”  He corrected himself.  “I know I could learn.  With you it would be easy.”

A slow shudder passed through Iruka’s lean frame and suddenly, he was the man he’d been a year ago; the cheerful teacher with a ready smile… not the slightly bitter, sarcastic and sad creature who had confronted him in a street over Shimo.  His brown eyes welled with tears, but he didn’t let them fall.  His smile was blinding and Kakashi was suddenly sure he had been wrong.  He couldn’t learn to love the chuunin… because he was already falling.

Iruka reached out to tentatively touch his masked cheek, still smiling that watery, joyous smile.  “I’d like that, Kakashi.  I think I’d like that very much.”

Kakashi settled Shimo firmly into the curve of his folded legs and reached up to take the Chuunin’s hand in his own.  He felt the press of cold metal and thought, maybe it’s not the way I would have ever imagined it, but I think I understand now.  I think I understand what it means to be part of a family.  Maybe if we had remained a family after mother’s death, you wouldn’t have chosen the way out you did, Father.  And maybe that’s as much my own fault as yours.

Taking a deep breath, he reached up and tugged down the dark fabric that had covered his face since the night his father had committed suicide, baring his face.  Iruka’s eyes lit up and wondering fingers traced across features kept hidden from the sun for a very, very long time.  Kakashi had always hated looking at his own face in the mirror, reminded inescapably of Sakumo and his disgrace.  But the look in Iruka’s eyes didn’t share that hatred.  He only saw the face of the man he loved, and somehow that tore open wounds he’d thought gone long ago and started them healing.  I think, Father, I found the right person to wear your ring.  He will never disgrace it.

Iruka smiled and cupped his jaw.  “May I kiss you, Kakashi?”

“Yes.”  They were both smiling now, and Kakashi couldn’t help but think that this was what he’d been missing all along.