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The birds sing loud and unfettered in the dusk and Iruka wills himself to stay calm. Between them, the wind, and the thundering in his chest, he struggles to concentrate on everything all at once. So he focuses on what matters.
Naruto’s hand is warm and clammy. Even with gloves on Iruka worries how easily Naruto could slip through his fingers like this, so he’s holding onto Naruto tightly. Furiously. With all the furious conviction he wishes Kakashi would’ve held onto their hands with.
If it’s causing Naruto pain, he doesn’t say anything, just curls the tips of his small, timid fingers over the edge of Iruka’s gloved hand as best as he can as they run.
The woods smell like nothing but moss and wildflowers and while the sweetness of it makes his stomach churn, it’s a good cover. The damply carpeted floor cushions their footsteps just enough that the rustling of the treetops obscures them into silence.
If it were anyone else after them Iruka would be confident they’re unassailable here, miles from the beaten path that leads back to the village—but it isn’t anyone else. It’s Kakashi. And in all their hundreds of perilous missions, Iruka can count on one hand the number of times Kakashi had ever lost a trail.
It’s sour, the way the things Iruka most admired about Kakashi are now being used against him, but it is what it is. Kakashi can’t be more than half an hour behind, at most.
Iruka’s legs twitch with the need to go faster, muscles locking with the effort not to. The most effective route would be up the tree trunks, navigating the overhanging branches. Height advantage and wider range of vision. But Naruto’s legs barely reach up to Iruka’s knees, and Iruka hasn’t taught him how to push extra chakra through them to make them go faster, much less jump the canopies.
It’s fine though. It’s fine. Iruka’s considered this. He’s already assessed the situation—hasn’t stopped doing so since the moment he picked up Kakashi’s proximity, and he’s got strategies and counter-strategies for every way this could play out. Whatever disadvantage they have in speed is made up for by the fact Iruka knows these woods like the palm of his calloused hand.
Barrier, barrier, explosion, tracking, double explosion—he catalogues the tags as they flit past. More for comfort than precaution, really. Scrupulously carved into the maple trees and honeycombed across the earth, the long-embedded chakra threads light up in his head, mapping out a maze of traps and barriers so intricate even Kakashi would struggle to get through.
Struggle.
Iruka bites his tongue to keep his jaw from clenching, digs his nails into the meat of the palm that isn’t pressed against Naruto’s.
Just a little longer. Behind the thicket, through the hollow of the tree, and they’ll be at the safehouse. Iruka might not have Kakashi’s brute strength or speed, but he’s cunning, and prepared. He’s the only person besides Anko who knows of this place, this fortified haven, and if he can just get them there and lock the wards—
Naruto’s sniffles break through the careful quiet and Iruka squeezes his hand just a little bit tighter. Just for a second. Just to let him know he’s there, and that he loves him, and that it’s going to be okay. He’s going to be okay.
It isn’t much by ways of comfort, but it’s the best he can do. It’s true, at least. When Kakashi finds them—and he will, Iruka can cast barrier after barrier but it will only delay the inevitable—Iruka knows he can’t win… but Kakashi can lose.
Still, knowing it would all come to a head eventually did nothing to keep his heart from beating overtime. It had never known to do anything else when it came to Kakashi.
Kakashi, with his too-pale skin and too-long limbs. Kakashi, who swore forever then left like it was the easiest thing in the world.
Iruka can’t hear a thing through the blood pounding through his ears, so he relents, closing his eyes to think better—to see better.
The world spins as it comes into focus.
Behind closed eyelids the forest illuminates inside his head and Iruka scans their surroundings as far as his range will allow. Faint traces of chakra dust the dense woods, and the forest floor lights up as the dry leaves crackle under their feet, chakra shimmering off them in waves like a pebble dropped in still water. It’s beautiful, and haunting, and hazes off into an endless black at the nebulous fringes of Iruka’s vision.
Before he can sense Kakashi.
Iruka opens his eyes to flashbacks of countless after-dark sessions in training ground 17; dodging shuriken, and kunai, and jutsu he’d never even heard of, honing his sensor abilities because Kakashi thought—because Kakashi believed—Iruka could make it to the upper ranks.
There was a time when Iruka could pick up Kakashi’s chakra blindfolded, from a mile away, pick him out from a crowd like a white rabbit in a snowstorm. But they’ve come a long way since the days of Fox and Hound and their long, high-stakes missions on the field together, braving thunderstorms and infiltrating enemy lines; always had each other’s back, never one without the other.
There was a time when Kakashi’s chakra burned bright and unequivocal in his mind every time Iruka closed his eyes, like his very own north star that always led him home. But Kakashi’s not his homeland anymore, just a renegade. A renegade that doesn’t know how to leave well-enough alone.
The wards haven’t pinged but even from a distance Iruka can tell their integrity’s been compromised, and he curses himself inwardly for ever teaching Kakashi how to dismantle barriers undetectably.
Because that’s the thing. Iruka never learnt how to love without giving all of himself away. All he knows is share, share, share, and love. Kakashi had stuck around for a minute and Iruka’s brain got tricked into thinking it meant something.
Except it wasn’t a minute.
Iruka remembers—as clear in his mind as the sky was dark—the night an ANBU had shown up in the middle of the night while Iruka lay Naruto to rest on a modest futon—the only piece of furniture Iruka’d been able to afford after moving out of the orphanage.
He’d kept his eyes shut and breath steady for all of 10 seconds the blurry figure had perched on the windowsill, gloved hand pressed against the glass; and in the morning he’d woken up achy and tense from the force with which he’d gripped onto the kunai beneath his pillow all night.
He remembers the shock in the single startlingly black eye when Iruka had hunted down the ANBU’s chakra signature and confronted him in the street the following morning, all baleful threats and impudent accusations, and the heart-stopping second of dread when all the boy—because that was what he was, a boy—had replied was ‘I don’t think a newly minted chunin has the clearance level to know who I am.’
Iruka, foolhardy and tempestuous as ever, had yelled at him to mind his business.
They kissed, for the first time, atop Hokage Mountain years later. Feet dangling over the edge, Iruka had thrown his head back laughing with euphoria at the absurdity of it all—he, Umino Iruka, was officially an ANBU. And Kakashi had pinned him back and kissed him silly, told him he knew Iruka could make it since the very first day they met, just two dumb teenagers in love.
And maybe that’s always been Iruka’s problem, too quick to love, too fast to fall.
Now Iruka wishes he could take his ANBU mask off. The red markings on either side of his mask, painted on by Kakashi himself—It’s a fox. You know, sharp mind and even sharper tongue. It’s perfect for you.—make him feel like he’s being made to perform in some poorly written play. The fox and his cub, being hunted by the hound. Groundbreaking.
But he can’t risk it. The ANBU mask has to stay on. Because for all that Iruka doesn’t think Naruto remembers Kakashi, he knows Naruto remembers his teachings. Never abandon the people you love. Protect them with your life. Tch, hypocrite. But he knows Naruto took them to heart, and that he’d never leave Iruka behind if he knew it was him under the mask, not even if his life depended on it.
He’s noble like that, and foolish.
They’re still a little under a mile away when a ward flutters almost imperceptibly—almost, and Iruka grinds to a halt, pulling Naruto back into his side and getting into defensive position. Kakashi’s slipped up and it’s like the entire forest comes to a standstill, only the slow fall of dust floating in the moonlight to indicate it hasn’t.
“Fox-san,” Naruto whimpers, tiny and distressed. His stubby little fingers clutch nervously at the fabric of Iruka’s trousers.
Iruka moves Naruto in front of him and places a hand protectively over his chest. Naruto looks up at him and it’s—it’s like they’re back in the orphanage.
It takes everything in Iruka not to take his mask off; crouch down to ground level and hug Naruto tightly to his chest, let him know the person protecting him loves him more than anything in the world. But he doesn’t.
Instead, Iruka looks into those big blue eyes through the thin slits of his mask, brings two fingers up to where his lips would be and motions for silence. The kunai tucked neatly between them poised and ready to defend.
He doesn’t dare blink, let alone close his eyes long enough to use his chakra sense. Kakashi moves like a shadow, but Iruka knows he’s there, he can feel him. And he isn’t going to risk Kakashi taking advantage of the fraction-of-a-second interruption to Iruka’s vision.
Kakashi moves like a shadow but he can’t hide from Iruka. Not this close. Not when Iruka can practically smell the acrid stench of selfishness and betrayal. Kakashi’s nearby. Somewhere, back against a tree trunk, or balanced nimbly in the leafy branches, or…
Iruka flashes through the hand seals and stomps a foot on the ground, casting a barrier underneath him and Naruto, for good measure.
The screech of Iruka’s innermost ward has Iruka spinning just in time to launch the kunai. It clinks as it collides with the senbon shooting straight towards Naruto, both pieces of metal rebounding with a dull thud to the dirt. And in that split-second diversion Kakashi pounces, body sailing through the air so fast the cape draped over his shoulders billows in the air.
Iruka pushes Naruto out of the way as far as he can in the direction of the safehouse.
“Run,” he calls, the word barely getting out before Kakashi’s forearms slams against his throat.
Iruka hurries through his options as they fall backwards together through the air, hands clamped down over Kakashi’s bare biceps as he pivots between trying to push him off and holding him in place. Kakashi wouldn’t fall for a substitution jutsu, or a body flicker, and he can’t let go of Kakashi or else he’d jump for Naruto. He braces himself for the inevitable blow.
Iruka’s head hits the ground so hard his mask slips off, and all at once it becomes too much.
Kakashi’s ever-dark and all-consuming eyes meet Iruka’s, and Iruka’s feeling light-headed from the fall, or maybe from the steady spin of the tomoes, and his palms burn where they meet the still-warm arms that used to wrap over his shoulders after too much time apart, and—
“I missed you,” he says, before his brain catches up with his heart.
Iruka feels corded muscles tense under his touch. It’s bittersweet; the way Kakashi’s eyes widen in bewilderment, like he’d sooner expected Iruka to run a katana through his chest.
In the non-existent space between them, Iruka watches as the corners of Kakashi’s eyes soften into something strange and indescribable. And because Iruka’s spent enough days coming to terms with his spite and his tears, he doesn’t hesitate when Kakashi’s press on his throat weakens.
“Run!” he shouts, with what little air remains in his lungs, twisting in Kakashi’s loose grasp and rolling onto his stomach.
He weaves through the seals with a speed born solely through experience and pushes an open palm through the air towards Naruto. A translucent purple wall bursts from the ground at his feet, pushing Naruto back and onto his butt.
Naruto scrambles back onto his feet, face blanches at the dawning realisation of the sudden turn of events. Iruka knows the barrier won’t hold up for long, it’s ugly work at best, but if Naruto makes a break for it—
“Mask-san!” Naruto screams, fists banging against the feeble wall. Iruka curses inwardly because it’s nothing less than he expected. “Mask-san, wait! Stop!”
“I said run!” Iruka shouts back, chin digging into the dirt from where Kakashi’s pinning him down, his lapse in nerve short-lived. Iruka struggles to free his hands, now jammed back between his shoulder blades, held down by Kakashi’s rough hands.
“Naruto, I—” And it’s much too soft, much too familiar, and Iruka feels his blood run hot at the very notion that Kakashi still deigns to speak to him.
“That’s an order!” Iruka roars, voice towering easily over Kakashi’s faint tone. But Naruto doesn’t listen.
Instead Iruka watches as Naruto’s eyebrows pinch together, mouth opening and closing like a fish before he shakes his head and presses his face to the cloudy barrier like he can’t believe what he’s seeing.
“What are you doing?” Naruto shrieks, hands splayed against the barrier. “Mask-san, please, that’s—that’s my—that’s my dad!”
And Iruka doesn’t even have time to process that, because for the second time since Kakashi pounced on him, Iruka feels him falter.
It’s instinctive at this point. Iruka lets his body go slack, slips the senbon from his sleeve and rolls beneath Kakashi’s lax grip before reaching out a hand to yank him in by the chest. Basic training takes over. Go for the trachea, pierce straight through to the carotid. Iruka calibrates his aim as the senbon whistles through the air and—
And then Kakashi glances down and it’s unfair. Kakashi glances down with his stupid dark eyes, and his stupid flushed cheeks, and his stupid, stupid soft grey hair that’s begging for Iruka’s hands to run through it, and it’s unfair. Because those eyes—those beautiful, heavenly, traitorous eyes—those eyes should come with a warning.
“Did you miss me?” he asks. Because he can’t help himself. Because he wants to know. And because it leaves Kakashi dumbfounded just long enough for Iruka to switch gears.
He slams his hand down into the dirt; channels all the chakra circulating in his right arm to the heart of his palm and thrusts. Iruka shivers as the chakra pours out of his body and into the chakra threads embedded underground.
The forest shakes as the turf cracks. The translucent purple wall thickens and distends across the forest floor, and it’s a delight, really, to watch the way Kakashi flushes almost as red as his sharingan. His head darts in all different directions, looking from one tree to another, but it’s too late now. Even with his sharingan.
The barrier surges over them, tearing through the branches in its way as it domes over the pair and shielding a startled Naruto off for good.
Iruka looks Kakashi up and down and basks in the pure shock on his face. Carefully and painstakingly designed, for once, Iruka has the upper hand in this game of bittersweet betrayal.
He lets his eyelashes flutter shut, and laughs. A soft, indulgent laugh that’s been waiting two years to be heard.
Around him the landscape settles into an arcane scene of brilliant blues and temperate blue-greys, soft and alive, and full of well-placed tags that Iruka maps the borders of comfortingly.
Even like this Kakashi is pretty. Lucent and golden, and not quite the same as it used to be, but soothing all the same. Iruka allows himself just one moment to pretend like Kakashi never left him, just one moment to pretend the shock on Kakashi’s face is tender pride.
“It’s a labyrinth, Kakashi,” he says, when the gratification gives way to melancholy. He can feel the heat on his face and bites the inside of his cheek to keep himself from crying. “When you left I—I didn’t know what to do with myself. Three years, Kakashi. Three years I loved you, every single day. It was real for me.”
“Iruka, please.” Kakashi’s voice is low and steady, but with his hand like this, clutching the fabric of Kakashi’s vest just over his sternum, Iruka can feel the way Kakashi’s heart stutters and it just makes no sense.
None of it has. Not why Kakashi came after them, not why Kakashi hesitates, not why Kakashi left.
“No, you owe me an explanation, Kakashi,” Iruka snaps back as he locks eyes with Kakashi, searching, trying to find an explanation in the gaze that meets his. But Kakashi doesn’t even try to retaliate and the truth of it makes something in his chest squeeze uncomfortably.
“I thought we told each other everything. I thought I had you figured out,” he presses, but Kakashi only stiffens further under Iruka’s grasp and it’s excruciating—being so aware of Kakashi’s indifference.
Because for all of Kakashi’s haughty appearance and prickly attitude, Iruka does know Kakashi. Knows him well enough to tell from the way he holds his breath that it’s fake, fake, fake. But then Kakashi looks away and whatever unspoken dialogue they were having shatters like glass.
“I’m sorry, Iruka. Please, just let me take Naruto.” Iruka just blinks at him; at his side-profile since Kakashi’s too much of a coward to face him, apparently.
Sorry?
And it was a miracle his composure had even lasted this long in the first place. Because Iruka—much to Kakashi’s now infuriatingly accurate observation in their first ever conversation—had never learnt how not to wear his heart on his sleeve.
Sorry?
His anger, which had cooled from a blaze to spitting embers, lights up again with all the rage of a thousand suns.
“Sorry?” he sneers. He doesn’t miss the way Kakashi flinches at the tone. “Sorry for what, Kakashi? Sorry for the way you packed your shit and left without so much as a warning? A goodbye? For the way we woke up one day and you were just gone?”
“For—”
“For the way I had to report you missing to the Sandaime Hokage, put my career on the line as I demanded we organise a search-and-rescue mission only to be told less than a week later that you’d joined the fucking Akatsuki?”
Kakashi’s breath hitches in that way Iruka learnt many years ago means he doesn’t understand what’s going on, like his brain’s short-circuiting after a calculated move fails. And maybe that’s it. It has to be. Surely—surely—if Kakashi had known just how much it’d hurt, they wouldn’t be here right now.
“Tell me the truth, Kakashi. If you loved us, why did you leave?”
And there’s this urge to just reach up and hook his finger on the seam of his mask, pull it down and kiss him right here. Kiss him like nothing ever happened, like Kakashi never left, like Iruka didn’t just spend two years searching for a sign that Kakashi still cared—but he restrains himself.
Combats any thoughts of pulling his mask down and kissing him right here with the fact that, for all his ruthless intellect, Kakashi manages to scrounge up exactly zero worthwhile explanations. Iruka’s the one to look away this time.
Naruto’s picked up the discarded kunai from before and taken to stabbing at the barrier. Iruka feels his eyes well up.
Any minute now, either Iruka will run out of chakra and lose consciousness; or Kakashi will find the guts to finish what he started and materialise the kunai that’s been lodged in Iruka’s heart ever since Kakashi left.
Either way, what Kakashi doesn’t know is that if Iruka goes down, they go down, together. Because when his chakra stops feeding the collapsing barrier it’ll have no choice but to consume itself, shrinking until both he and Kakashi are pressed out of existence.
It’s Iruka’s very own ultimate seal.
Naruto… Naruto will be fine. He’ll inherit the house, and the trust fund Iruka’s been making payments towards ever since he ranked ANBU. There should be enough to get him through the Academy, if he wanted to become a ninja. He doesn’t have to, of course, it’s totally up to him, but if Iruka isn’t around anymore he’ll need—he’ll need to learn to protect himself. Anko would probably step in—and Tenzo. Maybe even Gai… but still, Iruka knows the way the villagers look at Naruto when they pass by, what if—what if—
“I left because I loved you.” The words, if they’re spoken at all, are spoken right as a tear drops against Iruka’s cheek, and he freezes. “Leaving you was the hardest thing I ever did,” Kakashi says quietly.
And Iruka watches stunned as Kakashi crumbles; watches as he takes a deep, shaky breath and the core muscles that’d been holding him up in a half-plank over Iruka relax, and Kakashi falls back onto the knees that still bracket Iruka, rests his hands against them and lets his head hang between hunched shoulders.
For all the effort Iruka put in trying to forget him, he’s still as breathtakingly beautiful as he remembered him to be. The placid moonlight that filters through the barrier turns his hair a silver colour, casts soft shadows over his face, and makes the short stretch of teartracks glisten.
“Then why did you?” Iruka hears himself ask, sits up so they’re at face-level. If he leaned in just a bit he could brush a kiss to the crown of Kakashi’s hair, and he’s tempted to, but he doesn’t.
“Because I love you,” Kakashi repeats, finally lifting his head so they’re face-to-face. And this time it’s not a whisper, this time the words are loud and clear and hang heavy in the air between them.
Iruka’s breath catches in his throat and he freezes. Like all those many nights ago, the first time Kakashi showed up at Iruka’s window. Iruka doesn’t move a muscle, too afraid any sudden movement will have Kakashi running away, again.
“I left because I had to do what was right. I couldn’t stand it anymore, Iruka. I couldn’t stand the way this village treats its orphans, treats its ninja. I couldn’t stand the way it treated us. We were children, Iruka.
“We were children, in Bingo Books, going on back-to-back missions we sometimes weren’t even expected to come back from. We were children raising the Yondaime’s son, my sensei’s toddler son, while everyone in the village treated him like he was some sort of monster instead of an unwilling hero.
“Don’t you get it, Iruka?” Up close Iruka can see the way Kakashi’s mask crinkles at the mouth, like he’s biting his lip. “Naruto’s been in Bingo Books since the day he was born. There was a major, ninja criminal organisation after him and what was anybody doing? What was The Leaf doing? I couldn’t stay at home playing perfect little soldier while there were people out there hunting down the people I loved. I had to do something.”
“But I missed you. Of course I did, how can you even ask? Not a second goes by that I don’t think of you, and Naruto, and your smiles, and your laughter. I came back for Naruto because I needed him with me. I needed to keep him safe. I don’t think you know how terrifying it is, to love the two of you so much and know any day something could happen to you.”
Iruka does, he thinks, because it must feel something like being sent on week-long missions and leaving Naruto home alone, or like every day for the past two years.
“I would’ve gone with you, you know. If you’d told me. I would’ve followed you to the end of the world.” The admission—confession?—slips past his lips without permission, but Iruka’s pulse beats heavy and strong.
“I know. I know and I—I know I broke your heart but I—” Kakashi’s voice quivers and he stops. Shuts his eyes, and takes a sharp inhale through the nose before opening them again. “I can put it back together if you give me a chance.”
Iruka’s only human.
Iruka Umino’s only human and Kakashi Hatake’s eyes are dark, dark, so dark, like the sky before a merciless storm. He tugs Kakashi down, hooks his finger into Kakashi’s mask and presses their lips together, with force and without finesse. It’s everything he’s ever needed.
***
It’s a warm and humid break of dawn, all things considered. The smell of smoked fish fills the air and Kakashi watches as Iruka offers one to Naruto only for him to huff and turn away. He looks adorable like that, arms crossed and pouting, like they didn’t just spend the last hour up to their knees in river water catching fish the old school way because Naruto was going to wake up hungry but all they had was ration bars and chakra depletion.
Iruka sighs a big, dramatic sigh and props the skewered fish against Naruto’s leg before walking back to check on the other smoking fish. Kakashi catches his eye as he goes and the corners of Iruka lips tug upward ever so softly as he turns to tend to the fire.
Kakashi really shouldn’t, but he lifts the headband tied over his sharingan anyways, just long enough to take it all in.
“He’s as stubborn as you are, Kakashi. I thought I told you to rest,” Iruka says, sitting cross-legged on the Akatsuki cape they’ve set up as a blanket. Kakashi’s knee tingles where it brushes against Iruka’s, and he slides the headband back down sheepishly.
“I reckon he takes after you, ‘Ru.” Kakashi chuckles softly as he picks up one of the fish skewers Iruka placed on his lap. “Is he still mad at us for ‘leaving him to the bears while we stared at each other and blushed in the safety of our bubble for five whole minutes’?”
“YES,” Naruto says emphatically as he marches over and plops down gracelessly in front of them. “Was it really necessary to lock me out while you two just stared at each other!? I didn’t know what was going on! You can’t hear a thing through that wall!” Naruto complains. “And besides, I can’t believe you”—he takes a big bite of his fish and uses the stick to point at Iruka—”didn’t tell me you were an ANBU!” Iruka winces slightly. “And you”—Naruto swallows his food, narrows his eyes and turns the stick towards Kakashi. Kakashi gulps—”you didn’t tell me who you really were that day you broke into our house!”
“What?” Iruka jerks around with a withering glare. Definitely takes after Iruka, he thinks, as he wilts under their combined gaze.
Kakashi chuckles nervously, reaches a hand to the nap of his neck and tries to loosen up his rapidly tensing muscles. They already ache enough as it is.
“I didn’t break in,” he tries, even though he definitely did. “I went back to pick a few things up. I didn’t think anyone would be home. Naruto was very nice about it though, apologised for trying to stab me with a shuriken and everything.”
“Yeah well that’s ‘cause I thought you were Iruka’s friend, from the pictures. If I knew you were—”
“What pictures?” Kakashi interrupts, both curious and eager to change the topic.
From the corner of his eye he can see the way Iruka straightens up immediately, eyes widening as he shakes his head at Naruto, making furtive little motions for him to stop. Naruto, however, seems to have let go of his indignation in favour of inspecting the surprisingly juicy fish.
“The ones nii-chan keeps in his bedside drawer,” he says and takes another big bite off the fish.
Beside him Iruka’s face turns a scarlet red as he mutters about ‘missing pans’ and ‘I knew someone messed with the wards’ and ‘thought I told him not to talk to strangers’.
“You kept pictures?” Kakashi can’t help the smile, small and private behind his mask, that makes its way onto his face.
And as he watches Iruka reach into the hidden inner pocket of his grey flak jacket and pull out a barely crinkled piece of paper, Kakashi’s chest fills with something pleasant and fuzzy. Because for all of Kakashi’s reckless urge to move, there is Iruka, warm and steadfast.
“I don’t carry them around with me, I’d never want anything to happen to them.” Iruka tucks a piece of hair behind his ear. “But I do carry a copy of my favourite one, it gets me through my missions. Here.” Kakashi takes the offered piece of paper from his hands and his breath catches in his throat. “I’m sure you’d have done it better, with your sharingan and all—oh, I guess you wouldn’t even need it, right? So I’ll just—”
Kakashi knows there’s a long road ahead to mending all the cracks in Iruka’s heart—and finding peace in his own. But Kakashi hasn’t felt anything, and certainly nothing good, since the night he slipped out the window and out of their lives. And here, in the outback, with the two most precious people he’s ever met… This is where he belongs.
“I love you,” he says, pulling the image closer to his chest before Iruka can take it back. And something in his voice must give away how much he really means it—and he does. Kakashi’s loved Iruka since the first time he ever saw him, just a boy curled up on a modest futon in a barren room, arms wrapped tight around a tiny, drooling Naruto—because Iruka’s mouth stops moving.
Iruka’s hand lifts, lingers, before settling against his jaw almost reverently. And it’s Kakashi, this time, that bridges the breath-long distance between them, that pulls the mask down and slides his hand over Iruka’s and revels in the tiny gasp it draws from Iruka’s parted lips before he finally, finally fits their lips together.
When the sun breaks through in an hour or so they’ll have to make a decision; to run away together and take the Akatsuki down themselves, or return to Konoha with a plan. Whatever happens though, when the time comes, Kakashi knows they will face the world together.
