Trapped Dolphin

Title: Trapped Dolphin
Author: Somnambulist_dreams
Summary:
Rating: NC-17 (for later chapters)
Pairing(s): Kakashi x Iruka
Feedback: Oh yes please!
Characters: mainly Kakashi and Iruka … and Naruto and the gang, and the other teachers
Betas: None. Would you like to be one? Hehe… feel free to tell me. ^_^
Author’s notes:
Hehehe… hello again. I know it’s been so long since I last updated. And here are my excuses for those who need justification as to why the heck it took me so long:
1. I just had my finals and submitted some really long papers
2. My modem’s acting up. The driver of my modem disappears every now and then (if you know the reason why and how I can fix this, please do tell me).
3. Just finished FFX and I’m play station crazy right now. I have this issue with finishing RPGs… I normally don’t. I hate finishing great stories like FFX, so I delayed and delayed and delayed the last battle, but when I did finish it (due to two of my sisters’ incessant requests), I was really sad, and at the same time it made me want to finish my other RPGs, hence my all-day-everyday-play station mood.
4. This chapter mostly deals with transitions, (meaning FOR THE MOST PART, there are no turning points here, no exceptionally exciting or important parts – am I discouraging you?) and I only write transitions when I’m in the mood, or else I have to deal with major writer’s block.

A warning though: It would probably take me long to update for other chapters since they are no longer pre-written, starting with this one. I began writing the first few chapters months ago, and the following chapters are still cozily residing inside my head.

Just another reminder, this fic has a continuous timeline and since I don’t like providing little flashbacks to the previous chapter, you might have to read a little of the chapter preceding this for you to remember just what the heck happened before. Oh, but you were probably doing that before already. :)

And since it took me longer than usual to post this chapter up, this chapter is also longer than the previous ones. Hope you like it.
Disclaimer: I'm not filthy rich and I don't own Naruto or any other characters in the anime. I'm not gettin' any money from doin' this either, awright? Though, if I did, I'd be living in paradise...


CHAPTER 4: You Don’t Have to be Alone

Iruka closed the door behind him and noticed that his apartment was freezing. He opened the lights and the gaping hole in his roof looked even worse than he thought it did. There was dust and rubble all over his living room. “This has got to be one of the worst days of my life,” he said as he sluggishly walked towards his bedroom.

He opened the door, turned the lights on, and grimaced at the sight of his broken window, his lamp riddled with shurikens, and his study table lying in smithereens on the floor. Then there was this distinct sound of gushing water.

“Oh crap!” Iruka gasped as he staggered to his bathroom as soon as he could. There was water on the floor outside his bathroom and he almost slipped. He turned the lights on in the bathroom, and found his bathtub overflowing with water, his shower on full volume. He splashed his feet on the flooded tiles and turned the shower off. As his luck would have it, the plug on his tub fell on the drain, and caused a major flood. He would have to mop his bedroom and bathroom floor before he slept lest the water seep into the floorboards and make the wood rot. “Okay, this IS the worst day of my life.”


By the next morning, Iruka felt like crap. He spent all night trying to fix his apartment. He had mopped his floor, covered his broken window with some plastic, and took one of his sheets and covered his ceiling with it as well. He discarded his lamp, as well as pieces of wood that used to be his table. He swept the dust off of his living room floor and got rid of all the rubble. By the time he was finished, he only had an hour and a half to sleep before he would wake up again and prepare for class.


He watched with hooded eyes as his students took a pop quiz. He knew it was unfair to give the kids a quiz but he wasn’t really feeling very well. The wound on his stomach hurt like hell every time he moved. He thought he had a fairly good tolerance to pain, but this wound was almost unbearable.

“A- Konohamaru, what are you doing?” He said when he noticed the mischievous young boy playing with something under his desk.

“Nothing, Iruka-sensei,” the boy lied.

“Konohamaru…” Iruka said, his voice foreboding. “…Give it to me.”

The boy stood up, and reluctantly went to his teacher’s table. He hid the item behind his back and refused to look at Iruka.

“Come on now,” Iruka urged.

Konohamaru quickly handed it to him and ran just as quickly back to his chair.

Iruka looked at the item he held in his hand and frowned. “A water balloon?” he said. ‘Why did he look so guilty, then?’ he thought.

“Oi, Iruka-sensei,” someone called out to him in an all too giddy tone of voice.

Iruka feared the worst, and as he turned to look at the direction of the door, he felt like all the blood drained from his face. There, peeking from behind the door and waving like an overly eager fan girl, was Kakashi-sensei.

A distinct sound of something that just popped got Iruka’s attention, and when he looked down, a look of pure horror registered on his face as he noticed two things: one, that he had unconsciously popped the water balloon in his hand; and two, the balloon wasn’t filled with water, but with black paint.

Instantly, the whole class roared with laughter at the sight of their teacher with splatters of paint on his face and all over his clothes.

“Alright, alright. Keep quiet and finish your quiz. If anyone dares to sneak out again, I will make sure you have quizzes every day for the rest of the week. Got that?” he threatened. The laughter died down to suppressed giggles. Iruka walked out of the classroom, and the children burst into laughter again.

Iruka frowned as he passed by the chuckling jounin beside the door on his way to the restroom.

Kakashi instantly stopped laughing when Iruka ignored him completely. “Hey, Iruka-sensei!” He called out as he followed the rather stressed-out teacher towards the restroom.

“What is it, Kakashi-sensei? Have you come to laugh at me some more?” Iruka said as he started to scrub the paint off of his arm.

“You have to admit, that was pretty funny,” Kakashi said as he started to laugh again, but was stopped by the glare he received from the chuunin. “Okay, I just came here to tell you that I’ll be coming over at your apartment tonight.”

“Coming over? What is it this time? Part 2 of the test?” Iruka protested.

“No, no. Nothing like that at all. I can see you’re still angry with us… that’s why I’m telling you that I’m coming over… since if I came unannounced, you might think I’m there to assassinate you again. Anyway, the reason is Hokage-sama told me to help you fix your apartment, and of course, to show you that I’m really not out to kill you, Iruka-sensei,” Kakashi reasoned out.

“Are you serious?” Iruka asked.

“Do I look like I’m joking?” Kakashi said, his visible eye curving upwards.

“I can never tell anyway,” Iruka mumbled.

“So, is that a ‘yes’?”

“You’d still come even if I said ‘no’,” Iruka said.

“Exactly. Great, then I’ll come at seven.”

“Whatever you say,” Iruka just said.

“I’m bringing the stuff to fix your place. Oh, and dinner’s on you, alright?” Kakashi asked, but vanished soon after without waiting for Iruka’s reply.

Iruka let out an exasperated sigh. He walked back to the classroom and sighed again upon opening the door. The classroom was empty, and quiz papers were scattered everywhere. “Looks like today’s going to be a loooong day.”


Iruka looked at the wall clock for the nth time that night from where he sat in the dining room. He had resorted to using the dining room since the living room wasn’t very inhabitable at the moment. He noticed with quite a frustrated sigh that it was already 10:25 in the evening.

“Seven my ass,” he snorted as he continued to check the papers. His head was starting to ache, especially right after he checked Konohamaru’s paper, which had little doodles for answers, and a very interesting drawing of a paint-soaked, jaw-slacked Iruka at the top of the paper.

He heard a small rumbling sound and noticed that his stomach was complaining. ‘Ohhh… I knew it was a bad idea to wait for him to arrive before I ate my dinner.’

Deciding that the notoriously unpunctual Kakashi-sensei would probably not come at all, Iruka stood up and walked out of the dining room and into the kitchen. ‘Maybe it was for the best that Kakashi didn’t come,’ Iruka thought. After recalling that Kakashi knew about his dark secret, he thought that he’d rather not talk about it with the man. ‘Although if he does decide to squeal on me, I really don’t have a choice,’ he thought. ‘But…’ he said as he stopped in front of the refrigerator. ‘Kakashi-sensei doesn’t seem to be one to go blab about other people’s secrets Maybe, he’ll just forget about it and keep it to himself…’ he thought.

“Oh, who am I kidding. It’s Kakashi-sensei. He’s probably going to use this to make my life even more of a living hell,” Iruka said.

Opening the refrigerator door and removing the take-out dinner he bought more than four hours before, he decided to reheat it to finally get something inside his stomach. He took the noodles out of the packaging and placed it on a pan.

“I bet he even enjoyed every second of that ‘test’. I should’ve probably just punched that sadistic bastard on the face,” he thought out loud as he moved to the stove by the window, and when he looked out, he saw the said masked face directly in front of his.

“Ghah!” He gasped, stumbling backwards in sheer surprise. The pan flew from his hand, and Iruka grabbed it as quickly as he could, and saving almost all of its contents from ending up on the floor. He set the pan down and looked at the window again. There was no mistaking it. Kakashi was perched on his windowsill, his masked face and both his hands pressing against the glass.

“Hey, nice catch. Didn’t scare you too much, did I?” he teased.

Iruka frowned. “What the heck are you doing there anyway? You could’ve used the door!” he protested.

“But I just love seeing that look of pure shock on your face. So, are you going to let me in?”

Iruka let out an exasperated sigh. He opened the window and Kakashi jumped in the kitchen. “I swear, you just live to torture me, don’t you?” Iruka accused.

Kakashi raised his hands defensively. “Not at all. This isn’t even what I would consider torture, Iruka-sensei,” he said, his visible eye gleaming with mischief.

Iruka rolled his eyes and proceeded to reheat the food on the stove.

“So… is that dinner?” he asked.

“Yes…,” Iruka said, “What took you so long, anyway? I’ve been waiting for more than three hours already.”

“Aww… was Iruka-sensei excited to see little, old me?” he teased.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Kakashi-sensei. I haven’t eaten yet, and I’m starving,” Iruka explained.

Kakashi raised an eyebrow. “You haven’t eaten yet? Did you wait for me?”

“I think that would be obvious by now,” Iruka said, stirring the noodles in the pan.

“That’s just so sweet, Iruka-sensei. I didn’t know you cared that much for me.”

“I don’t,” came Iruka’s deadpanned reply.

“So, as a token of my appreciation,” Kakashi said, completely ignoring Iruka’s words, “and well, as a peace offering too, here’s some sake. Let’s drink while we eat, or while we fix your apartment,” Kakashi said, pulling out a couple of bottles of sake from inside his vest.

Iruka blinked as he stared at the bottles of sake sitting at the countertop. How did he manage to hide those bottles in his vest anyway? Iruka shook his head slightly. “Drink? But it’s a school day tomorrow, Kakashi-sensei. I don’t want to teach with a hangover.”

“Don’t be such a wuss, Iruka-sensei.”

“A wuss?” Iruka asked, a cross-shaped vein appearing on his temple, and the thought of punching Kakashi seemed to be very appealing at the moment.

“Hey, it’s not like you’re going to get drunk. You could handle your alcohol right? Besides, you look like you need it,” he said.

“Fine,” Iruka sighed. The idea of drinking didn’t seem all that bad at the moment. Besides, he knew there was no arguing with this man right now.


Moments later, Iruka found himself enthusiastically eating dinner across the table from Kakashi who had conveniently brought his Icha Icha Paradise and was reading it while eating, and using it at the same time to cover his face from Iruka’s gaze.

Iruka was so hungry that he didn’t notice the jounin staring at him, his eye peeking just above the little book. When he looked up from his plate, he saw the jounin had barely touched his food.

“What’s wrong Kakashi-sensei? Don’t you like the food?” Iruka asked.

“Oh, sure, sure. It’s perfect. I was just so amused by you,” Kakashi said.

“Huh?” Iruka said, his eyes wide like saucers.

“I didn’t know you could eat as much as Naruto does when he’s eating ramen.”

Iruka blushed slightly from embarrassment. “I was just really very hungry, that’s all,” he reasoned out.

Kakashi smiled behind his book and resumed eating his food. It amused him that he found everything about this man so endearing. The way he would gobble up those noodles in his mouth, which Kakashi bet was a very talented mouth, and the way his cheeks flushed whenever he was embarrassed, which he could easily picture in an entirely different and more intimate setting.

“Kakashi-sensei?”

Kakashi snapped out of his trance and noticed the very person inside his thoughts looking at him curiously.

“What were you saying?” Kakashi asked.

“I was asking you how you intended to help me fix my apartment without any materials,” Iruka asked.

“Materials? Oh. Right. Don’t worry about them. The reason I was so late was I actually went to the hardware store before I came here.”

“Right,” Iruka said sarcastically.

“I’m being honest. The materials are at your doorstep, we could get them later.”

Iruka felt his eyebrow twitch. “At my doorstep?”

“Yeah, I placed it there before I went to your kitchen window,” Kakashi explained.

“So, you went out of your way just to play tricks on me? Heh, I should’ve known,” Iruka mumbled.

“Aww, come on Iruka-sensei, you make me sound like such a terrible person,” he said casually before sipping some of his sake.

“I don’t know why this would surprise you, Kakashi-sensei. First of all, you insult me every chance you get. You call me “Naruto’s mommy,” and you tell Naruto all sorts of stuff, and I have to deal with the results. Why, just the other day he asked me what you meant when the two boys were fighting and you said that Naruto should just *service* Sasuke and get it over with. I had to spend all afternoon doing damage control without telling him what you really meant,” he ranted.

Kakashi chuckled. “Well, you have to admit, that was pretty funny.”

“You even go to the Ninja Academy and the Mission Room pretending to look for Naruto, but you just go there to make fun of me and make my day miserable.”

“Now, now, Iruka-sensei. You’ve got this all wrong…” Kakashi tried to explain. He replaced his mask and dropped his book on the table. ‘Reading that now might not be such a good idea,’ he thought.

“You disguised as Naruto to trick me, and last night, I thought for sure you were going to kill me. Now, tell me Kakashi-sensei, what DID I get wrong?”

Kakashi scratched his head. “Hmm… well now that you’ve said all that… It does seem like I am pretty harsh on you… but the reason being… I mean, I… I don’t exactly do it on purpose, you know, the insulting part.”

The uneasiness in Kakashi’s voice startled Iruka a bit. It was quite out of the jounin’s character to be acting like this. “What do you mean you don’t do it on purpose?”

“What I’m trying to say is… ah, how do I put this… I’m not really very sociable and… I guess I say the wrong things more often than not. I don’t do it intentionally… it just comes out,” he explained. ‘And of course, I just get so frickin’ tongue tied when I’m around you that I don’t know what else to say,’ Kakashi thought. ‘But you’d probably freak out if I tell you that.’ Kakashi smiled inwardly.

Iruka was once again rendered speechless by Kakashi’s peculiar actions. But, before he could ponder more about the subject, the jounin started chuckling again.

“I never thought I affected you so much Iruka-sensei, I’m so flattered,” he teased. When he saw that Iruka was about to explode, he stood up from his seat and reached for the sake bottle. “But let’s not talk about this now. Have some more sake, Iruka-sensei,” he said pouring some more sake in Iruka’s cup.

Iruka blinked and decided to just let it go. He found Kakashi’s behavior puzzling. For a moment there, Iruka thought Kakashi was about to say he’s sorry, and then poof… he was back to his old demeanor. He sighed. ‘I should’ve thought this would go nowhere,’ he thought. “If I had known better, I would say you’re trying to get me drunk, Kakashi-sensei,” he said before taking a sip.

Kakashi chuckled. “No, no, of course not. I just thought that maybe if you were a little tipsy, you won’t be so irate… and of course, it’d be easier to get you in bed with me.”

Iruka sprung from his chair, nearly knocking it over, and spewed out the sake he had just sipped. “WHAT?!” he gasped.

Kakashi broke into fits of laughter. “You should’ve seen the look on your face, Iruka-sensei!” He said in between laughs.

Iruka’s cheeks grew red with embarrassment once again as he wiped the sake from his chin. Of course it was a joke, what else could it have been, right? He sat back down on his chair and grumbled when he noticed the laughing still didn’t cease. “It wasn’t THAT funny,” he said with a small pout that Kakashi thought made him look absolutely adorable.

“Did you actually think I WASN’T kidding, hmm?” Kakashi teased.

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not interested in you in that way, Kakashi-sensei,” Iruka said.

“Oh?” Kakashi said. “What a shame then… you would’ve enjoyed my company,” he said, winking his visible eye at Iruka.

“Would you stop this already? I’m not like you. I’m straight!” Iruka defended.

“Sure you are,” said Kakashi sarcastically.

Iruka let out an exasperated sigh, which seemed like he has been doing quite often lately. “Fine. You can keep indulging in your delusions all you want. Can we just continue eating so that we could start fixing my apartment?”

“Whatever you say. Although if you DO change your mind…”

“*Kakashi-sensei*!” Iruka scolded.

“Yes teacher, I’ll be quiet,” Kakashi said with a chuckle. “But… it’s just that I’ve been such a very *bad* boy… aren’t you going to *punish* me sir?” he added, making sure to make his voice sound a little younger.

“KAKASHI-SENSEI!” Iruka nearly screamed, earning for himself a jounin howling with laughter.


The night went on, and before Iruka knew it, they were sitting on the living room floor surrounded by several empty bottles of sake. Every time they would finish a bottle, Kakashi would miraculously produce another one from inside his vest. All thoughts of fixing the apartment vanished from their alcohol-saturated minds.

“Why d’ya bring s-so many b-bottles, Kakazhi-senzei?” Iruka slurred.

Kakashi replaced the mask over his face and placed his favorite book on his knee. He leaned closer to the chuunin sitting across from him until they are almost nose-to-nose. “It’s a known fact that drunkenness significantly lowers a person’s inhibitions, making interrogations a lot easier,” Kakashi explained, the clarity of his voice revealing just how far from drunk he is.

“Huh?” Iruka asked. His brain felt more like mush and he didn’t understand a word Kakashi had just said.

“So… tell me, Iruka, why do you do it?” he asked.

“Do what?”

“This,” Kakashi said before he took one of Iruka’s hands and pushed the black sleeve of his uniform up to his elbow. He turned the hand palm-up to reveal the slashes on the man’s arm.

Iruka looked at the wounds intently as if seeing them for the first time. “Oh. That,” Iruka said.

“So, Iruka, why DO you do it? Why?” Kakashi asked again. He looked back down at Iruka’s arm as his own fingers lightly traced each wound. His gaze returned to Iruka once more only to find him fast asleep and even snoring lightly.

“Oh great,” Kakashi said. He stared at Iruka’s sleeping face. His face was flushed from all the alcohol, and his mouth was slightly open. He looked so innocent when he was asleep. Like a little kid. This time, it was Kakashi’s turn to sigh.

He stood up and, as gently as he could, he lifted Iruka and carried him to the bedroom bridal style. “Too bad you’re asleep. There are about a couple dozen jokes I could tease you with right now.”

Kakashi carefully placed Iruka on his bed. He removed the chuunin’s shoes, and struggled to get his vest off as well. Then he covered him with a blanket and sat down beside him for a while. “You know… you don’t have to do this,” he said. “There are a lot of people who care for you, Iruka. If those people ever find out you’re hurting yourself like this, they would be deeply hurt as well,” he paused, waiting for a reply that he knew would not come. He then noticed Iruka’s tightly bound hair and thought that he would be more comfortable sleeping with it loose. “Well, that and the fact that you’re just too gorgeous with your hair down,” Kakashi thought out loud. He reached for Iruka’s hitai-ate and removed it. He then removed the bind on Iruka’s hair, and his breath hitched as the shiny strands spilled wonderfully on the white pillow, making Iruka look more divine than he normally is. “You’re just a livin’, breathin’ wet dream, aren’t you, Iruka?” he asked, thinking of all the times he’s imagined running his hands through Iruka’s hair in his fantasies.

“What did you say?” came Iruka’s reply.

Kakashi’s heart almost stopped when he heard his voice. “You’re awake all this time, Iruka?”

“No… I just woke up… what are we doing in here?” Iruka asked groggily.

“You fell asleep in the living room. I brought you here,” Kakashi replied.

“Oh. You did?”

Not wanting to waste this opportunity, as well as all those bottles of sake they consumed, he began his interrogation again. “So, Iruka, about what I asked you a while ago…”

“About this?” Iruka asked, rubbing his right hand over the wounds on his left arm. “Aah… I guess you’d have to ask sooner or later… If I tell you… could you…uh…” Iruka trailed on.

“Could I what?” Kakashi urged.

“Could you… just keep this to yourself. It’s not something I want Naruto or the other kids to find out.”

“Sure…” Kakashi replied, thinking it was so characteristically Iruka to think of Naruto and his other students before anything else.

“I just… I do it because…” Iruka began, the conflicting emotions evident on his face. “Well, the pain… makes me feel alive,” Iruka confessed.

“But you don’t need this to feel alive, Iruka,” Kakashi immediately told him.

“The sting of cutting… takes my mind off of all the pain I feel in here…” he said, bringing a hand to his chest.

Kakashi reached for the hand Iruka placed on his chest, and covered it with his own. “You don’t have to do this. You don’t need this,” he repeated.

Iruka snatched his hand away from Kakashi’s hold. “How could you know what I need? What I feel?”

“I know what you must be feeling. You’re not the only one who’s hurting Iruka…”

“Oh?” Iruka said disbelievingly.

“What would it take for you to believe me? Do you need proof? Proof that this is all unnecessary? Proof that your life is not as worthless as you think?”

“I…” Iruka began, but couldn’t find the right words, his eyes gazing intently at those wounds on his arms.

Seeing the troubled expression on Iruka’s face made the jounin’s heart break. Kakashi was starting to feel like it was impossible for him to help Iruka. He could think of only one way, one way for Iruka to finally open up to him completely and allow Kakashi to help him, to make him realize just what a wonderful person he is. And that was for Kakashi to open up completely to him first.

“Look at me Iruka,” Kakashi said, the tone of his voice turning deadly serious.

Iruka brought his gaze back to Kakashi’s face. His eyes grew wide at what the jounin was doing. He had pushed his forehead protector up, revealing his sharingan eye. Iruka stared at his mismatched eyes and was mesmerized.

“Do you feel like you’re trapped, Iruka-sensei?” Kakashi asked, bringing one hand to his mask and slowly started pulling it down.

“Like the walls of your world are closing in on you?” Kakashi continued, brining his mask down further.

“And your life is choking you ever so slowly towards your impending death?”
Kakashi said before finally removing the rest of his mask.

“I’m here, Iruka. I can help you. You don’t have to be alone.”

Iruka almost couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Kakashi’s face, unrestricted by any mask, those eyes, mismatched in color, but each with their own fiery intensity, that wonderfully shaped nose, and those soft, inviting lips uttering words of comfort to him. Words he never knew he needed so badly.

“If you let me in, you’ll never have to be alone anymore.”

Kakashi leaned closer and closed the gap between their lips.

A/N:

Hehehehehe… so how do you like it? or how did you hate it? Tell me what you think? Should I just quit writing because it’s so darn boring? Or should I continue? What do you think should happen next, hmm? I could not stress enough just how much help your reviews bring to me. Hehe, boy do I sound like a hypocrite. I don’t review when I read too, but when I first became an author here, it was the only time I realized how important reviewing really was. So, I promised myself I will leave a review on every fic I read (although I don’t get to read any new fics these past few months… busy, busy, busy). Oh my goodness, I’m babbling again.

Just review guys! Comments, suggestions, violent reactions, I’ll accept them all.

If you have any suggestions as to what fics I MUST read, feel free to tell me. Been so busy, I have no time to sift through all of the fics posted. You could also email me, or IM me if you catch me online on YM. I’d love to discuss this fic (or any other fic out there) with someone who’s interested. I’m a Creative Writing Major, and we workshop (comment, suggest, correct word choice/grammar/logic/pacing) pieces all the time. I could use the practice. I might also be able to help.(Hooray for self-advertising!!!) :)

Well, until the next chapter…

Somnambulist_dreams