I Don't Think You Understand

I am once again awed at the support you all have given me toward this story. You are all wonderful people, and your feedback has been so helpful! LOL, from the looks of it, I think I may have to recall and ixnay the statement I made about this story being less than ten chapters, since I don't think I can end it all (with a good conscience) this soon.

I don't own Naruto, and though I would enjoy the thought of taking both him and Sasuke home with me, I know it won't happen.

Please enjoy.


***||***

The woman was on him again. She groaned as she slid along his shaft, her still-covered breasts bouncing as she moved. Her thigh muscles were clenching with the effort to raise herself up and down, because he was giving her no help.

I don’t want this.

She cried out above him, tightening around his erection, the reaction he didn’t understand and had never wanted.

I really don’t want this.

“Why?”

Startled, he swung his head to stare at the source of that voice. Iruka stood there, shirtless and scarred, and somehow more enthralling than the odd sight of the woman straddling his groin. Darting a quick glance up at her, he discovered that she had frozen in mid-rise, mouth still open in a cry of pleasure. Even her breasts had stopped jiggling.

“Why don’t you want this?” Iruka persisted, placing a hand on its opposite shoulder. “Doesn’t it feel good?”

He shook his head. How could he answer that? It felt good, yes, but he hadn’t chosen for this to happen. He didn’t even know why the woman was doing this to him!

“You like it, though.” The statement felt like it was branding itself into his skin.

“Yes,” he croaked, voice sounding as if he had been screaming for days. “But I didn’t want it. She just touched me, and---”

“You got excited.” Iruka didn’t make it into an accusation; he just sounded thoughtful.

“I never....” Kakashi stopped. How could he say this? He didn’t know what the terminology was, didn’t know if this happened to everyone. “I never softened.”

At the raised eyebrow the chuunin gifted him with, he hurried to add, “the whole day, she did this to me...I never got more than this strange feeling out of it. I couldn’t...couldn’t make it go soft again.”

The shirtless man nodded, and stepped closer to Kakashi’s prone, half-covered form. Kneeling down, he pressed his lips (why is my mask off? Oh, the mission...) against Kakashi’s. Suddenly, Kakashi found his hips rising of their own accord, slamming into the still form of the woman above him, struggling to find something, more of that strange tingling that came from where Iruka had touched him, incredibly desperate for something he couldn’t name--

As he felt himself tighten and loosen at the same time, as something rushed out of and into him, as he felt joy and bliss as he’d never felt before take hold of his mind and shake out all of his coherent thought, he heard the chuunin murmur against his ear:

“But you wanted me to touch you?”

***||***

“GAH!” Kakashi threw himself out of bed in a defensive crouch, fingers delving into pajama pants to find his holdout kunai, ready to kill anything stupid enough to enter his field of vision.

It was rather fortunate for Kakashi (and any potential visitors) that no one was in the room with him.

Dropping the knife from shaking fingers, Kakashi raked that hand through his hair, feeling dampness trickling along his scalp. Frowning as the cool air caressed his sleep-warmed body, he felt dampness of another sort slipping down his thigh.

Blushing, he looked inside his pants to find that his dream had apparently had another effect on him as well.

Intellectually, Kakashi knew what a wet dream was. It was another thing to confront the knowledge that he’d just had one (his first one) right in his pants.

His frown deepening as he tried to shy away from the mutiny his body was waging against him, he took them off and walked into the bathroom to take a shower. As he mechanically set the shower to a comfortable temperature and washed himself, he had to conclude that though the end result of his dream had been somewhat disgusting, the release itself had been...had been...

Absolutely wonderful.

The night before, in the field where he had confessed to Iruka the chaos welling up inside of him, he’d had his first orgasm by his own hand. It had been so intense he’d passed out from the shock and the pleasure, and had dragged himself home afterwards to clean himself. He’d slept well until that dream had invaded his mind...and made him have another orgasm.

That feeling is addictive.

“Yes,” he muttered, sticking his head under the shower’s spray.

I want to feel it again.

“Yes,” he hissed in savage agreement. “I want it again.”

Over and over again...

“Never stopping...” Kakashi stopped talking, hearing how his voice had roughened and deepened. It threw him for a loop.

It also made that traitorous organ harden again.

With a sigh, he grasped the rigid flesh, stroking and hissing as he hit sensitive spots he never knew he had. If this is puberty, no wonder the books say it’s the best and worst time of someone’s life.

And come to think of it, why doesn’t this damn thing get hard when I’m peeing?

***||***

One plus one equals two. Striking against the natural angle of a leg or arm joint can cause severe pain and breakage if done correctly. Breath control while shaping hands into seals is vitally important in controlling one’s chakra.

Kakashi didn’t have a clue why he was feeling attracted to Iruka, or even what he felt toward him.

...something’s not adding up.

Iruka relaxed into his couch, mulling over what had happened the night before yet again. He had been distracted during the day; some of the students had almost made it to the door, and he berated himself for not paying closer attention until it was almost too late.

Kakashi hadn’t tailed him today. Two days ago, he would have felt relieved about this supposed return to normalcy, but now....

Now you know he feels something toward you, and to make things worse, you kissed him.

Iruka sighed, acknowledging his subconsious’ truth by not arguing with it. Two days ago, he hadn’t know the feel of mask-covered lips against his own, or seen the sense of humor the man possessed, or enjoyed the feeling of safety the man evoked with his presence.

His inner ninja rebelled a bit at the thought of being protected, but the inner realist forced it down. Formidable he might be, but two people fighting together had a better chance of survival than struggling alone, and Iruka didn’t intend to die alone.

He applied himself to the problem again. He’d never seen this type of behavior before, but he had read about it in some medico-nin journal, and in a strange way, it made sense.

How would someone who learned about death before joy even be capable of affection? He knew that the jounin’s upbringing had been everything less than stable, but except for the weirdness of some of his little behaviors (I’m still not sure if I forgive him for spying on me when I was sleeping), he appeared to be more or less like any ninja of his status.

Iruka knew better. He had seen as some of his higher ranked friends came back from missions physically unscathed, but mentally...wrecked. Things that warriors of greater standing saw still had some of them screaming at night. He knew. He still patrolled the village on occasion, and he’d seen them crying and clutching weapons to their chests as they fought the monsters in their dreams.

Though he never saw Kakashi in a state like theirs (he didn’t know where the jounin lived), he knew that the mental scars on that man were just as great as with any other higher-up.

A quote from the medico-nin article had said something about this, something about “battle trauma” affecting people differently. What was the---oh, there it was, he remembered:

”Battle trauma registers with each person differently, as no two are alike. Symptoms can manifest themselves when the subject is dreaming, but most often, it affects the way they look at the world. Side effects of this are increased paranoia, episodes of neuroses, and the list goes on.”

Iruka thought about it, then thought about it some more.

...that was the next best thing to useless.

Still, it at least gave a reason as to why the jounin didn’t understand sexual attraction, though to be fair to him, there were days where Iruka himself didn’t quite get it either.

No one told him about sexual attraction, and he was so damn focused as a kid that he never felt it, so I shouldn’t be surprised at the difficulties he’s having with it now.

“Except,” he grumbled, “that I am. Why fixate on me? What’s so interesting about me?”

The answer welled up in his subconsious, and when he considered what it was telling him...he could have cheerfully thrown himself out the window and let his body smack the ground.

“I THREATENED him?!” He said incredulously. “Is that why he was so interested? Because I fucking threatened him?!”

Why should this surprise? You know that jounins, or at least the ones who aren’t sexually retarded, are a kinky lot. Just look at Anko-chan.

“It’s one thing to know,” he replied, face turning bright red. “It’s another thing to know.”

Wisely, his subconscious chose not to respond.

He rubbed his face. He knew only one thing at this point, and one thing only; if the jounin finally straightened himself out (figuratively, I hope, since I’m obviously not female), Iruka would be happy to have him.

The prankster’s grin once again appeared on his face. After all, his body isn’t confused about what it wants...

***||***

Iruka is obviously more in touch with his sensual side than Kakashi, and several times as I wrote this, I had to stop and wonder, "why is that?" Then the answer hit me like a ton of bricks.

Iruka had parents and teachers. His parents may have died and his teachers may have been frustrated with him, but some of what they said got through to him at an early enough age for him to understand and take in. With Kakashi, brilliant six-year old (then ten-year old) that he was, he wouldn't have been able to absorb that information without a more thorough explanation which, presuming he got at least the basics, never happened. So we have a young Kakashi wandering through the world without a clue as to how powerful the motivations of lust and the desire to reproduce were, and now that his body has fully matured...

...well, everything got magnified, and I don't know about other people, but such powerful reactions to so little stimuli (he got off on a kiss, and not even a really passionate one) would scare the pants off of me too. Kakashi is braver than I would be, given this new state of awareness.

In response to something a reviewer wrote (and believe me when I say I read all your reviews, even if I don't respond to them directly), I really could not have ended this story in the previous chapter. It would have been the perfect opening and closing scene for it, but I have an intrinsic desire to resolve confusion in people. Until I resolve Kakashi's (and by extension, Iruka's), I will not be ending this story.

...which more or less means that the story will probably be longer than what I set out to do, but hey, no problems there. I just didn't expect it to go so philosophical on me :-).

Your reviews are appreciated, adored, squealed over, and used as barricades to keep my sanity in check. If you could leave one, I would be thrilled.