Found You

'Inspiration': a series of doujin pages I found. Aha. Like that's new. Thanks to Aidan I was able to confirm the circle artist/writer, Uchina Mario's 'Sweet Hand', as well as 'Water' (provided by the spectacular - if slow - zettai-hentai-dot-net). Of course, for the sake of a continuous story (and copyright), I intend to fuck them up beyond repair. BELIEVE IT!

Lemon: Nothing but, babeh. Well, save for the end, some resolution. Look for the ~@~
Spoilers: It's smut. How can you spoil that?
Pairing: Hah. Haha. I hope it knocks yer SOCKZORZ
QUOTA: 25+ Like before, the next reviews people give me, towards their development, will determine whether or not I write the AU-fic. I also want opinions on my lemon! *Claps hands together and bows* I'm sorry if it sounds like it took forever to get to! It's just that I didn't want them going at it like dogs until Iruka was at least half-comfortable! And their developement is very important!
Canon Timeline: After the Wave mission / before exams

Looking back upon the manga, it occurs to me that Kakashi has a top-floor, single-floor apartment. Not even apartment. It’s just a ROOM, a hospice. You can see it for yourself in the chapters just after the Tsukiyomi. In the manga, you see the outside of the apartment and then Sasuke busts in. In the anime, Gai shuts them up because he hears footsteps going up the stairs.

For the sake of giving Kakashi his own private place to fuck and shower, I'm keeping it as a two-story duplex. That, and I don't want to go through mass revisions when people enjoy the story enough as it is!

And I’m -sorry- if you people have assumed I was only limifying this story. When I said last chapter that “writing it makes me giggle”, the truth of the matter is this singular chapter has now been split up twice - in to three chapters because I don’t want any one of them to get horrifically long. =D So here’s some nice foreshadowing of smutness for all you patient folks.

People are probably wondering how Sasuke can have a bag of ginger candy (back when he was molesting himself in 01, remember folks?) when he confesses he doesn't like sweets. Ginger 'candy' is only under the term because it's caramelized in to an edible, easily dissolved form. Anyone who knows ginger, it's used in a -lot- of Oriental cooking and is a very potent, clean-tasting root. It's also very warm, and usually served with crab (ginger sauce) to counteract the effects. There's very few options for Sasuke if he doesn't like bitter things, and doesn't like sweets. That leaves hots, salts, and bran.

And nobody eats bran in -my- fiction.

~*~*~*~*~ = new place/chapter
~&~&~&~&~ = flashback
~@~@~@~ = smutness, for people that would rather read over it - or get right to it

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The Same Space I

~&~&~&~&~&~&~

"Ah~! What makes you t-think I--" Protesting lips were lulled in to compliance when a firm mouth in its black sheath closed over his.

Behind them sat the lone witness of what was to transpire against the closed door of the apartment. There, atop the shoe tower sat the Ichiraku take-out. Mayhaps, just to spite them, it would rot in its box before they could get it somewhere safe.

Shutting out the initial terror with closed eyes couldn't stop his voice from breaking, a squeak puncturing the newly-discomfited atmosphere. The pressure of warmth against him ebbed, Kakashi pulling away just enough to give him a critical stare from a slate eye that could not betray what he had just done.

And didn't feel particularly criminal for doing it.

Here, Iruka had arrived with the simple and lone ambition of providing his favorite (well he wasn't supposed to be picking favorites, but he couldn't help it!) student's new teacher with some form of nourishment. According to the scores, Sakura had a very -- very -- low cooking prowess. Knocking on the door had revealed that very same eye after a moment when it opened, at first going blank with his surprise.

Now Iruka was on the other side of that door, shoulders huddled in to his own neck in a defense of himself that he quickly realized must make him look like a total goof. Heat crept through his cheeks and made the scar riding his nose come in to relief, shooting his eyes away for the wall.

"I--I should go," croaked dryly from him at making the vain attempt to curl in to nothing within his vest.

The hands outside either of his shoulders didn't lift, meaning he had not yet been excused. Taking the right upon himself would be inappropriate, no less, and so he forced himself to stew in his inadequacy under the lone pale eye. That did not mean he had to look up.

"So, you have someone?" jumped him from his frozen thoughts, the easy-going husk of baritone making his scalp tingle, like his ponytail was set too tightly.

Quick to his own defense he made the mistake of giving the jounin his eye contact, more red in the face now that the man could make such an accusation. "It's not that!" ...Only after that, when he was dead-gazing towards a lofted silver brow did he realize what he was denying. Lips fumbled around an apology, head falling again when all that he summoned was a tongue made of peanut butter.

Refusing to make the situation any stranger, or to let it dissipate, his hands stayed against the door as he calmly approached that response. "Then what is it..?"

Scolding himself for answers - excuses, Iruka balled in to himself again, eyes narrowing to the patch of wall over a navy arm that kept him from escape.

"If you wanted to be alone tonight, you could say so..." Kakashi took considerable awareness to all that hatred going to waste on his wall, given that it was burning his arm a tad.

They both knew the wall wasn't the one to blame here.

"It's not... that," he refused, little more than a servile whisper.

With his presence right there, lost of the olive jacket but otherwise still in his uniform as only a jounin might be required to do, Iruka still experienced an otherworldly chill in this entire conversation. It dawned on him that this was exactly what separated them in rank.

Where he was being given the choice to be alone, the likes of Kakashi had no such choice. They were entirely dedicated to Konoha, the village put even before themselves.

Not that it was a very good choice, he had to admit...

And, dammit. He was still there. That man was still there, staying over him and waiting for an explanation. Able to relax a tad in the knowing that he was being given a chance to think, Iruka worked to do just that.

"I... --I have work in the morning."

"So do I," he countered smoothly.

What other excuse did he have...? Iruka, who was at the academy four days from morning till afternoon, and the afternoons of them as well as his other three days spent clogged in paperwork. What other excuse did he have besides his work?

"You don't want to...?"

The buzz lingering over his mouth reminded him of what he was going to say before being so rudely interrupted. A meager shrug slipped from him, unwilling to meet the scrutiny upon him. "What... makes you think I want to...?"

The hands making a half-assed attempt at keeping him trapped, on the wall and on either side of his shoulders, didn't budge.

"Because you haven't left yet."

"That's a hasty assumption!" he fumed, cheeks bloating angrily under the blush.

He was only greeted with an eye turning in to a smile to match a knowing melody in his voice, what had been deadpan a moment ago. "Is it...?"

"I said it is!"

His resolve fizzled to nothing when elbows bent, Kakashi's form lowering against his and enforcing his presence through the alienating cool in the air. After a twitch he lifted his eyes and wrinkled his nose in a pout.

"You know, part of being a grown up is that you don't really have to know each other to share the same space."

A notch of pain glittered through Iruka's eyes at hearing that. "The same space...?"

As the instructor to a triplet of unwieldy genin, Kakashi had not only been teaching them, but observing. "Kids get so hung up on being friends. It's okay to spend a while learning each other's lives since they haven't lived very long."

His voice edged away in to a whisper that made Iruka fill with longing for some other topic. He hated talking about this kind of thing. "By the time they're our age, they're so full of experiences they'd rather not share with anyone. They don't mind being strangers."

"...I mind..."

An icy disk regarded him without malice, but not a great question, either. Eventually it turned in to a smile. "That's because you're still a kid."

The comment got a high huff of disapproval, the mother hen fluffing and clucking. "That's a mean thing to say."

"...Heh. I see." He was given a shower of blinks from the man he pulled away from, righting himself to scratch at the back of his head. "Sorry about that."

"Don't you have any tact at all?" he mumbled out shyly from under his blush, humiliated to be around a man with less manners than even Naruto.

Provoked with such a question he gave a shrug, one hand claiming refuge in his pocket while the other scooped up the handle of the take-out box.

"I've never had to bother with it. I guess I'm out of touch..." he trailed off, eye slipping away.

Neither of them had to hear it to know how that thought finished: Kakashi didn't have to be particularly civil with people he had to kill.

That was the stark contrast between them. Not only did Iruka have the choice to be alone, but he also had the choice to decline such missions. Jounins had even less privilege than himself. The idea made him sag against the door that was wholly new in its usefulness, staring to the feet that padded away from him in to the kitchen.

After a long moment he sat himself on the stoop, palming the snaps of his sandals as he considered. Kakashi had not told him to go nor said that the visit was unwelcome. Was he truly in such a hurry to get back to his own empty apartment?

And his own empty bed, when another appeared willing to donate the warmth of his sheets? Two strange people, sharing the same space...

Metal buttons popped free with little suggestion from his fingers.

"So, you're staying then...?"

Iruka had to make the conscious effort to keep from jumping at the soundless approach that had ended behind him. "If... it's no trouble..."

A relieved hum came out of the standing nin, hands finding his pockets for a time. "Aa. It's no trouble." Feet shuffled, making his way to the stairs and slinking up.

Right behind him was a man that paused at every creak of the steps under bare feet, head hung in degrading tyroship and the weight of his thoughts.

This had to be wrong on some level, didn't it? Spending the night with a man that didn't show any signs of needing an authentic relationship. Had no inclination to share a dangerous life that could end very abruptly.

...Which made sense. No point hurting those around you when you're forecasted to not come back from a mission. Confronting that in his own head was painful.

~@~@~@~@~@~@~

Something swiftly remedied when he was given a shock of brunet hair, identified as his own. Dark eyes lifted from the rug he stood on, centering instead on a thoughtful greyblue eye. That gradually shifted to smiling at him as calloused fingers dived through the freed mass.

"Maybe it's not a good idea? You look pretty distracted."

"I..." Finding little point in agreeing with him he lowered his eyes again. "...Sorry." His head lifted with a stir of liberated hair, conjuring his best grin on shaky lips.

Kakashi was reminded of a brilliant spectrum of flavored textures. Deep and hearted almond eyes that didn't bear nearly the same mount of regret and dejection. Caramel skin that, like his own, had to bear scars much like the one on his doubt-wrinkled nose. There in his fingers, a crown that glossed like nut oil and flowed on his knuckles.

He couldn't help swooping his head in to take a nip of the teacher's pursed lips, whom cheeped. A sigh filtered through the mask and spread over a tan cheek. "Hm...?" It wasn't that he didn't want the other to be comfortable; it wasn't that he wasn't patient.

It was just there were better nights to take time coming out of a shell when they both had somewhere to be in the morning. And, some sleep tonight would be nice. If he was lazy with engaging his team while he was wide awake, the idea of coming to them exhausted just...

With a Kyuubi and an Uchiha, he needed his wits about him.

"Your mask..."

The blank, fuddled stare landing on him proved Kakashi needed him to continue.

"...it's in the way."

There was a chuckle in his breath. "Oh... this? Aha. Sorry about that. I forget it's on most of the time." His eye smiling shut he leaned in again, offering the end of his nose and the hook of stretched cotton there to the reticent man.

Thick fingers collected at the bridge of a pale nose, Iruka chewing the inside of his lip as he lowered the material that reflexively bunched about an equally pale throat.

"Why do you wear it?" he asked meekly, eyes fixing on the lone stretch of finite scar blemishing his right cheek, no other imperfection in sight. Now brazened with the other man's lack of interference, as well as his own interest he collected the steel plate stamped with the Konoha leaf, just like the one on his own brow.

--Well, he thought it was there. An inquiring and now bared nose brushing against his temple and took in a breath of loosed hair making him aware of how deft hands could be when they both belonged to a jounin and he was lost in his own little world. Senses and skin under his sleeves prickled at the voice rumbling against his ear.

"Habit."

Or maybe it was the hands on the zipper of his flak jacket. Yeah, that had to be it. He couldn't be anxious enough to heat at just a word.

"Th--that tickles."

An inquisitive hum reverberated in his ear, delaying with freeing the headband's knot when hands caught in the fluff of silver instead.

"Which part? This...?" He made a distinguishing nuzzle in to heavy hair. "Or this...?"

From the tiny bark of surprise near his ear Kakashi had to guess it was that one. He smirked against a bronze cheek, retracting his fingers from the innards of the other's shirt.

Assuring the jumpy teacher with hands settling on hips that deadened under the new touch, he leveled his singular eye to Iruka. "It's not going to get any easier from here. If you're scared..."

Offended, the blush riding his cheeks boiled now with a dash of anger, more at himself as he looked away. It was easier to cower away when there was a thick veil of night in the window, and his released hair.

It was whispered, but Kakashi had no trouble hearing him. "No... I want to..."

"You're not acting like it." If he sounded annoyed, it would just scare the younger man off. Thankfully his tone was conditioned in to a persevering apathy, full of analyzation sooner than impatience.

"It's just... been a while."

A while was easier to say than years. Romance had taken a back seat to his profession when it had failed utterly. I... met someone. We're getting married soon.

"Weeks...?"

The attempt to keep things general - and secret - faded fast, shrinking in to the rise of his shoulders.

"...Months?"

He shriveled even further, deprived of his vest's collar as it was now an olive pile at his feet.

Sweatdrop. Eventually the jounin let out a stupefied and simplistic, "Huh."

Hands clenched at the dark blue longsleeve, Iruka's eyes falling wide when his chin was grabbed. A powdery bush fled in to his vision, blurring in to a lid closed in smiling to match the pink lips against his own.

"How about it then?"

Blinking, teeth closed on his own lips in fear they would mingle with the other pair. When the jounin's mouth didn't advance he took the hint. "...How about... what...?"

Escorting a dumbstruck, fully grown, and overly-humble man was easier than he had initially thought. He continued only when the backs of his knees were met with the foot of his own bed, contently pawing at the hips in their navy uniform. "I'll only stop when you tell me to."

Blanching foremost at the idea that the other would gain some new wild streak at his permission didn't keep him from staring.

At first, he thought it was Kakashi that had nodded. When a warm mouth closed on his own again he understood it was the other way around.

He had control over this. The fact that, at his word, everything would stop both gave him a gratification and dread. At his word, the tongue that prodded through timid permission of awkward tiers would stop.

And, most likely, he would never get another chance to simply be with someone. Kakashi wasn't expecting anything of this. Didn't even need it, possibly. This man was willing...

...to share the same space with him, and would readily accept whatever resulted. With little obligation, there was very little to lose. Strangers had the.... freedom, of being able to walk away. Or maybe it was a punishment, for choosing a lifestyle that had a disgustingly high mortality rate and crazy hours.

It explained the lack of decoration and open possessions he had been able to catch at askance on his way in.

An icy eye fluttered open at an unprecedented demand on his tongue. Kakashi complied, advancing from lazed exploration to match the clumsy, eager muscle sliding against his. The mass of blue limbs and conserved moans was disrupted abruptly when Iruka closed in a step, sending the jounin and his grip to the snickers of the mattress that readily accepted them.

"S--... sorry," a chuckle sighed against a pale cheek.

His apology was accepted with a nibble of his jaw escalating to his hair-swamped ear, Kakashi adapting to the new predicament as easily as anything else. Even he could take chewing on hair only so long, rolling them to claim the top and take advantage of the new exposure from felled strands.

Lips went soliciting from cell to cell, a demonstration of his services until one such neighborhood moaned a satisfaction. Attempting to get a hand under the teacher's shirt only got it caught in strange fingers, using their conjunction to plant the tanned palm in his own silver hair.

Up to that point Iruka had owned very little idea what to do with himself. And very little coherence that he should be doing something.

"...Sorry..." Digits roved through silver fluff, which bobbed and settled all together, the jounin righting on his elbows to stare over him. "...What?" Rich eyes drifted from one blue iris to a scar-shut lid, deeply wondering how long it had taken to make that a habit. It had to make for some bad depth perception.

He watched the blush creep through the scar on his would-be lover's nose as he played through thick fingers with his own agile set. "What are you apologizing for?" he asked slowly, eye critical on the startled shift of features.

He didn't know, either. For a ground his fingers meshed around the ones playing in his, focusing on them. "...Sorry." The air became less amused, closing his eyes. "Sorry!" Iruka didn't want to look when the hand left his own, balling it as knuckles fell back to the covers.

"...I don't want to look back on this and remember you only regretted it. Do you...?"

Conscious of what he was saying now, lips throbbing with attention mulled around the only thing he could bring himself to say. "Sorr--" A pair of warm digits settled over his mouth, leaving him to glare wetly up to the singular eye boring down on him.

"The only words," he annunciated firmly, dipping the tip of a nail to the rows of teeth just behind unstable lips. "...I'll hear tonight, had better either be my name, or 'stop'. Alright...?"

He was about to answer when a finger prodded at his tongue, growing wet from the contact and instantly reacting with biting on the second knuckle. Resolutely he nodded, looking away as he became heady in a new fit of blushing.

More than willing to take advantage of that daze Kakashi moved in to the expanse of skin he made available to himself with hiking up the shirt. Muscles twanged and shivered with the kisses he bestowed on the strong row of the chuunin's stomach. Higher, tongue tenderly laving each scar he crossed until he reached a pert nub. The body below him, owning it arched from the shuriken-print only to be pinioned down again.

For a while his damp pointer and thumb rolled its match, but his other hand was skidding along the licked trail cooling sluggishly in the stagnant night. Somewhere near the spots this man was methodically prodding and stroking, deep down Iruka was becoming disturbingly aware that this was a bit too good. He was not, however, aware of how quickly his heavy breaths rose in to moans when knuckles breezed a scar on his hip and drifted below a couple of waistbands.

Attempting to move higher left his nose snagged on the bottom of a shirt, avoiding that all together and returning to the heated pants that gently buffeted his face while he stared. Having expected his lips to grow busied by now, he had to slide drunken eyes open up to the warm greyblue eye hanging over him. That uncomfortable feeling was settling in again, just above his Coils of which were humming with anticipation for the slightly cool fingers mingling with tender flesh of his lower belly and the wiry thicket.

The fingers that... stopped there.

"...I'll be right back." Eyes bugged out at him, cheeks blazing as the teacher sat up on his elbows, leaving Kakashi to fish his hand out, give the swell of blue pants an assuring pat, and crawl backwards from the bed.

Iruka squawked a terrified, "What?!" The kinky silence-rule could wait, staring agape at the man who only scratched the back of his head.

"I have to get it from the bathroom. Unless you wanted to go without...?" Now that had never occurred to him, that his sweet and super-caring bundle of paralyzed caramel-love might prefer it rough&tumble.

Eyes only got bigger, crumpling in to the bed and then quickly shooting his gaze away. "N-no," he stammered, taking a moment to chew on his plump lower lip. "Go ahead..."

The lone slate-blue eye smiled to him, matching the weak curve of lips as he gave a nod. "Clear the blanket off and get out of those alright?" He gave a bye-bye wave as he disappeared through the door.

Better now than when he was unbearably turned on Iruka supposed, easing off the bed. He was lightheaded, folding the blanket up and setting it on the floor. Soon after his shirt followed, exposed shoulders sapped of their warmth which he ignored to wriggle delicately out of his pants.

"Who were you protecting?" sounded directly behind the chuunin, pausing in returning upright to blink.

"Pardon...?" As if he could sound any more perplexed, glancing over his shoulder to a man fixated on the mound of his back. Muscles froze when a lone finger's settled on a patch of scar, indicating what he was talking about.

"That. You took a hit intentionally."

"H-how..."

A bored eye took him with a flat eyebrow and unamused mouth, questioning the validity of that question. "ANBU," he drawled laconically.

It was statement enough to make dark eyes track along a naked white shoulder and spot the red flame-spiral. And take account of how close that shoulder was - how close he was. As soon as he started to come upright a counseling hand settled on his upper back to keep him like that.

"No, this is good. You can answer while I put this stuff on."

"Why should I--?!"

The chuunin's throat failed when the expanse of a hand slid in to the side of his underwear, a great deal lumpier - and colder - than he remembered being in his pants just moments ago.

"So how did you get it?"

Making it sound like a physical, carrying on a perfectly sane conversation in the middle of being de-undied. He bent forward a little more, hands spreading on the sheets for balance and glad to be concealed in the fall of his own hair. "Can't you be a little more..."

"...romantic?"

Though the word didn't sit right, Iruka could think of no better one and kept his silence. He heard some plastic cap pop open, the hand on his neck retracting to do whatever he was doing.

"It just seems so..." Knuckles whitened as he fisted the sheets.

"Mechanical," the jounin finished for him easily.

He had always pictured a couple finishing each other's sentences to be one of the most adorable things in the world. That idea was crumbling rapidly as he managed a nod. Between his ankles he could make out white thighs, Kakashi kneeled behind him and sliding his drawers to meet them. It was horrible, being this exposed to...

...a stranger. All he really knew about Hatake Kakashi was that Team 7 was the first trio he had ever taken under his wing, and that he was once part of a group of nins that were expert killers and hunters.

Somewhere, the idea that this man had chosen him to seek even a physical form of comfort was... flattering. And disheartening, that he well could have chosen anyone willing to 'be strangers'.

"You were expecting this to become a relationship?" He stopped pouring the bath oil on to his hand when no response came, lifting his eye to the chin he could make out past a fading erection and a tumble of hair.

"...It'd just... be nice, I guess..."

"There are many things that would be nice to have, Iruka-sensei." He released a shrug as he warmed the oil spreading on his fingers, observing the glisten in a thoughtful moment of silence. "Some people just aren't meant to have nice things."

Wasn't that the truth. Iruka's head fell, detecting the creep of tears along the bottom of his lashes.

"When that happens," he explained coolly, sitting back on his heels and setting the bottle down. "We just have to make do with what we have."

"...So I was simply convenient..."

"You knew that when you came up here. Is it really so bad? All relationships are doomed to fail. Conflict, fading interest - even death. The only exciting relationships are ones that end badly."

"...For such a good shinobi... you're a horrible person..."

Not wishing to test his boundaries, he kept his hands where they were at his own knees, staring off to the door that Iruka still made no effort to go to. "I guess it's a good thing we're not in a relationship then."

Iruka didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Both sounded like a brilliant idea, bitter tears falling in to the sheets as shoulders quaked with a pathetic chuckle. The paltry attempt he made at collecting himself didn't last very long in his mind, but however much time had truly lapsed, the man behind him was willing to wait out with his frigid eye busily elsewhere.

Then and only when broken, sobbing chuckles subsided and Iruka sniffled in to his knuckles did the man below him intercede his thoughts.

"...Do you still want to?"

An angry, aghast look shot between the chuunin's thighs towards him. "Is that the only thing you can think about?"

"Given the circumstances..." the jounin trailed off musically as his eye took to counting the ceiling tiles.