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This is what happens when you get drunk, Iruka manages to think despite the pounding pain in his head. You deserve this, you stupid, stupid idiot.
"Well, this has been nice," Kakashi (Iruka refuses to call someone he's slept with by their last name) says, stilted. "I should go."
Iruka notes that his mask is on. He really hopes he didn't have sex with Kakashi and he had his mask on the whole time. That would just make the whole thing worse somehow.
He does his stupid Jounin thing and is gone before Iruka can say so much as a word, two of them potentially being "Fuck you."
Okay. Okay. There's no need to panic. It was just a one time thing that he can barely remember already, so it should be easy peasy forgetting the rest of it. Forever.
This is definitely not going to happen again
"Are you fucking kidding me!?" Iruka demands once he wakes up and rolls over in his bed to see a very unwelcome visage. Still wearing his mask. Ridiculous. Iruka regrets it though when the pain in his skull spikes with the noise, and when there's an entirely new pain from where a half asleep, hung over, and panicked Jounin is pressing down on his throat.
Kakashi blinks at Iruka dumbly, and then groans, releasing his throat, collapsing back to the bed.
Asshole, Iruka wants to say out loud so, so much, but he's the bigger person here, okay. Also he's still coughing the abrupt morning strangulation away.
"... Sorry," Kakashi says, like he doesn't want to, or like he's only saying it because he's vaguely aware that that's what you're supposed to do in situation like this but he doesn't one hundred percent get it.
Iruka grunts in a vague affirmative instead of biting his head off. He teaches children, he's got a lot of self control.
"Were we even in the same bar when we started drinking? Did one of us start drunkenly bar-hopping?" Iruka asks as Kakashi rolls out of bed and puts his pants on. Iruka's eyes are closed to the cruel world and, more importantly, the cruel light.
"I think... I came and visited you?" He sounds embarrassed, as he should be.
"What."
"I don't think not going to the same bar is going to keep this from happening again."
"What, so we're going to have to quit drinking entirely?" Iruka asks, and then he spares a moment to contemplate the sheer horror he feels about what he just said. Teaching shrieking homicidal ninjas-in-training all day and then not getting to snap and go on a drunken rager once every one or two weeks... It's no way to live. He can't do it.
"Let's not," Kakashi says quickly, similar thoughts but probably (hopefully) with less children in them no doubt running through his head. Iruka's not going to make a Jounin stop drinking. That'd just be cruel. Even if said Jounin is a jerk.
"Agreed."
"Well, I should just..." Kakashi says awkwardly, as usual. It's like he's got two modes: bitchiness and awkwardness. Why are you like this, Iruka wants to ask him while shaking him by the collar of his shirt. As usual, he manages to resist just barely.
"Hang on. We really should figure something out. This is just... painful."
He winces.
"We could... meet at that dango restaurant a block from here, later? Talk about his?" he forces himself to go on.
"Fine," Kakashi says shortly, and then disappears like he's been obviously wanting to all along.
"So, I don't think the... thing is going to stop... happening." It's hard to talk about the Situation in public. But talking to him private also seems unbearably terrible somehow. Why can't thing with him ever be easy?
"We'll have to tough it out then," Kakashi declares, without even checking with him if to see if he agrees with this course of action at all. Iruka grits his teeth and resolves not to have another screaming argument with Hatake Kakashi in public again. Even if he's begging for it.
"There must be some way to make this easier for us, though," he protests.
"Like what?" he asks.
He shifts uncomfortably. "Look, the reason why this is so uncomfortable is mostly because, well, we don't like each other." That wasn't harsh, right? Of course it wasn't, Kakashi knows the two of them don't like each other. Which means Iruka shouldn't mind being harsh with him, he never has before after all, but... "So maybe we should work on... not don't liking each other a little less."
"I'll make sure to turn down my feelings of distaste to more appropriate levels," he replies flatly.
"Don't be a smartass," he snaps.
"And we're off to a good start."
"I mean it!" He takes a deep breath. "Cooperate with me a little here, okay?"
There's a silence as he eats his dango balls somehow without revealing his face. Iruka tries to figure out what kind of tension it is that's filling the air-- sexual, awkward, resentful?-- but in the end he's not sure.
"I'm all about teamwork, sensei. I'm open to your ideas," Kakashi surrenders.
Hah.
For lack of a better idea, they go out on a walk together the next day. Kakashi summons a few of his dogs, seemingly for no apparent reason besides wanting to have someone to talk to that doesn't resent him while at the same time lusting for his--
"You're friends now?" Pakkun asks, walking next to Iruka, stubby legs working fast.
Iruka looks towards Kakashi, significantly farther ahead of him, walking and talking with the rest of the dogs. They'd just... naturally drifted apart.
That better not be some kind of metaphor for their relationship as a whole.
"Trying to be," he replies, inadequately.
Pakkun looks between Kakashi and Iruka. "It doesn't seem to be going too well."
"Well, maybe he should be walking next to me."
"Maybe you should be making the effort to catch up with him."
"And maybe he should listen to my opinions."
"... I was just saying," Pakkun says gruffly. "Besides, from what I hear it's not like you seem to listen to his opinions much either."
"He bitches about me to his summons!?"
"I wouldn't put it like that. He vents to his summons. And we think of each other more as friends than the whole summons-summoner thing."
"It's still ridiculous. Let him vent to his other friends."
"What other friends?" he asks, and Iruka almost trips.
"... Gai?" he attempts.
"Gai has a glowing opinion of you, unfortunately."
"Unfortunately," Iruka says dryly. "Well, one of his other friends then."
"See, this is why I was confused. If you don't count Kakashi's summons then it's really more of a 'friend' singular thing."
Iruka doesn't respond to that, and instead walks in silence, looking at Kakashi's back. Iruka has Izumo and Kotetsu and Genma and Raidou and his coworkers at both of his jobs, and most of his students are quite fond of him. He's never had any problems making friends. He imagines having only one friend who's just as busy with work as him and a pack of dogs he needs to summon to talk to if he wants to vent. It sounds kind of... pitiful.
The Copy Cat Nin, pitiful.
"... Whatever," Iruka says, and focuses on the rest of his walk through the woods.
At the end of it, Iruka invites Kakashi to go out again.
Kakashi doesn't thank him when Iruka pushes a book into his hands (less risque than Icha Icha, he's hoping to foster some modesty here). He wonders how much of it is simple ungratefulness, the need to appear stoic and cool, or simply not knowing what the fuck to do when confronted with any kind of social situation. He's starting to recognize some of the behavior from some of his students that come from ninja clans, raised from birth to be ninjas, not kids, not people.
"Was I supposed to get you a gift?"
"No. I mean, if you wanted to. But you don't have to. And we never agreed on it, and it was never implied, and I don't really have a reason to give you one. So you're in the clear." Is he rambling?
Iruka waits for a moment to see if Kakashi will thank him now, but it doesn't even look like it occurs to him. Definitely a clan kid.
"Let's go and eat," Iruka finally breaks the silence. God, he feels awkward. He wonders how much of it is their weird, shitty relationship, and how much of it is Kakashi rubbing his awkwardness off on him.
They get ramen.
The owner asks them if they're on a date, along with a playful wink and jabbing elbow.
Iruka wonders if Kakashi just actually choked on his food or if it was just his imagination.
"Um, ah," Iruka says, because now that he's confronted with the question he doesn't actually know the answer. They're sleeping together. They arrange for days to hang out together, doing suspiciously date like activity. They're getting to know each other. But it's not like they like each other--
The owner chuckles, breaking Iruka from his panicked wonderings and signaling that he'd been deliberating too long to convince the owner of anything but what he already suspects now.
Iruka is pretty sure Kakashi is actually choking on his food now.
(He notes that Kakashi's ears blush terribly.)
The next time they meet up for one of their maybe-probably-a-date's Kakashi shoves something into Iruka's chest. It's a book, and judging from the cover it is plenty risque. Kakashi may be hoping to foster some immodesty here.
"Oh, you didn't have to do that," comes out of Iruka's mouth, as reflexive as blinking when something lunges for your eyes. "But thank you."
Kakashi mumbles something that basically breaks down to 'no problem', and they head inside into the restaurant. Iruka hides the book, and more importantly the quite explicit book cover, in a pocket inside his vest.
The cook draws hearts in ketchup on their meals.
This time when Iruka wakes up not alone he's actually not so disgusted with himself that he immediately wakes Kakashi up as well. Instead he takes the time to take note that he's either in a very spartan motel room or that this is the first time they've done it in Kakashi's place. The only things in the room is a futon that the two of them are crammed into, their clothes tossed here and there on the floor, and a small wardrobe with what Iruka assumes is a mix of clothes and weapons within, with the ratio tilted significantly towards weapons.
A couple of picture frames catch his eye as they're the only part of the room that doesn't seem to be there not because they're necessary but because Kakashi just wanted them to be there. One picture of Team Seven, Naruto looking especially adorable, Kakashi's hands ruffling Sasuke and Naruto's hair, Sakura in the middle. The other picture is a photo of what must be Kakashi's original childhood team. He... looks like a sulky asshole. It's weirdly cute.
It's even cuter that Kakashi made sure that these would be the first things he saw each day as he woke up.
Iruka thinks the definitely-actually-dating thing may just actually be working out for them.
He reads the risque romance novel Kakashi got him until he wakes up on his own, and then promptly schedules another date with him.
(Kakashi chokes when Iruka calls it a date, but doesn't protest.)