Disclaimer: Don't own anything.
Summary: Iruka is drowning, but he shouldn't be, not when all he has to do is reach out.
Notes: The fic in all its unbetaed glory! Not sure if it is too fragmented, or too abrupt, all comments and criticism muchly welcome:D hands out cookies Feels terrifyingly like one of the worst things I have ever written. -dies-

Two Fathoms to Land

It was the summer of many years past; balmy and stagnant, still even when the breeze broke the canopy of leaves. Iruka remembered that it had been raining, a thin drizzle in the brackish twilight. The bar was crowded and unbearable with cigarettes and the press of too many bodies. The door had been left open to let the night air through, and smoke and dim light spilled through, pressed out, too much in too little space. He sat under the awning and out of the rain. It was humid out, less than within but still oppressively close, air heavy with the rain and settling about him with ponderous slowness.

A man came up the steps, in uniform like Iruka. He walked leisurely, like there was nothing in the world on his mind, and Iruka thought perhaps that was the case. The rain beat down on him as it did on everything else, with regularity and single minded determination, but still the man did not alter his steps, just continued forward as though there was no rain, as through there was no summer and with it, no sense of decaying stillness and death. Then he reached the top step and looked at Iruka, the one eye that Iruka could see through the hair clear blue and baleful. A puddle of water was slowly forming at his feet but the man did not notice-- Iruka felt like pointing it out but did not, instead settled back against the wall and raised his can of beer in a toast. The wooden floor was hard and cold under him and he wondered if the man was like that too, frozen and immovable, made of and belonging to grey, waning light.

Then suddenly the man lurched forward, stumbling, none of the possession that he had on the streets. His step faltered, even his face lost some of its somber blankness. Iruka stood to catch him but fell; his head spun in lazy, awkward circles. The man came to rest a foot away, beside him.

Iruka thought perhaps he did not exist to the man too, since the man did not seem to be looking at him at all, but at the faraway streetlights that came through the rain hazily. He could not shake off the feeling that the man was of shadows, not of light. Even in the illumination of the light from the doorway the man seemed monochrome, withdrawn and sullen.

"Beer?" Iruka heard himself say, voice a little slurred.

The man took the can from Iruka's outstretched hand without a reply, and Iruka remembered a hard, tired smile, even as he also saw in his mind that the man was wearing a mask. He wondered why the mask; but it all seemed so right, this man of gauzy, shifting shadows, made of rain and eyes that were bottomless like the sea, like they, and also Iruka, were drowning.

And now Iruka is drowning too, in arms and a tumultous sea that rocks the foundation of his heart. There are waves lapping at his body with each ebb and flow of the tide, gently his mind is churning and tumbling over his insides, where Kakashi is the moon and the gravity that is slowly pulling him inside out.

Iruka tries to peer through where the sea parts, where he can see into its bottomless depths and everchanging tides. He feels naked and powerless; minute and insignificant in the tides that wash up against him and draw him inexorably into their languid, inescapable embraces.

Kakashi is faraway in the centre of the storm with his half-lidded eyes and lips in a hard line. Iruka knows that Kakashi is not upset, is not angry, is not breaking- but it certainly seems like he could be any of these, or all of them, with the way his eyes are that icy, charmless blue. The Kakashi Iruka knows is not like this though, because he has seen Kakashi with Naruto and Team 7, and that Kakashi is teasing and warm with knowing, twinkling eyes. This is not the Kakashi in battle, but Iruka sure feels like Kakashi is fighting up to push up against him to keep him out even as Kakashi's arms grip him painfully close.

Kakashi is not cruel. This Iruka knows with alarming certainty even as he wonders why he knows, and more importantly, believes. But the coldness emanating from Kakashi comes dangerously close to cruelty, if not in words or action then perhaps feeling, because Kakashi is a fugitive hiding from something, and now he has made Iruka one too. It seems necessary to be cruel to survive, even if everything in Iruka is screaming with protest against this new detachment. Love is what iruka has to offer- unquantifiable, abstract, defenseless love- one that cannot survive the point of senbon nor the blade of kunai. Perhaps even in the face of the correct words if would be of as much help as a broken leg. Iruka is not sure if this love that he gives will be a handicap or a weapon; all he can do is wait, but it is his responsibility to sow the seeds and watch them flower. With Kakashi though, Iruka does not even try because there is no place for the roots to grapple onto, no where for him to flourish. Kakashi will drain him, slowly and watchfully.

Iruka thinks of himself in the abstract, and tries to add to that self the idea of Kakashi, equally abstract and rather hazy in Iruka's mind. It is hard for Iruka to assign to Kakashi any concrete identity or person; Kakashi is a concept, a amalgamation of mannerisms and responses that Iruka has accumulated over time. He is lacking a central Kakashi to unify the disparate parts that belong to on whole but which are jumbled, no logic nor sequence, but Iruka supposes that much he understands. He cannot grasp at the thread the runs through Kakashi- all he has are generic descriptions and vague impressions like quiet,upright,intelligent.Unconventional,genious. No specifics and no inkling of Kakashi, in and of himself.

Iruka thinks of Naruto, away with Jiraiya. He thinks of Sakura with Tsunade. He thinks of Sasuke, then of Naruto and Sakura too. He steadfastly avoids of thinking of Kakashi; there are too many cloesd doors and hidden traps that he will unearth should be pry, and to pry he has no intention of. Iruka does not think he could handle Kakashi, raw and open. Kakashi will swallow him in one swell of brackish water and push him deep into his belly where Iruka will lie choking under the weight of too much that is pouring down his throat. Kakashi might be able to deal with it - Iruka does not know - but Kakashi is Kakashi and Iruka is Iruka, even if some days Iruka cannot tell the difference between them both.

Kakashi places his hand on Iruka's cock and grips with an intensity that burns. Iruka shifts away and tries not to think of how that felt suspiciously invasive and unbearably intimate on his skin. Then Kakashi kisses him, open-mouthed and wet, not distant anymore but infinitely close, moulded into Iruka's back and filing the drips and crevices. Iruka feels like he is being flayed slowly and gently and unravelled for the world to see.

Kakashi ignores the boundaries of casual sex just like he ignores the protocol of writing mission reports- easily and as simply without further thought. iruka tries not to think too much about significance and deeper meanings and things like that, because there are none and because he there are always ways to rationalise away this thing that they have that Iruka wants so irrationally.

Kakashi wrecks a path through Iruka's convoluted thoughts and Iruka tries not to think too much, with varying degrees of success. Kakashi closes over his thoughts, as silent and large as the sea, stifling Iruka's cries. There is lukewarm, coiling heat that turns in his stomach, relentless and restless- a bottomless, yawning ache, and Iruka closes his eyes in mute surrender.

Kakashi came again when autumn was beginning and the leaves hung listlessly on branches that were brown and dry. Iruka saw him through the classroom window when class had dismissed and he turned to wipe the board. He said nothing in the classroom but the clock ticked by slower than usual, moving deliberately and crawling through the rustle of papers and the lazy scratches of pen on paper. Sunlight streamed in with the breeze and made the room cool. Kakashi was sitting on the window sill, half-turning away from Iruka and the classroom, staring out at the sky with its low, heavy-bellied clouds like he was waiting for rain.

There was an army of ants marching across the edge of the classroom wall with methodical precision. I ought to kill them, Iruka contemplated, before there is an infestation, but they were moving in one surge, scattered on the wall and so very small compared to his fingernail when he brought up a hand to rest near the line of their march. The sun moved and the patch of light on the wall became faintly amber. The ants traced an unwavering path through light and shadow, cracks and peeling paint on the wall.

Kakashi moved off the window sill and walked softly over to Iruka. "Done for the day?" he said, quietly.

"Almost," Iruka replied, wondering a little at why Kakashi was waiting, observing in that disquieting way he had. The scrolls caught the shadows and lengthened them; there were some snaking up from under the desk and encroaching upon Kakashi's face.

"It's getting late, sensei," Iruka heard, and he reached below to draw his satchel from under the chair. The next moment there was a hand on his arm and Iruka felt Kakashi press him gently back into the seat. The satchel was taken from is grip and set back onto the floor.

Kakashi took out a jug from his vest and set it on the table. "I brought sake," he said, smiling as he went to fetch a chair from the back of the classroom to sit on the opposite side of the desk. Iruka stared, dumbfounded as Kakashi settled himself down as if it was normal.

"Kakashi-sensei, it's getting dark," Iruka began, and indeed it was; dusk was creeping in, as was the wind and this time the room was chilly.

Kakashi looked up carefully, studying Iruka through the darkness. "So it is," he said agreeably.

Iruka did not turn on the florescent lights because they were harsh and would undoubtedly chase away the space between Kakashi and him. It was a strange thing to be thinking of, but Iruka had the feeling that the distance would be stretched and Kakashi would become imprenetrable once again, dense and faraway, like when he was staring at the clouds.

So the lights remained carefully and tactfully off. The janitor might be making the rounds soon, Iruka thought, but that was alright. He thought that maybe if he turned on the lights the ants might scatter in confusion, but that was ridiculous. Kakashi took the jug and two mugs - Iruka recognised them from the pantry in the teachers' lounge- and poured for them both.

The exoskeletons of the ants were shiny and ebony in the waning light. They were less now, the earlier horde slowing down into a thin trickle, a lone one or too bringing up the rear. Iruka looked at Kakashi where the shadows were eating away at the cavities of his face where the skin opened to reveal eyes, or where the mask creased in to form the hollow of his mouth.

In the rain of sake and Kakashi, who was the deep, swallowing ocean, he was drowning, calmly and knowingly. It was almost raining outside. THe air was heavy with suppressed dampness and the ominous rustle of leaves. When Kakashi stared again Iruka thought back to the first time that they met, at the bar when he had no idea that the man he offered beer to was the legendary Sharingan Kakashi, when he was out of himself and Kakashi was too- he was drowning, and in that moment Iruka knew there would be no way to recover himself from the bottom of where he was sinking to, amongst the wreckage and the waving kelp and pebbles that lay as still as death.

There are many ways to die, more than can be listed, and ninja know significantly more. Iruka never thought he would die of revelations, but apparently he never though enough and now he is finding out that there is always a first time for everything. So Iruka is not dying, per se, because that would involve some kind of cessation of bodily function. He is dying in the metaphorical sense of the word, whereby there are threads unwinding themselves off the fibre of his existence and coiling slowly away, leaving him bare to the bone.

Kakashi is not amused- then again, neither is Iruka- because this is not so much a revelation as a tilting of truths and the demolition of facts. Iruka does not love Kakashi, and Kakashi does not love Iruka, and Iruka is drowning under the weight of too much, of Kakashi, and of the calm inevitability of Kakashi's leaving. Although making mention to leaving would imply Kakashi's presence in the first place, and Iruka is not sure if Kakashi cares enough to come. There can be no coersion of someone like Kakashi, someone so enigmatic and distant, self-possessed and unfathomable. Yet when those still, mercurial eyes turn upon him Iruka can read something else in them, things liketrust me,be here for me and I love you. Iruka hates to think he is delusional or dreaming; yet there is nothing else that he can be when he begins to read such impossible things in a stare that is no doubt meant to be flat and cold.

Then Kakashi opens his mouth and puts Iruka's hopes into words, makes Iruka not delusional but just paranoid, and Iruka learns that all along he has been drowning, but for all the wrong reasons. The smile that blossoms on his face is startling in its intensity - Iruka thinks he is ready to cry with relief - and Kakashi no longer seems immovable and remote, but there and quietly watching as he has always been. All it took was belief and now Iruka has this. With it he reaches out, and dares to take happiness in hand.

The End

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