Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Nothing had ever hurt so badly, nothing had ever made him so utterly miserable. He lay there, sprawled bonelessly across their bed, gazing blandly at the ceiling, with the heavy, smothering weight of betrayal pressing upon him. Occasionally, when he felt as if he were going to pass out from lack of oxygen, he would bury the tip of his kunai into his leg. His gasp of pain would reward him with air, with the briefest sensation that he was not suffocating under the weight of his own grief. He had lost all ability to think rationally, all ability to compromise or reason, and he was all but oblivious to the voice outside the door.

"Iruka..." it was a low voice, low and resigned, and accompanied by the jiggling of the doorknob. "Iruka, please. You have to talk to me at some point."

Silence, except for a hiss as the bloody point of a kunai knife dipped into a well of flesh.

The voice on the other side of the door became more urgent, more concerned, the jiggling of the knob a little more frantic. From his prone position on the bed, Iruka switched his kunai from one hand to the other, beginning to carve apart his opposite thigh. This time, he was silent; there was no hitching of breath, and therefore no release from suffocation. Desperately, he dug deeper, until he felt himself not only gasping but crying out as well.

"Ruki!" the voice cried, and the very door began to quake. "Ruki, what are you doing in there? Ruki!"

The voice broke through the vague barrier Iruka had set up, the desperation in it undermining all Iruka's ability to ignore the pleading.

"Why, Kakashi?" Iruka asked, as he ran his fingers along the kunai blade.

"Ruki, I—" There was a thump, and a soft rushing noise, like cloth down a wall. "I don't know, Ruki."

"Stop," Iruka shouted, "calling me that!" In his sudden frustration, the chuunin managed to nick his finger on the knife.

"Iruka," Kakashi's voice was broken, beaten, hollow. "Let me in. Please."

Nicking another finger, Iruka said nothing.

"Iruka?" Quizzical.

Silence, another nicked finger.

"Iruka." A statement to confirm existence.

Iruka found his fingertips much more sensitive that his thighs.

"Iruka!" Concern, more door rattling.

Hmm...his wrists seemed highly sensitive as well...

CRASH.

In a haze of splintery dust, Kakashi appeared, stumbling into the room and dusting himself free of the fragments of what had once been a fine wooden door. Iruka looked up at him, bloody fingers holding the kunai against his wrist.

"...no..." Kakashi whispered hoarsely. He stared for only a moment or two before, in one swift motion, he was upon Iruka, using his greater strength to wrench the weapon from the weaker chuunin's hand. Iruka fought back for a moment, but only a moment; when he stood, his thighs screamed in pain and rivulets of blood began trickling down his legs.

He gasped, a sound that was cut short when he realized that it would most likely alert Kakashi to what he had been doing to himself. He felt weak enough already; there was no need to let the jounin now just how weak he truly was.

It seemed that he was out of luck, for said jounin had not become a jounin for nothing. His senses had picked up the smell of blood lurking all around Iruka the minute he had come close enough to tear the kunai from Iruka's hands. As Iruka stared, Kakashi fell to his knees in front of him once more, clutching the legs of his pants and resting his trembling head on Iruka's knees.

"Iruka," he mumbled hoarsely, "Iruka, my life, my baby, please...don't do this to yourself over me...don't hurt yourself like this...I can't stand it, I can't stand to see you in pain..."

"Then why did you cause it?" Iruka mumbled blandly, gazing down at the mop of silvery-grey hair.

At those words, the hands clutching his pants grew tighter, and the head against his knees trembled more violently. The trembling traveled down to the shoulders, and a small, hitching gasp escaped the lips. Hatake Kakashi burst into tears. He had cried earlier, to be sure, but this...it unnerved Iruka. He had never seen Kakashi cry like this. He seemed to be gasping for breath as he wept, his entire body seemed as if it would fall apart from the sobs that were wracking it. He looked so utterly broken.

"He deserves to be broken," the harsher part of Iruka's mind mumbled. "He deserves this anguish, for what he has done to me."

The kinder part of his mind—and the more dominant part—was the part that sent his hand to rest upon Kakashi's shock of hair, to stroke it gently and soothingly as if nothing had ever happened. The kinder part of Iruka's mind couldn't stand to see someone he cared for so deeply in so much pain, no matter how much pain the person had already caused him. It was one of his greatest weaknesses as a shinobi...and one of his greatest strengths as a human.

Still Kakashi cried, begging through his tears.

"Iruka, d-don't go, d-don't l-leave me h-here...I w-was wrong, Iruka, s-s-so wrong, I n-never meant to d-do this to y-you, I d-don't d-deserve y-you I know I d-don't b-but I c-can't live without-t y-you and I'm s-s-so sorry Iruka j-just don't g-go d-don't g-go d-don't go...d-don't go..." the rest of his words were obscured by his tears.

Slowly, as if something inside of him were holding him back, Iruka knelt down to Kakashi's level.

"I...I can't forgive you, Kakashi...not yet...not right now," he mumbled, and Kakashi's face went even whiter than usual.

"I can't forgive you, but I won't leave you...I just...I need some time by myself, Kakashi. Do you understand?"

Kakashi gave the tiniest of nods, leaning toward Iruka as if asking for permission.

Iruka touched his forehead to Kakashi's. "I love you, but please, go...go back to your own apartment...I need to think..."

"I love you too, Ruki-kun...I'm s-so sorry..."

"I know, Kakashi. I know."

At those words, Kakashi threw his arms around Iruka, so desperately and so forcefully that the chuunin's back nearly touched the ground. He allowed himself to hold the tearful copy-nin in his arms, with only the barest traces of the repulsion he had felt earlier.

"I'll give him a second chance," Iruka thought, placing a small kiss on Kakashi's temple.