Title: Sleepless

Author: cuteanilusian

Author's Summary: "Three sleepless nights while team seven is away during the chuunin exams. Three nights for their senseis to get to know each other better."

Genres: Romance

Rating: M for yaoi, consensual male on male sex

Disclaimer: Naruto and its characters belong to Masashi Kishimoto.

First Night:

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Kakashi tossed and turned. Bright moonlight spilled through his window and onto the bed. No matter which direction he lay, the rays seemed to shine straight into his eyes. Finally, he sat up, shoulders hunched with exhaustion. He sighed and shook his head at the sleep that wouldn't come.

From the hallway came a tentative tap. With the trainees away in the Forest of Death, he couldn't think who it was. He pulled a mask from his bedpost and fitted it over the lower part of his face, then called out, "enter."

The door opened a crack and he saw a face, half illumined, through the space. A wide, dark brown eye, smooth coffee-tinted skin, the distinguishing scar.

"Couldn't sleep either?" asked Kakashi, pleasantly surprised by the visitor, but confused at the same time. "Come on in."

Umino Iruka entered silently, slipping in and pushing the door almost shut behind him. "I apologize Kakashi-sensei. Thank you. I'm sorry to intrude." The young man's demeanor was hesitant, embarrassed. Very cute. Kakashi had a crush on the teacher that he'd never let rise above fantasy. Yet here was the lovely thing, in his bedroom no less! A quilt covering him from waist to toes, Kakashi patted the corner of the bed and Iruka approached.

"I just can't stop thinking about them," said Iruka said by way of explanation and perched himself on the very edge of the bed. "All of them. But mostly team seven." A tendon flexed in his neck and he gazed out the window. "I look out there and I wonder if they're awake too. Did they remember to post a sentry? Did they arm any automatic traps? What if they open the scroll?" He sighed, and the light glinted at the corners of his eyes, making them sparkle. "I can't help but wonder; will there ever be a time when we do not pit children against children? When we don't send them out to fight against strangers; to fight among themselves."

Kakashi had no answer, and so he simply stared at the younger man's form. Iruka, hair done up as always in a high ponytail, was wearing only a black, long-sleeved shirt and cropped pants, the thin fabric falling softly over every curve of his body . Kakashi enjoyed beauty in both men and women as much as he enjoyed reading naughty stories and engaging in no-strings-attached intimacy. But there was something about Iruka that had always made Kakashi hesitate. There was too much to this young man. Too many feelings, too many thoughts. Right now, there was a crease between his eyes that Kakashi ached to stroke his thumb across, to sooth the worries away. But he wasn't so big a fool that he was going to say, "everything is going to be okay."

Instead he let himself fall backwards onto his pillows, hands laced behind his head. His eyes once again traveled to the window. They sat in silence, watching dark clouds cruising the night sky, watching the moonlight falling through the leaves, pooling on the ground like rain puddles.

"It's late. I should get back to my place." Iruka made a movement to leave but, without thinking, Kakashi reached out and grabbed the younger man's hand. Iruka looked down at him with a mixture of confusion and shock at the sudden physical contact. Kakashi's hand was dry and warm, slightly rough. However, the chuunin's initial alarm melted away when he looked into Kakashi's eyes. There was more to be spoken. He squeezed the hand that bid him stay, and did not go.

"Nobody understands them as we do," Kakashi said. "You and I know more than any other team, they walk along a razorblade."

Iruka's chin fell upon his breast. "There is no one else in the world I could share this with, but I fear the worst for Naruto and Sasuke."

"As do I."

Iruka leaned back onto the bed. Kakashi didn't seem to mind the extra weight as Iruka settled himself across his legs. "I don't know what I would do if Naruto is killed."

"Naruto?" Kakashi coughed the name out. He stifled a chuckle. "Eh. I would not worry about Naruto. Unless it is to fret about how he would deal with the consequences of what the curse would do to those around him. No, Sasuke is closer to death, traveling with Naruto, than he knows."

"Uchiha? But you and I know he's the best Konoha has."

"And you and I know also what the nine-tailed fox once did to Konoha."

Again they lay in silence. Then Kakashi asked. "Why do you worry?"

"Why?" asked Iruka, a little more loudly than he planned. "I… I really don't know. I've asked myself that before. Why force yourself to suffer more with worry? I can't help it."

"You care too much," through Kakashi, but didn't say it out loud. "That's one of the reasons you tug at my heart so. It's also why I've kept my distance." Instead he said, "I didn't mean to pry. Feel free to stay here as long as you need to."

Still holding his hand, he stroked the tender skin between Iruka's thumb and forefinger. It was a tiny movement, barely contact, but it blazed like an electric shock up Iruka's arm. The chuunin's first inclination, having had no experience whatsoever with no-strings-attached anything, was to leap from the bed and bolt from the room. Better to shy away from any sort of intimate attachment than to have those strings painfully severed later on. After all, that was how he had lived until Naruto came along, and now that he had someone to care about, look at what a mess he'd become. But he was tired, his mind exhausted from running endless scenarios for team seven. And it was such a nice, caring sensation. So, against his nature, he lay still, concentrating on the one inch of space where they touched, where Kakashi was, consciously or unconsciously, comforting his tired mind.

Second Night:

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The next night, Kakashi was roused by a sound only the most sensitive ninja would have detected.

"I know you're out there," he said quietly.

Sheepishly, Iruka sidestepped into the room. "I'm sorry if I woke you."

"I'm not. Having trouble sleeping again tonight?"

"Yes, but for a different reason." He looked down at Kakashi, who lay with his head nestled in a stack of pillows. "I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate you talking to me last night." He shifted his weight from foot to foot. "I know I must have appeared weak, and I thank you for listening to my problems."

Kakashi smiled his trademark grin. "My pleasure."

"I think you were correct when you said," began Iruka, but was cut off.

"Please, you are giving me a sore neck."

Iruka blushed in the darkness and bowed. "I am sorry..." He began to back towards the door.

"No, don't go!" Kakashi said quickly. "Here." He shifted his body in the bed. "Just lie down here at my level."

Iruka hesitated. "Really? I mean..."

"Don't ruin a beautiful thing with questions, sensei." Kakashi patted the top of the quilt and Iruka tentatively stretched his body out across it. Kakashi watched hungrily as he folded one tanned hand under his cheek so that he was lying on his side facing the jonin.

"Now then," Kakashi purred. "Isn't that better? Ah much. You were saying I was correct about something?"

Iruka's shy smile lit up Kakashi's heart. How he loved to see it. "You are correct about many things, Kakashi-san. I just wanted to say that what you said about team seven made a lot of sense. I have trained so many students but I have never known any like those in that group."

"Ah, they are enough to challenge anyone's perspective of their job or philosophy. But that's what children do, right? After we spoke you slept well?"

"Yes. I don't think I realized how much I was holding inside until I had someone to share it with. I was afraid that you would find me incompetent, but holding it inside was making me just that. And so I had to set aside my misgivings and find someone to tell."

"I feel honored as someone you chose to confide in."

"Yes."

"So, that was all you wished to talk to me about?"

Iruka's face went so blank, Kakashi had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing. Could the chuunin really be as innocent as he acted? Perhaps he had only been humoring him by letting him hold his hand. He had to admit, he had no clue if Iruka had any interest in him. Perhaps all this midnight visitation was purely plutonic. Kakashi felt his spirits sink at the thought. Oh well.

"I don't know if talking would suffice. I think sometimes I talk too much." Iruka reached out and took Kakashi's hand again. To the jonin's delight, he stroked his thumb along the inside of Kakashi's wrist, causing a shiver to run up his arm, through his chest, and flutter about like butterflies in his stomach. Iruka brought the hand up to his face. Gentle lips brushed a kiss against a spot next to Kakashi's thumb. "Thank you. It was kind of you."

Kakashi flexed his fingers and squeezed Iruka's hand. Damn this mask. He longed to nibble at the chuunin's fingertips, longed to nip his way down his arm, and loose himself in the hedonistic pleasure of exploring every inch of his body. Holding back from doing just that was about to make him explode.

But then, before he could prepare a mask-removal, hold-chuunin-down-and-kiss-the-daylights-out-of-him plan, the man loosened his grip, slipped away off the bed.

When he finally found voice enough to call "wait," the door had already latched behind him.

Last Night:

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Kakashi threw aside his book. It was not distracting him from his own cruel, perverted thoughts. He'd been reading the same page of steamy descriptive paragraphs over and over again when really, he wasn't comprehending the words at all. His mind kept straying, again and again bringing him back to thoughts of tan skin, chocolate brown eyes, the long scar stretching across the bridge of a certain teacher's nose. A certain teacher who, twice now, had found his way to Kakashi's bedroom. The thought of that was what thoroughly confused him. In a way, it felt as innocent as if Naruto had come calling, looking for advice or just someone to confide in. But Iruka was not 13. And that kiss last night was so strange and intriguing. What did it mean? Did it mean anything?

As much as he lusted after the man, longed for a night of careless passion, he was hesitant to act. In part it was the fear of rejection, and in part it was the troublesome deepness of those dark eyes. Kakashi still wasn't sure how "real" he wanted to make any sort of relationship with Iruka.

He tried to sleep, he really did. But his eyes would not close. He tried to concentrate on shutting down his mind and stopping the cacophony of thoughts, but these thoughts would not halt. Whenever he took one thought and set it aside, another sprang up in its place until finally he realized the only way to be rid of them was with action.

He found himself standing, half dressed, wearing his turtlenecked shirt and mask, pants and his crooked Hitai-ate, outside of Iruka's house, feeling stupid. What the hell was he doing here? What was his excuse? What was he going to do? Frozen with indecision, he almost jumped when he heard a familiar voice.

"I know you're out there."

Kakashi looked up and saw Iruka leaning out of his bedroom window. Kakashi grinned, hand behind his head. "Ah, ha ha ha. Hello."

"Mm. Would you like to come in?" The chuunin asked in a quiet voice.

"Yes," he said, and sauntered over to the window. "Yes I would." He hopped onto the sill and into the room.

It was a simple, straight forward room; futon bed with rumpled sheets, a nightstand, a desk. Iruka's eyes looked sleepy, and he stood in his same black sleep clothes staring at Kakashi.

"You were asleep," Kakashi now felt awkward. "I'm sorry. I don't even know why I'm here."

"It's okay," the chuunin said. He reached out and patted Kakashi's shoulder, then ran his hand down the length of his arm. He gripped Kakashi's hand and led him to the bed where they both sat. "It is probably just because I'm half asleep, but I'd hazard to say there's something going on here that has nothing to do with our mutual students. Sorry, my former student's, your soldiers."

"Oh," thought Kakashi. "I thought we'd gotten past that. Obviously not."

But then Iruka rubbed his eye with his fist, and Kakashi was back to wanting to eat him alive. "I know a lot of other people who have more right than I to be stressed out, but unfortunately, that doesn't seem to stop me from feeling this way. And I know there's something I need, something that would be quickly serviced by a trip to a certain kind of bathhouse. But, I'm just not that kind of guy."

Kakashi's mind raced. "What is he saying?"

"I wish I were. It would make my life a lot simpler to just be like you."

"Like me?" Kakashi asked.

"If I could just pick up a copy of Icha Icha I would. If I could just follow instructions when someone says, God Iruka, you just need to get laid.' But," and here he looked up, past Kakashi, not meeting his eye. "I don't want to just' get laid." His gaze flickered to Kakashi momentarily, then away again.

Kakashi brought his hand up and touched Iruka's cheek. "What do you want?"

Iruka inched his hand up Kakashi's arm, interlacing fingers. A phrase was echoing through his head, over and over, and he wanted so badly to tell the jonin, "I want you." But it wouldn't be right. Better to live in the agony of limbo than to give into a relationship that could be painful, or worse yet, would never even be a relationship.

His thoughts were interrupted as Kakashi took both his hands in his and brought them up to the edge of his mask. With a little encouragement, Iruka tucked his fingertips beneath the mask and pealed it downwards. That taken care of, Kakashi discarded his forehead protector with a swipe of his hand. In a voice strangely not impeded by fabric he asked: "What do you need?"

Iruka pounced on him, and nearly knocked him off the bed.

He wrapped his arms around Kakashi and their mouths met, lips parted. Kakashi tried to steady himself against the weight of the younger man, but his hand slipped.

Then they did fall off the bed.

There was barely a pause as Iruka landed on top of the startled, yet amused, jonin. The initial impact was quickly forgotten as Iruka latched onto his mouth, his kisses, deep, hard, frantic, mind-blowing. Kakashi felt dizzy, ecstatic, aroused. He pulled Iruka towards him, feeling the weight of him, finally being able to run his hands over his back, his ass, his solid chest, back to his ass, pressing him into his body, holding him close.

"I need you," Iruka breathed, "I need you. I want you. Oh God, do I want you."

Kakashi chuckled. "Then you shall have me." He kissed Iruka on the lips, once, twice, then rolled so that he was on top and sank his mouth and tongue down upon him, like they were both made of quicksand, pouring over each other, into each other, flowing, overflowing. He kissed down Iruka's face, down the arch of his neck and affixed himself to his throat.

The chuunin gasped, then moaned, leaning back. Kakashi slid his hands down Iruka's back, slipped below his waistline and grabbed his ass, then moved back up his body under his shirt, all the time nursing at the pulse of life that throbbed under the tan skin of his throat. He was so hungry for this. He turned the shirt inside out and yanked it over Iruka's head, loosing the ponytail as he did. He jerked his head forward, auburn locks tumbling down over his face. Kakashi felt his hips buck and roll beneath him, had heard Iruka's voice, husky with need, "more more."

With eager hands he pawed at Kakashi's tight shirt, pulling it off in one quick movement, then grasping the back of Kakashi's wild hair and pulling him in for another staggering kiss.

Kakashi realized his dizziness was due to the fact he was forgetting to breath. He pulled away, gasping for air, and slithered down the younger man's body to the bulge at his crotch. He forced his hands into Iruka's pants, grasping his bare ass, and, with his teeth, teased the waistline of his pants down to reveal the erect member. He promptly swallowed it up, as Iruka's hips rolled to force it even deeper, sliding the head to the back of Kakashi's soft pallet. Kakashi slowly, agonizingly, slid his mouth back and forth, cupping his tongue along underside of Iruka's dick. Through the veil of his eyelashes, he looked up at Iruka, who's back was arched, head thrown back, mouth open wide, breathing heavy, panting, eyes closed.

Kakashi smiled and moved faster, sucked harder. He would lean forward to the deepest point of penetration, then deliberately, leisurely pull back, causing spasms of pleasure and groans of desire to emanate from the chuunin's body. Finally, when he let the still-swollen member fall from his mouth, Iruka surprised him.

"Your turn. Up on the bed."

Kakashi complied, wiping the corner of his mouth and easing his body up onto the futon, leaving his legs dangling over the edge. Iruka turned and knelt at the foot of the bed, his hand sliding up Kakashi's stomach and pushing him down. Then, his fingernails scratching ever so slightly, just a touch of pain, Iruka yanked Kakashi's pants off and flung them aside. Even as he did this, he drew Kakashi into his mouth with warm wet strokes. Kakashi felt his fingers curl white-knuckled into the bed sheets. If this boy was inexperienced, think of what he could be taught! Iruka wrapped his lips tightly around the head and worked his tongue in a maddening spiral. Then he ran his tongue down the shaft, flicking the tender skin at the base, then back up. Over and over until Kakashi had to scream out for him to stop.

Kakashi, all but mad with animalistic craving, rolled off the bed and fell to his knees behind the chuunin. He pressed Iruka forward so his body stretched out over the bed and pulled the black pants down to his knees. The crevasse of Iruka's ass and that dark, hallowed sweet spot below beckoned him. He moved his exhausted dick, dripping with pre-cum and saliva, up and down and over the patch. Iruka panted into the mattress, "now. Oh God please, now." Holding his dick tightly, Kakashi eased the very tip of the head passed the ring of tightness. He needed to be inside. He spat on his hands and reached down, adding more slickness to facilitate entry. Then he grasped Iruka's hips and thrust.

There was a sharp intake of breath from the bed. Kakashi leaned forward, stroking Iruka's sweat-slick back. "This okay?"

"Yes," came the shuttering reply. "Oh yes."

Kakashi pulled out as far as he dared, and thrust in again. He reached around to stroke Iruka's dick to rigidness. It complied, coating his hands with more lubricant. He rubbed it all over Iruka's ass, then, driving his hips forward, he moved effortlessly in and out, again and again. The sensation was pure ecstasy, and the sound of Iruka's labored mantra, "yes, yes, yes" urged him to go on, then faster. Iruka reached back to stroke himself to climax, even as Kakashi road him harder. Kakashi's heart pounded, sweat poured from his bare face, his thighs burned with exertion. He pulled Iruka's hips back, thrusting in as far as he could go. Iruka was no longer able to form words, and his loud moans were punctuated by gasping breaths which grew closer and closer together.

Kakashi held on for one more moment, then, with an unintelligible exhalation, he came. He body spasmed with constricting muscles and the pulsating surge of fluid. The younger man cried out as Kakashi withdrew, and they both collapsed limply into a heap, half on, half off the bed.

What was there to say? The night was chilly, especially as they were both dowsed with sweat. Kakashi pulled the sheets from the bed, wrapping them around them both. Iruka leaned against the jonin's bare chest, listening to the strong steady heartbeat. Kakashi nuzzled Iruka's unbound hair and rested his chin on his head. His hair smelled sweet, a tinge of vanilla, or maybe coconut. He'd have to take a look at his shampoo when they showered in the morning.

"I did need to get laid."

"Oh yes you did."

"Thank you."

"Not necessary – I needed this too."

"You needed to get laid?"

"I needed you."