Chapter Text
Kakashi hadn’t been sleeping well.
It wasn’t anything he hadn’t dealt with before. Kakashi had a long and familiar past with insomnia, and was long used to functioning almost at 100% on hardly any sleep at all. He could go days, even weeks, on only a handful of stolen hours.
Besides, He supposed it could only be expected. He’d recently experienced being a casualty of war. Temporary or not, he’d died on the battlefield. And that seemed like something one wouldn’t come back from unscathed.
Sure, Kakashi’d had near-death¬ experiences before. He’d need more than two hands to count all the lucky breaks and near misses over his long and lustrous career. On more than one occasion, the memories of one such experience would surface in his nightmares. He had always been able to shake them before. They always went away, with time.
But the nightmares were only getting more frequent.
Kakashi was scared.
It felt like it did back then; when Kakashi would wake up alone in his barebones room, shaking and sweating with tears rolling down over his left cheek. It felt as inescapable as the blood that he couldn’t clean off his hands, as incessant as the dull ache behind his comrade’s eye.
And the worst part was Iruka knew.
Iruka didn’t mention it. He didn’t even really react to it at all. But Kakashi knew that he knew. He may have been giving Kakashi space, waiting to see if Kakashi would come to him, but Kakashi had no delusions about whether he was hiding this from Iruka or not. He was too preceptive not to know.
Besides, Iruka had slept at his side for many nights since that day. Kakashi would be foolish to think he could hide this.
So, why was he trying to?
It was late. Kakashi had long given up on trying to track the hour. Iruka was deep asleep at his side; his even, steady breathing a grounding, comforting sound in his ear. Kakashi almost wished it wasn’t. Iruka was too good at lulling him to sleep, and sleep was the last thing Kakashi wanted lately. Sleeping had become a trap. It was easier to just avoid it altogether until Kakashi figured this out.
He felt terrible, lying to Iruka. They had both come so far, confiding in each other. Trusting each other with the ugly, scary, shameful parts. But he just couldn’t do it. There was too much tangled up in this. He couldn’t pull Iruka back to that day. He wouldn’t.
“Copy Ninja.”
Kakashi stiffened, his eye snapping open as he felt an ice-cold numbness shoot down his spine. No. He let it happen again. He let his guard slip down.
He couldn’t move. He never could. It was exactly how it had felt that day, on the battlefield, injured and pinned in the rubble. His breathing started to quicken, shallow and unsteady in his throat, as he willed himself to ignore it. Close your eye, Kakashi. He begged. You know he’s not here.
“Look me in my eyes, Copy Ninja,” The voice was unmistakable. Kakashi almost believed he couldn’t just be hearing it in his head. “This time, you won’t have your tricks to save you.”
Kakashi looked then. He had no choice. His eyes were the only thing he had the free will to move, and he knew where to direct his gaze. There, standing before his bed, his gaze met the unyielding, hypnotic stare of Pein.
“No,” the stern, emotionless voice echoed in the small, dark room. “You have nothing to save yourself with now.”
Pein raised a hand slowly, the nail glinting brightly as it passed through the sliver of light that made its way through the break in Kakashi’s curtain. Kakashi shook against his nonexistent binds, desperate to do something. Anything. To fight, to run, to wake Iruka, he had to get Iruka out of here.
“You have nothing, now,” Pein repeated, his voice seeming to get louder the longer he stood, holding the nail perfectly in line between Kakashi’s eyes. “You will know pain,”
The air in the room shifted. Kakashi had felt this before.
Just before Pein’s jutsu knocked him backwards on the battlefield.
Before a nail was sent, aimed for his skull.
Before—
“You all will know pain.”
“No!”
By the time Kakashi realized where he was, he had almost sent his Chidori through his own bedroom wall.
His shoulders heaved with the effort to breathe, his thin shirt clinging to his back, soaked through in cold sweat. The harsh, cold flicker of the Chidori making the shadows jump around his room, threatening to trick his sight again, playing with the edge his subconscious already pushed him towards.
“Kakashi?!”
Kakashi flinched violently, the lightning petering out as he jerked back to face his bed, the sudden darkness obscuring his vision for only a second. Iruka was crouched by the head of the bed, one leg on the ground, a single kunai held up out of reflex.
“Kakashi,” Iruka’s voice was softer now, but he still sounded afraid. “What is it? Who’s there?”
Kakashi swallowed heavily, his dry throat constricting uncomfortably with the action. “Nothing,” he rasped out, his eyes scanning over the corner of the room carefully. Nobody was there. Nobody was ever there. “Nothing. I’m sorry, Iruka, I’m so sorry. I didn’t—I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Iruka sighed then, sinking back into a seat on the mattress and letting his kunai hit the floor with a dull clatter. Kakashi felt the guilt start to settle in on himself like a lead blanket, his shoulders sagging down as he watched Iruka scrub his hands down his face slowly.
“Kakashi,” Iruka began, his voice muffled gently by his palms. “I. I’m really not trying to push—”
“I know,” Kakashi’s voice came out strangled. He knew he couldn’t avoid this for long. “Iruka, I—”
“What happened?” Iruka asked, raising his voice just enough to cut Kakashi off. “Talk to me. Please.”
Kakashi dropped his gaze, shutting his left eye quickly and letting out a long, shaky breath. He looked down at his own hands, miraculously steady, before his eye flickered almost unconsciously back towards the far wall.
“Please,” Iruka begged, his voice thick with an emotion that made Kakashi’s stomach lurch. He turned back towards Iruka then, fully, allowing himself to meet Iruka’s gaze. Iruka looked tired, more tired than Kakashi had ever seen him. Defeated. “I can’t—I can’t just watch you do this to yourself anymore,” he whispered, his fists tightening around a corner of their bedsheets. “I can’t let you keep trying to bury this, Kakashi, because it isn’t going away.”
“I—" Kakashi felt his voice break and falter, and he open and shut his mouth wordlessly for several long, heavy seconds. He let out a rough sigh, crossing back to the bed slowly, taking a seat at the foot. “It’s just war dreams, Iruka,” he murmured, hoping he could stave off the longer conversation at least for the night. He was already too rattled. “I’m sorry it went that far. But—”
“It’s been weeks,” Iruka pressed, hugging his knees to his chest slowly. “Kakashi, I’m not an idiot. When are you sleeping? Because it’s not with me.”
Kakashi bit his tongue, looking down toward his lap without a word. The silence stretched between them, strained and tense and excruciating, broken at last by Iruka’s weary sigh.
“Fine,” Iruka shook his head gently, his hair falling over his shoulder, obscuring his face. “Fine, Kakashi. Fine. Let’s just—” Iruka took in a deep breath, shutting his eyes for a long moment before facing Kakashi again. “Let’s just. Go back to bed, then.”
Iruka turned then, putting his back toward Kakashi and pulling the blanket up to his chest. Kakashi recognized the defensiveness for what it was, he could read it all over Iruka’s body. The line of his shoulders was hunched and tense, drawn up toward his ears as his arms clutched the blanket tightly to his chest. His breathing was even, practiced, but Kakashi knew better. He could hear the subtle shake on every inhale, and even though he couldn’t see Iruka’s face, he knew he wasn’t sleeping. He wasn’t even trying.
“Iruka.”
“Go back to sleep, Kakashi.”
It wasn’t meant to sting. But then again, maybe it was. Iruka always had a way with arguments, after all. Kakashi let his head fall back, staring up at the dark ceiling of their bedroom. It wasn’t an unfamiliar sight, it had kept him company every night he spent with Iruka here. He had practically memorized every feature, every chip in the paint, every stain seeping through, every imperfect seam with the surrounding walls. It helped keep his mind occupied until morning. Helped him bear the suffocating silence and sense of impending doom that threatened to overtake him each time the lights shut off.
Kept him from ever closing his eyes.
“I can’t.”
The confession hung between them for several seconds. Kakashi knew, or at least hoped, that Iruka knew what to read between the lines. That he understood Kakashi’s plea for what it was.
Slowly, carefully, Iruka turned over where he lay. He sat up, blankets pooling around his waist, fixing Kakashi with a firm, steady gaze. Waiting.
Giving Kakashi space.
“I can’t sleep,” Kakashi whispered, dropping his eyes from the ceiling, finally turning back towards Iruka. “Not at night. Not for—not since—”
“I know,” Iruka spoke softly, any traces of fight, or frustration, from earlier in the night seemed to drain out of him all at once. “At first I thought—I figured it was normal. I mean. I have war dreams too, Kakashi, but—”
“These aren’t like regular war dreams,” Kakashi admitted, hints of shame edging his tone of voice. “I…I thought maybe they would be. But they weren’t. I…thought I could handle them alone.”
Iruka sighed; laying a hand out on the bed between them, palm up. An open offer.
Kakashi accepted it.
“I know. You can say it,” Kakashi linked his fingers with Iruka’s, squeezing gently. “I’m being an idiot again.”
“No,” Iruka shook his head firmly. “Not an idiot. Just…stubborn.”
It wasn’t said with malice. And Kakashi didn’t take it as such. It was very like him to withdraw with his own issues. It was like both of them, and they both knew it.
“I’m sorry,” Kakashi sighed heavily, looking down at his own lap. “I shouldn’t have let it get this far.”
“Let’s not let it get any farther, yeah?” Iruka spoke softly, squeezing Kakashi’s hand again. “You said these aren’t like regular war dreams…how? What happened?”
“I…I don’t know how to—the first time it happened, I thought it was genjutsu,” Kakashi admitted. “I didn’t even feel like I ever fell asleep. I was laying there, and then I. I just couldn’t move. Nothing was pinning me or anything, but I—I’m stuck. Frozen. And then—”
Kakashi let out a sharp breath, letting his eye slip shut. Otherwise, he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep from looking back at the far wall.
“He just came out of nowhere,” he let the words out in a rush, willing his voice not to shake. “Like one second everything’s normal but then he’s just—”
“Who?” Iruka interjected, his brows knit together in concern. “Who’s there?”
“Pein,” Kakashi grit out, his eye squeezing shut harder. He knew he wasn’t really there. He didn’t need to look. He didn’t. “He’s just there, standing over me, always just looking. Just staring at me with that nail—”
“Nail?”
Iruka spoke so quietly, Kakashi almost didn’t hear him. It was almost as if Iruka hadn’t realized he spoke at all. It made Kakashi pause, his eye snapping open in realization.
They had never spoken about how Kakashi died.
He had thought, or maybe hoped, that Iruka wouldn’t ever want to know. That they would focus on the fact that they both survived, together, and bury those hours that wasn’t true. But he should have known better. Of course Iruka would want to know. Iruka would want to know everything.
And he deserved to know.
“We can talk about it,” Kakashi offered, even though he felt his throat go dry at the thought. He had spent so much time recently trying to avoid remembering what had happened, he wasn’t certain he would be able to handle saying any of it out loud without breaking down. “Anything. As much as you want to know.”
“I…we don’t have to,” Iruka whispered, holding onto Kakashi’s hand tightly. “We were already talking about—I don’t want it to be too much.”
“It’s all the same though, isn’t it?” Kakashi almost laughed. Iruka was deflecting. Whether he was doing it for Kakashi’s benefit or his own, he was still doing it. “I’m dreaming about dying because it happened, Iruka, and we both need to stop trying to act like it didn’t.”
Iruka huffed out a short breath, his jaw setting with his resolve. “Okay,” He held Kakashi’s eye contact steadily, offering a quick nod. “You’re right. I…you’re right.”
“Okay,” Kakashi spoke softly, running his thumb over Iruka’s knuckles. “Where should I start?”
“God,” Iruka ran his free hand through his hair distractedly, dropping his gaze toward their joined hands. “I—he used a nail?”
Iruka’s voice was uncharacteristically small, and he seemed to be avoiding Kakashi’s eyes.
“He did.”
“He killed you with a nail,” Iruka repeated, slowly, a small tremor barely noticeable in his voice. He turned his gaze back toward Kakashi sharply, his expression unreadable. “How?”
“I—no,” Kakashi admitted, feeling his throat constrict around the words. “He almost did. He thought he did. But he—I—could have survived the fight, Iruka.”
“What do you mean,” Iruka’s expression shifted, just slightly, in confusion. “What do you mean, you could have survived?”
“I was pinned,” Kakashi began, pushing through the lump in his throat. “In the rubble. I was almost completely chakra-depleted, I wasn’t strong enough to move. All my backup was compromised, except for Choji, and he was—panicking, he wasn’t going to make it alone, so I— Pein wanted me out of the picture. He wasn’t going to leave me alive. So he picked up a nail…out of the debris, and—he sent it right between my eyes. But—”
Kakashi paused, cutting himself off, dropping his gaze back down towards their hands, which he had noticed had started shaking. Or maybe that was just his hand.
“He didn’t hit me,” Kakashi continued, tearing his eye away from his trembling hand. “I—I was most of the way to dead. I didn’t even—there was barely a chance I’d survive either way. But I. But my Sharingan—”
“Another dimension,” Iruka breathed out, his eyes widening at the realization. “He sent it right to your eye.”
“He did,” Kakashi confirmed, huffing out a small, almost inaudible laugh. “But even then, I didn’t—I didn’t know if I had enough chakra to do it, I didn’t know if I could fool him even if I did. But I had to try, and it—it worked. It worked, and Pein bought it, but I—"
He cut himself off, forming and re-forming sentences in his head, silence stretching out for uncomfortably long. There was no other way to say it.
Iruka deserved the truth.
“I killed myself, Iruka.”
Iruka’s expression shifted rapidly in the span of several seconds, before falling completely. When he spoke, his voice was shaky, but controlled. Flat.
“I don’t understand.”
“One of the others, he—there was one who’s body was full of weapons, and he. He shot a missile, at Choji, he wasn’t going to be able to outrun it and we needed him to get back with—information, and help for Choza, there was too much riding on him,” Kakashi began, feeling Iruka’s steady gaze even though he couldn’t meet his eyes. “I knew I didn’t have enough chakra. It was a miracle I survived the nail. The missile was bigger, and a moving target and I—I knew I wouldn’t survive. But neither would Choji have if I didn’t do something—”
“Kakashi.”
Iruka’s voice was soft, almost a whisper, but it stopped Kakashi in an instant. He took in a deep, shuddering gasp, realizing that moment that he felt as if he had been holding his breath for the entire conversation. He also realized, simultaneously, that he had been squeezing Iruka’s hand so hard that his knuckles had gone white. He was cold, he was sweating, his heartbeat was erratic and too loud in his ears.
When Kakashi slowly, finally, looked back up at Iruka, it felt as though an iron weight had settled in his chest. Iruka’s expression was blank, purposefully neutral, though there were tear tracks down his cheeks.
“Kakashi,” Iruka murmured, his other hand moving to rest on their joined ones. “Are you—did you not want to tell me—did you think I would be upset with you?” Iruka’s voice broke on the words, fresh tears welling in his eyes. “That I would—blame you for this?”
“No,” Kakashi shook his head quickly. “Not—not logically, not really, but—I promised to come back, Iruka, and I made the choice—"
“The only choice,” Iruka squeezed Kakashi’s hand in both of his own. “The same choice I would have—any of us would have made.”
“But—”
“Screw the promise,” Iruka’s voice grew louder, cutting Kakashi off. “I never should have asked that of you. It was wrong for me to put something so impossible on your shoulders, and—and I’m sorry. Kakashi, I’m so sorry.”
“I—” Kakashi stopped, all words failing him as Iruka’s apology sunk in. He felt a lump growing at the base of his throat, a familiar prickling building behind his eyes. “But I failed you.”
“No,” Iruka shook his head firmly, releasing Kakashi’s hand in favor of gently cupping his cheek, brushing aside tears Kakashi didn’t even realize had fallen. “No. You didn’t. And not just because you were resurrected. You—”
Iruka inhaled sharply, leaning closer until his forehead was pressed against Kakashi’s. The light, but steady pressure easy for them both to relax into.
“You are…a good man,” Iruka spoke softly, but decisively. “And a hero. You didn’t fail that day, Kakashi. Not in this life or your last.”
Kakashi let out a heavy breath, a barely-concealed sob, his head dropping down onto Iruka’s shoulder. Iruka’s arms circled around him immediately, pulling him close, his fists gripping tightly to Kakashi’s thin shirt.
Iruka pressed a kiss into Kakashi’s hair, simply holding him and allowing him to cry quietly in his arms. Kakashi couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried to someone else. He had been much younger then, and far more proud. It didn’t feel the same as it did then; there wasn’t as heavy a drop of shame in his stomach, nor the crawling feeling of anxiety that came with being vulnerable. He still felt like shit, physically and emotionally, but not as drained as before.
He felt…calm.
Safe.
Exhausted.
“I’m…so tired, Iruka,” Kakashi whispered the words into Iruka’s neck, taking a deep, fortifying breath.
“I know,” Iruka murmured, running his hand slowly up and down Kakashi’s spine. “I—do you think you could sleep?”
“I don’t know,” Kakashi admitted, slowly sitting up, hastily wiping his own face. As if he could have hidden evidence of his tears anyway. “He might come back.”
“If he does, I’ll still be here,” Iruka assured him. “To remind you that it’s over. He can’t hurt you.”
Kakashi huffed out a short breath, managing an attempt at a smile. “Gonna protect me?”
“Someone ought to,” Iruka returned Kakashi’s smile, though it didn’t quite hide the grief lingering in his gaze. “You deserve to be protected for once.”
Kakashi shook his head gently, taking Iruka’s hands, bringing them up to press a kiss to Iruka’s knuckles. Kakashi knew this conversation was hard on Iruka, harder than he was admitting in the moment. “I trust you to,” he murmured, lips still pressed against Iruka’s fingers. Hoping Iruka understood all that he meant by saying so. “More than anyone.”
Iruka ducked his head almost shyly, his hair obscuring his face briefly. When he looked back up, Kakashi could see that a few fresh tears had fallen, but Iruka wiped the evidence away quickly after giving Kakashi’s hands another squeeze.
“Thank you,” Kakashi said, voice rougher than he anticipated, biting back the urge to apologize, again, for the night. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, Kakashi,” Iruka murmured, pulling the sheets back, waiting until Kakashi lay back down before moving to lay beside him. “I’ll keep watch. Get some sleep.”
“Keep—Iruka, you don’t have to—”
“It would help, wouldn’t it?” Iruka asked, holding Kakashi’s gaze. “It’s okay. I got your back, Kakashi. Always.”
Kakashi sighed softly, his heavy eyelid finally slipping shut. He felt Iruka’s fingers slipping through the ends of his hair the last thing he registered before sinking finally into deep, mercifully dreamless, sleep.