Chapter Text
Iruka signed his name because Genma said they needed people.
This would later strike him as an extremely poor reason for making major life decisions.
At the time, however, Genma had been sitting on the edge of Iruka’s desk eating somebody else’s senbei and explaining that ANBU had a shortage of touchstones, and Iruka had made the mistake of asking what a touchstone was.
“Someone normal.”
Iruka had looked pointedly at him.
“Why are you asking me, then?”
Genma threw a senbei at his head.
Iruka caught it.
“Seriously.”
“I am serious.” Genma stole another one from the packet. “ANBU are weird.”
“You were ANBU.”
“Exactly. Expert testimony.”
Iruka sighed and returned to the stack of Academy placement assessments he’d been trying to finish before Genma wandered into his classroom.
It was nearly six. The students had gone home hours ago. The late afternoon sun was slanting through the windows, illuminating approximately six million pieces of chalk dust and making Iruka painfully aware that he’d forgotten to clean the board.
Again.
“Don’t they have medics?”
“Yep.”
“Psych?”
“Yep.”
“Commanders?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Friends?”
Genma paused.
Iruka looked up.
That, apparently, had been the wrong question.
“Sometimes,” Genma said.
The flippancy had disappeared.
Iruka put his brush down.
Genma rolled the senbei between his fingers.
“Look. It’s not complicated. ANBU spend a lot of time with other ANBU. They can’t talk about work. Half of them don’t want people knowing they’re ANBU in the first place, and the other half have been doing it so long they’ve forgotten that normal people don’t consider kunai an acceptable solution to household problems.”
“They’re shinobi. I’m not sure normal people describes any of us.”
“Relative normal.”
“Ah.”
“That’s where you come in.”
“Still insulting.”
“You’re welcome.”
Iruka smiled despite himself.
Genma ate the senbei.
Then he said, “Sometimes they need somewhere to go.”
The smile faded.
Genma shrugged.
“Mission goes bad. They can’t sleep. They’re hurt but not hospital hurt. They’ve been out for three weeks and everyone they’ve spoken to in that time was either a target or wearing a mask. Whatever.”
“And what am I supposed to do?”
“Depends.”
“Helpful.”
“Feed them. Patch them up if you know how. Let them sleep on your couch. Yell at them for bleeding on the couch. Talk about something completely irrelevant. Don’t ask about missions.”
Iruka frowned.
“That’s it?”
“Pretty much.”
“Why can’t their friends do that?”
Another pause.
“Sometimes that’s what a touchstone is.”
Something about the way Genma said it made Iruka stop.
“And sometimes?”
“Sometimes they don’t have anybody they’d go to.”
Oh.
Genma looked away first.
Iruka looked down at the papers covering his desk.
He knew something about that.
Not ANBU. Not really.
But he knew about going home to an empty apartment. He knew about realizing three days had passed and the only conversations he’d had were with coworkers and children. He knew how easy it was, after his parents died, to discover that nobody was actually expecting him anywhere.
Konoha was full of people.
That wasn’t the same thing as having somewhere to go.
“There’s a form?”
Genma grinned.
Iruka immediately regretted everything.
“Thought you’d never ask.”
The form was six pages long.
Iruka reconsidered on page four.
Not because anything was particularly alarming, although the section concerning emergency medical treatment contained considerably more references to blood loss than Iruka would have preferred.
Mostly, it was because six pages gave him enough time to think about what he was actually volunteering for.
The program was technically administered through the Hokage’s office rather than ANBU itself. Touchstones could be active shinobi, retired shinobi, or—in rare circumstances—civilians with appropriate clearance. They underwent a background check, a basic medical course if they hadn’t already completed one, and an interview that Iruka strongly suspected was designed to determine whether they were likely to sell village secrets or panic when somebody arrived missing a significant quantity of skin.
There were rules.
Don’t ask about missions.
Don’t ask for ANBU identities other than the person assigned to you.
Don’t interfere with an active operation.
Don’t conceal an ANBU operative from the Hokage or authorized command.
If they were experiencing symptoms listed in Appendix C, contact ANBU medical immediately.
Iruka read Appendix C.
Then he read it again.
Then he went looking for Genma.
“Hallucinations?”
Genma looked up from his dango.
“Mm?”
“Appendix C.”
“Oh.”
“It says hallucinations.”
“Yeah.”
“And seizures.”
“Also yeah.”
“And uncontrollable violent behaviour.”
Genma considered his dango.
“To be fair, if you get to that one, you’re probably not going to have time to find the form.”
Iruka stared at him.
Genma patted his shoulder.
“You’ll be great.”
Apparently someone else agreed.
His application was accepted eleven days later.
The background check took another two weeks.
The medical course took a Saturday.
The interview was conducted by a woman with purple hair who stared at Iruka for twenty uninterrupted seconds after asking why he wanted to volunteer.
Iruka had eventually said, “Because somebody should.”
Something in her expression changed.
She wrote something down.
Three days later, Iruka was summoned to the Hokage Tower.
He spent the entire walk there trying to work out what he’d done wrong.
Nothing, apparently.
The chunin behind the desk checked his identification, handed him a sealed envelope and said, “Your assignment has been approved.”
Iruka blinked.
“Already?”
The chunin looked amused.
“Open it.”
Iruka did.
There wasn’t much inside.
A name.
An emergency contact code.
A medical authorization number.
Iruka read the name.
Then read it again.
Then looked at the chunin.
“There has been a mistake.”
“No.”
Iruka looked down.
HATAKE KAKASHI
There were certain names everyone in Konoha knew.
The Sannin.
The Yellow Flash.
The White Fang.
Hatake Kakashi.
Iruka was four years younger than him and still remembered hearing about the child who’d made chunin at six.
He’d heard about the Sharingan.
He’d heard about the missions.
He’d heard considerably more things that were probably nonsense.
What Iruka had not heard was that Hatake Kakashi apparently needed some twenty-year-old Academy instructor to make sure he didn’t die on a sofa.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Hatake Kakashi.”
“Yes.”
“That Hatake Kakashi.”
The chunin raised an eyebrow.
“Do you know another one?”
“No.”
“Then yes.”
Iruka looked at the paper.
“This seems—”
He stopped.
The chunin waited.
Iruka wasn’t sure what word he’d been about to use.
Ridiculous?
Above his pay grade?
Terrifying?
Hatake Kakashi was an elite jonin. A war veteran. The son of Sakumo Hatake. Depending on which rumours were true, he had completed somewhere between several hundred and approximately twelve million missions.
Iruka taught nine-year-olds how not to stab themselves with kunai.
“Why me?”
“Can’t tell you.”
“Do you know?”
“Yes.”
That was irritating.
“Does he?”
“Know why?”
“Know he’s been assigned to me.”
The chunin smiled.
“Yes.”
Iruka waited.
Nothing else was forthcoming.
“So what happens now?”
“Nothing.”
Iruka blinked.
“Nothing?”
“You go home.”
“But—do I meet him?”
“If he wants.”
“Do I contact him?”
“No.”
“Do I need to—”
“No.”
Iruka stared.
The chunin took pity on him.
“Umino-san, you’re not his handler.”
“I know.”
“You’re not responsible for keeping track of him.”
“I know.”
“You’re not required to make him socialize.”
“I didn’t think I was.”
“Good. Then you don’t do anything. He has your address. He has the contact information you authorized us to provide. If he needs you, he knows where to find you.”
Iruka looked down at the name again.
“And if he doesn’t?”
“Then you may never meet him.”
That possibility hadn’t occurred to Iruka.
“Oh.”
The chunin smiled.
“Congratulations.”
Iruka wasn’t entirely certain what he was being congratulated for.
Three months passed.
Iruka didn’t meet Hatake Kakashi.
He did, however, become absurdly aware that he might.
For the first week, every knock at his door made him jump.
By the second, he felt stupid about it.
By the third, he’d mostly forgotten.
Life continued.
His students remained determined to kill either themselves or one another through improper shuriken technique.
Mizuki mocked him mercilessly when Iruka accidentally took the touchstone emergency card out of his wallet while paying for ramen.
Genma refused to tell him anything useful.
“Is he on a mission?”
“Maybe.”
“Is he in the village?”
“Maybe.”
“Does he actually exist?”
“Debatable.”
“Genma.”
“You’re not supposed to ask about missions.”
“I didn’t ask what the mission was.”
“Operational security.”
“You don’t know, do you?”
“Not a clue.”
By the second month, Iruka stopped expecting anything at all.
Hatake Kakashi was fine.
Or Hatake Kakashi had other people.
Iruka preferred that explanation.
The program hadn’t guaranteed his assigned ANBU would ever need him. In fact, the instructor at the medical course had explicitly said that some touchstone arrangements went years without emergency contact.
Good.
That was good.
It meant Kakashi wasn’t injured.
Probably.
Or wasn’t injured badly enough to—
Iruka stopped that thought.
He didn’t know the man.
It was strange how easy it was to worry about somebody he’d never met.
Eventually, Kakashi became a card in Iruka’s wallet and a name he occasionally noticed in mission records he wasn’t authorized to read.
Nothing more.
Then, one Tuesday night in November, Iruka woke to breaking glass.
He was moving before he was properly awake.
One hand grabbed the kunai beneath his pillow. He rolled out of bed, chakra already rising, and hit the floor in a crouch.
Silence.
Iruka listened.
His bedroom door was open.
The apartment beyond was dark.
Another sound.
Not glass this time.
Something heavy hitting the floor.
Iruka slipped into the hallway.
There was a cold draft coming from the living room.
His window.
Someone had come through his window.
He reached the doorway and stopped.
There was an ANBU lying on his floor.
For one bizarre second, Iruka simply stared.
Moonlight spilled through the broken window.
There was glass everywhere.
A dark figure had collapsed beneath it, one knee still awkwardly bent as though he’d attempted to land and discovered halfway through that his body was no longer accepting instructions.
ANBU armour.
Sword.
Dog mask.
Blood.
A lot of blood.
“Oh, fuck.”
The masked head moved.
Iruka crossed the room immediately.
“Don’t move.”
A gloved hand came up.
Iruka caught the wrist.
“Don’t.”
The ANBU went still.
Iruka’s heart was pounding hard enough to hurt.
Training.
He had training.
He’d done the stupid Saturday course and complained about losing his weekend and now there was an actual ANBU bleeding on his floor.
Airway.
Breathing.
Circulation.
“Can you hear me?”
A pause.
Then, “Unfortunately.”
Iruka froze.
Male.
Young.
The voice was rough with exhaustion, but there was something almost dry underneath it.
“Are you Hatake Kakashi?”
The dog mask tipped fractionally toward him.
“No.”
Iruka stared.
“You’re not?”
“I’m an elaborate home invasion.”
Iruka’s mouth fell open.
The ANBU made a sound that might have been a laugh and immediately curled slightly around his left side.
Iruka’s panic transformed into irritation with astonishing speed.
“You’re an asshole.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Mask off.”
The ANBU went still.
Iruka remembered the rules.
Right.
“Can you breathe properly?”
“Mostly.”
“Mostly isn’t a medical condition.”
“It is in ANBU.”
“Hatake.”
That got a reaction.
Tiny.
But definite.
Iruka suddenly understood that whatever absurd exchange they’d just had, the man on his floor was watching him.
Assessing.
Even half-conscious and bleeding through his uniform, he was assessing Iruka.
Iruka loosened his grip on the man’s wrist.
“I’m Umino Iruka.”
“I know.”
Of course he did.
“You came through my window.”
“I noticed.”
“You could have used the door.”
“I missed.”
Iruka looked at the shattered window.
Then at the blood trail.
Then back at Kakashi.
“By how much?”
“More than usual.”
Despite everything, a laugh escaped him.
It was half hysteria.
Kakashi’s head tipped back against the wall.
Iruka took a breath.
“All right. I need to see where you’re bleeding.”
“Left side.”
“Can I cut the uniform?”
“Yes.”
That surprised him.
Apparently Kakashi noticed.
“It’s already ruined.”
“Glad we’re prioritizing.”
Iruka fetched the medical kit.
When he returned, Kakashi hadn’t moved.
That worried him more than if he had.
Iruka knelt.
There was blood beneath Kakashi now.
Too much.
“Hospital.”
“No.”
“That wasn’t a question.”
“No hospital.”
“Appendix C says—”
Kakashi’s visible confusion stopped him.
Iruka almost laughed again.
“Never mind.”
He found the tear in the uniform.
The wound beneath it was deep.
Iruka’s stomach dropped.
“Hatake.”
“Kakashi.”
“What?”
“If you’re going to put your hands inside me, you can probably call me Kakashi.”
Iruka stared at the dog mask.
“That is the worst thing anyone has ever said to me.”
“Long night.”
“I can tell.”
Iruka cut away more fabric.
The wound was ugly, but clean. Blade, probably. No obvious foreign object. Bleeding steadily rather than pumping.
That was something.
“I think you need a medic.”
“No.”
“You’ve lost a lot of blood.”
“I know.”
“Then stop arguing.”
“Can’t go to the hospital.”
Something in his voice changed.
Iruka looked up.
The humour was gone.
He remembered Genma.
Mission goes bad.
They’re hurt but not hospital hurt.
Except this looked extremely hospital hurt.
“Can I call ANBU medical?”
Silence.
Then Kakashi nodded.
Iruka exhaled.
“Okay.”
The emergency card was in his wallet.
He’d carried it for three months.
For three months, it had been nothing but a piece of laminated paper.
Now his hands were bloody enough that his fingers slipped trying to pull it free.
He activated the contact seal.
Then went back to Kakashi.
“Medic’s coming.”
“Mm.”
“Stay awake.”
“Wasn’t planning otherwise.”
“Good.”
Iruka pressed clean gauze against the wound.
Kakashi hissed.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
There was a strange little silence.
Iruka became aware that he was kneeling barefoot in broken glass, wearing an old shirt and sleep pants, with Hatake Kakashi bleeding between his hands.
This was not how he’d imagined their first meeting.
He wasn’t entirely certain how he had imagined it anymore.
Probably with considerably less blood.
Kakashi’s hand moved.
Iruka tensed.
But Kakashi only pushed the dog mask upward.
Not off.
Just enough.
One dark eye appeared beneath it.
Tired.
Very tired.
It focused on Iruka.
“You’re younger than I expected.”
Iruka stared at him.
“You’re bleeding on my floor.”
“I am.”
“And you’re criticizing my age?”
“Observation.”
“You’re twenty-four.”
“Twenty-two.”
Iruka blinked.
Right.
For some reason he’d always thought Kakashi was older.
Maybe because nobody should have that many rumours attached to them by twenty-two.
“I’m nineteen.”
“Exactly.”
Iruka pressed harder on the wound.
Kakashi made a strangled noise.
“Sorry. Young hands.”
The visible eye narrowed.
Iruka grinned despite himself.
There was a flicker of something there.
Amusement, maybe.
Then Kakashi’s eye slipped shut.
“Kakashi.”
It opened.
“Stay awake.”
“Trying.”
The answer was quieter.
Iruka’s irritation vanished.
“Hey.”
The eye found him again.
“Tell me something.”
“No mission details.”
“I wasn’t going to ask about your mission.”
“Good.”
“Tell me…” Iruka looked desperately around the apartment. “Tell me what you had for dinner.”
Silence.
“Kakashi?”
“Can’t remember.”
Iruka frowned.
“Lunch?”
Another silence.
“Oh, for the love of—breakfast?”
“I had coffee.”
“Coffee isn’t food.”
“It had milk.”
Iruka stared at him.
Kakashi’s eye curved faintly.
There it was again.
That almost-laugh.
Iruka shook his head.
“When the medic says you’re not dying, I’m feeding you.”
“Threatening an ANBU operative.”
“Apparently.”
“Brave.”
“I’m an Academy instructor. You people have nothing on nine-year-olds with throwing weapons.”
This time Kakashi actually laughed.
It was quiet and brief and obviously painful.
But it was a laugh.
Iruka felt some of the tightness in his chest ease.
There was a knock at the door.
Three short.
Two long.
The emergency signal.
Iruka started to rise.
Kakashi’s hand closed suddenly around his wrist.
Iruka stopped.
The grip was surprisingly strong.
Kakashi stared at him.
For the first time that night, Iruka saw something underneath the exhaustion and the sarcasm and the mask.
Not fear exactly.
Something more instinctive than that.
A need to know.
Iruka didn’t know what question Kakashi was asking.
He covered Kakashi’s hand with his own.
“I’m coming back.”
The grip remained for another second.
Then loosened.
Iruka stood and went to open the door.
Behind him, Hatake Kakashi lay bleeding on his living-room floor beneath a broken window.
Three months ago, Iruka had signed a form because Genma said somebody should.
Until tonight, he’d thought being a touchstone meant agreeing to be there if an ANBU ever needed somewhere to go.
He hadn’t understood the other half of it.
Kakashi had needed somewhere to go.
And, for reasons Iruka didn’t yet understand, he’d come here.
The medic arrived wearing no mask at all.
That surprised Iruka enough that he stood in the doorway for half a second too long.
She was perhaps thirty, dressed in ordinary dark shinobi clothes, with a medic pouch strapped to one thigh and her hair tied back in a severe knot.
Her eyes dropped to Iruka’s bloody hands.
“Where?”
“Living room.”
She was past him before he’d finished speaking.
Iruka shut the door and followed.
Kakashi had not moved.
The medic crouched beside him, put two fingers against his throat, then reached for the edge of the dog mask.
Kakashi caught her wrist.
“Don’t.”
“Hatake.”
“No.”
She sighed.
It was not the sigh of someone intimidated by Hatake Kakashi.
That made Iruka feel marginally better.
“Fine. Keep your stupid mask.”
“Thank you.”
“That wasn’t respect.”
“I know.”
She looked at Iruka.
“How long has he been here?”
Iruka glanced at the clock.
“Maybe ten minutes? Fifteen?”
“Conscious the whole time?”
“Mostly.”
“I am conscious,” Kakashi said.
Neither of them acknowledged him.
“Any vomiting?”
“No.”
“Confusion?”
Iruka considered the coffee-with-milk discussion.
“I don’t know what his normal level of irritating is.”
The medic snorted.
“Fair.”
Kakashi’s visible eye opened beneath the tilted mask.
“Betrayal.”
The medic cut the rest of his uniform away from the wound.
Iruka’s humour disappeared.
It looked worse with more of it exposed.
There was bruising spreading across Kakashi’s ribs, dark against pale skin. Several shallower cuts crossed his side and back. The main wound ran from beneath his ribs toward his hip.
The medic’s hands lit green.
Kakashi went very still.
“Through the muscle,” she murmured. “No abdominal penetration. Lucky.”
“Skilled.”
“Shut up.”
Iruka liked her.
She worked for several minutes without speaking.
Iruka remained where he was until he realized he was hovering uselessly.
“Do you need anything?”
“Hot water. Clean towels. Something with sugar in it.”
“I have honey.”
“Good.”
Iruka went.
Having instructions helped.
Water.
Towels.
Honey.
Simple things.
Things that belonged in kitchens rather than battlefields.
He put the kettle on and pulled every clean towel he owned from the cupboard. Then he stopped, staring at his hands.
Blood had dried into the lines of his palms.
Kakashi’s blood.
Iruka turned on the tap.
For one unpleasant second, the water ran pink.
Then red.
Then pink again.
He scrubbed his hands harder than necessary.
Someone had come through his window bleeding before.
Not Kakashi.
Not an ANBU.
His father.
Iruka had been six, maybe seven, and his father had landed on the balcony after a mission because he’d forgotten his key. There had been a tear in his flak jacket and a bandage around one arm, and Iruka’s mother had shouted at him for frightening their son.
His father had laughed.
There hadn’t actually been much blood.
Iruka remembered there being blood anyway.
He shut off the tap.
The kettle clicked.
Right.
Honey.
He brought everything back.
The medic had removed Kakashi’s armour.
That somehow made him look younger.
Not young, exactly. There were too many scars for that, even in the small amount of skin Iruka could see.
But less like the Hatake Kakashi people whispered about.
More like a man sitting half-naked on Iruka’s floor at two in the morning because standing was apparently beyond him.
“Drink.”
The medic handed Kakashi a cup.
Kakashi sniffed it suspiciously.
Iruka folded his arms.
“It’s honey water, not poison.”
“Could be both.”
“You came through my window.”
“A cunning long-term assassination strategy.”
“Drink it.”
Kakashi looked at him.
Then drank.
The medic glanced between them.
Iruka caught the look.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
It very obviously wasn’t nothing.
She returned to sealing the wound.
Iruka sat down on the floor opposite them.
Now that he wasn’t actively doing something, he was suddenly aware of how tired he was.
And cold.
The window was still broken.
Fantastic.
He was going to have to fix that before work.
Assuming he got to work.
He looked at the clock.
Two twenty-seven.
His first class started at eight.
He could survive on five hours of sleep.
Four, by the time this was over.
Three and a half if—
“Stop.”
Iruka blinked.
Kakashi was looking at him.
“What?”
“Whatever you’re calculating.”
“I’m not calculating anything.”
“You moved your lips.”
Iruka scowled.
“I have work tomorrow.”
“Today.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
The medic pressed two fingers into Kakashi’s side.
Kakashi’s breath caught.
“Don’t distract him,” she said.
“I wasn’t.”
“You were.”
Kakashi’s eye closed again.
Iruka watched him.
There was something odd about the way he submitted to treatment.
He didn’t complain.
He didn’t ask what she was doing.
He didn’t even look.
He simply sat absolutely still and let her work.
Iruka had treated enough injured children to know that stillness wasn’t always calm.
Sometimes it was just another way of enduring something.
“How long was the mission?”
The question left his mouth before he could stop it.
Kakashi’s eye opened.
Iruka winced.
“Sorry. I’m not supposed to—”
“Eleven days.”
The medic’s hands paused.
Iruka stared.
Kakashi seemed unconcerned.
“You’re allowed to tell him that?” Iruka asked.
“Probably.”
“Probably?”
“I’ll arrest myself later.”
Iruka huffed.
Eleven days.
“You’ve been awake for eleven days?”
“No.”
“How long have you been awake?”
Kakashi didn’t answer.
The medic did.
“That’s not information you’re going to get out of him.”
“Why?”
“Because then someone might tell him to sleep.”
“I sleep.”
The medic and Iruka both looked at him.
Kakashi’s eye narrowed.
“This feels hostile.”
“Good,” the medic said.
She withdrew her hands.
The main wound had closed.
Not completely. Iruka knew enough medical ninjutsu to recognize that she’d repaired the dangerous damage and encouraged the tissue together rather than burning chakra on a complete heal.
She began wrapping his torso.
“No active duty for forty-eight hours.”
“No.”
“That wasn’t a negotiation.”
“I have debrief.”
“Debrief isn’t active duty.”
“Then I’m fine.”
“You are not fine.”
“I am functional.”
“Hatake.”
Kakashi looked at her.
Something passed between them.
Iruka couldn’t interpret it.
The medic’s voice softened by a degree.
“You came here.”
Kakashi stopped.
It was the first time all night Iruka had seen him genuinely wrong-footed.
The medic tied off the bandage.
“You came here instead of going back to headquarters.”
Silence.
Iruka suddenly felt like he was listening to something private.
He looked away.
The medic continued, “So either you’re developing excellent judgment very late in life, or you knew you weren’t fine.”
Kakashi said nothing.
She packed away her supplies.
“Stay here tonight.”
Kakashi’s gaze flicked to Iruka.
Iruka’s stomach did something strange.
Not because he didn’t want him there.
Because Kakashi looked as though the medic had just suggested he annex the apartment.
Iruka cleared his throat.
“That’s sort of what I’m for, isn’t it?”
Neither of them answered.
Iruka looked between them.
“Isn’t it?”
“Technically,” the medic said.
“Technically?”
“Touchstones get used differently.”
That was wonderfully unhelpful.
Kakashi pushed himself upright.
Or tried to.
His hand hit the floor.
His arm shook.
Iruka moved instinctively.
So did the medic.
Kakashi flinched away from both of them.
It happened fast.
So fast Iruka might have missed it if he hadn’t already been reaching for him.
One moment Kakashi was unsteady.
The next, every muscle in his body had locked.
His hand went toward a weapon that wasn’t there.
The medic froze.
Iruka froze.
Kakashi froze.
Three people remained perfectly still in the middle of Iruka’s living room.
Then Kakashi lowered his hand.
“Sorry.”
The word was so quiet Iruka almost didn’t hear it.
The medic’s face revealed nothing.
“Can you stand without help?”
“Yes.”
He couldn’t.
They all knew it.
Nobody said so.
Kakashi tried again.
This time he made it upright.
Barely.
Iruka looked at the couch.
Then at Kakashi.
Then deliberately stepped away, clearing the path.
“Couch is there.”
Kakashi looked at him.
No reaching.
No touching.
No attempt to guide him.
After a moment, Kakashi crossed the room.
His movements were controlled enough that someone who didn’t know shinobi might have thought he was fine.
Iruka knew shinobi.
He saw every tiny correction.
Every moment Kakashi’s weight shifted too far.
Every time his hand twitched as though resisting the urge to brace against something.
He made it to the couch and sat.
The medic stood.
“I’ll report that I’ve treated him and he’s remaining with his registered touchstone.”
Iruka nodded.
“Do I need to do anything?”
“Keep him here until morning.”
“I don’t need a guard,” Kakashi said.
“No,” the medic agreed. “You need a babysitter.”
Iruka bit the inside of his cheek.
Kakashi looked betrayed.
The medic handed Iruka two small packets.
“Painkillers. One now, one in four hours if he’s awake. Water. Food when he’ll tolerate it. If he vomits, loses consciousness and can’t be roused, starts bleeding through the bandage, or his breathing changes, use the emergency seal again.”
Iruka nodded.
“Got it.”
“Don’t let him leave.”
Iruka looked at Kakashi.
Kakashi looked back.
“How exactly do you propose I accomplish that?”
The medic considered.
“Sit on him.”
Iruka choked.
Kakashi closed his eye.
“I’m surrounded by professionals.”
Then the medic was gone.
Iruka shut the door behind her.
He returned to the living room.
Kakashi was still sitting exactly where she’d left him.
The dog mask remained pushed up just far enough to expose one eye.
His hands rested loosely between his knees.
For the first time since Iruka had found him, nobody was doing anything.
No medical chakra.
No instructions.
No emergency.
Just silence.
Iruka became acutely conscious that there was a near-stranger on his couch.
A near-stranger who knew where he lived.
A near-stranger who had apparently decided, while injured and exhausted and coming back from an eleven-day mission, that Iruka’s apartment was where he should go.
“So,” Iruka said.
Kakashi looked at him.
“Do you want to take the mask off?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
Iruka hadn’t meant anything by the question.
Still, something about Kakashi’s immediate answer made him glad he’d asked rather than assumed.
“Blanket?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
Iruka fetched one from the bedroom.
He held it out rather than putting it over him.
Kakashi took it.
“Thanks.”
It was the first entirely normal thing he’d said all night.
“You’re welcome.”
Iruka looked at the shattered window.
He found a spare sheet and spent several minutes attempting to cover the opening.
It billowed inward.
He swore.
Behind him, Kakashi said, “Top left corner first.”
Iruka turned.
“What?”
“The nail. Top left. Then pull it diagonally.”
“Are you seriously criticizing my window repair?”
“Yes.”
“You broke the window.”
“Which gives me relevant expertise.”
Iruka stared at him.
Kakashi’s visible eye curved.
Iruka turned back to the sheet.
“Top left?”
“Mm.”
It worked.
Iruka hated that.
He secured the remaining corners and turned around.
Kakashi had shifted.
He was lying down now, curled slightly onto his uninjured side. The blanket was pulled over him. His sword lay on the floor within easy reach.
Iruka noticed that.
Of course he did.
“Food?”
“No.”
“Honey water?”
“No.”
“Painkiller?”
Kakashi hesitated.
“Fine.”
Iruka brought it with a fresh glass of water.
Kakashi pushed himself up enough to take it.
His fingers brushed Iruka’s.
Cold.
Iruka frowned.
“You’re freezing.”
“I’m fine.”
“You people really need another word.”
“We have several.”
“For fine?”
“For things I’m not supposed to tell you.”
Iruka laughed softly.
Kakashi swallowed the pill.
Iruka took the glass.
He should go back to bed.
That was the sensible thing.
Kakashi was stable. The medic had cleared him. Iruka had work in less than six hours.
Instead, he found himself lingering.
“Do you need anything?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
He took two steps.
“Umino.”
Iruka turned.
Kakashi was watching him.
“Iruka.”
A pause.
“Right.”
Something about Kakashi’s voice made him wait.
“Do they tell you when I leave?”
Iruka frowned.
“Who?”
“ANBU.”
“I don’t know.”
Kakashi looked toward the covered window.
“I mean missions,” Iruka said. “No. They don’t tell me anything.”
“Good.”
Iruka didn’t know what to do with that.
“They gave me an emergency contact code and your name. That’s basically it.”
“Good.”
“You keep saying that.”
Kakashi’s eye closed.
Iruka thought the conversation was over.
Then—
“They shouldn’t tell you.”
Iruka leaned against the wall.
“Operational security?”
“That.”
There was something else.
Iruka waited.
Kakashi didn’t elaborate.
“Okay.”
His eye opened again.
Iruka shrugged.
“If you don’t want them telling me, I don’t need to know.”
Kakashi studied him.
Iruka was beginning to realize Kakashi did that a lot.
He had an unnerving way of looking at someone as though their answer was only one piece of information among dozens.
“You’re not going to ask why?”
“No.”
“Most people would.”
“I’m not most people.”
“Apparently.”
Iruka smiled.
Kakashi’s eye drifted shut.
This time it stayed shut.
Iruka waited.
A minute passed.
Then another.
Kakashi’s breathing slowly changed.
Not entirely relaxed.
Even asleep, there was tension in him.
But asleep.
Iruka went back to his bedroom.
He climbed into bed.
He lasted four minutes.
Then he got up again.
He told himself it was because the medic had said to watch for changes in Kakashi’s breathing.
He took his pillow and another blanket into the living room and settled into the armchair.
It was not comfortable.
He shifted.
Still not comfortable.
This had been a terrible idea.
Kakashi didn’t move.
Iruka looked at him.
Without the armour, with most of his silver hair flattened awkwardly against the couch cushion and the ridiculous dog mask still covering his face, he looked—
Iruka couldn’t find the word.
Not dangerous.
That was absurd. Of course he was dangerous.
But the danger wasn’t the most obvious thing anymore.
Iruka remembered the way Kakashi had flinched when they’d reached for him.
Sorry.
He remembered the medic saying, You came here.
He remembered Kakashi asking whether ANBU told Iruka when he left.
Iruka pulled the blanket higher around himself.
He’d assumed that being a touchstone meant being trusted with something.
An identity.
An address.
A vulnerability, perhaps.
He was beginning to think he’d gotten that backward.
The trust hadn’t been given when Kakashi’s name appeared on a piece of paper.
That was paperwork.
Trust was Kakashi choosing the window.
Trust was a bloody hand around Iruka’s wrist and a silent question Iruka hadn’t understood.
Trust was sleeping on a stranger’s couch with his sword on the floor.
Iruka didn’t know why Kakashi had chosen to come here tonight.
He suspected asking would be the fastest way to ensure it never happened again.
So he wouldn’t.
For now, Hatake Kakashi was asleep on his couch.
That was enough.
Iruka woke to sunlight.
For several seconds, he didn’t know why his neck hurt.
Then he remembered.
He jerked upright.
The couch was empty.
“Shit.”
The blanket had been folded.
Of course it had been folded.
The sword was gone.
The dog mask was gone.
Kakashi was gone.
Iruka stumbled to his feet.
“Kakashi?”
Nothing.
Kitchen.
Empty.
Bathroom.
Empty.
Window—
Still covered.
Iruka stopped.
The front door was unlocked.
He stared at it.
The bastard had left.
The medic had specifically told Iruka not to let him leave.
Iruka had failed at touchstoning in under twelve hours.
“Son of a—”
Something clicked behind him.
Iruka spun.
Kakashi stood on the other side of the broken window.
Not in ANBU armour.
Not wearing the dog mask.
He was dressed in dark trousers and a long-sleeved shirt, his hitai-ate slanted over one eye and his usual cloth mask covering the lower half of his face.
There was a paper bag tucked beneath one arm.
Iruka stared.
Kakashi lifted the bag.
“Breakfast.”
Iruka continued staring.
“I thought you left.”
“I did.”
“The medic said you weren’t supposed to leave.”
“I came back.”
“That is not how that works!”
Kakashi climbed carefully through the window.
Iruka watched in disbelief.
“Why are you still using the window?”
Kakashi looked at him.
Then at the sheet.
Then back at Iruka.
“Tradition.”
“You’ve been here once!”
“Strong tradition.”
Iruka opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
“Did you go out injured to buy breakfast?”
“No.”
“Then where did that come from?”
Kakashi held out the bag.
Iruka took it automatically.
Still warm.
“Someone owed me a favour.”
“At six in the morning?”
“It’s seven thirty.”
Iruka froze.
Slowly, he looked at the clock.
Seven thirty-two.
His first class started at eight.
“Oh, fuck.”
Kakashi’s eye curved.
Iruka was already running for the bedroom.
“I am late!”
“You’re not late yet.”
“I have to shower!”
“You have twenty-eight minutes.”
“I know how clocks work!”
“Evidence suggests otherwise.”
Iruka slammed the bedroom door.
He heard it then.
Quiet.
Brief.
But unmistakable.
Kakashi was laughing.
Iruka stood in his bedroom wearing yesterday’s shirt, hair pointing in six different directions, with dried blood still under one fingernail and less than half an hour to get to the Academy.
He should have been furious.
Instead, inexplicably, he started laughing too.
When he emerged eleven minutes later, Kakashi was gone.
This time for real.
The paper bag remained on the kitchen table.
Inside were two rice balls, a container of miso soup, and a small paper packet of tea.
There was no note.
Iruka ate one rice ball while pulling on his sandals and took the other with him.
He made it to class with forty-three seconds to spare.
For the rest of the day, nothing happened.
No summons.
No emergency message.
No ANBU crashing through windows.
By lunchtime, the entire night had acquired the strange, distant quality of a dream.
Except that when Iruka got home, his window had been repaired.
Not patched.
Repaired.
New glass.
The frame had been fixed too.
Iruka stood in front of it for a long moment.
Then he noticed the latch.
Sitting on the windowsill was a tiny carved wooden dog.
It was badly made.
One ear was noticeably larger than the other.
Iruka picked it up.
Turned it over.
Nothing written underneath.
No explanation.
He smiled anyway.
Then he put it back on the windowsill.
He didn’t know when Kakashi would come again.
Tomorrow.
Next month.
Never.
That, apparently, was part of being a touchstone too.
Iruka couldn’t summon him.
Couldn’t demand a report.
Couldn’t decide when he was needed.
All he could do was leave the window unlocked.
So he did.