Sleepy and Affectionate
Kakashi looked up and called, "Oi, Tōshin!"
Tōshin ambled over with a third whiskey for Kakashi.
"Mm?" the graceful ex-ANBU man asked, leaning a hip against the table.
"Tell Iruka-sensei about that honeypot mission I did with you."
Tōshin blinked.
Then he burst out laughing so loudly and so violently that a number of shinobi looked over in surprise.
Kakashi could see tears already beginning to leak from the corners of Tōshin's eyes.
"Okay, okay, enough," Kakashi grumbled.
"He was paid to stop trying to seduce the target," Tōshin cackled when he caught his breath. "Nearly ruined the entire mission because the target couldn't get away fast enough!"
Iruka-sensei giggled hesitantly.
"R... really?"
"Absolutely!" Tōshin said, still laughing. "Oh, god, I'd forgotten all about that. So many bad Icha Icha lines that he couldn't even make himself say! Kept getting embarrassed partway through and practically passing out! I've never seen anyone so red in my life!"
"Hey, seduction is hard!" Kakashi protested weakly. Iruka-sensei was laughing, now, and that laughter made Kakashi both embarrassed and warmly pleased. "It's not like I can just go up to a target and go, 'Let's make out so I can get you all hot and bothered and steal all your secrets,' you know?"
Tōshin burst into laughter anew and waved one hand like he couldn't even handle Kakashi's terrible excuses.
"Don't think I haven't heard you try almost exactly that," Tōshin accused, almost wheezing with laughter.
"Whatever," Kakashi said, rolling his eye. "That one almost even worked."
"You are so wrong it's hilarious," Tōshin retorted. "She smacked you with a handbag! That she had to take from someone else!"
Kakashi gave Iruka-sensei a what-can-you-do look. Iruka-sensei was valiantly attempting to hold back his own laughter, though his shoulders shook with the effort.
"I'm still better than Pakkun," Kakashi grumbled. "He thinks all he has to do is offer for people to feel his paw pads. Although they are, admittedly, very soft."
Tōshin walked away, gasping for breath between bouts of laughter, presumably so he wouldn't pass out from oxygen deprivation.
"The point is," Kakashi said, pointedly ignoring the way that Tōshin continued to cackle behind the bar, "everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. You, included. I'm not about to judge you for that." He threw a dirty look in Tōshin's direction. "Even if he judges me for my inability to do seduction missions."
"Thank you, Kakashi-san," Iruka-sensei said, his voice still quivering with ill-contained laughter, "for telling me all that. That does make me feel a little bit better about it all."
Kakashi threw another look at Tōshin.
"You want to get out of here? I think I've hit my tolerance for being laughed at by that clown for the day."
Iruka-sensei smiled, but there was a shadow in the smile.
"We don't have to part ways," Kakashi said hesitantly, "if you don't want to."
Iruka-sensei's smile brightened.
"Alright. I can just–"
Kakashi reached out across the table to stay Iruka-sensei's hand.
"He'll put it on my tab. Come on."
"Oh, you don't have to–" Iruka-sensei began uncertainly.
"Don't worry about it," Kakashi said, brushing off Iruka-sensei's words. "You can get it next time, if we end up getting drinks again."
They argued only a little longer before Iruka-sensei, too tipsy to fully protest, had to acquiesce.
"O– okay," Iruka-sensei said gratefully. "Thank you, Kakashi-san."
Kakashi threw back the rest of his third whiskey, and they got up to leave.
They made it all the way out into the street before Iruka-sensei stumbled. Kakashi half-caught him, and he half-caught himself on Kakashi's jacket, holding on with the kind of death grip only used by the very drunk or the very young.
"Let's get you some more water," Kakashi urged gently, his voice low and calm despite the way that his heart tried to jump right out of his chest for a moment.
"My apartment?" Iruka-sensei offered, not letting go of Kakashi's jacket.
Kakashi adjusted his arm around Iruka-sensei's shoulders and hummed agreement.
They began stumbling back together.
◈❖◈
Iruka-sensei had parked himself on the floor, propped up in the corner formed by the foot of the bed and Kakashi's torso. His glass of water had made it mostly down his throat with success, though some of it also decorated his hand, his flak jacket, and a few drops on the floor. The alcohol must have hit him all at once when we stood up as we left the bar, Kakashi suspected.
"Thanks for making sure I got back okay," Iruka-sensei mumbled into Kakashi's shoulder. "I'm sorry. I'm not used to drinking that much, an'– an' it was so tasty."
Kakashi chuckled a little guiltily.
"I didn't mean to get you drunk," he replied apologetically. "I didn't realise you drink so little."
"Cheap date," Iruka-sensei quipped a little mournfully. "Tha's what Mizuki always used to say. Tha' I'm a cheap date."
"Did you date him?" Kakashi asked with surprise.
Iruka-sensei made a face.
"He wished," he said a little scornfully. "Can I tell you something pers'nal, Kakashi-san?"
"If you'd like to," Kakashi said slowly, carefully.
"I don'... I don' like people that way," Iruka whispered too loudly. "He always wan'ed to have sex, bu' I don' like people that way."
Kakashi frowned slightly.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
But Iruka-sensei pressed his lips together and frowned.
"You're judging me, too," he announced. "E'erybody thinks I'm making things up."
"No," Kakashi said firmly. "I don't think you're making things up. I just don't understand."
"What's not to un'erstand?" Iruka-sensei asked, trying to push himself upright and away from Kakashi. "I'm not in'erested in sex, that's all."
Kakashi blinked and frowned further.
"That's... a thing?" he asked carefully.
Iruka-sensei rolled his eyes.
"Mus' be, 'cuz I'm that," he said firmly. "An' you can't convince me otherwise."
"I... I think I might kind of be like that, too," Kakashi admitted slowly, trying to puzzle through his tipsy thoughts. "I didn't know it was... a thing. Are you not interested ever?"
"Pre'y much," Iruka-sensei said. He eyed Kakashi suspiciously. "You're not jus' saying that, are you?"
Kakashi shook his head.
"But you read Icha Icha," Iruka-sensei protested, bemused.
"I like to think about it," Kakashi confessed. "But I've never liked.... I mean, there's a reason I'm awful at honeypot missions."
"Hmm," Iruka-sensei hummed, stretching the hum too long. "Okay. You like cuddling?"
Kakashi shot Iruka-sensei a look.
"What?"
"Cuddling," Iruka-sensei said, enunciating slowly and clearly, as if Kakashi might have misheard. "Do you like it?"
"I... don't know?" Kakashi guessed.
It must have been the wrong guess, because Iruka-sensei abruptly staggered to his feet, pulling Kakashi up as an afterthought.
"We're gonna find out," Iruka-sensei announced firmly. "Take off your jacket."
He clumsily fought his way out of his own jacket and dropped it carelessly to the floor. He kicked it into the closet where neither of them would trip over it.
Kakashi stood, uncertain, feeling like he was somehow taking advantage of a drunken Iruka-sensei, even if he wasn't totally sure if cuddling was taking advantage.
"Jacket. Off," Iruka-sensei ordered, stumbling over to Kakashi and attempting to unzip the jacket himself. "'m not cuddling all your kunai 'n stuff."
Kakashi obediently shucked off his jacket and weapons pouches and allowed Iruka-sensei to clumsily hang them over the back of the desk chair.
The chair began to tip over backwards with the weight.
Their heads collided as they both dove for the chair, trying to keep it upright. They failed, and kunai scattered across the floor.
"Okay, I'm drunk," Iruka-sensei said, wincing and clutching his hitai-ate where it had clanged against Kakashi's. "Sorry. Ow."
Kakashi pushed his hitai-ate up and rubbed at his aching brow.
"My fault," he said. "I drank too much on an empty stomach. Are you okay?"
"Yeah, mostly surprised," Iruka-sensei admitted. He laughed. "'s not every day that I headbutt someone on accident. You okay?"
Kakashi pulled his hitai-ate back down. "Yeah," he said, beginning to collect his kunai and shove them back into the pouch. "Sorry about all... this." He gestured vaguely at the mess of metal on the floor.
Iruka-sensei got down on hands and knees and began helping collect the kunai, passing them carefully to Kakashi to store.
"Let's put those on the desk," Iruka-sensei suggested, pushing his notebooks and class papers out of the way. "'n try that again."
Kakashi chuckled despite himself and set the pouches on the desk as Iruka-sensei removed his own weapons pouches to hang in his closet.
Iruka-sensei cursed softly, some pre-genin-safe curse words ("cat poop. Oh, ninken snot!") that made Kakashi snicker as Iruka-sensei struggled to unwrap the bindings around his calves and thigh.
But eventually, they had both managed to strip their outer gear and wore only their uniform blacks, hitai-ate, and, in Kakashi's case, mask.
Except that Iruka-sensei had pulled off his hitai-ate and set it on the nightstand, and his face suddenly looked so... bare without it.
He climbed clumsily onto the bed and sat there, almost childlike in his pose, looking expectantly up at Kakashi, his eyes glassy with drunkenness.
Kakashi stood uncertainly, not sure what he was supposed to do.
"Come on, then," Iruka-sensei said, holding his hand out invitingly.
Kakashi hesitantly climbed up onto the bed, feeling weirdly out of place and uncomfortably vulnerable as Iruka-sensei pulled him close and laid down, drawing Kakashi down onto the bed.
He lay there awkwardly as Iruka-sensei wriggled and wrapped limbs around Kakashi's chest and legs like an octopus.
"What am I supposed to do?" he finally asked embarrassedly.
"Cuddle," Iruka-sensei said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Put your arm around me. Right. You can turn onto your side, if you want."
"Um.... Which direction?" Kakashi asked timidly.
"Either," Iruka-sensei said sleepily. "Try both, if you want. Not at once, obviously."
Kakashi obediently turned away from Iruka-sensei and found the other man's warm body pressed up against the length of his back, moulded to him.
It felt claustrophobic. Like he couldn't get away to flee.
He turned over awkwardly, trying not to elbow Iruka-sensei or roll on top of him.
Iruka-sensei seemed entirely unperturbed by Kakashi's huffing and wriggling, even as they found one another face to face with each other.
Iruka-sensei's eyes were closed, his breath slow and even and tasting of whiskey and umeshu as it moved over Kakashi's masked face.
"Comfy?" he asked quietly without opening his eyes.
Kakashi wriggled a little more, trying to find a comfortable place to put the arm he now found underneath himself – and hesitated when Iruka-sensei lifted his own head off the pillow.
Tentatively, he slid his arm beneath Iruka-sensei's head. Iruka-sensei immediately laid back down again, head pillowed by Kakashi's arm, his own lower arm curled between them. His other arm rested on Kakashi's waist, light and unintrusive, and his knee pressed between Kakashi's.
It was... shockingly comfortable to have Iruka-sensei's muscular thigh relaxed between Kakashi's own, and to have that gentle hand resting on Kakashi's waist.
Kakashi hesitantly lowered his own hand onto Iruka-sensei's shoulder, half-wanting to feel the curve of the muscles that lay hidden beneath the fabric of his uniform.
"You can relax," Iruka-sensei mumbled from where he'd tucked his head beneath Kakashi's chin. "You're not gonna crush me."
Kakashi huffed a small laugh at being seen so easily and let his arm rest fully on Iruka-sensei's shoulder.
"So? What do you think about cuddling?" Iruka-sensei asked drowsily.
"It's... fine, I think," Kakashi replied carefully. He was pretty sure he liked it, but that thought made him uncomfortable.
"Nnn... good. You can sleep, too," Iruka-sensei informed him muzzily. "Th' barriers on my apartment are S-class. ANBU upgrades when I started taking care of Naruto more."
At the words, Kakashi felt a tension leach from his body that he hadn't realised he'd held. They would be similar barriers to those on his own apartment; even tipsy, he would be safe here.
He didn't sleep for a long time, curious as he was by the sensation of the heat of a warm, living body so close to his own, but when he finally drifted off, he barely even noticed it happen.