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The Tawse That Refreshes	By : Sushi4Brains Category: Naruto > Yaoi - Male/Male > Kakashi/Iruka Views: 2232 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto nor do I make any profit from this work of fanfiction.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
Much gratitude to my awesome beta, WeepingCadaver; she really cracks the whip and heaven help me, I’m starting to like it. Any leftover dangling participles or comma splices are my own darn fault.
Bear with me gentle reader, for this story presents Kakashi without Team Seven, and his only knowledge of Iruka comes from comments he’d heard from fellow jounin.

These past five months he’d lived and walked among them as a comrade, a man of middling intelligence who was quick to hear and slow to speak. Many saw him as a shinobi of adequate skill but one who would never rise above his current rank; outspoken at times, he was viewed by some as a rabble-rouser, whose vehement, yet stumbling rhetoric tapped into the deep-seated hatred his fellow shinobi held toward the Land of Fire.
His grasp of their language . . . adequate, his mimicry of their customs and mannerisms was good enough to brand him as one born and bred in the land, someone they could trust. His charisma opened doors and loosened tight lips, giving him access to people and places summarily denied to others.
His silvery hair, much longer now, lay plastered to his scalp under the standard tan head wrap of a mid-level Suna ninja; his face, one of Konohagakure’s greatest mysteries, a tad wind burnt and slightly bronzed, was laid bare for the denizens of the Hidden Sand Village to behold.
These past five months, he’d lived and walked among them, unfettered he went through them as a scurrilous infiltrator, a murderous wraith.
In the searing heat of day or in twilight’s cool breezes, he siphoned off intelligence from unguarded conversations or the drunken ramblings of pretentious bureaucrats around him. He knew the most bombastic individuals possessed the least amount of factual information and thus he targeted those who labored in administrative capacities; those the fighting forces looked down on such as mission room workers and archive assistants. These were the ones whose disappearances were less likely to draw attention.
One by one, his unwitting informants would fall prey to his charm or in those rare cases, they would fall under the sway of the Sharingan’s hypnotic influence. After they'd outlived their usefulness, he took pleasure in hearing the snap of their necks right before they crumpled at his feet. Others proved themselves deep wells of information from which he could continuously draw in exchange for sexual favors. Bathed in moonlight, entangled in spun linen sheets, his throw away lovers would divulge pieces of critical information as he ravished their bodies; from them he stitched together data concerning troop strength, armaments and clandestine maneuvers in and around the borders of the Land of Fire. As with the others, once their fount of intelligence dried up, he'd terminate them, callously stifling their keening moans of orgasm by slitting their throats and riding out his own climax as their blood splattered against him and soaked into the bedding.
Every assassination brought him closer to the prize his village sought.
Every cold-blooded murder led the Sand ninja further from the true identity of the killer among them.
Fortune smiled on him once more, granting an opportunity unexpected; from the cyanotic lips of his final lover had tumbled the precise location of detailed plans for a coordinated invasion of Konoha.
The last words of a dying man could reveal indisputable truths or they could be a final attempt to cover up a deadly trap.
All the intelligence he’d collected to this point was nothing more than hearsay and if there were a way to get concrete evidence of a conspiracy, he’d be a fool not to investigate further.
For the next month Kakashi monitored the location where these scrolls were allegedly kept, memorizing details of the building’s interior layout and becoming familiar with the unchanging faces, the ebb and flow of the security forces stationed there. Night after night was spent outlining contingency strategies should his overall plans encounter a stumbling block; failure was not an option.
In the event of his capture, he knew that the Hidden Leaf Village would staunchly disavow involvement – that was the plan he agreed to. The Hokage would openly declare that Sharingan no Kakashi, the man of a thousand jutsu, had defected from his village and should be held singularly responsible for his unsanctioned actions.
But a ninja of his status was valuable, dead or alive – both he and the Hokage knew that as well. Hoping for the best, they'd prepared for the worst. Before his departure from the Leaf Village, the Hokage placed a seal on the Sharingan, one that would nullify its power and vaporize his body if removed while Kakashi was still alive. Should the Sharingan be tampered with after his demise, the seal would activate and essentially turn his body into a time bomb.
If ever there was an incentive to return home in one piece . . . he wryly thought.
He'd calculated every detail of his escape down to the second; he knew the exact time when shifts changed at the village's main entryway and when the marketplace just inside the main gates would be at its busiest. And when the time was right, after five long months, Hatake Kakashi strolled through the bustling town square, his rucksack filled to overflowing with their secrets, a trail of unsolved murders in his wake.
Half of the twenty chunnin set to relive the outgoing lookouts at the village’s stone bulwarks were his shadow clones – he’d planned that beforehand. Equipped with taupe colored smoke bombs, they would divert attention from him as he walked out into the arid wasteland. Armed with poison tipped kunai, they would thwart retaliatory attacks aimed his way.
This was a suicide mission -- he knew that from the start.
Sand shinobi were known far and wide for their ferocity in battle and their depraved cruelty toward prisoners, especially those prominently featured in their bingo books like he was.
Fifty paces from the cleft in the rock at the village’s egress point, the odor of rotten eggs caught his attention. That meant the alarm was raised sooner than he’d expected; the detonating smoke bombs also meant there was less time to flee than he’d planned. But he’d come too far, risked too much already to give up without resistance.
He took off running at top speed; twenty meters outside the village proper, the sounds of a raging skirmish still ringing in his ears, he felt the presence of four, jounin level ninja hot on his heels.   With unfamiliar, ever shifting terrain stretching out before him in every direction and certain death a hairsbreadth behind him, Kakashi whirled about and sprinted toward his pursuers.
He’d diminished a goodly portion of his chakra to create the shadow clones, so a protracted battle was out of the question; he needed to conserve his strength for the journey ahead. He settled instead for a jutsu that would whip up an intensely concentrated sandstorm to blind those who hunted him and to conceal a hail of electrified kunai. The scent of fresh blood and their anguished screams lingered in the stillness even after he’d put considerable distance between himself and his fallen foes.
Two days spent traversing the windswept land, the unmerciful sun leaching his vitality with every step; frigid winds slicing through his heavy clothing like a straight edged razor by night – thoughts of home pushed him to put one foot before the other and press onward. Off in the distance on the third day of his trek, rolling hills of clover, flora and fauna of greens and yellows came into view.
A mirage, he thought. Or perhaps this is a genjutsu to trap me and drag me back to face justice.
A frisson of hope sparked within him once he realized he’d stumbled into the boundaries of Kawa no Kuni (River Country). The Land of Wind and River Country maintained a tenuous alliance; a Sand shinobi wandering through their countryside wouldn’t attract undue attention. But news of a rogue shinobi with stolen information to sell and a hefty bounty on his head would have the rounds all across this tiny village by now.
He spent the next few days holed up in a cliff side cavern with his ninja hounds keeping watch as he recovered his strength; his furry companions took turns hunting small game and fetching water for his canteen, hoping to entice him into taking nourishment. Dispatching one of them to Konoha with news of his status, he waited for nightfall. With the stars as his compass, the moon lighting his path, he headed for home.
By the dawn’s pale yellow light, the Land of Fire’s western border came into view.
Once the soles of his sandals sunk down in the mossy grasses of home, Kakashi dropped behind a copse of scarlet leaved viburnum shrubs; his heavy backpack slipped from his shoulders and he made quick work of ripping the beige Bedouin- like clothing from his body. For months, the ill-fitting garb of a Sand chunnin had been his camouflage, his license to walk freely amongst his adversaries. But with tensions and paranoia at an all-time high between the Land of Fire and the Land of Wind, dressed like this, he’d stand out like a bloated fuchsia rhinoceros in a field of green.
A bad idea to unduly provoke the ‘stab first, ask questions later’ shinobi patrolling this area.
As he rifled through his backpack,  words could not describe how good it felt when his fingertips brushed against the soft material of his regulation navy blue singlet. The comforting feel of his mask against wind burnt cheeks, the broken in green flak vest that  smelled faintly of dogs and the unaccustomed weight of his own hitai-ate covering the Sharingan made him feel more like himself.  For now, he’d gladly ignore the rough grains of sand still clinging to his body, chafing him in regions that only a trained medic or an inquisitive lover should have access to.   
He'd dismissed most of his hounds before leaving River Country, and now it was Pakkun's time to head back to his brothers with his thanks for their companionship and protection. Every crunch of twigs beneath his feet, broadened the grin on his face as timid woodland creatures scurried back to their hiding places; with every leap over rotting tree stumps and fallen branches, the heavy backpack dug a little deeper into his shoulders. 
The trees became sparser as he neared the village proper.
Soon, the information he carried would be in the hands of an anxious Hokage and a team from the Cypher corps. Standing on the crest of a hill overlooking the village’s main entrance, his happy thoughts of home shifted to the stern face of the heavy bosomed, blonde woman who was his commander in chief. Not only was she the strongest ninja in the land, she held the dubious distinction of being the most preeminent medical ninja in all the Five Shinobi Nations.
As he walked down the sloping hill, he hoped that the Hokage’s happiness over his safe return and the invaluable information he’d pilfered would be enough to grant him a few days of undisturbed rest and relaxation, but that was a gamble. Having a world renowned medic for a leader had its benefits; he’d lost track of the times she’d saved his life with her ninjutsu. But those same healing hands could ascertain his physical status with a mere touch to his forehead and no amount of fast talking on his part could keep him from a hospital stay unless she said otherwise.
He’d downed handfuls of antibiotics and blood pills proactively these last three days, and he was confident his hastily dressed minor injuries wouldn’t require a stay in the hospital this time around. Or so he hoped. The thought of anyone invading his personal space right now was making him irrationally edgy.
No telling how I might react if someone put their hands on me without my say-so.
Kakashi shook his head slightly; he needed to focus on what was really important -- the mission, successfully completed earlier than anticipated and the delivery of the information to the Hokage. His bone-weary body and painfully empty stomach each vied for prime consideration, each presenting valid reasons why his jaunt through the forest should lead him to his own home first, to a warm bed or into town for sustenance.   In the end, his mind prevailed over the protests of both. He vaguely remembered writing out the unclassified details of his mission by the flickering light of a small fire while cooped up in that cave; along with everything else he had, that report should satisfy all the requirements of a complete mission.
Humph, he sullenly thought. I might as well drop it off at the mission room, since I’ll be in the Hokage tower anyway.
By now, he was close enough to hear the call to of a vigilant watchman when the towering gates of the Leaf village creaked open. That was all the welcome he wanted or needed now. The prickle of someone else’s chakra danced along his body, gently pulling at his frayed nerves, but they had to make sure he was who he appeared to be; Kakashi understood it and he was too relieved, too tired to complain. Waving him inside, the gate guards’ congratulatory words sailed past his ears and he slogged by the two men with a nod of his head. They obviously understood he was in no mood for mindless chitchat and had the decency to keep their conversations short.
Disappearing in a small cloud of chakra smoke, he was a tad light-headed when he appeared outside the Hokage’s office door; if the ANBU guards there had noticed his slight sway, they had the good sense not to reach out and steady him.
Snapping to attention, the ANBU to Kakashi’s left grabbed the doorknob, knocked once and swung the door open without a word.
“Well, it’s about time,” Tsunade said when she turned away from the window behind her massive desk. “You look like hell, by the way.”
That was as close as she would come to confessing that she’d been worried about him, and that she was relieved to see that he was in one piece.
“Thank you ma’am,” was Kakashi’s solemn reply as he respectfully inclined his head toward her.   “I brought back a few souvenirs that you might want to add to your collection.”
As expected, her tired hazel eyes lit up when he strode toward her paper strewn desk and wordlessly dumped the contents of his rucksack. Patiently standing at his version of attention while she skimmed over the information, he felt himself listing to the left once again.
Tsunade never looked up from the scroll she held, choosing rather to gruffly snap, "For cripe's sake Kakashi, sit down before you fall down.”
Kakashi spurned the offer, wanting nothing more than a chance to pass out in the privacy of his own apartment. “I’m fine Lady Tsunade, just a little tired.”
What seemed an indeterminable amount of time silently passed before she announced, “Stand down shinobi. You’ve done well. You even managed to catch me in a very generous frame of mind tonight. Tell you what Kakashi, I’ll let you have one week to rest up, but I want your complete report on my desk first thing in the morning.”
"Yes, ma'am," was his relieved response, although he cringed a bit when the Hokage’s eyes flitted over him once more, knowing her assessment of his physical condition could mean the difference between his liberty and confinement to a hospital ward.
“Aside from looking and smelling like the landfill, you seem fine.” Under a scrunched up nose, there was a sly smile on her lips when she said, “ You should get a move on before I change my mind and give you a more thorough examination.”
Nodding his head wearily in acknowledgement, he turned to leave. “Thanks again, Tsunade-sama.”
No sooner than the door closed behind him, Kakashi couldn’t hide a broad grin of satisfaction. Though it pissed him off at the time, he was glad he’d prepared that report before leaving Suna; after he dropped it off in the mission room, he’d be one step closer to sleeping in his own bed tonight.
Retrieving said report from his utility pouch, he shrugged his shoulders. Sure, the form was a little wrinkled, gritty and sweat soaked, but the damn thing was done and relatively legible.
Lurching into the brightly illuminated mission room, Kakashi was thrilled to find it empty, save for one brown-haired man sorting through papers; he was humming a familiar, somewhat off-key tune to himself, and that’s probably the reason he didn’t notice Kakashi’s presence until he stood inches from his desk. Once Kakashi rapped his knuckles on the solid elm surface, the ingratiatingly cheerful man flashed him a friendly smile.
“Welcome home Hatake-san,” came the earnest greeting.
Kakashi had neither the time nor energy to identify this smiling sycophant. As long as he does his job, I don’t really need to know who he is.
Producing the less than pristine report with a careless flick of the wrist, he released the paper, grinning mischievously as it fluttered from his gloved hand onto the desktop. He turned on his heel and was halfway across the room when he heard the polite young man clear his throat.
“I’m terribly sorry Hatake-san,” the nettlesome paper-pusher said softly. “I can’t accept this.”
Oh for crap’s sake! How did I manage to meet up with this anal-retentive eager beaver?
Kakashi spun around to face the smaller man, his jaw painfully tight with aggravation, and with each determined stride toward the desk, he squashed down the urge to fling a kunai into the wrinkled piece of printed wood pulp, but just barely. When his eye narrowed dangerously, he fully expected the chunnin to flinch.
Alas, the smiling young man seemed unconcerned for his personal safety.
With a small shrug of the shoulders that said, ‘That’s the way it is’, the chunnin resolutely replied, “This has to be redone Hatake-san.” He then had the nerve to wink adding, “Unless you don’t wish to receive credit and payment for this mission.”
That firm voice behind the sickeningly sweet smile annoyed Kakashi to no end, and an unpleasant stare down commenced.
What's with this guy? Seasoned mission room workers always accept my reports; if need be, I sign a blank form, they rewrite and submit the damn things without any backtalk. Obviously this rookie needs more training in dealing with his superiors; damn shame I don’t have time to school him properly.
Kakashi’s palms thunderously connected with the desk’s smooth surface, knowing a modicum of craven acquiescence would accompany the action. Once again, he’d miscalculated, for the desk-nin smiled brighter. Pushing himself farther into the young man’s personal space had no effect on him either.
“Look chunnin,” Kakashi snarled nastily, “You will accept my report, I will be credited with its completion, and I will be paid. What part of that didn’t you understand?”
Ordinarily, Kakashi would have disappeared after such a pronouncement with a loud transportation jutsu and that would have been the end of it. In truth, Kakashi didn’t have enough chakra to leave behind a swirl of dried leaves; “Ninja-do-right” smugly sitting behind his desk didn’t need to know that.
The sheer force of pent up testosterone overflowing from every pore in his body, coupled with the overly aggressive body language should have made the the desk clerk shake in his sandals, but the oblivious chunnin didn’t even bat an eyelash; he actually looked bemused by Kakashi’s efforts.
The young man’s smile remained when he tilted his head to say, “I apologize for the inconvenience Hatake-san. It should only take you a few minutes to rewrite this.” Just then, a brawny light brown hand clasping a blank form and a pen appeared in Kakashi’s line of vision. “Please, have a seat,” the man said. “I need to file these reports anyway, so you can use my desk if you’d like.”
Were those wide brown eyes beguiling him with optimism or were they just shining with raging lunacy?
Determining a person’s character accurately was always a matter of pride for Kakashi, but this 'character' flouted explanation. Kakashi had initially written him off as a fastidious fussbudget with too much authority and not enough common sense. The crisply pressed uniform he wore and his scrupulously trimmed, clean fingernails bolstered that impression. Evidently, this jackass spends more time nit-picking forms than leading teams in the field. The uncluttered desk, and writing implements neatly arranged by size, further cemented the notion that the young man had deep-seated obsessive issues as well.
Moreover, what self-respecting ninja walks around smelling faintly of sandalwood and chalk dust?
Yet there was something about the man’s eyes; they seemed to reach out and grab Kakashi’s attention in a frenzied chokehold. A stubborn determination that he acknowledged within himself, smoldered within those cinnamon orbs.
Interesting-- nevertheless, Tsunade would string me up by my nuts if I strangled a comrade. Maybe I’ll just have him brought up on charges of insubordination; that should wipe the stupid grin off his face!
A steel grey eye drifted toward the highly polished brass nameplate exactly centered on the well-ordered desk.
Umino Iruka. So . . . this is the notorious little dolphin that scares the crap out of my colleagues.
The desire to get away from this man as quickly as possible outweighed his desire to punch him through the back wall; cursing under his breath when his heavy pack dug into tired shoulders, Kakashi made his hot displeasure known by letting the damn thing loudly collide with the floor. Stiffly hunching over the desk to scratch out the blasted report he kept reminding himself that the sooner he get this over with, the sooner he could get the hell outta here!
Iruka gestured for him to take his vacated uncomfortable looking chair and Kakashi shot him his best ‘go to hell’ look. The young man simply went about his business, walking toward a bank of filing cabinets lining the opposite wall, blissfully unaware of the murderous intent directed toward him.
By the time Iruka and his smarmy smile returned, the ink was dry on Kakashi's rushed signature, and Kakashi’s temper was rising. Mustering all the spite he could, Kakashi flung the offending form in the man’s face.
There’s no way he could misinterpret that gesture!
But if Iruka were offended or insulted, he didn’t let it show, on the contrary, those brown eyes lit up as if Kakashi had just handed him the coveted ‘Shinobi of the Year’ award.
Kakashi shook his head sadly. And they call me crazy!
“See, Hatake-san,” Iruka smirked, “that didn’t take very long, did it?”
Tremors of mounting irritation valiantly fought to overthrow his better judgment; he’d had it up to his eyeballs with the unceasing patronization from this grinning underling. I have to get out of here before my self-control completely evaporates. He lingered instead, testily watching Iruka scan the form before he stamped and stuffed it in a manila folder for the Hokage’s review.
“Finally,” he breathed. Bending down to reclaim his pack, Kakashi declined acknowledgement of the cheery “Have a good night Hatake-san.” As an afterthought, he snidely offered up a one-fingered salute of his own when he turned to exit the room once more.
I hope never again to cross paths with you . . . Umino Iruka.
The sharp shuffling sound of papers may have distorted the tone, but Kakashi distinctly heard Iruka tiredly sigh, “Geez, what a spoiled brat.”
It took a hell of a lot for anything or anybody to crawl under Kakashi’s skin, but this little pipsqueak finally managed to pull the ripcord on his patience parachute. A shaky hand, seconds from grasping the door handle clenched in a fist, and Kakashi abruptly turned about; Gai himself would have applauded his ‘youthful vigor’ had he witnessed the speed in which he crossed the room to snatch Iruka up by shoulders.
The malevolence behind the words he uttered next unstopped a cistern of fury. “What did you say−chunnin?”
Any rational person would have quailed in terror to find an enraged Copy Ninja attached to their person, but this ‘Iruka’ chap stared directly into his eye; unrepentant and unafraid. That jaunty smile of his faded away, supplanted by an audacious smirk as Iruka slowly pried Kakashi’s fingers from his clothing.
“I said, you… are… a… spoiled… brat,” Iruka eruditely enunciated. “You’re used to people kissing your ass and bending to your will just because you’re an elite jounin, well sir, I won’t be doing that!”
Kakashi stared open mouthed at this jackanapes, dumbstruck by the man’s patent death wish. For the first time since he’d entered the room, Kakashi finally took notice of the heavily breathing man’s slightly stocky build. Broad shoulders, well-defined biceps, and smooth brown forearms bespoke long hours of training and discipline.
Hmm—he’s feisty; might make an excellent sparring dummy for me some day.
“Brave last words chunnin,” he said as his eye raked over the defiant man before him. "I’ll give you this much,” he said between clenched teeth. “You’ve got quite the set of balls on you Umino Iruka.”
“Damn right--big ones,” the cocky chunnin replied. “Now run along Hatake-san,” he said with a dismissive wave, “Or you’ll find yourself across my knee, begging for mercy like the naughty little boy you are.”
Well that snapped Kakashi out of his stupor posthaste.
If memory served correctly, only two persons ever swatted him on the butt in his twenty-seven years of life. His father of course, but that was an isolated incident, and Minato-sensei. Again, a singular event brought about by his stubbornness. The pain long since forgotten, what remained was shame for disappointing two of the men he esteemed most.
Now this prissy cretin dared rebuke and threaten him with physical chastisement?
What kind of mind-altering drugs was this guy on?
One moment Kakashi stood before Iruka’s desk, his mouth agape, and eye blinking in disbelief. The next moment, his world literally turned on its ear. He wasn’t sure how Iruka managed to slap a chakra blocking seal on him, but he watched in stunned silence as his pack slipped from unfeeling fingers. It was surreal how quickly Iruka bounded over the desk to grab his arm and then--the scuffed floor was a lot closer to his shocked face as his hips rested on Iruka’s thigh.
Iruka used the discarded rucksack as a footstool, and Kakashi felt a slight stretching pain in his bicep when Iruka pinned his right arm against the small of his back. He heard the loud noise of heavy fabric ripping and then there was a sudden cool breeze across his southern flank. His uniform pants, slashed with a skillfully wielded kunai lazily pooled around his ankles; his standard issue undershorts resting above them.
What the hell? Had this chunnin woven some type of high-level genjutsu? Or is there a flux in the Sharingan that's dredging up repressed memories?
Those answers would have to wait as an unmistakable gathering of chakra behind him was the only warning he’d get before a searing and very real slap made his jaw drop.
I can’t move -- what the hell did he do to me?
Iruka’s right arm and firm hand rained down stinging swats across his bared bottom and the tops of sensitive thighs faster than his mind could process. Gasping for breath became his most urgent priority. His normally well-ordered thoughts devolved into a muddled mass of twisted neurons, all shouting the same message -- PAIN.
The cat-like reflexes that secured his fame in times past were sluggish now and every effort to twist away and gain the upper hand was rendered useless. His perception of time, reality and illusion suffered the same impairment as the quick-fire cadence of Iruka’s hand bombarded his overwrought senses.
In the distance or so it seemed, Iruka’s stern, clipped voice registered on the fringes of his consciousness.
“You should be grateful Hatake-san. I’ve taken care to prepare you for what’s to come.”
Feeling Iruka’s upper body separate from his when he leaned back to reach for something, Kakashi intended to tilt his hips upward and to the right to throw him off-balance, but Iruka was a damn sight quicker than he assumed. All hopes of escape fell by the wayside when a muscular leg clamped down across the back of his knees.
“Save your strength naughty boy,” Iruka scolded. “Your punishment is over when I’m satisfied you’ve learned your lesson.”
Iruka abruptly tipped Kakashi forward until his hipbones rested on the edge of a sinewy thigh. Off balance in more ways than one, his left arm protectively cradled his forehead, while his right hand grabbed at Iruka’s ankle, desperately attempting to pull him off the desk. In this awkward position, his hitai-ate was unintentionally pushed lower, covering both of his eyes, the smooth skin of his defenseless bottom was tautly stretched; worse of all, his cock pressed against the coarse fabric of Iruka’s pants providing unwanted friction.
Intense anger and embarrassment fueled his futile attempts at freedom but Iruka’s firm grip tightened. Suddenly, something very cool, round, and decidedly wooden skimmed over his stinging bottom.
“This Hatake-san is the business end of a hairbrush,” Iruka stated harshly. “A rather unassuming implement if you think about it. Yet when vigorously applied --it’s highly effective in driving all thoughts of belligerence from a naughty boy’s head. I think thirty of the best should be sufficient.”
“Screw you Umino!” Kakashi shouted. “I’m gonna beat the living sh-- “
The sharp snap of the hairbrush ricocheted within the room, halting him in mid-rant; his head involuntarily jerked upward and his eyelids slammed shut as volcanic heat erupted across his right buttock. Once again, his prolific vocabulary disintegrated into sharply inhaled breaths and animalistic grunts long before Iruka reached the appointed tally.
At some point during Iruka’s intensely thorough drubbing, every ounce of tension uncoiled and flowed out of his body; physically restrained, yet oddly liberated, his body no longer reacted or resisted.
Were Iruka to tell him the sky was green with yellow polka dots and oxygen was addictive, he’d readily believe it.
After Iruka counted off and delivered the thirtieth strike, he heard him ask, “Shall we go with fifteen more for good measure naughty boy or have you learned your lesson?”
Too light headed to think straight, Kakashi’s traitorous mouth uttered something tantamount to blasphemy.
“Damn it Iruka—Stop! I’ve learned my lesson, stop dammit!”
A muscular arm stretching across his collarbone slowly brought him back to the here and now. Gentle fingers gripped his shoulder helping him to stand upright; sure hands lifted his hitai-ate, pushing the damp hairs from his face. He watched in stunned silence as Iruka righted his clothing, carefully avoiding contact with his achingly prominent erection.
Kakashi found he couldn’t speak, and even if he were able, mere words could not express the complexity of emotions rattling around inside him. He was humiliated, confused, and more turned on than he cared to admit.
Warm hands tenderly cradled his face, lifting his head: soft, full lips quickly brushed against Kakashi’s cheek.
“Come on, let's get you out of here,” Iruka whispered.
Like a drunk in the throes of a fantastical stupor, Kakashi felt his head loll forward. He despised weakness in others, yet here he stood, humbled as another man redressed him and gathered up his pack; his sense of self, was shredded to pieces much like his uniform pants, right up until the moment Iruka held him in his arms. Caught up in the unsettling motion of a transportation jutsu, when next he opened his eyes, Iruka’s chest was firmly pressed against his as they stood in the middle of a dimly lit, cozy flat.
To say he was in shock was an understatement. He was feverish and chilled to the bone at the same time; the ability to think or speak coherently was still outside his grasp. Yet Iruka seemed to understand his confusion as he took great pains to speak softly and move slowly as he helped him discard the remnants of his clothing.
Allowing Iruka to lead him to a small, blue and white tiled bathroom, the tranquil cascading sounds of water filling the tub soothed away the jagged edges of his panic. As he gingerly sat on the low hard plastic bathing stool, Kakashi felt rather than saw Iruka drape a small soft towel across his waist. Another small washcloth was pressed into his unresponsive hand.
“You can wash and cover your face with this one Kakashi-san,” he heard Iruka softly say.
Iruka moved to stand behind him, directing a stream of tepid water across his aching shoulders, while soapy hands kneaded away hidden pockets of sand and tension.
“If you remove your hitai-ate, Kakashi-san, it will make it easier for me to wash your hair.”
He did so without dithering. The soothing strong fingers gently massaging his scalp further lowered his defenses and every bit of his clinging apprehension floated down the drain mingled with sandalwood scented suds.
Once he’d eased him into the tub, Iruka called over his shoulder, “I’ll be right back.”
Warm scented water lapping against his chin as he slid further down the porcelain tub brought much needed clarity and stirred up a hornet’s nest of unresolved questions in Kakashi’s cloudy mind.
What’s wrong with me? I let a man beneath me in rank and skill overpower and humiliate me and then I let him bathe me? This is either a really powerful genjutsu or I’m having that long awaited psychotic break I'd been warned about.
But before he could devise a definitive course of action or a plan of escape, Iruka made his surprise reappearance beside him.
“I’m leaving a pair of sleep pants and a bath towel for you,” he said, “right over there on top of the toilet seat, Kakashi-san. When you’re finished, please join me in the kitchen.”
Kakashi could have just transported home and blotted out this weird . . . whatever it was, with the help of a bottle of sake, but he had to see how this nightmare would end.
When finally he wandered into the kitchen, his chest and feet bare and slightly damp, Iruka was smiling warmly as he stood near the stove.
“Please, have a seat,” he said, gesturing toward the small table that occupied the middle of the kitchen. "A light meal of miso soup, broiled fish, and vegetables materialized under his nose as soon as he sat down.
“I hope you don’t mind having leftovers, Kakashi-san, they were the only things I could throw together on such short notice.”
Iruka allowed him to eat in peace, never once attempting to peek at him while they quietly enjoyed their meal.
Overwhelmed by these genuine acts of thoughtfulness, Kakashi still wasn’t sure what to make of the chunnin.
Was this his way of apologizing or did Iruka have a personality disorder the Hokage should know about? Either way, for a certifiable nutcase, he was a fairly decent cook.
After they’d eaten their fill, Kakashi allowed himself to be lead once more, this time into the bedroom where Iruka guided him between soft sandalwood scented sheets. With a tender kiss on the back of his neck, Iruka snuggled in behind him.

The quietly hummed tune of a familiar and off-key melody was the last thing Kakashi heard as Iruka curled himself around him.
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The Tawse That Refreshes