Work Text:
It's a calm evening.
The stew’s simmering on the stove, the kitchen smells pleasantly of root vegetables, lamb, a heavy splash of cooking sake, and the sprig of rosemary that Iruka had plucked from his surprisingly flourishing plant in the small sillbox they had on their window. He breathes in the warm, Wednesday air, the smell of wet mud mixing gently with the smells of cooking, the rain not too heavy yet for him to shut the windows.
Iruka’s mind wanders as he stirs the stew with his wooden ladle. The house is quiet. It’s been quiet for exactly twenty two days. He is mentally going over the teaching plan for the next week, Nagi-san had mentioned something about adding an extra lesson for basic genjutsu defense and—
The air changes so suddenly the hair on Iruka’s arms stand up all at once.
He doesn't hear the click of the door closing, or boots hitting the genkan with a murmured I’m home, or the soft rustling of a vest being shed. No, this feels like a sudden and violent drop in the barometric pressure of his kitchen. The steam rising lazily from the stew almost freezes in midair, curdling. A smell cuts through the rosemary and lamb like a rusty kunai through silk.
It’s the smell of dried iron. Of old, black mud from the southern marshes. The stale tang of adrenaline and sweat and old blood layered over and over on a body that’s been pushed past its limits for weeks so that it's almost sour and sharp in the air. But underneath it all, unmistakably, is the thick, heavy musk of a bloodhound canine that has spent too long in the dark, hunting things that had never wanted to be found. The presence is oppressive.
Iruka turns his head in a slow, careful movement.
His first thought is demon. Kakashi is crouched on the windowsill. His hair is damp from the rain and he looks less like the Rokudaime and more like a monster that’s dug its way out of a grave. His flak jacket is missing, long sleeve shirt— more blood than fabric— ripped apart at the shoulder, hanging in tatters where Iruka can see a barely healed, jagged gash. His silver hair is matted with loam and dried gore, and his mask is frayed apart at the corner of his jaw.
None of this would have been too out of ordinary for a Jounin returning from a grueling mission. But what Iruka sees makes his breath catch and his stomach drop.
His eye.
Kakashi’s single exposed pupil is blown so wide it’s completely swallowed the grey of his iris. His eye doesn't blink. It doesn't look at Iruka’s face. It tracks the pulse in his throat, the twitch of his fingers, the movement of his chest as he breathes in and out. It’s the eye of a beast in hunt, tracking its prey. Iruka watches Kakashi’s chest heave, his ragged breath come out shallow rasps that whistle out his teeth. He’s vibrating. Kakashi’s entire frame is trembling with the stored kinetic energy of a spring coiled too tight.
Iruka knows, he knows when Kakashi takes these missions, the ones even the ANBU cannot handle, the ones that require the relentless, persistent hunt of a bloodhound who could sniff a target from three countries away, who bites down to the bone and doesn't let go, in these missions, Kakashi needs to let the Hatake blood take over. He needs to become the beast. Usually, he could claw his way back out to humanity on the walk home.
Not every time. Not this time.
Iruka takes in his tightly coiled posture, crouched bare feet on the windowsill, arms hanging down between his knees like an animal, the muscles of his forearms corded so tight they're twitching, nails caked with dried blood and mud. This time, the hunt has swallowed him whole, unraveled the thin, polite skin Kakashi wears for the councilmen, and spat out a raw, feral beast. This time, he’s in too deep.
Iruka swallows nervously, and Kakashi’s eye snaps to the movement of his throat with terrifying speed.
Kakashi’s jaw works under the mask. When he speaks, the voice sounds so unlike him that Iruka’s almost surprised. It’s a low, gravelly rasp that sounds like the noise of stones grinding together in the belly of the earth.
“Ten minutes.”
Iruka’s heart rolls, slow and heavy in his chest. The ladle slips from his fingers and falls into the stew with a splash. Adrenaline flushes into his system so viciously, he sees Kakashi’s nostrils twitch. The sudden heat in Iruka’s belly almost makes his knees buckle.
“Ten minutes,” Iruka whispers back.
Kakashi doesn't answer. He simply leans his head against the windowframe, single eye closing for a brief second as a low, guttural rattle vibrates in his chest. It's a warning. The timer has started.
Ten minutes.
Iruka doesn't waste a single second. He moves.
The rules are simple, sacred and known to only the two of them. It’s their safety valve, a circuit breaker. When Kakashi’s in too deep, when he comes home like this, feral, out of his mind with his canine instincts, he can't just sit at their kitchen table and eat stew. He can't just lie in their soft bed and sleep. Not when the beast is still on the hunt, looking for a throat to tear out, looking to drown in the high of the kill. He needs the chase. He needs friction.
Iruka vaults over the kitchen table, a clear six feet of space between them as he respects the perimeter of raw chakra between them, solid like a physical wall. He’s in his civilian clothes, a soft faded long sleeve t-shirt and simple grey joggers. Good. He doesn't grab any weapons or a coat, he needs to be light, to be fast.
He slams into the back door to throw it open into the cool night and hits his backyard running. His bare feet tear into the slick, unkempt grass of their backyard, and he clears the fence in one clean leap.
The first three minutes are pure instinct.
His mind is numb and thoughtless as he runs past the dense, unmanaged treeline of training ground forty-four’s southern border, the rain soaking through his hair. It stings his cheeks and clears his head, and he welcomes it. It helps him think more like a shinobi and less like a husband who had just left his dinner to burn on the stove.
He runs straight into the dark woods of Konoha’s forbidden forests. In a straight, open fight, Kakashi would dismantle him in less than three seconds without using a single jutsu. But this wasn't a fight. This was a hunt.
Wind whistles past his ears as he runs through the forest. He’s not careful. He doesn't cover his tracks. Doesn't suppress his chakra, and brushes past tree barks and bushes leaving behind the smell of rosemary and the tang of his rising fear and excitement. He needs to give Kakashi a real trail.
He pushes chakra into his thighs and the soles of his feet to leap from wet mossy roots to the low branches of the evergreen Konoha trees.
Five minutes gone.
He runs deeper into the canopy, breath coming in short bursts, sweat mixing with rainwater down his face. The sounds of the forest whistle past his ears as he runs, the croaks of small frogs, the rustle of rodents, the chirping of nocturnal insects in the brambles.
He leaps in zigzags across a small stream, running upstream, trying to get his footprints lost in the mud. He finally jumps across to the opposite bank, bare foot sinking in the clay for a quick second before he runs towards the rocky ridges where the terrain becomes broken and treacherous.
Seven minutes.
His lungs burn as he jumps from rock to rock, climbing straight uphill. The tips of his fingers sizzle with chakra as he uses them to stabilise himself on each handhold he can find. He makes it to the top of the ridge, chest heaving as he stands on a high rocky outcrop. He looks back towards the village, the lights of Konoha a blurry smear through the rain. He pants, the sounds of the forest almost suffocating and thick in the air. He can feel the countdown ticking away in his skull.
Eight minutes.
He looks to the other side of the ridge, the forest becoming ancient and thick with millenia old camphor trees and cedarwood, a good twenty feet below. He considers his options, muscles tensing, fingers curling into the mossy earth of the rocky ridge. He can see the dark opening of caves a ways up the ridge, a good place to hide. He can circle back around to the stream to wash away the trail.
Nine.
He may be a harmless chuunin academy instructor, but right now, his blood is singing with the old feral song of being hunted by the strongest predator in the world. The thrill of knowing that the predator belonged to him, that the teeth would sink and bruise but never kill, it was an intoxicating poison. It makes shivers run down his spine and pool deep in his belly.
Ten.
The forest goes dead silent.
It’s instantaneous. One second, the night insects are chirping their wet, temporal songs, crickets and cicadas that crawl noisily across the forest floor; and the next, absolute, terrifying, unnatural silence drapes across the ridge like a heavy, iron shroud. The frogs have stopped croaking. The critters and rodents have gone stock still, and the wind seems to die in the branches. The very air around Iruka seems to grow thick, cold and charged with an overwhelming, suffocating weight. Iruka recognises this weight intimately.
Killing intent.
It rolls across the forest like a massive wave of pure, unadulterated apex predator malice. It's nothing like the precise spikes Kakashi uses during interrogations, or to intimidate in a battlefield. It’s oppressive, all consuming. It presses down on Iruka’s shoulders so hard his knees buckle.The primitive, mammalian part of his brain screams at him to drop to his knees, curl up and play dead. He grins, wild.
A violent, excited shiver runs down his body, head to toe and he can feel his pupils dilate in a pure adrenaline response. His heart hammers in his chest with primal knowledge—
He’s coming.
Iruka doesn't look back. He throws himself off the ridge in a single leap, dropping down the twenty feet of the ravine, a mad burst of chakra breaking his fall, and makes a wild, full sprint into the thickest tangle of brambles and ancient evergreens he can find.
Behind him, tearing through the absolute silence of the dead forest comes a sound that makes every last hair on Iruka’s arms stand up.
A low, wet, thud. The sound of a heavy body landing on the stone ridge Iruka had just jumped off from.
And then, a completely inhuman sound. A long deep, nasal inhale that seems to draw all the air out of the ravine. Kakashi seems to be tasting the wind, catching the smell of rosemary, sweat and the high, sweet note of Iruka’s terror. Iruka shivers as he runs through the tight foliage.
A terrifyingly familiar shadow flies through the canopies.
Iruka veers hard to the left, jumping over roots and ducking under fragrant branches. He’s not fast enough. Kakashi’s speed, unburdened by human hesitation or tactical restraint is otherworldly, he's a force of nature.
Iruka gets no warning before a massive weight hits him from behind with the force of a falling boulder.
“Ah—” The air is driven out of his lungs as the two bodies hit the muddy earth together, rolling and toppling over wet ferns and detritus. Iruka lashes out instinctively, his shinobi training kicking in purely on reflex. The body above him subdues him with ease, and Iruka finds himself face down in the mud. Still, he throws an elbow back blindly, and it catches Kakashi in the ribs, hard. A solid strike which would have broken a lesser man’s ribs, and Kakashi doesn't even grunt. He absorbs the blow like it's nothing, catching Iruka’s wrists and pinning them down in the muck above his head.
The sound cuts through the silence of the woods, through the rush of Iruka’s blood in his ears. Kakashi is growling. A low, continuous, vibrating rumble that starts deep in his chest and rattles out his teeth, pressing directly into the skin of Iruka’s neck. He’s trembling violently in barely-there restraint. Iruka can feel his hot, shaking breath against the nape of his neck.
Kakashi is scorchingly hot, pressed against his back in a solid, vibrating line, body temperature shot through from weeks of running and the adrenaline of the hunt. Iruka smells the scent of ozone, the air right before lightning strikes, and cold, old blood.
The mask is gone. Kakashi’s hot, bare skin presses against the back of his neck, teeth scraping over it like skimming the surface of undisturbed water. His hands pin Iruka’s wrists tighter in the mud and in a burst of sudden movement, buries his face right into the crook of Iruka’s neck, into the pulsing point of his carotid. He doesn't bite— not yet— but he drags his nose up the line of his neck in a long, ragged, wet inhale like he’s trying to pull Iruka’s soul out of his very pores. Iruka’s muscles are locked up in an involuntary response, and he forces himself to exhale the shaky breath he’s holding. His heart seems to beat right out of his chest and into the wet earth below.
Kakashi nudges his face violently into the soft skin behind Iruka’s ear, scenting him in a frantic, desperate wildness. His fingers tighten till Iruka feels the bones of his radius and ulna creak against each other as Kakashi drags wet inhale after wet inhale of Iruka’s skin. Every exhale seems to shake the very air around them.
“Mine,” a low, ruined voice mutters against his neck. It sounds like a growl that happens to shape itself into a human syllable. “Mine.”
Iruka tries to turn his head, to look over his shoulder as he speaks to his husband. “Yours, Kakashi— you caught me. You caught me, love—”
There's a loud growl. The word love seems to short circuit something in Kakashi’s brain and without any warning, he gives a sudden, sharp jerk and his teeth snap down right onto the meat of Iruka’s shoulder.
“Hah—” Iruka cries out, sharp pain tearing through his shoulder as teeth break through his shirt into his skin. The tang of copper immediately floods the air around them, but Iruka leans into the bite. He offers more of himself, giving the predator the taste it needs to know the kill is real. Take what you need, my love.
With another low, vibrating rumble, the bite deepens for a second, before a hot tongue lashes out, licking the wound with a rough, heavy pressure, soothing the hurt even as he inflicts it.
“Fight,” Kakashi growls, voice thick. His hands spasm on Iruka’s wrists. “Don’t— Don't just give. Fight me.”
Iruka understands. He knows what Kakashi needs. With a sudden burst of chakra, Iruka wrenches his hands free and twists his hips violently. He manages to crawl away all of two steps before a punishing grip on his ankle yanks him back through the mud. He manages to flip himself over in the last second, so that he’s lying on his back in the mud, staring up at his husband. His breath catches in his throat.
Kakashi’s face is bare, smeared with mud and Iruka’s own blood is dripping a trail down his jaw. His silver hair is plastered to his forehead from the rain. But his eyes— both of them now, the grey one, and the scarred, dead one— are fixed on Iruka with a terrifying, primal hunger. The intellect in them is pushed so far back it might not be there at all. In this moment, neither the Hokage nor the copy ninja exist. This is just a wolf staring down at his prize.
Iruka brings a hand up to cup the back of his husband’s neck, fingers tangling in the wet, silver hair, and at the same time, brings his knee up, hard, to catch Kakashi in the flank to try and throw him off. Kakashi snarls, a terrifying, throat clearing sound as he slams his body weight down. Iruka struggles in his hold, lashing out blindly with no finesse, no shinobi technique, just pure, adrenal survival. Kakashi easily immobilises him again, using one palm to pin both hands back into the mud with a wet slam. His fingers lock between Iruka’s above his head, and this might have been a romantic position if it wasn't for the heart slamming intensity of the situation and the snarling beast above him. Iruka’s body apparently doesn't care, and his dick twitches violently in his pants when a forearm comes to press down on his throat. It's not enough to choke him, but it's enough to pin him completely, forcing his head to tilt back and look up at Kakashi.
“Look at me,” Kakashi rasps, his bare face inches from Iruka’s. His breath is hot, wild, smelling of the raw elements. “Look at what I caught.”
“I see you, Kakashi.” Iruka whispers, his voice coming out raspy with the pressure on his windpipe. He stares right into the eyes of the beast. He refuses to look at those blown, dark pupils with anything less than his total, complete presence. “I see you. Take what you need.”
Kakashi snarls, then tears at Iruka’s clothes. Kakashi gathers his soft, blue shirt in a clawed hand, and the fabric groans and rips down the seams, exposing Iruka’s chest to the biting rain and the heavy air of the ravine. Kakashi’s nose descends on his neck again, taking in ragged, greedy inhales as his fingers dig into Iruka’s ribs with a creaking pressure. When he's breathed in his fill, he bites, sucks and licks his way down Iruka’s throat, over his collarbone, down his chest, leaving behind bites and bruises that's sure to turn purple by morning.
“I caught such a pretty thing,” his voice rattles against Iruka’s ribcage, vibrating right through the tissues of his lungs and heart in a feral, resonant frequency.
“Kakashi—” The sensation of his mouth and teeth are maddening, and Iruka arches his chest up, groaning out loud and uninhibited into the air of the forest. He writhes beneath him, hands pushing against the solid weight of Kakashi’s palm, his hips jerking against the hard, heavy ridge of Kakashi’s arousal. The rough friction of it against Iruka’s own is almost overwhelming, and he pants, harsh and ragged.
Kakashi reaches down, fingers hooking into the waistband of Iruka’s joggers. He yanks them off in one harsh, downward motion, dragging his underwear off with them, exposing Iruka’s lower half to the dark forest. His cock twitches, heavy against his hip, already dribbling out precum in pure adrenaline fueled excitement. Iruka feels his pupils dilate as he watches Kakashi yank his own standard issue Jonin pants down to reveal his red, engorged cock and tightly drawn up balls. It seems to be dripping.
Iruka doesn't even realize he's speaking until he hears his whispered voice. “Yes, yes, c’mon, Kakashi, give it. Give it to me.”
Kakashi snarls again, and spits into his own palm. The only preparation Iruka gets is him smearing the spit roughly over his hole before Kakashi shoves inside with a single, brutal thrust.
“Fu-uck!” Iruka grits out, eyes going wide and jaw locking as a sharp wave of fullness and tight friction tear through him. His back arches off the ground, fingers scrabbling for purchase against Kakashi’s palm, as a broken sound is punched out of him.
“Fuck— ah— Kakashi.”
Kakashi grips Iruka’s hip with a single hand, grip punishing as he begins to move. It’s fast, right from the beginning, a frantic, unhinged pace driven by a rhythm that is entirely animal. He hammers into Iruka, hips slamming against his in a wet heavy rhythm that seems to echo through the forest. Every thrust drives Iruka deeper into the mud, his body sliding against the wet earth as the heat of it ignites him from the inside out.
There’s no finesse. It’s pure, animal fucking. Kakashi is a beast above him, arm locked straight above Iruka’s head, shoulders rippling with corded muscle under his tattered shirt. His teeth are bared in a wild snarl, breath coming out in loud, wet grunts with every thrust.
Pleasure lances through Iruka, sharp and jagged, heavily laced with a grounding kind of pain. It is the absolute proof of Kakashi’s physical existence, the weight of him, the strength of him, that he is alive, that he has survived the dark, that he has come back to the only place in the world where he is allowed to be this. He’s come back to Iruka.
The slide quickly becomes wet and messy with their mixed sweat and Kakashi’s steadily leaking precum. It might only be muscle memory that makes Kakashi hit Iruka’s prostate every few thrusts, and it's enough for Iruka to throw his head back and keen out a long, unbroken noise. He wraps his ankles behind Kakashi, bringing his hips up to meet every thrust. He plays up the struggle, twisting in his hold, jerking his arms to get them free from the iron grip between his fingers, but every time Kakashi hits his spot, he can’t help the sound of pure pleasure that’s punched out of him. He uses his locked ankles to pull his husband in deeper, harder, faster.
“More— Kakashi,” Iruka chokes out, baring his throat to the night sky. “C’mon— love, let go, harder— harder—” The night has settled in completely now, and the rain had stopped at some point. The clouds have started clearing enough to let moonlight dapple through the woods. It outlines the feral form of his husband, a beautiful beast taking and taking with wild abandon. He finally frees Iruka’s hands to scoop under his thighs, lifting Iruka’s hips up higher in the air, tilting him into a devastating angle.
“Kakashi—!” Iruka throws his head back and screams at the sudden, blinding pleasure, hands flying up to bury themselves in Kakashi’s matted hair. It brings Kakashi’s face back down into the crook of his neck, and something about his scent, or the wild, unbridled cry of his name called out with such raw lust and surrender seems to push Kakashi over the edge of something even deeper.
The pace becomes frantic, almost violent. Kakashi’s shaking, a high, thin whine starting up in the back of his throat— the sound a hound makes when it’s close to the quarry, when the blood-lust is at its absolute peak. His fingernails dig into the flesh of Iruka’s thighs.
“Close— hah—” Iruka gasps blindly as Kakashi’s breath puffs out in hot grunts at his neck. His orgasm is approaching at a terrifying, breakneck intensity, and all Iruka can do is cling to his husband with all four limbs as it is torn from him.
It's blinding, overwhelming, and his whole body locks up as Kakashi slams into him over and over again, uncaring of the pleasure that’s tearing its way through Iruka. “Kakashi— fuck— coming, coming,” he cries out urgently as he spills messily into the space between them. He knows his pleasure is incidental, secondary, but the smell of his semen saturating the air rips a high, shaking growl from Kakashi’s throat.
He slams into Iruka three, four, five times, his movements jagged, wild, until his entire body suddenly locks. He freezes, buried deep inside Iruka’s body, his chest heaving, his muscles standing out in sharp, hard relief under the moonlight.
But he doesn't come.
Iruka feels his cock twitching inside him, feels his body thrumming with energy, but the final release doesn't happen. Something’s holding the beast back.
Kakashi drops down, his head slamming against Iruka’s bare, muddied sternum. His body is a tight, barely restrained arc over Iruka’s, the muscles of his back visible through his torn shirt bunched up with coiled tension. He’s trembling so hard, his teeth are literally chattering against each other.
A ruined noise makes its way out of Kakashi’s chest. “Not— not enough,” he whimpers, in a voice completely unbefitting the strongest man in the Leaf. He sounds like a creature dying of thirst. “Iruka— it won't go away. The smell— the dead— it's still on me. It’s still in my nose. I can’t find the boundary.”
Oh, love. Iruka’s heart breaks for him. He wraps his arms around those broad, shaking shoulders and pulls his husband tight to his chest. He knows what this is. Knows what Kakashi is asking for. They’d been here once before, years ago, after a massacre in Water Country.
The Hatake blood came with an ancient olfactory Kekkei Genkai that ran deeper than just being able to smell better than other shinobi. Reducing it to just that was almost laughable. It was a recessive, animal Kekkei Genkai that changed the way a Hatake functioned down to their DNA. Changed the way their brains categorised reality. When it was overloaded with the stench of death, it needed the ultimate, most primal marker of possession to reset the brain. It needed to claim its territory so completely, so absolutely, that no other smell could exist.
“Kakashi,” Iruka whispers, his voice infinitely tender, fingers stroking through silver hair. “Look at me, love.”
Kakashi lifts his head slowly. His face is a mask of pure agony, single eye swimming with a desperate, animal kind of confusion. He looks terrified— terrified of his own emotions, terrified of the beast tearing him apart from the inside.
Iruka’s voice is soft in the space between them. “Tell me what you need.”
“I need— I need to mark you,” Kakashi chokes out. His trembling hand slowly moves down their bodies, shaking fingers pressing against the juncture where they were still joined. “Properly. Like— like an animal. Iruka— please—”
Kakashi’s begging. The Rokudaime Hokage, the man who holds the fate of the entire Fire Nation in his hands, is here, lying in the mud, weeping sweat and blood, begging a schoolteacher for permission to utterly claim him.
“Please— let me do it, Iruka—”
Iruka has never seen it as degradation. It’s not as simple as plain ownership either. He sees the unfiltered vulnerability behind the request, the way he’s handing Iruka the reins to his sanity. He’d never let anyone else see this raw canine, feral nature that lurks behind his lazy smiles. This was only for Iruka.
“Do it,” Iruka says, his firm voice cutting through Kakashi’s harsh pants, leaving no room for hesitation. He looks right into his wide, blown eyes, fierce and unyielding. “Mark me, Kakashi. Mark the boundary. Make me yours.”
A long, shuddering breath escapes Kakashi, a sound of pure relief and gratitude, almost like a sob. He shifts his weight, pulling himself out with a wet noise. He lifts himself up on one arm, the other hand reaching down, guiding his body. Kakashi’s trembling so violently he can barely maintain his balance. His breaths are coming out fast and hard.
The moon is completely out now, reaching past the branches to transform his silver hair to a radiant hue. He’s looming over Iruka, wild, feral, beautiful. Still, he hesitates. Iruka reaches out to touch his thigh, voice steady. “Aren’t I your mate? Your home? Wash the death away, Kakashi.”
A rattling inhale. Then, finally, with a low, guttural grunt, Kakashi lets go of the last vestiges of human restraint.
The warmth is a shocking contrast in the cool night air. Iruka gasps, and closes his eyes as he feels the hot, steady stream of fluid hit his lower belly, his thighs, the skin where their bodies had just been joined. It feels like a viscerally intimate act of trust and it makes shivers run through his body. A low keen of pure relief starts up deep in Kakashi’s chest as he lets go. The smell is thick, heavy with Kakashi’s unique chemical signature. The concentrated pheromones and chakra signature of a Hatake in full rut, sharp with salt, musk and an overwhelming ancient heat. It's the smell of ultimate possession, and it cuts through everything else, completely blanketing the scents of the forest, the mud, the ancient camphor, the old blood. All of it is covered by a massive wall of scent that belongs entirely to Kakashi.
Iruka lays in the mud with his eyes closed, chest rising and falling in heavy, ragged pants. He can feel the smell of it sink into his pores, his body absorbing the heat, the wetness, the intimacy of the act. It feels like a physical manifestation of Kakashi’s primal desperation to claim him. Iruka realises he's hard again with a gasp, and his hand flies down to grab at his sensitive, twitching cock.
“God— Kakashi—” he breathes, throwing his head back into the mud, hand flying over his length as Kakashi finishes emptying himself over Iruka’s belly. As the fluid marks Iruka’s skin, blending their scents into a single, undeniable signature that any hound for a hundred miles would recognise as claimed, the tension in Kakashi’s spine reaches a crescendo. He lets out a loud, rumbling, unhinged sound into the moonlit sky, a sound of plain release, of a predator finally coming home to his den. His body bucks hard, hips slamming back into Iruka’s and it only takes a few, wild, devastating thrusts as his climax tears through him.
He comes violently, his body stiffening into a hard, vibrating line, burying his head back into Iruka’s neck as he pours himself into his husband. Iruka follows close behind in a reckless chant of Kakashi’s name, and then cries out, pain melding into pleasure as Kakashi’s jaws clamp down on the same bite on Iruka’s shoulder.
Iruka holds his husband through the aftershocks, arms and legs wrapping tight around him, locking him in against his smaller frame, letting him collapse completely on top of him. Kakashi trembles as his orgasm pours out of him for long, continuous minutes, held tight, both of them shaking and covered in the scent of his marking fluid.
They don't move for a long time. Kakashi lays there like a dead wight on top of Iruka, and Iruka rubs his back in soothing strokes as he feels his husband’s breath transition from ragged gasps to long, deep rattling sighs breathed into the crook of his neck. His skin is still feverishly hot, but the microscopic tremors have finally stopped. Slowly, the killing intent recedes, like a tide pulling away from a jagged shore. It leaves the air lighter, but still charged with a staticky hum. The silence of the forest changes from a terrified hold-your-breath deadness to a quiet, natural stillness.
Then, the instinctive aftercare begins.
It's not human. There’s no soft towels, quiet words of comfort, no asking are you okay? Kakashi moves slowly, head withdrawing just enough for his tongue, rough and heavy to begin licking at his skin. He starts right behind Iruka’s ear, and then goes down his neck, licking away the sweat and rain and mud. He drags his tongue in a firm, repetitive pressure over his neck, soothing the skin where his forearm had pinned him down. He moves to his shoulder and spends a long time licking at the bite wound, his saliva thick and warm over the torn flesh, buzzing with his clan’s healing chakra.
Iruka lays perfectly still as Kakashi slowly maps over each and every scratch and bite on his neck and chest. He knows this part is as necessary as the hunt, letting the beast groom its mate, confirming that its prize is safe.
“Kakashi,” Iruka breathes softly, petting through his hair as he works his way down Iruka’s chest. Kakashi gives a low, rumbling huff against his skin, not verbal yet, but he nudges his nose firmly against the soft swell of his pec, a hard, blunt gesture of affection.
Slowly, in an immense, uncoordinated effort, he pulls himself out of Iruka’s body with a wet noise. He licks down his chest in rough strokes, avoiding the skin of his belly where the marking fluid is cooling now. The smell still remains in the air, a thick indelible perfume of possession that would take several days and a few long, hot baths to truly wash out. As Kakashi descends to the space between his legs, Iruka breathes in the smell deeply, letting it fill his lungs. The smell of his husband’s survival.
Kakashi noses between his legs, and Iruka bends his knees, letting them fall open around Kakashi’s head to give him the space to do what he wants. Kakashi rumbles as he starts to lick and soothe down behind his balls, down his perineum to his sore hole. He licks over the sensitive skin in broad, wet strokes, and Iruka’s spent cock twitches weakly on his belly. He stares up into the night sky as Kakashi licks away his own cum and marking fluid, soothing the sting of their brutal fucking. Iruka’s breath starts coming out a little faster as his rough tongue works its way into the sensitive hole, but he lays there, limp and exhausted, letting his mind fill with cotton.
“Ah— K’kashi,” he slurs quietly. The hushed noises of the forest have started up again, and his soft pants and whines melt in the night with the chirping of insects and rustling of leaves.
Kakashi keeps rumbling out a satisfied noise as he gently brings his mate to a final, purely selfless, tender orgasm, and Iruka’s dick weakly dribbles out clear fluid into the dip of his bellybutton. Finally content, Kakashi pushes himself up, hand smearing Iruka’s cum into his skin to mix with the marking fluid, before he lets himself curl around Iruka. He drags Iruka’s bare torso against his own, long arms wrapping around Iruka’s waist to pull him into a tight, protective ball.
They lie in the mud and the ruins of their clothes for another hour, hair and skin matted with drying earth and a mix of body fluids that should be, on all accounts, disgusting, but all Iruka can feel is content. His husband is in his arms. The rain eventually starts up again, a fine silver mist that hangs between the ancient camphor trees. The woodland creatures still register the threat in the forest and avoid the small clearing that's become their little sanctuary. Finally, Kakashi shifts. His movements are still slow and distinctly un-human, but he can see wisps of his husband coming back to him.
“Iruka,” Kakashi rasps. His voice is ruined.
“Yes, love.” Iruka brings his face up to kiss the bridge of Kakashi’s nose. Kakashi looks down at the state of them, their torn clothes, the mud-caked skin, the heavy smears of blood. A look of hot possessiveness flashes across his features as he takes in the wet sheen of marking fluid over Iruka’s thighs and belly, before a faint flicker of shame takes over.
Iruka makes a quiet, questioning noise.
“Uh— the stew,” Kakashi mutters, fingers tightening slightly around Iruka’s hip. “The stew— I left it on. ‘S probably burnt.”
Iruka lets out a soft breathy laugh. His hand reaches up to catch a smear of mud on Kakashi’s cheek, wiping it away as he looks at his husband fondly.
“It's alright. I'll make you more.”
Kakashi hums, rumbling deep in chest, and dips his face down to bury it back in Iruka’s neck. His teeth lightly graze the pulse point there, and Iruka fights a shiver. The ferality isn't gone completely, but right here, in the wet dirt of the Konoha woods, held by the only man unafraid of the teeth, the beast is settled.
Kakashi whispers against his skin. Iruka’s fingers tangle in silver hair. “Let’s go home, Iruka.”