Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Kakashi arrived at Sasuke’s apartment, the ANBU were already in place, lurking on the periphery and the rooftops across the street.

When the kid had first gotten that stupid, cursed seal, he’d been labelled as a flight risk—Anko explaining that it would compel him to follow his greatest desire and obsessions. For Sasuke Uchiha, nothing was more all-consuming than the need to become powerful enough to kill Itachi. Which meant that an offer from a sannin was an incredible temptation.

So, everyone was expecting him to make a run for it.

What nobody was expecting was the kidnapping. Multiple counts of it.

Two, to be exact.

Kakashi knocked on the door to Sasuke’s apartment and saw his genin’s cute little, sharingan eyes squint at him through the front window. Kakashi waved cheerfully. Sasuke’s eyes changed back to their normal black and his little head disappeared. A second later, the door opened.

“Yo!” Kakashi said. Sasuke scowled at him.

Over his head, Kakashi could see into the living room where both of Sasuke’s teammates were bundled up in several blankets, tea and snacks laid out in front of them. They had the shell-shocked, resigned looks of people who had been arguing with a brick wall for several days.

“So, team bonding?” Kakashi said nonchalantly.

Sasuke scowled harder.

“Don’t waste my time, Kakashi, what do you want?”

Touchy, touchy.

This, Kakashi knew, was a delicate situation.

“Sasuke, you need to let your teammates go.”

Sasuke scoffed.

“Are you serious,” he snapped, “the invasion was literally three days ago. You don’t know if there are still dangerous combatants out there.”

“I think I would know if there were still any Sound or Sand shinobi left, Sasuke,” he said.

“Yeah? How.”

Because I’m fucking ANBU and I’ve spent the last three days hunting every last one down, he thought and didn’t say. He was exhausted and a call that one of his students had lost their shit (again) and he needed to deal with it or ANBU would—

Really, really didn’t help.

He could already feel his tightly controlled instincts bristling at the presence of so many ANBU near his kids—genin! Near his genin!

“Just—trust your sensei, Sasuke,” he tried to reason with the kid, scrubbing a hand down his face.

Sasuke shook his head aggressively.

“No! Sakura nearly got crushed to death, Naruto ended up entirely chakra depleted! And you disappeared for two days.” He accused. Also, aggressively.

“Yes, and I’m sorry for that, I was sorting some things—” bodies, “—out. But like you said, Sakura almost got crushed to death. The medics have healed her well enough but she still shouldn’t be moving around—”

“I don’t let her move around.”

Oh, Gods.

“Okay, regardless, she and Naruto should both be receiving medical attention,” Kakashi pointed out.

“I’m working on that.” Sasuke said, looking away. The sense of dread that filled Kakashi at that statement was not new. It was a common feeling he seemed to get when one of his ki—genin did something stupid.

“…Working on that how?” Kakashi had a feeling he’d regret asking. He looked up at Naruto and Sakura and Sakura wiggled her hand out of the cocoon she was wrapped in to point off to the side. Kakashi followed her finger to see several medical texts stacked on one of the side tables.

Oh, noooooo. Nonononono. Nope.

Kakashi clapped his hands together, startling all three.

“Okay,” he cheered, “well, that’s great but I would still like to look them over myself, if you wouldn’t mind.”

All three genin squinted at him. Kakashi maintained maximum cheer.

Sasuke looked between Kakashi and the rooftops behind him and back to Kakashi. He narrowed his eyes and Kakashi saw something unreadable flash in them before Sasuke looked down. He nodded, subdued, and stepped to the side so Kakashi could come in. Kakashi let out a relived breath and stepped inside.

Before he could even get past the little genkan to check on Sakura and Naruto, Kakashi heard the door slam shut behind him, the dead bolt get thrown, and the odd sensation of a barrier seal wash over him.

He looked back over his shoulder to see Sasuke standing in front of the door, one hand on the activation seal (of a surprisingly strong barrier) and a victorious smirk on his face. Then he remembered that he was here because Sasuke kidnapped his teammates.

And that, technically, Kakashi was also Sasuke’s teammate.

“Ah,” he said.

Kakashi looked back at Naruto and Sakura to see them both giving him a mildly disgusted look. Like they had hoped for better but didn’t have very high expectations to begin with.

Kakashi sighed, deeply exhausted, and thought, fuck it.

He removed his shoes and flak-vest, wandered over to the couch, did a quick scan of his kids, and then flopped down next to them.

“Alright, well,” he said, also resigned, “wake me up if the ANBU make any weird moves or want to talk to me or whatever.”

He ignored Sasuke’s suspicious stare and pulled his forehead protector down to cover both eyes. After a moment, he felt Sasuke approach and carefully lay a blanket over him. Obito’s eye felt distinctly wet. He ignored it.

“No need to keep watch, Sasuke,” he reassured the boy, “that barrier seal you’ve got is actually pretty intense. I’d ask where you got it but I don’t want to fill out the paperwork, so. Don’t tell me.”

And with that, Kakashi drifted off, dozing to the whispered arguments of his little genin, all safe and snug as a bug nearby. Even if that was entirely against two-thirds of their wills.

Chapter Text

Sakura had had several romantic dreams that started off exactly like this.

Sasuke, overcome with his jealousy and possessiveness, would sweep her into his arms and sequester her away somewhere secret where only he could be with her. So, when he’d come into her hospital room, in all his usual intensity and then some, and asked how far she could walk and when she’d said probably not far and he’d picked her up bridal-style! —

Well. She certainly hadn’t fought him. She definitely should have, she’s realizing now.

Once they’d gotten to his apartment, instead of kissing the living daylights out of her (or doing other… things like what happens in the romance novels she takes from her mom’s stash), he’d immediately bundled her up in an unnecessary number of blankets, considering the weather, and settled her on the couch next to Naruto.

Who was certainly not a feature of her kidnapped-by-Sasuke-Uchiha fantasies.

“Um,” she timidly spoke up as Naruto snored next to her and Sasuke peered through the curtains of his front window. He started adhering something to the front door. She is only a little ashamed to have her first thought be please don’t be an explosive tag go through her head but in her defense, ever since Sasuke got bit, he’d been acting weird as hell.

“Sasuke-kun,” she said gently as he moved around the couch towards the kitchen. She tried to get up and follow but Sasuke whipped his head around and glared at her until she sat back down. With a satisfied huff he went back into the kitchen and she heard the various noises of tea being made, packages being opened, the chopping of a knife on a cutting board.

“Okay then.”

Naruto kept going like a saw next to her, also wrapped in too many blankets. She noticed his hand sticking out of the swaddle. It had a hospital bracelet still attached same as her. Naruto had not been discharged from the hospital. She was staunchly ignoring the fact that she, too, had not been discharged from the hospital.

Sakura was smart. Probably the second smartest kid of their graduating group after Shikamaru. So, it only took her another half-hour to piece together what was going on (mostly because she was still hoping it was a romance novel scenario). But when Naruto jolted up with a comical snort, confusedly looking around and asking her where they were, Sakura could deny it no longer.

They had been truly kidnapped.

By Sasuke.

Who was comfortably laying out snacks in front of them before going to the armchair he’d seemingly positioned to watch all entrances and exits of his little one-bedroom apartment, his own can of soda in hand. She knew a defensible position when she saw it. And a highly caffeinated drink when she saw it, too.

“Oh, hey! Thanks, teme,” Naruto said, cheerfully and obliviously digging into the well-prepared, restaurant-level charcuterie board on the table.

Sakura looked at the board, looked at Sasuke, and then looked at the door. When she looked back at Sasuke, he was staring at her with his sharingan on, practically daring her to make a break for it.

Sakura cleared her throat.

“Um, so. Is, uh—is Kakashi-sensei also invited…to the…sleepover?” Sakura hesitantly and cautiously tried to feel out her teammate. He popped open the can of soda and drank from it without looking away from her.

He knew exactly what she was thinking.

And he knew she knew he knew, too.

He smirked at her.

“When he gets around to it,” Sasuke said, “I couldn’t track him down to give him his…invitation.”

His eyes flashed and he scowled deeply at the confession.

Sakura gulped.

“I see. And, um…how long, exactly, is the sleepover going to last?” She catalogued the apartment around her as surreptitiously as she could while Naruto continued to stuff his face, clearly still unaware of the pickle they had found themselves in. “I only ask because my parents are probably expecting me home—”

“Your parents are out of Konoha, at the moment. You’re fine.”

Sakura pursed her lips. Of all the times to take a vacation…though, on the flip side, she’s glad they weren’t here for the invasion. (Also, why does he know that.)

She huffed.

“Okay, well, I don’t have any clothes for a sleepover, Sasuke-kun,” she said, trying to keep the irritation in her voice to a minimum. His smirk only grew.

“Don’t worry. You can both borrow some of mine,” he answered and Sakura’s brain short-circuited for a second thinking about wearing Sasuke-kun’s clothes oh my sage of six paths! –

No. Focus.

Kidnapped.

“Wow, thanks, teme! You’re being so weirdly nice right—wait a minute,” Naruto stopped eating and shot Sasuke a suspicious look, “are you someone just pretending to be Sasuke?”

An excellent question, but Sakura was sure this was Sasuke. Because she’d already flared her chakra to dispel any genjutsu when Sasuke picked her up on the way here and it wasn’t possible to perfectly henge a dojutsu.

Sasuke sneered.

“Don’t be a moron, dobe. Obviously not.”

“Yeah, no, that’s him,” Naruto said and went back to stuffing his face with a shrug. Sakura telepathically willed him to get a clue.

And as usual, Naruto would never be able to take a hint unless it hit him square in the face and even then, he’d find some way to misinterpret it but a girl could hope.

Mostly because she had not a snowball’s chance in hell of defeating Sasuke on a good day, let alone in the state she was in.

The medics had done an excellent job. Her ribs were no longer crushed, broken, or cracked and both of her lungs were working perfectly fine. That didn’t mean she wasn’t sore, bruised, and exhausted from the invasion and subsequent hospital stay. When she’d told Sasuke she probably couldn’t walk very far, she was being honest. She was still shaky on her legs and low on chakra. She didn’t bounce back like they did.

She tried not to be bitter about that.

“You’re not eating,” Sasuke pointed out, startling her out of her thoughts. She looked at him and then at the board. She side-eyed Naruto for any ill-affects before remembering that, if Sasuke had put anything in the food, it probably wouldn’t affect him.

“…Neither are you,” she said.

“I already ate.”

Oh, how she wished she could say the same but Sasuke literally just kidnapped her from the hospital where she had just woken up from being unconscious. So, obviously, he’d know she was lying.

“…I’m on a diet,” she tried. He narrowed his eyes at her.

“Well, consider your diet over,” he hissed. She narrowed her eyes back at him. They held each other’s gaze until Sasuke rolled his eyes, stood up, and came over to eat one of each thing on the little board.

“There’s nothing in it. It’s just food. Eat.” He commanded before heading back to his chair.

“What? There’s plenty in it. This olive has cheese in it, see, Sakura?” Naruto helpfully supplied, showing her the item in question. Sakura sighed and took it from him, popping it into her mouth sullenly.

“Yeah,” she said, resignedly chewing on the olive, “I see.”

Chapter Text

Listen.

Naruto was an idiot.

But he wasn’t that big of an idiot.

He knew something was up with Sasuke after the whole black-marks-and-weirder-than-usual-eyes thing during their battle with Gaara.

Dude was—

Well.

He wouldn’t say Sasuke wasn’t himself but he was certainly more of himself than he usually let on around Naruto and Sakura.

And, yeah. It took him a hot minute to figure out what was going on when he woke up.

All things considered; he knew even he should be in the hospital after that showdown (epic) but waking up on Sasuke’s couch with Sakura next to him had him practically euphoric. And then Sasuke put down food and it wasn’t ramen but damn it was pretty good, though.

Sakura’s anxiety about the situation may be warranted but, to be entirely honest, Naruto didn’t actually feel like fighting Sasuke on this (which is saying something because he wants to fight Sasuke on practically everything).

Naruto felt safer and more settled having both of his teammates somewhere he could see them and obviously Sasuke did, too. So, really, what was the harm in letting it happen?

Naruto soon found out the answer to that question was ‘quite a bit, actually’. Where did he begin?

If Naruto didn’t have trouble listing things alphabetically, he’d list the problems alphabetically.

First, while he and Sasuke were pretty well off excepting a little exhaustion, Sakura was clearly still hurting. She winced every time she moved to readjust herself on the couch. And then, when Sakura pointed out that she probably still needed medical attention, instead of, y’know, taking her to the hospital, Sasuke just busted out a full stack of books with long and complicated names on them.

At some point during his attempts to get Sakura to let him wrap her ribs—which Sakura insisted was not only unnecessary but also outdated information—Sakura lost her patience and demanded that Sasuke give her the medical books. He huffed but ultimately conceded, handing them over. Naruto watched as Sakura’s scowl grew as she flipped through several of them.

“Sasuke-kun, where did you get these? They’re at least two decades out of date!” She scolded. Scolded.

Scolded Sasuke.

That’s when Naruto knew for sure that something was up.

She kept the one book that seemed to be relatively modern and quickly settling in to read while Sasuke kept being huffy in the corner armchair.

Another thing? Sasuke escorted him to the bathroom when he went. Which was fucking weird as hell because he really didn’t want an audience.

“Uh, teme,” Naruto said as they went down the hall, “you really don’t gotta follow me. I’m not gonna run. If anything, Sakura’s probably more likely to take off than me.”

Which was saying something, considering Sakura’s undying love for the Uchiha.

“Don’t be stupid. Sakura can’t walk further than twenty feet without getting winded, right now. It wouldn’t exactly be hard to get her back if she escape—left!…the sleepover.”

Naruto was almost offended on Sakura’s behalf but, well. That was true.

He was certainly offended on his own behalf that Sasuke thought Naruto would buy that lame sleepover excuse. Even if it would be pretty cool if it were true.

“And I’m not following you,” Sasuke scoffed, “I need to talk to you.”

“Can it wait until after I pee? I really gotta go.”

Sasuke deadpanned.

After Naruto peed, Sasuke crowded him in the hall.

“Uh,” Naruto said, “I’m not comfortable with this.”

“Listen, dobe,” Sasuke hissed, “this is important. We were invaded yesterday by Sound and Sand.”

“Yeah, I know,” Naruto said, “I was there.”

“The point is, there’s no telling what stragglers are still left lurking in Konoha. They can’t have all escaped before ANBU shut down the village. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“…there’s still enemies about?”

“Hn. And we, us three, were targeted by Orochimaru specifically—”

Actually, Sasuke was targeted by Orochimaru specifically. Naruto and Sakura were just there.

“—which means we—you, me, and Sakura—are still in danger from enemy combatants. Ergo the…er, sleepover. This way we can protect Sakura. The hospital was too compromised.”

To be honest, Naruto agreed with him. But he couldn’t just say that even if his own instincts had been content to sit here in Sasuke’s fortified apartment. Especially since it was more defensible than the hospital room with all the windows (a lot of which were broken because of the attack).

“…Okay,” Naruto hesitantly agreed, “but for how long?”

It was important he knew that. Because he loved his teammates but Sasuke’s apartment was very close quarters.

“A couple days, maybe a week. Long enough for ANBU to secure the city. Tch. If the Uchiha military police were still around, this wouldn’t be an issue.”

Not touching that one without several shadow-clones between himself and the detonation, Naruto just nodded and the two boys made their way back out to the living room where Sakura was stewing. It looked like she hadn’t moved since they both left.

“Good choice,” Sasuke said as he passed her. She rolled her eyes.

“It literally wasn’t a choice. I can’t move,” Sakura said, strained. Naruto and Sasuke both whipped around to look at her and it wasn’t hard to see that the grimace on her face was from more than just Sasuke’s shitty attitude. She was pale and drawn and winced as she tried to relax back into the couch.

“Sakura-chan, are you okay?” Naruto asked, concerned.

“Fine. I just…tried. To move. I didn’t get far.” She said, stubbornly not looking at either boy. Sasuke scowled.

“You should’ve let me wrap your ribs. Or, better, you shouldn’t have tried to move,” Sasuke scolded. Sakura practically hissed.

“I told you! Wrapping ribs when they’re broken, if necessary, at all, should be done by a professional medic and depends on the kind of break! All it would do for me is compress my chest and make it harder to breath because my ribs aren’t broken!”

Naruto did not point out that she didn’t address the second part of Sasuke’s suggestion. He could see Sasuke getting riled up.

“Sakura-chan,” he interrupted, “what do you need? What’ll make it better.”

Sakura looked at Naruto in relief.

“I think probably a hot bath to relax my muscles, since I’m mostly just stiff and sore,” she said without thinking.

To which Sasuke replied:

“I’ll help you.”

Naruto watched wide-eyed as Sakura’s brain stopped working in real time, face going entirely scarlet at the implications while Sasuke trundled off like an idiot. When the water started up in the bathroom and Sasuke came back with a towel and a change of his clothes, Sakura seemed to come back to herself.

“H-h-h-h-help me?! No! No, thanks! Nononono, I can do it myself!” She floundered on the couch as Sasuke approached, growing more flustered the closer he got to her.

“Uh, teme,” Naruto tried to warn him, seeing what came next from a mile away.

Sasuke went up to Sakura and grabbed the sides of the blanket she was valiantly using as a shield before prying them open. Sakura went “KYAA!” and delivered a haymaker the likes of which she usually reserved for Naruto when he used his sexy no jutsu. Sasuke stumbled back over the coffee table, ass over teakettle and Naruto—

Naruto was envious of Sasuke for a lot of things. What he’d never really cared about having either way was his weird, copycat eye thing.

But Naruto would have given every damn dream, ryo, and cup noodle he had in the cupboard to be able to capture the scene before him: Sakura, wide-eyed and blushing furiously on the couch, fist still extended through on her punch. Sasuke, covered in various crackers, nose bleeding, sharingan on, looking more shocked than Naruto thought he was even capable of feeling.

“Pfft.” Naruto slapped a hand over his mouth as both of his teammates turned to him in outrage. He coughed and cleared his throat.

“Ahem, uh. Maybe if we just set her up in the bathroom? She probably doesn’t want guys watching her bathe, teme,” Naruto said (from experience, Pervy Sage), still trying not to laugh. Sasuke’s face went tomato red as he realized just what it was that he’d suggested.

“I-I wasn’t trying to be a pervert or whatever!” Sasuke spluttered, trying to explain himself, “it’s just that I can’t leave you unaccompanied! I don’t even think of you as a girl anyway so-so-so I wouldn’t care—”

Naruto calmly and quickly placed his hand over Sasuke’s mouth to shut him up, pulling the boy backwards out of Sakura’s range. Sakura, who had gone from scarlet with embarrassment to scarlet with rage, seemingly forgot all about her current condition and stood, leaking what passed for killing intent for someone their age into the room.

Both boys blanched. Naruto kept his hand over Sasuke’s mouth as he hid behind his teammate. If anyone should get hit, Naruto was sure he wasn’t the one who deserved it this time—that was all Sasuke.

“Listen, Sakura-chan,” Naruto got out shakily, “how about I help you to the bathroom and then you can holler for us if you need help, okay?”

Sakura stewed for another moment before agreeing and Naruto let out a relieved breath. He quickly pushed Sasuke out of the way, wiping the blood from Sasuke’s nose on his hospital-issued pants before coming around the table to help Sakura.

It was slow going. If Sakura hadn’t objected so strongly to Naruto carrying her to the bathroom, like he suggested, he would have. But as it was, they trudged along at her snail-pace, Sakura wincing with every step. He settled her inside and told her to holler for them if she needed them.

“I’ll come running as soon as you call! I’ll even change into a girl so it won’t be weird!”

Sakura looked at him aghast.

“Naruto, if you walk into this bathroom henge’d into your sexy no jutsu counterpart, I’ll kill you.”

“Wha—?!” Naruto didn’t understand. Wouldn’t she prefer it if he was a girl in that situation? Like an older sister!

Sakura unceremoniously slammed the door closed in his face, making him jump back. He heard her whimper from inside and sighed.

He really didn’t get girls.

Chapter Text

The soak did, in fact, make her feel a thousand times better. She sighed into the hot water as she contemplated her options here.

It was clear from the way Naruto was acting that he either didn’t know (unlikely, even for him) or had already decided to side with Sasuke (probably even more unlikely and yet).

With the state she was in, she had no chance of escaping this madhouse on her own, either. It didn’t help that the apartment had few-to-no windows and the only one in the bathroom was more of a tiny vent that opened all the way near the ceiling. She wouldn’t have been able to fit through it even at her thinnest (which she wasn’t anymore because Kakashi-sensei had, in fact, nixed her diet almost immediately).

Her only hope, then, was going to be Kakashi-sensei.

Who was Sage knew where and probably wouldn’t show up until she was well past the end of her rope.

Someone was going to die in this apartment and it was looking more and more like it was going to be her beloved Sasuke-kun. Possibly at her own hands.

“Don’t see me as a girl, huh?” she angrily grumbled to herself as she painstakingly dressed in the black sweats and large collared t-shirt Sasuke-kun had left her. She blushed when she looked in the mirror to see the Uchiha fan stitched high on both of the short, boxy sleeves and tried not to squeal.

She sighed. This really would have been like a dream come true any other time.

Probably.

Maybe.

The high-handedness was getting annoying pretty fast.

When she carefully stumbled out of the bathroom, Sasuke-kun was right there. Obviously, he wasn’t going to risk her trying to find another way out of the apartment. Sakura scowled at him.

“Where am I going to go, Sasuke-kun?” She asked through gritted teeth. Sasuke-kun tsked and looked away—

But he did offer his arm to help her back to the living room, a self-conscious blush coating the tips of his ears which sent her heart into a tizzy. So.

She supposed she could forgive him for a little high-handedness…

She sighed in a put-upon fashion and took his arm, shaking her head with a fond smile as they moved back to the living room and she was once again settled on the couch like a pupa.

She was not feeling as generous or forgiving two days later.

She was cranky, sore, and wanted to sleep in her own bed—or any bed—and not in a pile on the couch. She wanted to go to the bathroom alone and move, for gods’ sakes.

Even Naruto was at his wits’ end. He’d tried several times to convince Sasuke-kun to let them go and even tried to fight him (which ended quickly when Sakura was nearly taken out by a shadow clone’s high kick). All to no avail.

They’d thought, when Kakashi-sensei had shown up at the door, they’d been saved!

Instead, Sakura glared holes into the side of her Sensei’s head where he was sleeping on the couch to her left. Sasuke-kun had activated the tag (not a bomb, phew) and now there was a powerful barrier covering the apartment making it even harder for her to plan an escape.

ANBU would have to intervene soon, right?

Chapter Text

Kakashi was jolted awake by the subtle sound of the barrier being dispersed and opened his eye to see the tag peel itself from the front door. The odd, wobbling atmosphere of the barrier faded instantly, and Sasuke was up and on his feet, kunai at the ready in impressive time.

Clearly, he hadn’t taken Kakashi’s advice to go to bed instead of keeping watch.

Kakashi isn’t too worried about the intruder, however, because with a barrier seal that complicated, there was only one person in Konoha who’d be able to undo it.

“That seal looks awfully familiar,” Jiraiya drawled from where he’d swung the door open, simultaneously catching the kunai Sasuke had sent his way, “I could’ve sworn I saw three more just like it in the evidence locker in ANBU. You know, the one regarding the barrier Orochimaru used during the invasion.”

Well.

That explained where Sasuke got something so powerful.

He’s pretty sure he shouldn’t be praising his student for stealing from their own village’s black-ops but Kakashi was mildly impressed that Sasuke had been able to do it. Especially since he was one of the black-ops that should’ve been aware.

Should he be worried he was losing his touch?

“You’re not welcome here. Get out of my apartment.” Sasuke growled. (Cute.)

Jiraiya put a hand over his chest in faux offense.

“That’s the thanks I get for convincing ANBU not to storm this place?” Jiraiya pouted. “I see your students take after you, Kakashi.”

Kakashi just shrugged from where he was still laying on the couch.

“Oh, hey,” Naruto emerged from the hallway to the bathroom and took in the scene before him, “Pervy Sage!”

“Please, stop calling me that.”

“You here to rescue us, Pervy Sage?”

Jiraiya sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“No,” Sasuke said firmly, “nobody needs rescued. We’re just staying here until everything dies down and it’s safe.”

Kakashi eyed Sasuke’s jittery form and the bags under his eyes. Whatever Sasuke’s definition of ‘safe’ was, Kakashi was pretty sure nothing short of a fortress trapped to hell and back where the three of them were sequestered away in bubble-wrap would cut it (and Kakashi was hesitantly inclined to agree).

“That’s…uh, all well and good, kid,” Jiraiya squinted at Sasuke dubiously, “but Hokage-sama’s funeral is in two days and you all need to attend.”

The apartment went silent and an air of melancholy descended on the occupants at the reminder of the loss. Jiraiya scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, sadness in his own eyes but determination in his stance.

“You—uh, you especially, Kakashi. Considering—you know. Your history,” Jiraiya trailed off. His three students looked at him questioningly.

“History?” Sakura asked, tilting her head like a puppy. (Cute.)

Kakashi shrugged.

“Tried to kill him,” he answered nonchalantly.

All three genin’s eyes bugged out.

“What?!”

“Huh?!? The Old Man?!”

“Excuse me?!”

Kakashi waved his hand at them in a shooing motion as he sighed and turned towards the back of the couch.

“Don’t worry, we worked it out. It was a misunderstanding.”

This didn’t appease them, unfortunately, and their voices clambered over each other’s as Kakashi tried to burrow into the back of the couch.

The three genin continued to try to get answers out of him and Kakashi continued to ignore them until Jiraiya cleared his throat.

“Regardless,” he said loudly, trying to get the genin and Kakashi’s attention, “a rather well-known misunderstanding. So, you know. Best show up for politics’ sake if nothing else.”

Kakashi groaned. He hated ‘politics’ sake’. It was like his whole life was for ‘politics’ sake’.

“It’s not safe—,” Sasuke protested, frustration and despair just barely leashed in his voice.

Over the last several months of being these kids’ teacher, Kakashi has learned a lot about himself. Like, the fact that his instincts were a lot closer to the surface than he’d originally tried to tell himself. And that lots of things could set them off when it came to his kids. Genin. Whatever. One of those things was: Kakashi did not like it when his kids were unduly stressed.

Sasuke’s stress levels were, unfortunately, through the roof due to his shinobi instincts. For the longest time, Kakashi had thought that Sasuke had suppressed his instincts entirely (something Kakashi himself had tried to do as a kid, too). But obviously, whatever that seal was, it did more than just corrupt Sasuke’s chakra. It must enhance or exacerbate emotions or instincts in the bearer, as well.

So, Sasuke—who’d spent years ignoring his instincts—was suddenly and overwhelmingly bombarded with every instinctual stimulus all at once. And because Sasuke was acting to appease those instincts, he’d triggered stress in his genin teammates, as evidenced by Sakura and Naruto’s harassed state.

Which meant Kakashi’s own, old-bloodline instincts were going absolutely haywire. ANBU, stressed kids, a recent invasion of his territory; he’s lucky Jiraiya, someone he trusted, was the person who walked through that door and not someone else. They wouldn’t have survived it, otherwise.

Kakashi turned around, sat up, and motioned Sasuke closer. The boy hesitantly complied and Kakashi carefully laid both hands on his shoulders and looked him in the eyes.

“Sasuke,” Kakashi said in his most serious voice, the words laden with promise, “I swear I will make it safe enough. I will not let anything happen to you three. I promise. You aren’t alone in this.”

Sasuke stared at Kakashi for a long moment, eyes wide. And then, miraculously, his shoulders slumped marginally and he let out a quiet, relieved breath. Kakashi felt himself relax in response.

“Alright, well,” Kakashi said, hauling himself off the couch, “I suppose we should get ready. But first, let’s take Sakura back to the hospital to get checked up on by a proper medic, hm?”

Sakura enthusiastically agreed and Sasuke nodded at him and looked away, embarrassed. Kakashi smiled at them.

Sasuke still refused to let any of his teammates out of his sight so it was more of a group trip, than anything.

Sakura was still so mad with Sasuke that she’d actually denied him when he offered to carry her, climbing onto Naruto’s back for the trek to the hospital instead.

While the three genin argued ahead of him, Kakashi and Jiraiya slipped to the back of the group away from prying ears.

“I thought the Uchiha ‘lost’ their instincts,” Jiraiya murmured in Kakashi’s direction, one eye on the kids and another fiddling with the barrier seal he’d discretely taken from Sasuke’s house.

Kakashi shrugged.

The oldest clans—the Uchiha, the Senju, the Aburame, and the Hyuuga—all liked to pretend that they’d outgrown their shinobi instincts. They locked them away, taught themselves to control them, and convinced themselves and others that they were superior for it.

But the truth was—and Kakashi could personally attest to this, being a Hatake—they were the clans closest to their instincts. They were the ones whose instincts rode right bellow the surface, stronger in their blood than the newer (but still old) shinobi clans like the Inuzuka, Akamichi, Yamanaka, and Nara.

Kakashi knew because the Hatake were an old, old clan with instincts on par with many of the oldest clans of fire. Unlike the old clans however, the Hatake took great pride in following their instincts. Hence, the main reason his father chose to save his teammate at the risk of a mission—which then led to a war. Then, that decision traumatized baby-Kakashi and baby-him decided ‘fuck instincts, instincts suck’ and spent most of the next ten years suppressing them to his detriment.

But nobody in this group is the Konoha psych-team, so. Moving on.

The point was, probably from the day he could understand language, Sasuke was being taught by his clan that instincts were a bad thing. And like most Uchiha, he absolutely excelled in deceiving both himself and others.

So, no. The Uchiha didn’t ‘lose’ their instincts. They just pretended they did.

And now Sasuke and his teammates were suffering all the more for that decision.

Kakashi sighed and gave Jiraiya an exhausted look.

“Not anymore than I did,” Kakashi said and Jiraiya grimaced.

“This is going to be rough for him, then, huh?”

Kakashi shrugged. Probably it would be worse due to Orochimaru’s seal.

Which reminded him—he needed to talk to Anko again, maybe enlist her help.

“Sasuke-kun, for the love of all the Hokage!”

Kakashi heard Sakura yell and sighed again.

This was going to be an ordeal.

Chapter Text

Sasuke glared at where the insane proctor from the second exam sat across from him chewing on dango. She was grinning and, worse, not bothering to chew with her fucking mouth closed. Their staring contest went on for several, silent minutes before he watched in horror as she grabbed another dumpling with her hand. And he didn’t mean with her thumb and finger like a reasonable human being would.

No, she grabbed the syrupy dumpling with her whole fist—like a toddler—before popping it into her already full mouth, and it took everything he had to keep a straight face.

He knew she was only doing it to get a rise out of him.

What made it infuriating was that it was working.

Her grin grew and he narrowed his eyes.

“So,” she said, the fullness of her mouth somehow not impeding her speech whatsoever, “instincts, huh?”

Sasuke sneered.

They sat at a fucking café patio, the sun beating down despite the practical monsoon that had hit during the Hokage’s funeral two days ago. He’d once again been protecting his teammates at his apartment and fighting his new, insatiable (and highly embarrassing) urge to bite when Kakashi had said:

“Welp, we better leave, Sasuke, or we’re going to be late,” and scruffed him like a fucking cat before shunshining away.

You would think, with how tightly strung he’d found himself of late, he would have seen that coming and been able to counter. But no. His instincts didn’t help him, there. Apparently, Kakashi was safe enough that the bastard could just appear anywhere in his blind spot and these new, horrible…feelings didn’t do fuck-all about it.

Kakashi also had the impeccable timing of knowing exactly when Sakura was about three seconds away from attempting to kill him and removed Sasuke accordingly. Usually to a training ground where Sasuke could wail on the jonin-level shinobi for a few hours and feel more settled.

It was not Sasuke’s fault if Sakura was constantly in danger and needed eyes on her at all times (Kakashi insisted this was not true but what if!). She was a highly coveted asset, his second-in-command (which felt wrong when he thought it but wasn’t going to analyze that). It was important that he protect her. He was not going to try and figure out why.

Naruto, less so. Mostly because half his instincts told him he needed to fight Naruto into submission and the other half told him he needed to put Naruto down for a nap.

Very confusing all together.

Also, the strange need to feed his teammates which seemed to overwhelm him at inconvenient times.

He’d accidentally entered a fugue state yesterday and cooked a six-course meal at three in the afternoon because Naruto’s stomach had growled. Then he’d panicked at having been entirely disassociated from reality for two hours during which anything could have happened to Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi.

They’d had to calm him down by cuddling him on the couch. (Well. Naruto and Sakura did. Kakshi just stood vaguely nearby with his novel.) It took Sakura telling Sasuke that they were all a team and he was allowed to be out of it because Naruto and Sakura could watch his back and he didn’t need to worry.

“Not that you’re not allowed to,” Sakura reassured him, “just—you don’t have to worry alone. We’re here for you if you need us. We’re a team.”

“Yeah, teme! So, don’t worry about how weird and screwed up you are! Embrace it—ow!” Naruto rubbed his arm where Sakura had punched him and Kakashi snorted. Sakura rolled her eyes.

“The point is you’re not alone, Sasuke-kun. Trust us.” They’d both smiled brightly at him and he nearly cried.

He has since sworn his teammates to secrecy about it.

But now, now he was beginning to need to bite things. His blanket, the clothes he gave his teammates to wear, the books. And that—that would have been fine, but then—

Naruto had reached across the table for something, forearm directly in Sasuke’s line of sight and he’d had to fight the sudden and overwhelming urge to grab it and bite it.

What the fuck. What the fuck? What in the absolute fuck!!!!

Hello????

“Man, they must be hella strong for you, considering you come from such an old clan,” Mitarashi Anko continued, “I mean, I’m only tangentially related to the Yamanaka and I went off the fucking rails when I first got the curse mark.”

She dropped casually into their entirely public conversation.

Sasuke couldn’t keep his eyes from widening. Anko’s grin turned sharp and taunting.

“You biting things yet?”

Sasuke spluttered.

“You—!" he bit out. Just barely he cut himself off. She was not safe. She was not one of his. He didn’t have to tell her shit.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” she cackled, “but don’t worry. That’s what I’m here to help you with.”

“What do you mean,” Sasuke demanded.

Anko leaned threateningly across the table, smile falling from her face.

“I mean, if you don’t learn how to fucking cope, you’re going to do a lot worse to your teammates then bite them. I mean that if you tap into that seal on your throat, you will break your teammates by any and all means necessary to keep them from running,” she murmured. The warning was no less substantial because of its quiet volume.

Sasuke felt the blood drain from his face and he gulped heavily in the silence that descended.

“But!” Anko suddenly lit up and patted his fist where it was clenched on top of the table, “It won’t come to that. I’ll make sure of it.”

The last part she said like a threat instead of a promise and Sasuke scowled. Then he paled for a different reason as he realized she’d patted him with the fist she’d used to grab her syrup-coated dango and that he was now sticky and gross.

“Ugh!” He desperately wiped his hand on a napkin while Anko continued to cackle across from him.

Somehow, he had a bad feeling about what the future held for him.

Chapter Text

“Alright. Let’s get started!” Anko proclaimed, flipping the standing white board she’d released from a sealing scroll to its blank side (the glimpse Sakura got of the non-blank side contained an alarming brainstorming session of ‘new and improved!’ torture methods) and uncapping a dry-erase marker with her fangs. She spit the cap in a random direction and Sakura watched Sasuke’s eye twitch.

“So, what instincts are we dealing with so far?” Anko asked, poised to write down the answers from the three genin of team 7, where they were sitting in various sprawls on the grass of training ground 32. Apparently, according to Kakashi-sensei, this woman—the proctor from the chunin exams—was going to help them deal with Sasuke’s strange behavior and help them grow closer as a team. So far, she’d only served the purpose of continuously pissing Sasuke off.

Naruto raised his hand and Sakura was so shocked he knew how to do that she didn’t stop him when he opened his mouth.

“Bein’ an asshole,” Naruto said matter-of-factly.

Anko began to write it down.

“That’s not a fucking instinct, you moron,” Sasuke hissed.

“Well, you’re really good at it, recently,” Naruto bit back. Sakura sighed.

“Increased hostility and competitiveness,” Sakura translated Naruto’s meaning from behind the hand she was using to massage her forehead. She could tell this was going to end in a headache.

“He’s also even more of a neat freak than usual!” Naruto said.

“You label anything over basic hygiene being germophobic!” Sasuke growled.

“A heightened awareness of environmental and personal hygiene both for himself and his teammates,” Sakura once again translated.

Anko was still writing ‘NEAT FREAK’ on the white board under ‘ASSHOLE’ and Sakura quietly brought out her own pen and notebook to make a more official list.

“He cooks, like, all the time,” Naruto nodded, “which isn’t bad, actually. The bastard’s an excellent cook. But he refuses to make ramen! What’s up with that?!”

“He’s developed a need to provide basic necessities for us. For example: food, water, shelter, and sometimes…c-clothes.” Sakura tried to maintain a straight face but knew she was blushing at the end thinking about the shirts Sasuke kept handing her and Naruto.

She was sorely tempted to wear them constantly but knew that she’d be inviting trouble from Sasuke’s fanbase if she was caught with his crest on her in public. As much as she’d love to rub it in Ino’s face, she figured her safety was probably more important in this case. Especially considering how Sasuke-kun now reacts to threats to her person (which reminds her, she needed to send an apology gift to the nurse he tried to kill during her check-up at the hospital).

(Of course, out of the public eye, she wore them often. She doesn’t know what material they’re made out of, but Sasuke’s shirts make especially good pajamas.)

No need to worry about Naruto wearing the crest in public. He got so offended every time Sasuke handed him a shirt, they’d come to blows twice over it.

Anko snickers and writes ‘PROVIDER INSTINCT UWU’ on the board and then ‘POSESSIVE’ directly underneath it. Sakura’s blush gets worse even as she writes the same down on her notebook and

Sasuke yells in offense.

Sakura clears her throat and tries to move forward.

“He’s also developed a tendency to hyper fixate on certain issues to the exclusion of his surroundings. Sometimes becoming obsessed with cooking or our general well-being and health. It isn’t a problem per-se, but it does leave him vulnerable and distressed afterwards,” Sakura explained analytically. Sasuke sputtered in her direction and she studiously ignored the look of betrayal in his eyes.

“I am not vulnerable and—and distressed!” Sasuke argued vulnerably and distressedly.

Anko wrote ‘OBSESSIVE WEIRDO; CLASSIC UCHIHA BULLSHIT’ on the white board and Sakura grimaced.

“Alright, now that we’ve covered the basics,” Anko wrote ‘BITING; CLASSIC UCHIHA BULLSHIT’ and capped her marker while Sasuke steamed beside his teammates. Sakura wondered when Anko got the lid to the dry-erase back. “Let’s start with the biggest one.”

Anko circled ‘OBSESSIVE WEIRDO’. She then promptly and efficiently dodged several kunai that Sasuke sent her way. She cackled as Sasuke lunged at her, taunting him while they fought around the training grounds.

Naruto, not to be outdone, began to yell and give chase, trying to join in the fight.

Behind her, Kakashi-sensei turned a page in his book. Sakura sighed.

“I didn’t know he was biting things,” she said to the air.

“Oh, yeah,” Kakashi-sensei said, “It’s a claiming thing. Lots of old clans do it. Or they used to. It’s considered bad manners, though. I also highly, highly suggest you don’t let him bite you.” Sensei added, no doubt noting her blush.

“I wasn’t going to,” Sakura lied. She pouted and tried to erase the image of Sasuke dipping her backwards and putting his teeth on her throat from her mind. (Inexplicably, they were both in formal-wear in this fantasy.)

“Though, if you want to establish dominance, you should bite him first,” Kakashi-sensei said and Sakura blushed harder as her fantasy flipped on its head, she and Sasuke’s roles reversing to where she was dipping him in a beautiful fairy-tale dress and putting her teeth on his throat. She looked good in a suit.

“I’m not going to bite Sasuke-kun,” Sakura hissed like a liar, “That’s ridiculous and unhygienic! The human mouth carries literally billions of bacteria, Sensei!”

“Hence why you shouldn’t let him bite you.”

“No one’s biting anybody else, Sensei,” Sakura rolled her eyes.

“YEOUCH! YOU BASTARD! YOU BIT ME!!!”

Sakura’s head whipped around to where Sasuke and Naruto were rolling on the ground, Anko standing nearby with a whistle and a small, red card, for some reason or another. Sasuke had Naruto’s arm firmly in his mouth, teeth clamped down like a dog and refusing to let go even as Naruto tried to shake him off.

Sakura moved across the field to stand over the two idiots, yelling.

“Sasuke-kun, no!”

Sakura’s glad that Kakashi-sensei warned her not to let Sasuke bite her, because from the looks of it, it wasn’t like her fantasy at all—it was just gross.

Naruto, not one to take any sort of high road, immediately tried to curl around and bite Sasuke back like they weren’t trained shinobi and they’d never even learned taijutsu.

She felt like she was trying to separate two cats fighting in an alley.

“Boys! Knock it off,” she tried to be stern but there was nowhere she could reach in to try to separate them as they continued to roll around trying to bite each other.

“Boys, I’m serious! This is—”

“Stay out of it, Sakura!” Sasuke shouted before going back to trying to wrestle Naruto down. He yelled in triumph as Naruto froze in his grip, allowing Sasuke to pin him to the ground. But Naruto hadn’t frozen to give him an opening.

He found that out the hard way when he was suddenly yanked backwards by his collar with a surprising amount of strength and bodily turned around to meet the blazing, green eyes of one, very pissed off Sakura.

“ENOUGH!!” She yelled directly into his face and then, before she could think it through, she took Kakashi-sensei’s advice.

She bit him.

Right on his neck.

Hard.

And no, Sakura would like everyone to know, it wasn’t romantic or sexy or mysterious or anything like that (which she’d probably cry about later, but whatever).

It was disgusting as hell and she felt like a two-year-old. He tasted like dirt and sweaty, elastic skin, and a little blood and as soon as she dropped him afterwards, she began spitting and scraping her tongue of the taste.

“Ptah, ptah! Ugh! Gross!” She wiped her tongue on her sleeve several times. Both boys were staring at her in horror and Kakashi-sensei and Anko were gaping at her in delight.

“What?!” She demanded and the boys shook their heads and sat back in front of the white board when she pointed. She stomped back and sat between them and then turned to bow to Anko.

“I’m so sorry for the interruption, Anko-san, please continue,” she apologized, desperately trying to hide her blush. Anko was grinning at her.

“Damn, kid,” she said, “You wanna learn how to summon snakes?”

Sakura just sighed and handed Sasuke some disinfectant for his neck.

Chapter Text

When the bird appeared in the sky with a warning, Kakashi’s instincts went into high gear. It circled twice overhead, the red ribbon tied to its leg an indication of the threat and from what direction they were approaching.

S-rank, southeast gate, Konoha native could only mean one of two things:

Either Orochimaru was back or Itachi was.

Both options meant a particularly bad day for his team of rugrats, specifically, so, he tried his best to leave without alerting them to any danger.

“You three stay with Anko,” he said, closing his book with a snap, “I’m gonna go talk to a man about a horse.”

“Gross, Sensei,” Sakura said and he disappeared.

It was Itachi, if anyone was curious, which several people were considering Kurenai and Asuma were already on the scene when he arrived.

His former kouhai was standing indifferently in the roadway, next to a fuck-off, huge blue guy that Kakashi could only guess must be the monster of the mist—Kisame Hoshigaki

Very quickly he realized this engagement was going to be rather short lived. He hadn’t realized just how much he’d relaxed into the roll of sensei and now he was paying for it, finding himself brought to his knees by Itachi faster than he’d hoped.

His instincts screamed at him that he couldn’t let this threat get any further into Konoha, that his kohai—no matter how fondly remembered—was now a direct threat to at least two of his kids and he’s sure Itachi wouldn’t spare the third if she got in the way.

(Which she would. He’d been preaching teamwork to them too hard for her to do anything else, now. He almost regretted it.)

He was desperately trying to find a way to come out of this on top when—

“aaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaa!”

Naruto came bolting past, screaming, running directly between the Konoha jonin and the S-rank missing nin sent literally to capture him.

They were all so surprised that nobody moved for a second, watching as he kept going straight into the woods on the other side of the road, tearing through the underbrush.

Shit.

Then, from the other side, another body came sprinting out of the woods, leaping into the air.

It was Sasuke.

Double shit.

Itachi turned in his little brother’s direction with an air of detachment, mouth already opening for a taunt—

“Foolish little broth—”

Except he was cut off by Sasuke’s knee.

Directly in his face.

Sasuke had not stopped to take in the tableau before him, seemingly focused on another, more pressing goal which Kakashi suspects may have something to do with Naruto’s terrified screaming.

He kneed Itachi in the face, breaking his nose with a crunch, and vaulted off onto his partner, using the large, blue shark-man’s head as a springboard to the other side of the road. He skidded to a stop and looked back at the two missing nin with narrowed eyes, then at the woods where Naruto could still be heard loudly running away.

Conflict flickered across his face for a split second before the sounds of someone else yelling made up his mind.

“SASUKE! NARUTO!”

Kakashi could recognize the dulcet tones of a pissed off Sakura Haruno from a mile away and so could Sasuke. He flinched and pointed menacingly at his brother.

“I’ll deal with you later!” He swore and darted into the woods after Naruto just as Sakura burst out of the tree line, panting.

She paused to take in the scene before her and recognized her teammate’s work on Itachi’s face with a grimace.

Inexplicably, she bowed and apologized.

“I am so, so sorry for my teammates’ behavior. I promise they’re not usually like this but we’re, uh, going through some stuff,” she explained, “Kakashi-sensei will compensate you for any damages you’ve incurred!”

And with that, she too ran across the battle field of lethal, s-rank missing nin and some of the strongest jonin Konoha had ever produced, haring off after her teammates with a screech.

“NARUTO! SASUKE! WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON YOU, SO HELP YOU SAGE, YOU’RE GONNA WISH I DIDN’T!!!”

In the silence that followed, they heard Naruto scream like a little girl, the sound of several trees break, and—not surprisingly—Anko’s whistle go off.

The missing nin, Kakashi, Kurenai, and Asuma remained frozen in utter shock before Kurenai broke the awkward silence.

“I feel like,” she began, opening her mouth and then closing it with an audible click before starting again, “I feel like that was so embarrassing for all of us we should just call it here.”

Kakashi was inclined to agree and from the way Hoshigaki seemed to be focusing on making Itachi lean forward and pinch his bleeding nose, probably they also agreed.

Luckily, that was when Gai showed up, so the decision was out of all of their hands.

As Kakashi found himself blacking out from chakra-exhaustion once again, he hoped that Itachi did not actually send a bill for his broken nose to Kakashi.

He wasn’t sure he could write it off as a teaching expense.

Chapter Text

Sasuke looked down at the little, silicone ring that Anko handed him in trepidation. It was cool to the touch, with a textured surface, and liquid moving in its core.

She handed it to him apropos of nothing while he was hovering over Kakashi’s hospital bed and said:

“Here, loser, this’ll help with the instincts,” and then disappeared.

He didn’t know what it was.

So, it was doubly embarrassing when it was Naruto who had to fill him in.

“Oh! Oh, I seen one a those before at the orphanage—a ring of teeth!”

“Teething ring,” Sakura corrected, studiously not looking at him or the object in his hand which made him narrow his eyes in suspicion. She fussed over Kakashi’s covers.

(They’d tried to look underneath Kakashi’s mask and been conveniently interrupted four times already.)

“Yeah, that! They give ‘em to babies,” Naruto finished and Sasuke froze.

“What,” he asked, gripping the little ring harder.

“For their teeth an’ shit,” Naruto explained, clearing up nothing.

Sakura sighed and looked back at him, a blush on her face.

“It’s—you’re supposed to put it in the fridge and then let a child, whose teeth are first coming in, chew on it to help with the pain in their gums. I assume Anko-san means for you to use it to curb your…um. Biting,” Sakura said lamely.

Sasuke stared at her for a minute and then threw the little ring as hard as he could at the opposite wall with a splat.

“Hey, asshole, watch it!” Naruto snapped, having just narrowly avoided being hit. He went over and picked up the ring, dusting it off on his jacket. He knew better than to hand it back to Sasuke as it would just result in it getting thrown at him again.

Sakura sighed.

“Sasuke-kun, if it helps then maybe you should—” Sakura started.

“No.” Sasuke snapped, crossing his arms. Sakura scowled at him.

“Sasuke-kun, it was a gift,” she scolded him and he squirmed, discomfited with her disappointment.

“If anyone would know how to help with your instincts, it would be Anko-san,” Sakura reasoned, getting up and taking the ring from Naruto. She went to the hand-sink the medics used to scrub up when they came to check on Kakashi and rinsed it off, then she came back and held it out to him.

“Just try it. Keep it around for whenever you feel like biting something,” she insisted sternly. He fidgeted, trying to resist doing as she asked but his stupid fucking instincts were infuriatingly compliant to most of her demands.

Fuck this shit, he should have never let her bite him.

(She could never know.)

Naruto snickered at his dilemma and Sakura shot him a mean look which shut him up as quick as it shut up Sasuke. Sasuke smirked, at least a little mollified that he wasn’t the only one who’s instincts bent to the whims of a pink-haired, teenage girl.

He snatched the ring out of her hands with a grumble and dropped it in his lap, crossing his arms and putting his attention back on their stupid Sensei in his stupid hospital bed for stupid fucking chakra exhaustion. He tried to ignore his teammates while simultaneously keeping an eye on them.

Sakura took out a thick library book, a notebook and pencil, and began studying, of all things.

“What’s that, Sakura-chan?” Naruto asked, peering over Sakura’s shoulder.

“Hm? Oh, I’m just cataloguing basic instincts you three present,” she said gesturing in general to him, Naruto, and Kakashi, “the more we know about them, the better we can account for them in battle. I found this general text on them in the library. Although, none of these instincts seem to be clan specific…”

Sakura nibbled on the end of her pink, fuzzy mechanical pencil, lost in thought.

This was ridiculous. They weren’t even a little concerned.

Kakashi was down for the count, the hospital wasn’t a defensible enough position to be in, and his fucking brother had shown up in Konoha.

And he’d just.

Told him to fuck off and come back another day.

And the only one of them who seemed to have a brain enough to give a shit was him!

“Oh, good! It’s helping,” Sakura said with a relieved smile and he looked at her confused.

And then looked down to find that he’d picked up the ring of teeth and was chewing on it.

He threw it against the wall.

“Sasuke!”

He rolled his eyes.

Naruto went to pick it up again.

“Alright,” Sakura said with a sigh, “this is obviously grating on you.”

She flipped through her book, landing on something specific before turning it around to show him. It was a basic layout of a compound, a “den” as the book put it.

Sasuke had to stop himself from growling.

“Once, Kakashi-sensei is up again in approximately…” Sakura bobbled her head back and forth, estimating, “an hour-ish? We’ll find somewhere we can bunker down, okay? You can pick.”

“The Uchiha compound.”

“Pick again.”

Sasuke threw his hands up.

“Yeah, no,” Naruto agreed, “pretty sure that place is haunted.”

Sasuke did not stop himself from growling, this time.

Naruto put his hands up in defense.

“Do you think Kakashi-sensei has a compound?” Sakura asked, ignoring them both.

“Why would Kakashi-sensei have a compound?” Naruto asked, “isn’t he, like, broke?”

Sakura shook her head.

“I can’t imagine he is. Besides the fact that he’s the last living member of an old, noble clan like the Hatake and the fact that his service record says he’s been a jonin taking A-ranks since he was ten and accounting for his need to be needed and extremely ascetic lifestyle and lack of fashion, the going rate of the average mission, average missions per month…”

They watched Sakura make some calculations on a piece of paper and then pause. She ripped it out and showed it to them.

“What?!” Naruto shouted, “Why the hell were we always paying for meals?!”

Sasuke gaped at the number.

That was…a lot.

Why were they always paying for meals?

What a dick?

Sakura startled, seemingly remembering something.

“Oh! I forgot to account for his crippling porn addiction,” she said sadly as if disappointed in herself that she hadn’t thought of it before.

“You guys,” Kakashi’s tired voice came from the bed, “are assholes.”

Sakura gasped.

"I forgot to account for inflation!"

Kakashi groaned.

Chapter Text

Kakashi did not think he would ever see this rotting corpse of his past ever again.

Leave it to his team of miscreants to somehow drag him into his own personal hell over and over again.

“Man, this place is a dump,” Naruto said, looking around his home.

And not his apartment, oh no.

The little shits barely waited until he was conscious before dragging him out of the hospital and asking the nearest passerby for directions to the Hatake compound.

He should have burned this place to the ground. Most especially because—despite the fact that he couldn’t walk without assistance let alone defend anybody—his instincts were the most relaxed they’d been in weeks because all three of his dumb, terrible kids were safe behind years of Hatake clan wards.

“Naruto,” Sakura scolded, looking hesitantly at their teacher where he was laying on the tatami of the first empty bedroom they found (a guest room, thank god), “don’t be rude.”

They’d unceremoniously plopped him onto the floor because there were no usable futons left in the house. There’d been a comical cloud of dust kicked up by his weight hitting the mats, sending the kids into coughing fits.

He’d held his breath, knowing what was coming.

He looked at his three brats.

Naruto scratched the back of his head with a guilty look on his face. Sakura’s was full of pity, though she was trying to hide it. Sasuke wasn’t even bothering to hide the judgmental sneer on his face.

Is this workplace bullying, Kakashi thought, am I being bullied by my pre-teen subordinates.

(On an entirely unrelated note, he had the strange and sudden urge to apologize to Tenzo.)

“Maa, well,” Kakashi started, “no one’s been here in about…twenty or so years, so—”

“It shows,” Sasuke interrupted before turning on his heel and leaving the room.

Sakura sighed, facepalming.

“Sasuke,” Sakura trailed off tiredly and followed him out.

“Don’t worry, Kakashi-sensei,” Naruto crowed at a volume that could politely be described as ear-drum-shattering, giving him a thumbs-up, “we’ll get this place fixed up in no time! Believe it!”

He ran out after his other teammates, leaving an immobile Kakashi alone on the dusty floor of the guest bedroom of his childhood home.

Ironically, Kakashi felt himself relaxing to the sound of his idiot children quietly (or quietly as those three knew how to be—read: not very) arguing in the next room over. Despite the bad memories this place held for him, he couldn’t seem to conjure them up past the way his nose was itching from all the dust and mildew or how the rooms were a lot smaller than he remembered.

For nearly twenty years he’d been avoiding this place like the plague and he felt a little silly at how anticlimactic it was to be back here.

Without his permission, his mind started making lists of all the things that would need to be done to get this place livable again. He’d need to get the water and electric turned back on, the kids would need futons, the rice-paper screens would need reworked, he’d have to bring food over…

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, to have this place fixed up and his kids safe under one roof. Maybe it would be good for him—for all of them. Already, his instincts were mellowing out, his muscles relaxing, and his anxiety lessening. He could imagine that Naruto and Sasuke were feeling similarly.

Kakashi was just debating whether or not he could summon his dogs to help out when he heard glass breaking in the other room.

“Oops,” Sakura called, “um! Don’t worry, Sensei, we’ll fix it!”

He didn’t even know what it was but whatever it was, there was an immediate argument between the three about who was to blame for breaking it.

He sighed, resigned.

Well. Maybe with these three here, the place might get burned to the ground after all.

At least then he wouldn’t have to pay property taxes anymore.

Chapter Text

“So, you want to take my team—a team of genin currently being targeted by some of the most powerful ninja perhaps ever—and leave the safety of the village to find a drunk woman and make her the president.”

Jiraiya held Kakashi’s gaze where he was standing in the newly renovated family room of the Hatake estate, doing his stupid sage pose, a mission scroll resting in his dramatically outstretched hand.

There was a moment of silence.

“Yeah, that pretty much sums it up,” Jiraiya answered.

Kakashi, lounging on the couch with his Icha Icha, was skeptical at best. But then again, if you were going on god’s dumbest mission why wouldn’t you take god’s dumbest children?

“Look, Kakashi,” Jiraiya sighed, standing up straight and trudging over to one of the armchairs, “it’s not like Itachi or Orochimaru couldn’t get in here to cause problems—because they already have. With team 7 on the move, it’ll be harder for them to be targeted.”

That’s true but—

“We just got Sasuke to settle down in a den and now you want to drag him, his instincts, and his teammates across fire country and into danger? It’s going to end in disaster.”

“It was always going to end in disaster, Kakashi, it’s team seven,” Jiraiya pointed out.

Also, true enough.

“I just don’t think this is a good idea.” As it would certainly cut into his time lazing about doing next to nothing while he shunted his children off onto Anko.

“The kiddos are no safer here with certain factions taking an interest in them,” Jiraiya gave Kakashi a meaningful look, “it’s best we get them out of the village until someone we can trust is wearing the hat.”

“a drunken gambler.”

“A drunken gambler we trust,” Jiraiya emphasized.

“Why don’t you be hokage, then?”

Jiraiya gasped and looked around anxiously as if looking for eavesdroppers.

“Shhhhh, you fool!” Jiraiya hissed, like the council would melt out of Kakashi’s walls with the hat in hand and Jiraiya in their sights, “I only just convinced them I shouldn’t be! It took all of my not inconsiderable charms, you know!”

Kakashi rolled his eyes.

Before the discussion could go any farther, though, the kids arrived back from training with Anko.

Not that Kakashi could see them from the living room, but he (and probably most of the neighbors) could hear them well enough.

And they were fighting.

Oh, joy.

Though, it wasn’t the two that he thought would be fighting.

“Sasuke, would you please let it go,” Sakura said in a raised and exasperated voice as Kakashi hefted himself off the couch with a sigh and trudged his way to the front entry.

“How is that fair? How come you can sign but I can’t?” Sasuke said, taking the sandals from his teammates’ hands and putting them on the shoe rack before turning back to his argument with Sakura.

“I don’t know, Sasuke! I don’t control the snake approval ratings of our team!” Sakura passed a pair of slippers back to Naruto, dropping two other pairs in front of Sasuke and herself.

“And why don’t you?!” Sasuke accused, getting into her face as they both stepped into their house slippers. Sakura growled at him, pressing back.

“Just because a snake bit you that doesn’t mean that you’re entitled to, like, snake summoning compensation or something, Sasuke!”

Kakashi watched as the two threw insults back and forth while Naruto shuffled down and between them, slowly standing up and breaking them apart from where they were practically pressed together at the forehead.

Probably better for Sasuke than Sakura, to be honest. If they’d gotten into some weird, forehead wrestling match or something, Sakura would have definitely won with her freakishly large one.

“Hey, guys look. It’s pervy sage,” Naruto said with all the enthusiasm of someone who’d been listening to this argument all day.

“Please, stop calling me that.”

Kakashi looked back over his shoulder to see that Jiraiya had, in fact, followed him to the front entrance and was standing with his arms crossed looking dubiously at the three genin. Kakashi looked back at the kids.

They didn’t exactly scream ‘responsible retrieval team!’ to him and probably not to Jiraiya either.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Sasuke demanded, miffed. Sakura took a deep breath and looked at the ceiling while Naruto put his head in his hands.

They were still working on Sasuke’s manners.

“So, how was training with Anko?” Kakashi said, trying to distract from another potential lecture about manners from Sakura (he didn’t want to sit through that, either).

Every few days, Kakashi sent Sasuke off with Anko to learn how to control his curse mark. Technically, neither Naruto nor Sakura needed to be there, but because they both had a weird obsession with Sasuke and Sasuke had a distinctly weirder obsession with them, they tagged along. He didn’t really know what they got up to while Anko was torturing—uh, training Sasuke but the team seemed to be becoming more organized and cooperative so he didn’t care.

“It was great!”

“It was fine.”

“It was stupid as shit.”

They all answered at the same time.

Kakashi nodded in the ensuing silence.

“You sure you want us on that mission?” Kakashi asked Jiraiya.

“Just to let you know,” Jiraiya answered, “the jonin commander’s been made interim hokage until we bring Tsunade back and I’m pretty sure that if we don’t, he’s going to put your name up for Godaime.”

Kakashi clapped his hands together and gave the kids a big smile.

“Who wants to go on a mission!”

Chapter Text

“And just where is it that you think you’re going, young man?”

Sasuke froze at the condescending tone of his least favorite person, halfway out of the inn window of the bedroom that he was sharing with Naruto and Sakura.

Standing horizontally on the wall of the inn was Jiraiya, arms crossed and eyebrow raised. He was wearing frog patterned pajamas that suspiciously matched Naruto’s and Sasuke squinted at them (and did not fight down an irrational surge of jealousy, no thank you).

(Maybe he could convince Naruto and Sakura to get matching pajamas with him if it was somehow Sakura’s idea…)

They’d stopped over in this little town for the night after several days of travel, haring off after rumors of one of the Sannin in a mission so fucking vague and ridiculous, Sasuke is surprised an academy student didn’t write it.

The entire mission scroll just read ‘find Tsunade; ASAP’.

Sasuke scoffed and climbed fully out of the window, shutting it quietly behind him and starting to walk down the wall. He’d already had run-ins with two of the three legendary assholes and he wasn’t looking to collect the whole set. The seal still pulsed on his neck, the promise of strength nearly too tempting to pass up. He’d spent these last days away from Konoha debating his departure, vacillating wildly between going to Orochimaru to learn how to defeat Itachi, and staying to protect his teammates.

But ultimately, he knew that in order to protect his teammates, he’d need the power that Orochimaru was offering.

“Don’t try and stop me, Jiraiya,” he said, “This is how it was always going to go.”

“You really think Orochimaru can give you the power you’re seeking?” Jiraiya called and Sasuke ignored him. Except—

“You know, rumor has it that your brother took down Orochimaru easy.”

Sasuke stopped.

“Orochimaru, that bastard snake, isn’t going to be able to give you the power you seek—you need someone stronger than him to teach you.”

Sasuke scoffed.

“What? Like you?”

Jiraiya laughed.

“Nah, I’ve never been able to take that reptile down,” he shook his head and gave Sasuke a triumphant grin, “If Orochimaru is a snake, then you’re going to need a slug, right?”

Sasuke squinted his eyes at the old fart.

“Slug…?” Sasuke frowned, mouth opening to retort and ask what the fuck that meant when Sakura popped up from the bushes nearby where she and Naruto had apparently been hiding from them.

“You mean the legendary Slug Princess Tsunade Senju, the greatest medic in history, can defeat Orochimaru?” Sakura asked incredulously.

“What the fuck are you two doing out here?” Sasuke hissed, eyes darting back and forth from them to the room where he swears he just left them.

“Oh, c’mon, teme. Like we were gonna let you run off on your own? Fat chance,” Naruto said, rolling his eyes. Sasuke growled at both his idiot, danger seeking teammates.

“Yep,” Jiraiya answered Sakura, ignoring Sasuke.

Sasuke sighed, reigning in his temper and wrinkled his nose at Jiraiya.

“She’s a medic? How’s a medic supposed to—” he paused. Thought about it. About Naruto and Sakura and their penchant for attracting danger, the injuries he’s seen them sustain, the way he never knew what to do about it. Their dumbass plan to follow him into the lair of the snake. His eyes lit with an unholy light.

“A Medic,” he whispered, like that one word could solve all his problems. Sakura and Naruto surreptitiously backed away in his peripheral.

(“Hey, how come you and the perv have matching pajamas,” he heard Sakura whisper to Naruto as they tried to sneak back into the room, “why don’t we have matching pajamas?”)

(Yes. Yes!)

Chapter Text

“Frogs,” Naruto said matter-of-factly.

“What? , it’s not gonna be frogs,” Sakura protested, “I don’t want to match with your gross teacher, I want to match with—well. Our gross teacher, I guess.”

Naruto watched Sakura frown in thought, very clearly trying to find some sort of justification for why it would be better to match with Kakashi-sensei instead of Pervy Sage-sensei. Naruto could relate. It was a lot like choosing between spoiled milk and that weird, cinnamon instant ramen that was the only thing available on discount at the market. Both were equally gross, to be honest.

“Tch,” Sasuke scowled from Sakura’s other side, “if you’d just wear the clothes I gave you—”

“No,” Sakura and Naruto answered together.

“Besides,” Naruto pointed out, “Kakashi-sensei wouldn’t fit in your dumb clothes—and I don’t want your stupid fan on me, anyway!”

Naruto and Sasuke growled at each other until Sakura cleared her throat menacingly.

“We’ve got to find something that we’re all going to agree on,” Sakura said and Kakashi-sensei looked up from his book to frown at them.

“I never agreed to matching pajamas,” he said.

“Well, if it’s not going to be frogs or Sasuke’s clothes—or cherry blossoms,” Naruto said, ignoring Kakashi-sensei just the same as his teammates, “then, like, it’s gotta be something we all feel neutral towards. That way, nobody wins.”

“This isn’t a game, idiot,” Sasuke-teme said, scowling at Naruto, “this is serious.”

Naruto squinted at him.

“It’s pajamas.”

Sasuke huffed.

“We already have matching headbands,” Kakashi-sensei interrupted the boys’ glaring match, “can’t that be enough?”

“Nah,” all three team members answered him and Naruto grinned.

“Look alive, team 7. We’re nearing the last known location of our target,” Pervy sage-sensei called, seeming particularly haggard after more than a week on the road with Naruto’s team.

Both of Naruto’s teammates perked up as Tanzaku-gai became visible above the tree line. Sasuke because they were that much closer to Tsunade—whom he’d decided was going to be his new teacher whether she wanted to or not—and Sakura because “the old Poem Card Castle is so romantic and dreamy”.

For his own part, Naruto was a little bummed. A city meant that their time all sharing a tent together was over. Sasuke had insisted on it for ‘security reasons’ but Naruto knows that it was just because the dog-pile they ended up in made their instincts quiet and happy. Sasuke still wouldn’t admit to anything despite his inevitably ending up on the top of their little pile every single night. That was fine, Naruto preferred the bottom of the pile anyway.

They found an inn that wasn’t also a brothel and then gathered together in one of the rooms to make a plan.

“Alright,” Pervy Sage-sensei, clapped his hands and rubbed them together with glee, “our target’s skittish as a filly so we need to approach this with some delicacy.”—every member of team seven cringed— “Brats, you’re not going to be allowed in the places the princess frequents since you can’t see over the counter. So, while Kakashi and I scope out the ‘dens of sin’—” said with an eyebrow waggle that had team seven cringing a second time, “—you three can go, uh. Shopping or something. I don’t know.”

“What? We’re adults, too,” Sasuke said, arms crossed and glaring at Pervy Sage.

“Yeah,” Sakura agreed, adjusting her headband, “we can go anywhere you can go!”

Normally, Naruto would back his teammates up on this. However, knowing from experience that just because you can go anywhere Pervy Sage can go doesn’t mean you should go anywhere Pervy Sage can go (for the health and safety of your own eyeballs), he kept quiet.

“What about, like, really short adults,” Sasuke accused, “What? Are they denied entry because they can’t see over the counter?”

“That seems really discriminatory towards little people,” Sakura followed up, “I thought Fire had anti-discrimination laws?”

“It does,” Sasuke said, “which means that if these bars are turning away little people for not being able to see over the counter, they’re definitely violating the law.”

“Nobody’s violating little people anti-discrimination laws in Tanzaku-gai,” Kakashi-sensei tried to reassure them. Naruto could see that his two teammates were not going to be distracted so easily from their sudden quest for little people justice and, honestly? Naruto was right there with them.

“I mean…do you know for sure, though,” Naruto added on.

Kakashi-sensei put his face in his hands and groaned. Naruto didn’t really think anyone was violating anti-discrimination laws here because that would be a weird thing to do in a city that will take anybody’s money, including his. And, like, there were a lot of people who wouldn’t take his money.

But he’ll be damned if he’ll be caught being unsupportive of his teammates.

“Okay, enough—that’s—you three go do something else—anything else—while Jiraiya and I scout out the gambling halls. Do not enter bars, taverns, brothels, or casinos during your time in Tanzaku-gai,” Kakashi-sensei instructed, “or at least don’t let me catch you entering bars, taverns, brothels, or casinos while we’re here. And for gods’ sakes, don’t tell me about it because I don’t want to do the paperwork for it.”

Kakashi-sensei was too smart not to know that they’d be immediately ignoring all of his orders.

Jiraiya and Kakashi-sensei left with one last, futile warning to their little group and then the three were alone.

There was a beat of silence and then—

“So, are we gonna go check the bars for height discrimination, or what?” Naruto asked.

The three shuffled out of the hotel room and made a bee-line straight for the nearest tavern. There was no little people discrimination going on but some dude did try to proposition him—which led to an immediate brawl when Sasuke jumped on him and tried to rip his throat out with his teeth.

The whole bar got involved and Naruto somehow found himself getting thrown out of the front doors and skidding across the street to land in front of a small boutique. The window display had matching sets of horse themed pajamas. Even some big enough for Kakashi-sensei. Naruto grinned.