I wrote this while I was midway through watching season two (I showed up to this fandom rather late) so . . . canon divergence due to spoilery things I haven't really caught up to in the show yet.
"Would you two just get over yourselves and screw each other already?" Shikamaru said in an exasperated tone. Also one rather louder than he usually spoke with.
It . . . rang through the street, even over the sounds of the argument between Sasuke and Naruto that filled the area. Or had filled it, until Shikamaru's shouted suggestion seemingly shocked them both into stillness as effectively as his Shadow Imitation Jutsu would have done.
Kakashi slipped backwards, just a little, out of easy reach.
Naruto's eyes were wide and his mouth had dropped open soundlessly. He looked . . . rabbity; verging on angry but mostly nervous. After a few moments he waved his arms about wildly and made several incoherent sounds, none of which was quite a denial, and Kakashi snorted, amused.
Sasuke's eyes had narrowed, his mouth pinched, and he looked incensed but it was locked down and calculating. His sharp gaze swept the crowded street like he was considering the likelihood of being able to dispose of anyone who had been witness to the argument and the set of his shoulders said he wasn't happy with the conclusions he drew.
Kakashi could sympathise, though he was rarely the centre of quite so much overt attention any more. And Kakashi rarely shouted in the street - were he to do so at this point in his life he suspected most of the villagers would run, rather than stare - or made a scene quite like these two boys were prone to doing. Often.
"Oi! Shikamaru!" Sakura shouted, pointing accusingly at him. "What are you saying?"
"We have been watching these two yell and challenge each other and flirt for years - damn, you should be more annoyed than the rest of us even; you were teamed up with them - and it's ridiculous!" Shikamaru rolled his eyes. "Agh, how tiresome are you." he directed at Naruto and Sasuke again. "Isn't this boring?"
"Perhaps you should keep your mistaken conclusions to yourself then." Sasuke said, and he might have been trying for icy but his voice was too low and rough, almost a snarl.
Shikamaru didn't look too intimidated, but then Kakashi had rarely seen him show anything of the like, no matter who he was facing.
"Why would you go and- and say something like that?" Naruto yelped finally, almost squeaking, pointing at Shikamaru with a slightly shaky hand.
"Years of watching you two fight - and being slammed out of the way," Shikamaru said in a bored tone, "only to watch you get even worse whenever anyone else comes close. If you think you're actually hiding that you want to bang from everyone you're crazy. It's ridiculously obvious from how you two fight."
"That is not-" Sasuke began, only to be stifled with an indignant and rather wet - Kakashi cringed - noise as Naruto grabbed his shoulders and smashed their mouths together. The two boys pressed against each other in an ungainly fashion, but neither was graceless enough to actually fall over, even with the sudden impact. Although on second inspection Kakashi wasn't sure Sasuke was actually moving enough to breathe, let alone to shift and balance himself.
Naruto blushed as he pulled away again, but didn't go far. Sasuke was utterly still for a few moments, his hands still raised on either side of Naruto's shoulders, and then his cheeks began to suffuse with red as well.
Kakashi wondered with mild alarm if Sasuke might actually kill Naruto this time. He didn't look embarrassed, for all the colour now rising in his pale cheeks - he looked livid.
Kakashi sighed and prepared to intervene if necessary. Leaving Naruto and Sasuke to sort out their differences with hands-on fights was not only the best choice for one's sanity - and much less effort; they fought nearly every day - it was really the only thing that worked. But allowing Sasuke to kill Naruto would hardly fall under that category.
Much less in front of so many witnesses, Kakashi thought wryly. Sasuke was not the best at planning when he was infuriated.
He would probably even regret it if he were allowed to do so . . . eventually.
"And you!" Naruto turned and pointed a hand at Shikamaru, who raised his eyebrows. "Shut up!"
Shikamaru shrugged carelessly, a little curl to his lip. Sakura was almost sputtering, her eyes wide, but it wasn't clear whether she was angry or only shocked.
Sasuke grabbed Naruto's shoulder, hauling him back around. "You-" he broke off, apparently too incensed - or something - for words. Naruto eyed him almost warily, a bit of his former boldness still clinging to his expression.
Sasuke hissed, glared at the assembled group still staring at them, and then dragged Naruto off by his wrist. Kakashi's eyebrows rose, and he stepped forward to confuse the path they took away from those watching - let them sort things alone - before returning to a comfortable slouch, pulling his book out of his pocket, and walking away himself.
"It's unusual for you to be so loud, Shikamaru-kun!" Ino said behind him, half concern and half admiration.
"Aa, it's just that they're so tiresome to be around." Shikamaru sighed, and Kakashi's lips twitched. Tiresome indeed, although it had at times been easier to supervise them when they were always so eager to squabble, fighting to best each other. They got into much less trouble when they were always so busy with each other.
Even if Sasuke thought himself above such petty competitions.
"Of all the things you could have taught them - all the things you did - you had to pass on your perpetual lateness?"
Kakashi smiled his most irritating smile, closing his eye, and Suzume buried her face in her hands for a moment, fingertips nudging her glasses. Her reaction - and her scolding - weren't nearly so passionate as Iruka's, but it was also taking much less to push her so far.
"Then you can go and get them. Naruto. Sasuke. A-rank mission. Take it to them." Suzume frowned at him and held out the scroll. "Take it to them now, Kakashi-san." she added, and Kakashi smiled again.
"Of course. Would I delay such an important task?" he asked, and hid a laugh as he slouched out of the room, Suzume making a tiny whimpering sound behind him. He did intend to go find them now - he wasn't going to keep track of their mission scroll indefinitely - but there was no reason to say so openly and give people assumptions counter to his reputation. He liked his reputation.
Kakashi was slightly surprised when he couldn't find them immediately, but a quick circuit of the village, senses on alert, and he had a direction. Easy. Neither of them was any good at suppressing their chakra, much less folding it away tightly to hide their presence from an enemy - or an erstwhile sensei looking to pass off a mission to them.
Sasuke's chakra - always hot, like banked coals - spiked, flaring like flames under a spill of lamp oil. A spill named Naruto, he'd wager. Kakashi snorted.
He approached through the trees, idly wandering from branch to branch, but wondered if he might hang back for a bit, especially as Naruto's volatile chakra bubbled as though in response to Sasuke's. They never actually came close to killing each other, after all, even now they were older and both more skilled and less hesitant about dealing harm, and breaking up their clinch would probably take more time than just waiting it out. And leave them on edge for further quarrels as they took their mission.
Kakashi paused as they came into sight, brows rising. Sasuke shoved Naruto into the trunk of a tree, and Naruto's hands caught in his loose collar, baring his teeth at Sasuke.
Sasuke pressed up against him without fighting the rough pull, and as their lips met, Kakashi skipped back the way he had come. He tucked the scroll back in his pocket and moved a little faster, settling to wait for them just out of hearing range. It was enough of an intrusion being able to feel their chakra clashing and then meshing and back again.
Normally Kakashi would have no compunction about interrupting such a couple - in fact, he'd find it amusing - but he would let these boys have a little time first. Perhaps they would settle a bit and actually be ready to accept the mission he had to bring them.
Kakashi wondered idly if his chakra had ever been so wild and uncontrolled as this, even when he was younger - no matter who he faced - and thought probably not. He pulled out his book, lounging against the trunk of the tree he was perched in to read while he waited.
I wasn't exactly looking to 'ship these two boys when I started the show, but it kind of went 'oh hey, you see this 'ship?' and then like eight episodes later 'you don't 'ship them yet? HOLD MY BEER YOU WILL IN A MINUTE!' XD