Author's Notes: Another Kakashi story. Got to love Kakashi right? And I think Genma is going to play a sidekick role in this one. We shall see. Ill just let you read it cuz I dont want to give too much away already. LOL And I cant think of anything important to put in my author's notes right now because I have done nothing but work on my stories for several days in a row. My creative juices finally started to flow and now I cant get them to stop! Please review.

ANBU Chairs and Lazy Jonins

Kakashi leaned forward and took the scroll from Shikamaru. They had been in the little room for hours going over the information they had so far. Maps covered the wall to the left, random pieces of paper pinned to the wall to the right, some with kunai stuck in them. It had taken them months of digging for clues to track down the compound of one Ryuujin.

'Dragon God my ass.' he thought sarcastically.

Kakashi sat back and leaned to the side wincing at the pain in his back and his butt, not to mention his neck. Oh how he hated to sit in these little rooms with no windows going over paperwork and tons of misleading information. Just to find one piece of good info that could lead to the end of the insanity of sitting in the most uncomfortable chairs in all of Konoha.

'Why did I leave ANBU? Oh yeah, because I hate these damn chairs.' he thought closing his eyes for a moment. After all no one was talking, just reading and re-reading everything. He had it all practically memorized by now. He could recite the last six months without looking at anything in this stupid room that just seemed too damn small for this many shinobi.

'Why the hell are we sitting here still? Oh yeah. The mission that never ends. Full of dead ends, no hope. Do not pass go, do not collect...'

"Kakashi!"

Kakashi cracked open one eye, the only eye he could he mused, and peered out over the table where the other three shinobi were looking rather annoyed with him "What?" he asked as if he didn't know why they were calling his name to begin with. He tossed the scroll back to Shikamaru and sighed sitting up "I was listening. Honestly." he yawned scratching his cloth covered chin.

Genma smirked and rolled his senbon to the other side of his mouth before turning back to the topic at hand. "I say we go in, big operation, lots of shinobi, and ask them politely to just stop arming the enemy with nice weapons killing innocent civilians." The room was silent for a moment before someone coughed. "We can say please." he added. Kakashi rolled his eye and started doodling on a piece of paper.

"Alright. We're not getting anywhere tonight with this. Not with you three goofing off." Sasuke stopped folding his notepad into little paper shuriken and tossed one at Shikamaru's head. 'Who knew he had a sense of humor and paper folding abilities to boot?' Kakashi thought adding hair to his masterpiece of a naked woman.

Shikamaru sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. They had been at it for nearly ten hours now with only one break. Somehow, when he got the recent report that supported the information they had received last week that the location of the weapons dealer had been found, he thought things would be less complicated.

But after sitting around all day with three of the best shinobi in the village, Naruto had been off on his own mission for the last two weeks, they hadn't gotten much further in figuring out the best way to deal with the problem. Several issues posed several problems and each one ran into a dead end. And beating their heads against a brick wall wasn't getting them anywhere any time soon.

The four shinobi semi-organized the room before leaving. Kakashi stopped at the door and formed hand seals, it vanished, he sighed and headed up the hall. It was all so troublesome he smirked, reminding himself of Shikamaru in his younger days. 'He never says that anymore.' he thought pushing the door open at the end of the hall and quickly signing his name at the small desk before disappearing.

Kakashi had refused to take the lead on this one and handed it to Shikamaru immediately. After all, he had been promoted to the ANBU Tactical and Retrieval Unit recently. He needed the experience. Who was Kakashi to take that joy from the youth of Konoha? In truth he was just being lazy. Or rather he had been in a slump lately and wasn't interested in playing shinobi.

Tsunade had ordered him to see someone. A shinobi therapist if he remembered correctly. He never showed. 'Of coarse I never showed. What was she thinking?' he shook his head. Jiraiya had even come for a visit. Brought him the new book. Just for him. That was two months ago. He hadn't read it yet. Sasuke seemed to be talking to him more lately. 'If I didn't know any better I would think my ex-student was worried about me.' he smirked.

Plunging his hands into his pockets to protect them from the cold he looked up at the stars. It was a crystal clear evening, something he noticed whenever it was this cold. Like the stars had turned to ice and twinkled even brighter. He hated October. It was always a confusing month. Either too cold or too warm. Windy or not windy, never in between. It rained sometimes too. But never consistently.

'Naruto's birthday is this month.' he thought still staring up at the vast darkness of twinkling lights. His father had told him once when he was very small that they were the souls of dead shinobi watching over them. Kakashi wondered for a brief moment which one was Yondaime and if he would twinkle brighter on his sons birthday. 'It'll probably rain that day.' he sighed.

Sakura looked up from the pile of books she was carrying and smiled. She had been trying to find her old sensei and take him out to lunch or something for a while. But he always seemed to...she blinked and he was gone. 'Damn him. He always seems to disappear just as Im going to call his name.' She, Naruto and Sasuke had been conspiring against him for some time. But as always, he was several steps ahead of them in the game of cat and mouse.

Kakashi stretched out on the balcony of his apartment 'They just wont learn. I don't want to talk to them. There's nothing wrong with me a good bottle of warm sake and a warm body wont cure.' Kakashi tugged down his mask and took a deep breath closing his eyes. Too tired to read or think or care. If he was lucky he would wake up with a cold from sleeping outside and get to stay home instead of going back to the little cramped room.

'Im never that lucky.' he thought yawning and tucking his hands under his arms. He just didn't feel like going into his dark, empty apartment tonight. Well, most nights it seemed lately. He was unsettled. Almost disturbingly unsettled about something. He wasn't sure what it was or when this feeling started. If he thought hard enough he was sure he could pick out the moment or even the day. It wasn't driving him crazy. Or was it?

Everyone else seemed to think so. They kept asking if he was feeling ok or if he needed to talk. That part was definitely driving him nuts. He just wanted to be left alone damn it. Why couldn't they see that and just respect his wishes? Its not like he was all that social before this all started. So how did they know anything was wrong to begin with? And who made it their business anyways?

Kakashi opened his eyes and glared up at the stars. He couldn't sleep with so much crap in his head. In fact, he wasn't sure when was the last time he slept peacefully or at least more than just a couple of hours. Then he remembered something that made him smile. The reason they all started thinking he was nuts.

Of coarse, when Hatake Kakashi walks out on a mission there must be something wrong with him. He rolled his eyes at the memory. The client was driving him insane and then tried to marry him off to his thirteen year old daughter. As if he was a pedofile or something. Kakashi glared up at the stars again. He swore the stars themselves were cursing him for every little decision he made.

There were two things he was very passionate about. People who hurt kids and people who hurt defenseless women. In his opinion, anyone fitting either of those two descriptions should be treated how they treat others. Then killed. A slow painful death. That's what they deserved. And a man who was willing to pass off his thirteen year old daughter to some stranger not knowing what could happen to her...Kakashi growled in frustration.

'And they think Im crazy because I walked out? I wonder what they would have thought if I had stayed and actually killed the man.'

It wasn't like it was all that important a mission. The guy was paranoid to begin with. No one had been after him but his own shadow. So maybe he shouldn't have told the guy to fuck off he thought taking another deep breath and trying to get his body to relax. It was unsettled. He was unsettled. 'Everything was so god damn fucking unsettled!' his brain screamed and he finally stood up and headed inside.

Stripping down on his way to the bathroom, he switched on the shower and stared at himself in the mirror. 'I need a mission. And not a baby sitting mission either. Something that's dangerous and keeps me out of Konoha for a while.' Ruffling his hair he climbed in under the hot water and leaned against the tiled wall. Palms pressed flat, head hanging between his arms as the heat of the water turned his skin red and melted any tension in his muscles from sitting in those stupid chairs all day.

He lifted his head and grinned. He had a fantastic idea for getting out of Konoha. A mission that would be dangerous for sure. An important mission where he could utilize his abilities to their fullest. An ANBU mission. A solo ANBU mission! No one to ask him how he felt or care how he felt. And time. To figure out what the hell was wrong with him. Also, fighting bad guys in more way than one. Hell, he would get to play the bad guy for awhile. Then, when they least expected it, he'd kill them. Kakashi grinned then shook his head.

Ok, maybe he wouldn't kill them unless they deserved it he thought grabbing the soap. But he would get to take out his frustration on them eventually. That was something to look forward to. And it was always fun being right under their noses. Making them feel safe and comfortable. Like a cat preparing to take down its prey. Then he could come back to Konoha feeling like his old self and no one would be the wiser that he had planned the whole thing.

'Call it Hatake Therapy. It's not like I haven't done it before.'

Now all he had to do was convince the others of his plan without anyone thinking he was suicidal. Which he knew they would. Because they were all baka's who worried too much about his sanity. 'Aren't all genius shinobi and ex-ANBU a little eccentric?' he grinned scrubbing his face before rinsing off completely. 'Hell, you have to be just to join ANBU and survive.'

Turning off the water he grabbed a towel from the shelf and shoved back the curtain. He felt a lot better now that he had a plan. Something to look forward to. Something he was sure would help rid him of the stupid feeling he had been having for the last year and was steadily growing out of control. He looked up at himself in the mirror again "Ok I admit it. There's something definitely wrong with you. Happy?" He frowned.

So maybe he was starting to think he was a few pieces short of a whole puzzle. Maybe the others were right this whole time and he was losing it. Tossing the towel in the corner of the bathroom before heading to his room he considered his line of thinking and then shook his head 'I may be eccentric, but Im not crazy.' He hadn't even bothered to turn on any lights when he came in from the cold, so all he had to do was fall into bed and hope this night would finally be the night he really slept.

He felt tired for the first time in a long time. Emotionally tired. Bone tired. Something he used to only feel after an ANBU mission when he ran around with his porcelain mask and no one to worry about but himself. And all he could do was think about the last year of his life. Which somehow began when he was a child and ended with his body hitting the bed. His brain, always analyzing everything, just wouldn't quite. Even when he ordered it to.

What was so damn important that his brain was trying to figure out nearly every day for the last year? The more his mind went over his behavior, his thoughts, his feelings, the more he realized he had been acting a bit neurotic, maybe even crazy if he looked at it from everyone else's point of view. He had been irritable. Anti-social. More so than before. Or rather, like he had been a very long time ago.

Nothing made him happy anymore. Not even Icha Icha. He didn't want to be around his ex-students. Naruto and Hinata were always together. Getting married soon. Sasuke wasn't dating anyone. But he was the happiest an Uchiha could be considering he was the only Uchiha left and he had survived Orochimaru then returned to the village he had deserted and was despised by for a long time.

And Sakura. Well she did what Sakura did. Continued to prove her worth. Mini-Tsunade they called her. Unless she was around to hear it. Occasionally dating but happy otherwise. So why, out of the four members of the no longer together Team Kakashi, was he the only one miserable? He wasn't miserable before he met them. He wasn't miserable while he knew them. He shouldn't be miserable now.

Maybe he should seriously consider finding that bottle of sake and a good woman with no strings attached. He knew where he could find a few Genma hadn't tapped already. Maybe if he was more like Genma he wouldn't be having this problem in the first place he thought rubbing his forehead and glancing over at the clock. It was already 2 am. He smiled.

'If I were more like Genma I would have already contracted a disease and would be dying right about now. At least then I wouldn't be unsettled about whatever it is Im unsettled about.'

'Unsettled. What a strange sounding word. To not be settled. Settled as in settling for something. Settling down. Un as in not doing either of those things. So Im not settling. For what though? I sure as hell am not settling down.' he frowned and rolled over tucking his arms under his pillow and closing his eyes, willing himself to fall asleep and not think for just one minute.