Okay. First things first: SORRY! I was trying to get the next chapter of either Newly Found Hope, Newly Found Family, Unlikely Ally or A Bellyflop Through Time – I swear, but this wild Plunny snuck up on me and then bam! This happened.
I'm not really sure where this is going – or if it's going anywhere, since this it basically all that I have right now. If you guys like it, tell me so via Review or PM (I don't mind which) and if you want to take the idea and run with it, be my guest, but I ask you to please give me some credit for the idea.
Kakashi, at 17, was entirely self-sufficient. He could take care of himself – he'd had the knowledge and skills enough to do so since he was 5. As such, he didn't need a parent – didn't want one either, if he was completely honest. Yet it was . . . nice, to have someone fuss over him for once (although Ichigo would probably kill him six ways up the arse if he heard that – Ichigo did not fuss). It was nice to have someone older, more experienced, to watch out for him, the way Sensei used to – yet different, without the unsubtle nudges towards teamwork or life lessons thrown haphazardly through conversation. It was nice to come home after a mission – or even just training – and have to dodge a flying tackle-hug from an overly-enthusiastic toddler. It was nice to hear a reply of "welcome home" to his "I'm back". It was nice to summon his pack for something other than tracking a target or holding an enemy in place while he shoved a Chidori through their chest. It was nice to see his ninken act like normal dogs and play with Naruto. It was nice to be able to come home from a removal mission covered in blood at one in the morning and have Ichigo waiting for him with an understanding smile and a silent nod towards the bathroom where clean pyjamas and a warm, cleansing shower were waiting for him. It was nice to just sit at the kitchen table after those missions clean and with a hot cup of tea and Ichigo's silent, understanding companionship to keep him grounded. It was nice to wake up from a nightmare in the middle of the night/morning to find a little ball of orange and blond had crawled in with him "to scare the monsters away". It was nice (and quite hilarious) to watch a sopping wet Naruto run through the house with Ichigo close behind and waving a towel and the 3-year-old's pyjamas in his hands interchangeably like a banner.
It was astoundingly . . . nice, good – reassuring – to come back to home.
It was even better to come home to family – to Ichigo and Naruto and sometimes-Iruka. None of them were related – Ichigo and Naruto only distantly so, yet they were family – Pack – as much as he was to his ninken.
He hadn't had anything remotely like that since Sensei took up the Hat.
Continue? Don't continue? Let me know!
