Kakashi huddled deeper in to the couch cushions, clutching the blankets he'd dragged out from his bed tighter around his frame. Wallowing in his own misery wasn't something he had ever actively partaken in before but he thought that he was making a pretty good go of his first time.

He'd known Minato would be busy at a conference with the Daimyo today, which was why he had chosen yesterday to break things off between them. He figured he would have a whole day without supervision to slip in to the tower and request a mission that would keep him out of the village for a long while. Of course, having a plan only guaranteed that he had instead woken up today sick. Incredibly sick. He was pretty sure that he had both a cold and the flu. In a way he thought it was pretty poetic. At least now he felt as horrible on the outside as he did on the inside.

The first time he and his former sensei had fallen in to bed together he had known exactly what he was in for. He'd thought he could handle having a casual relationship, sleeping with the one he was in love with while knowing that it meant nothing more than a physical relief to the older man. What he hadn't counted on was exactly how much it tore him apart every time he had to act as if it didn't mean anything to him either. How much his heart shriveled in his chest as Minato treated him the same way he always had, like a precious student. It had taken two years and a lot of sleepless nights looking at the situation from every possible angle for him to admit to himself that this was slowly killing him. As much as he hated to admit it, the best thing for his own mental state would be to get out while he still had the smallest vestiges of his pride left.

Minato had seemed surprised when Kakashi had quietly told him that they couldn't keep doing this, although the silver haired nin hadn't exactly studied his face closely. He'd been too busy staring at a patch of wall off to the left while he struggled to keep his expression from showing just how much he was breaking his own heart. Kakashi had been through a lot in his twenty-six years of life and somehow this was the most difficult thing he had ever done. Also the most painful. Especially when the blond had quietly accepted the end of their tryst with a calm and steady tone. It had been even harder when he had turned to leave and twelve-year-old Naruto had come home from the academy, looking up at him with wide happy eyes and asking him to play like they always did. He hadn't even tried to explain to the boy why he couldn't stay and the speed with which he left could have rivaled the man he was escaping from.

Waking up sick the next day had simply been the icing on the cake. So now he was moping on the couch, one big ball of misery, wondering if there was any possible way the universe could bring him down any farther. His stomach was rolling and his head was pounding. His throat was swollen, his eyes weeping, and his nose so stuffed he had to part his lips to breathe. His mask had been sacrificed hours ago after sneezing four times in less than ten minutes. The only positive thing about any of this was that he didn't have to feel like he was hiding from anything. He figured being so sick that even laying down made him dizzy was a pretty good excuse to stay holed up at home.

It was barely past noon when Kakashi realized vaguely that the faint thudding noise he could hear was not actually his brain trying to beat its way out through his skull. He briefly considered getting up and finding out who was at the door, but the very idea of moving made his head start spinning again. He figured that they could just try again on another day when he wasn't busy burning up from the inside out. The noise continued for a while and he stared blankly at the ceiling until it finally stopped, at which point he closed his good eye to wait for death. He then cracked it back open when he heard the pattering of bare feet on hardwood.

"Kakashi?" He would know that small voice anywhere, even if he wasn't expecting to hear it right then. He turned his head slightly to blink at the young boy who had let himself in to his apartment.

"Naruto?" He croaked. Through the slit of his eyelids he could just make out the shape of his second favorite blonde creeping across the living room. The small figure came a couple of steps closer and then stopped, leaning forward on the balls of his feet as if afraid to come the rest of the way.

"What's wrong with you?" He tried to chuckle at how tactless the boy was but ended up hacking instead, his shoulders heaving and then slumping back down against the couch so he could gasp for breath. When all he did was groan in lieu of an answer Naruto wavered one step closer. "Kakashi?"

It was the lost tone of voice that encouraged him to actually open his one eye and try to focus enough to make the room stand still. He did his best to study what little expression he could make out and was worried to see that the boy looked scared. Protectiveness welled up in his chest, although it was muted by the fog in his brain. Holding one hand to his throbbing head he drew his brows down in a scowl.

"I'm sick. What's going on Naruto?" The pre-genin lowered his head and stared up at the jōnin through his shaggy fringe with wide, glistening baby blues.

"Dad says you're not gonna be around anymore." Kakashi sighed, the worry draining out of his chest just as quickly as it had filled up and annoyance filtering in instead. He couldn't really be annoyed with Minato, the man couldn't be expected to lie to his own son. And he couldn't be annoyed with the kid, it wasn't his fault something he considered normal in his life was changing. Mostly he was just annoyed at the universe in general for finding a way to kick him when he was down. He'd been wondering if his day could get worse and apparently it could. Because Kakashi had been there for Naruto's entire life and in Minato's absence of course the boy would go to the adult he was next closest to for answers.

The silver haired jōnin moaned as he felt his headache increase and his stomach roll over in an uncomfortable manner. This was not a situation he wanted to deal with right now – or ever really, but especially not now. To be honest it wasn't something that he should deal with. As close as he was to the Namikaze pair he was still someone that had no idea how to treat these situations delicately. The ability to soften the blow had never been his. He usually sent the kid off to his actual parent to deal with the heavy stuff. Unfortunately for them both Minato would be holed up with the Daimyo for hours yet. He could feel the shields he had built around himself as a child trying to rise in to place and some part of him felt bad that he was about to be much too blunt. The part of him that was sicker than he had been since his own childhood was grateful for an outlet for his private misery.

"He's right. I won't be coming around anymore." The puppy eyes almost made him feel bad, but he'd had years to develop an immunity to them. He closed his own eye and turned his head away, projecting as little care as possible.

"But why?! Was it…was it something I did Kakashi?"

"I was sleeping with your father, Naruto."

In the long minute of stunned silence that followed his statement he sneezed three times in rapid succession, then held his head in his hands to try and quell the waves of pain that this caused. Naruto might be young, just on the cusp of graduating from the academy, but he spent enough time around the ANBU in his dad's office to pick up on certain things. He knew very well that the silver haired man did not mean that they were having fun sleep overs in separate sleeping bags. Although he could use a sleeping bag right about now; closing his eyes had made him drowsy.

"So…are you guys…dating?"

"No Naruto, we are not dating. We were fucking. And now we're not. We're…nothing." In fact, he could feel unconsciousness creeping its way up on him right now. Everything was fuzzy and his thoughts felt as if they were layered in gauze. When his visitor spoke again it sounded like his voice was coming from too far away.

"But…why?" Came the plaintive whine, immediately resorting to the final fallback of children everywhere.

"Because I wanted to." Was he falling somehow? His entire body felt vaguely like it was falling.

"You wanted to leave?!"

"I wanted to date. I was nothing and…I wanted to be…everything."

If Naruto replied, Kakashi didn't hear it. He had already sunk down in to the sweet blank release of sleep, too preoccupied with the delightful combination of dehydration and nausea he had been enjoying since before the child made his appearance. He let himself slip in to the shadowed peace of slumber with no small amount of relief.

The room was dark. Evening had leeched away what little warmth the sun had brought to the village during the day and left behind a faint chill in the air. Naruto had gone home hours ago yet Kakashi remained in the same spot as before. He was still asleep, sprawled on the couch and propped up on some pillows at one end. His lithe body was draped in a squashy green blanket that was slowly drifting off of him down towards the floor. His head was lolled on to one shoulder, facing the back on the couch. Pale pink lips were parted to allow short breaths to pass in and out, each one emitting a faint wheeze as his lungs battled to do their job properly. The tip of his nose was red from sneezing and despite the chill in the air his forehead was beaded with sweat.

Lost in fitful dreams, Kakashi was unaware of the observations his new visitor was making about him. He remained oblivious as fingers gently brushed his damp hair away from his face and traced down his cheek, across the line of his jaw. Only the cool sensation of a wet cloth drew a whimper. His body shivered as he muzzily, reluctantly, returned to wakefulness. His brows drew down in a frown as he cracked one eye open and peeked sideways. His vision was blurry, but he noted the blonde hair and drew the only conclusion that seemed logical.

"Na…ruto…" was all he managed to mumble before a violent coughing fit ripped through him with wet tearing sounds that shook his whole being down to the core. When it was finally over he whimpered again and weakly tried to curl in on himself. "Look just like your father…" The words slipped from his mouth without him even realizing he had spoken. The world seemed to exist to him beneath a haze of heat. He hadn't thought it possible to feel worse than earlier, but he did. A hand cupped his cheek and he mewled, nuzzling in to the cool skin. The body above him sighed.

"Oh Kakashi," was all they said. He frowned because that didn't sound at all like Naruto. "He was right, you look terrible." In fact that sounded a lot like someone who looked a lot like Naruto.

Confused, the jōnin blinked to try to steady his vision. Eventually the blob of blonde hair solidified in to messy-but-still-manageable spikes held under control by a Leaf headband, both of which rested above kind blue eyes, the world's cutest most unmanly nose, and a set of lips currently tilted in concern. He afforded himself a moment to wonder if this was an illness-induced hallucination, but slowly decided against it. If he was going to hallucinate the man he loved, he'd picture him doing something sexier than bathing his brow with a wet cloth.

"Sensei? What…?" He tried to sit up and instead sneezed, jerking himself back down. A hand on his chest urged him to stay where he was.

"Just rest, don't try to get up." It was definitely him and he was definitely real. His favorite person in the world was here, sitting on the cushions next to his hip and leaning over his prone form. Unfortunately for him the Hokage was also the very last person he wanted to see right now.

"What are you doing here?" he mumbled. For some reason his lips didn't seem to want to cooperate when he tried to speak. His whole body was in full revolt, managing to both ache everywhere and somehow feel numb at the same time. The hand cupping his face drew a thumb across his cheek, softly stroking his flushed skin.

"Did you really say those things to Naruto? He actually came and crashed my meeting with the Daimyo he was so worried about you. Did you really say…?"

Minato didn't finish his sentence, but he didn't need to. For a moment the two men simply stared in to each other's eyes, one dark with worry, the other bright with fever. Finally Kakashi grunted and attempted to shift away. When that didn't work he averted his gaze.

"Go away," he croaked feebly.

"You were never nothing to me, Kakashi." He refused to look at his elder. His eyelid slouched down, trying to close again as a wave of dizziness slowly rolled over him, causing him to groan.

"Go away, sensei," he repeated. His voice sounded intolerably small to his own ears and he wasn't sure if it was due to the state of his health or the ache in his heart.

He heard another sigh and then the hand on his cheek slid up and in to his hair, carding through the damp strands, almost petting him. The motion was so soothing that for a moment he hovered just on the edge of falling back to sleep. Minato caressed him lightly, ignoring his weak demands to leave in favor of shifting his weight so that he was leaning closer. The sick nin could feel his heart beat just a little bit faster at the proximity, the way that it always had.

"I always thought it was me pining after you who didn't want things. Imagine my surprise when Naruto comes to me and says – how did you word it? You want to be…everything?" If the room weren't spinning quite so fast he would have glared or maybe even blushed. As it was Kakashi's vision was starting to blur out again and all he did was look up at the man with an adorably confused expression. His thoughts tumbled over each other without making any sense, but Minato was smiling so he figured everything was going to be okay. If there was ever one truth he had carried through-out his life it was that as long as Minato smiled everything was going to be okay.

Kakashi didn't realize that he had actually closed his eyes and started to drift until he was jarred by the world dropping away from underneath him. There was an arm beneath his knees and another around his back and for a few wild seconds he actually thought he might be floating. Then he blinked at the chest his face was leaning against and he realized that Minato had picked him up, blanket and all, and was carrying him through the apartment. He made some sort of noise that was supposed to be a protest but ended up sounding more like a lost kitten.

The voice that murmured comfortingly in his ear and the way that the arms around him held him closer encouraged him to quiet his objections. Pressing his face in to a familiar vest was easier anyway so he did that and allowed himself to be carted to his bedroom like a child. He could think later, when he was feeling better. He was barely aware of entering his room and being gently lowered on to the bed. He blinked owlishly up at the blond straightening his blanket and tucking it in around him.

"Mnn….Minato?" he croaked, unsure what it was he wanted to say but knowing that it was for some reason important that he call out to the older man. Minato smiled down at him and Kakashi purred sleepily when the hand that had been stroking his hair before returned to its calling.

"Sleep Kakashi. We'll have plenty of time to straighten things out between us later."

He didn't have the will to reply, just slowly rolled on to his side and curled in to the heat source sitting next to him with a low whine. He was asleep in seconds, unaware of the body that slid underneath the blankets and pulled him close.

"Minato…" He could already see happy scenes as his dreams sought to make up for how absolutely crappy the last couple days had been. In his head they ran through lush green forests and smiled without a care in the world. In his head they were happy and Minato held him close and whispered comforting things in his ear. In his dreams he whispered back, "I love you."

Being asleep, he never felt the heartbeat that quickened under his hand, nor heard the gasp right next to his ear. He was somewhere happy.