"No. Just… no." Iruka shook his head, trying to drum up the enthusiasm for a glare at his lover but somehow never managing to make it. There were rules about things like this, weren't there? If not, there should be. Rules posted in fifteen foot high screaming orange letters across the front of the Hokage Monument. Yes… rules…

"Thou shalt not read porn in front of impressionable children.
Thou shalt not come up with a stupid and sometimes suggestive excuse every time thou art late.
Thou shalt not piss the Hokage off when she has a hangover.
Thou shalt not post pictures all over the Hokage's tower and Mission room of Genma in a compromising sexual position involving Anko, Ibiki and the highly improper and possibly illegal abuse of massage oil and several torture devices.
Thou shalt not replace Sai's blank scrolls with illustrated ones describing in loving anatomical detail the various ways and positions two shinobi could have sexual congress with each other, ten of their casual friends, two sheep and various household implements.
And most importantly, Thou shall NEVER, ever get thy chuunin lover drunk off his stupid ass and dare him to do something."

Iruka groaned, pulling a pillow over his head to stifle the sound of his lover's cheerful voice, the too-damned-bright sunlight and in general the whole world that was trying to invade his skull with the persistence of an army from Stone. "Kakashi, for the love of the Hokage and the memory of all we've ever shared… Shut the hell up!"

"I'm sure some aspirin will make you feel better." Kakashi chirped in the overly-chipper voice he only seemed to use when Iruka had a hangover and he didn't.

"It probably would if I weren't fucking allergic to it!" Iruka snarled, feeling blindly for the kunai he was certain he'd left on the headboard. He was so going to cut his lover a new one for this.

"Looking for this?" Kakashi chirruped, twirling the sharp blade around by the pommel-ring. Oh, yes, he was so a dead man as soon as
Iruka could see straight and remember the details of what he had agreed to last night.

"I hate you." Iruka grumped, burying his head under the pillows again.

"Love you too, 'Ruka." Kakashi said brightly.

"No you don't. If you did, you wouldn't have gotten me drunk last night. And the next time you call me that, I'm going to castrate you with rusty chakra-wire." Iruka growled, sitting up and wincing at the assault of light on his bleary eyes. "Fuck."

"We can do that if you want."

Iruka ratcheted his aching head around to fix Kakashi with a glare that would have done Gaara of the Sand proud. "Not in this lifetime."

"Iruka…" Right now, Kakashi's wounded puppy look was annoying rather than endearing.

Iruka heaved himself up off the bed with a groan. "No. My mouth tastes like things best left undescribed, my head is killing me, if I'm not careful I will vomit on you and, lest we forget, I hate you right now."

"But why not…?"

Iruka thumped him with the pillow and made a beeline for the bathroom. He locked the door behind him. He really didn't need commentary from the peanut gallery.

When he had rid his stomach of its contents, used half a bottle of mouthwash and finally felt something more like human, he stepped out of the bathroom to confront his lover, who was lounging nonchalantly on the bed. Despite the mask, Kakashi's shit-eating grin was all too visible. Iruka detested him right at that moment. "Wipe that smirk off your face before I do it for you."

Kakashi managed to lose the smirk for all of three seconds. Then it was back in full force. Iruka groaned and staggered to the kitchen to make coffee. Strong coffee. 'Dissolve your stomach from the inside-out' coffee. That would be a start. Maybe with some bleach added to clear out the lingering fuzziness.

He only managed a half hearted glare at his lover as pale hands reached around him to assist in the coffee-making. He did manage a real glare as Kakashi stopped him from adding more than two scoops of the coffee grinds. Kakashi soothed him with a kiss to the temple and steered him to the table.

Iruka didn't have the energy to fight him and sat down. He stared at the table in silence for a few moments before Kakashi slid a cup in front of him. Iruka doused it with milk and drank about half the cup in one go. He added sugar before he took his next swallow. The fuzziness didn't stand a chance against this tar.

He watched Kakashi tug down his own mask for a quick sip, grimace and add three heaping tablespoons of sugar and as much milk as would go in the cup without it overflowing. "Gah."

Iruka hid a smile at the look on his lovers face as he drank down the whole cup without pausing for breath, evidently in the hope that he wouldn't have to taste it. Pleased, he sipped his, savoring the bitterness. "So…" He said conversationally. "What moronic thing exactly did you dare me to do last night after you got me drunk as hell?"

Kakashi chuckled. "Heh, so you remembered that much at least. Promise not to kill me?"

Iruka slanted him a look over the rim of his cup. "That would depend entirely on how stupid it was, so impress me."

Kakashi chuckled unrepentantly. "Would you hit me if I described you as cute right now?"

"No." Kakashi looked surprised, so Iruka let the other shoe drop. "I'd dump the rest of the pot of coffee in your lap."

Kakashi winced and Iruka hid a smug smile behind his mug. "I'm still waiting." He prompted.

"Do or do you not remember Ebisu-san singing 'I'm a little teapot' while Anko threw bananas at him?"

Iruka winced. "Kind of. Was this before or after I found her doing unspeakable things to him in the men's room?"

"Must have been before." Kakashi chuckled.

"Not that that improves the memory much. I may never eat another banana in my life. And what she was doing with the peels is almost worse than the whole bananas in places they should not go." Iruka shuddered and gulped down the rest of his coffee before rising to fix another cup.

"That sounds like something Anko would do."

Iruka humphed as he doctored another cup into drinkability. "And stop trying to change the subject. What exactly did I do?"

Kakashi scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. Iruka fixed him with a withering frown as he sat back down. "Spill it."

"Do you remember Aoba joining us while we were out drinking?"

Iruka creased his brows together and forced the sludge currently occupying his skull to fire up a few synapses. That was right. Shortly after they had managed to lose Anko to the banana perversion, Aoba had asked to join them at their table.

"He asked me to help him figure out a prank that he could pull on that group of jounins that keep handing in reports filled out with disappearing ink to him." Iruka said slowly, dredging up the alcohol-blurred memories. Aoba had been assigned desk duty after being injured on a mission. He was recovering, but he needed at least two more surgeries before his leg would be sufficiently recovered to begin therapy. The special jounin was working in the mission room for the duration.

After three months of sleeping with the infamous copy-nin, Iruka had quickly figured out that there was quite a bit of truth to the rumor that special jounin or above were easily distracted by shiny objects. And poor Aoba, with his all too easily flustered expressions, had recently become the newest shiny object to a small group of jounins who were bored and in need of distraction. Due to injuries, they had been confined to low-rank C and D missions, within the bounds of the village, and the boredom had developed into a series of pranks on long-suffering Aoba.

They had been smart enough not to pull their pranks while Iruka was on duty and the first he had heard about it was when Aoba had spent an entire night trying to find what he had thought was an entire sheaf of misplaced reports.

He dredged the remainder of the memories up, finding it easier with two cups of coffee in his veins. "I had to come up with a fairly simple prank, something he could pull off without getting caught. He doesn't have the skills for anything more complex. For a special jounin, he sucks at traps."

Kakashi nodded, his visible eye alight with an unholy glee. Iruka knew he was in trouble. "It was simple," He muttered, thinking hard. "A simple pratfall prank that he could pull on them."

Kakashi kept nodding and now Iruka was getting uneasy. "And what?" He glared daggers at Kakashi.

"You tell me…"

Iruka deftly chucked a knife at Kakashi, timing it, so that even after his lover's reflexive dodge, the blade ended up dangerously close to certain bits. Kakashi paled and lost his smirk.

Iruka smiled. Still got it. Endless sessions of training pre-genin makes for wonderful aim.

"Enough games, Kakashi. I'm cranky, hungover, in dire need of painkillers and sorely tempted to end your life in the most humiliating and painful fashion I can think of. So for the last time, tell me what happened."

Kakashi swallowed as he plucked the knife from its position in close proximity to certain parts of his anatomy that Iruka knew he was rather fond of. "You had too much to drink."

Iruka hefted his coffee cup with malice. "I'm aware of that. Quit being an ass and tell me what happened and whether I need to become a missing nin or not."

Kakashi sighed. "You take all the fun out of tormenting you."

"Good. Now talk." Iruka could see the consideration going on in his lover's single visible eye. "It's not worth it, Kakashi."

"Eh?"

"Whatever you're considering." Iruka swallowed his coffee and thumped the cup down on the scarred wooden tabletop. "Talk."

"I thought the prank was too dull. So I bugged you to help him add to it."

"And…?"

"Well, I managed to talk you into showing him that chakra trick with the tags."

"Eh?" Iruka racked his brain for that one. "Which trick with the tags? I know several."

Kakashi smirked before Iruka sent him another warning glance. "The modified one that carries the trigger for a localized genjutsu on it."

Iruka debated whether to rip Kakashi a new one or not. It was very, very tempting. "You do know that Tsunade-sama has forbidden me to use that one anymore, right?"

His lover actually had the grace to look abashed. "Eh… really?"

"Yes, really. She decided that it was forbidden after it took Ibiki a week and a half to figure out why everyone kept snickering at him. She said she didn't need him anymore paranoid than he already was, thank you very much."

"But he looked good in the bunny ears and tail. I still think you should have dressed him in fishnet stockings too."

Iruka snorted as he wondered exactly how much damage control he would have to run. "He would have noticed that one. The chakra-leech built into the genjutsu would have been noticeable at the level required to power it. The reason he never noticed it was because it didn't draw more than he would use in day to day tasks."

Kakashi snorted. "I would have noticed."

Iruka smiled evilly. "Oh, really?" He resolved that that would indeed be a good way of getting Kakashi back, after enough time had passed that he had dropped his guard, of course. "Go on. I know there's more to it than that. Spill it."

"Must you always think the worst of me?"

Iruka glared and decided he needed more coffee to keep up with the convoluted turnings of conversation with Kakashi when hungover. "Not always. I just know when not to expect better."

"Very cold."

"Very honest." Iruka retorted as he poured himself another cup of the coffee. "Now spill, before I really get pissed off."

Kakashi actually looked a bit embarrassed. "I kind of helped him out too."

"Let me get this straight, you did? You helped him out?" Iruka swallowed down half of his cup and thought briefly about adding something more potent to the rest of it. He had the feeling he would need it.

Kakashi nodded and his voice dropped lower, even as his shoulders tightened into a defensive posture. "He wasn't convinced that would be enough to make them leave him alone. So I made a few suggestions. You were drunk enough to think they were a good idea. So I dared you to help him out in pulling of a prank the likes of the village hasn't seen since Naruto painted the Hokage tower bright pink and plastered it with signs advertising "Live sex shows" in the loudest colors he could find."

"I knew sending him to train with Jiraiya was a mistake." Iruka muttered before the rest of the words sank into his brain. He stared incredulously at Kakashi, wondering whether killing his lover would be doing the village a service and be worth having to become a missing nin. He was leaning toward the side of yes… yes, it was.

"What the hell?"

Kakashi glanced at the digital clock on the wall. "Oh. Look, it should be starting soon. We should go if we don't want to miss the show." He rose for his seat and tugged his mask back in place. "You should get dressed."

Iruka debated killing him, decided it was too much effort and went to get dressed. If Tsunade killed him, at least he would look presentable. "Is this going to get me killed?" He asked Kakashi, who was lounging on the bed, watching him get dressed with a hungry eye.

"Do you think so little of your own pranks?" Kakashi asked cheerfully.

Iruka yanked on his shirt, glaring at his lover as soon as his head was free of the fabric. "No." He snapped. "I do, however, think so little of any pranks come up with when I was drunk and assisted by you. I'll be lucky if Tsunade doesn't immediately declare me a traitor to the village. A chuunin-schoolteacher S-class criminal."

Kakashi snorted as he picked up a hairband and helped Iruka corral his hair into a ponytail. "Oh, you're much more dangerous than that. P-class."

"Eh?" Iruka tugged the ponytail tight and turned to stare at his lover. "Kakashi, I have been working the mission desk since I was nineteen and have filed papers at the Hokage tower since I was a genin. There is no such thing."

Kakashi gave him his infamous curved eye smile. "Of course there is. Only the best ANBU are able to get close to them. The P-class are the most dangerous of all. Pranksters can do so much worse than just kill you."

Iruka snorted and swatted Kakashi upside his head. "Idiot. Let's get this over with."

Iruka couldn't help but feel a sense of nervous anticipation tingling up his spine as they strolled closer to the center of town. It was Kakashi who noticed the buzz of laughter and raised voices in the direction of the mission room and elbowed Iruka's ribs. Iruka winced, but followed in the wake of the jounin as he forged a path for them in that direction.

Iruka had the sinking feeling it was worse than he anticipated, by the roar of amused laughter that swelled the closer they got. He debated how easily he could get lost in the crowd and make his way back the apartment and hide for the rest of his natural life. Kakashi's wiry fingers wrapped around his wrist and his lover gave him a shake of his head, as if he knew exactly what Iruka was thinking.

Finally, they made it close enough to see the source of the commotion. Iruka blanched. Oh, yes, it was worse than he thought.

Much worse.

A group of seven… er, jounin were rather frantically trying to figure out why they couldn't take a single step without stepping either on a banana peel, or in a pool of viscous mud or in… Iruka sniffed and winced… dog crap. As he watched, one slipped and skidded into two of the others. They went down in a heap.

Iruka stared, torn between laughter and mortification. He groaned and buried his face in his hand. I am never getting drunk… ever again.

Not only that, but each of them was a victim of a localized and very specific genjutsu. Each one of them looked like some variation on a simian. Iruka could see the slight shimmer on their backs where the tags had to be attached. If you knew what you were looking for, you could see it in a full body genjutsu like that. With Ibiki, he'd sown it into the man's ever-present trenchcoat, under the lining. Aoba hadn't been so careful, merely sticking the tags on their backs.

"Oh, gods, she's going to kill me." Iruka muttered as he watched the slipping, sliding parade of jounins. Aoba had clearly modified the tags. Not only did they look like monkeys, they looked like monkeys dressed in outfits of varying ridiculousness. There was a mountain gorilla in a frilly, yellow tutu and a baboon in a bikini. Iruka ignored the sniggering Kakashi beside him and wished that the earth would open and swallow him whole.

He distinctly heard Anko's delighted laughter. "Now that's what I call a monkey's uncle!" She crowed over the noise of the crowd.

Iruka flinched as she spotted him and deftly sprang up to balance on one of the ever-present wires running between buildings. She ran lightly across the wire to drop down beside him, eyes sparkling with mirth. "Did you do all this? It's priceless!"

Iruka tried his patented look from his pre-genin days; the tried and true 'Don't look at me, I had nothing to do with this' accompanied by a helpless shrug.

Kakashi spoiled it by answering for him, his smoky voice full of laughter. "Nope. Iruka only helped a little."

Iruka shot his head around to glare at Kakashi. "Shut the fuck up." He hissed.

Kakashi grinned. "Aw, why not take credit?"

Iruka snagged Kakashi's shirtfront and tugged him close enough to snarl in his face. "Because that tag is a trick I developed! And remember what I said about forbidden? Tsunade-sama is going to have my balls for breakfast. And right about now, I'm more than willing to spill your part in all this, so she'll probably have yours stewed in sake for a side dish!"

As if his voice had summoned her, Tsunade's voice thundered from the window above the Mission room. "What the hell is all this?"

Oh, hell. I am a dead man walking.

The bedraggled jounin monkeys managed to form an uneven line before Tsunade as she leapt lightly down from the window. Iruka winced as he saw her nose wrinkle at the smell wafting off the straggling line.

Tsunade sighed and made a quick set of hand signs. "Kai!"

The monkey seemings dissolved into mist, leaving behind seven very smelly and unhappy jounins before the Hokage.

Her lips quirked upwards at the corners. "That didn't help your appearance much. Go home and clean up, the lot of you." She watched them limp away, their dignity battered and abused.

"Now, can anyone tell me what happened here?"

Iruka flinched.

Aoba stepped out of the muttering crowd, his back straight in spite of the crutch supporting him. "I claim responsibility, Hokage-sama."

Tsunade tipped her head. "Yamishiro Aoba?"

The special jounin nodded, flushing behind his sunglasses.

Tsunade nodded and waved at him to precede her into the tower.

Aoba still hadn't come out of her office two hours later when Iruka reported for duty. He sighed as he dropped his bag at his desk. Time to own up. He couldn't let poor Aoba suffer all her wrath. He politely excused himself, saying that he needed to see the Hokage. The two ANBU guarding her door stared at him from behind expressionless white masks as he tapped on the door. There was no answer.

Hesitantly, he looked up at the ANBU before pushing the door open. "Hokage-sam—?"

He was greeted by a peal of laughter. "Did you see their faces—Ah, and here's the other culprit now!"

Aoba was sitting in a comfortable chair with his injured leg propped up and a cup of sake in one hand. Tsunade, grinning, waved him in and poured him a cup before refilling her own. "I don't think I've laughed so much in years." She said frankly, her hazel eyes sparkling with mirth.

Iruka hunched his shoulders. "You're not angry?"

"Oh, furious."

Iruka blinked as Tsunade's mouth quirked up. Then she burst into laughter. "No. That group has been nothing but trouble since I had to confine them to the village. I'm about to clear them for out of village missions just to get them out of everyone's hair. Still low-ranking, most of them, because those types of injuries don't heal quickly, but at least something to keep them occupied until they're back to full strength. It did them good to be knocked down a peg or two. And they have been warned that I will not tolerate retaliation on Aoba-san."

"So are we in trouble?" Iruka asked, not sure he wanted to hear the answer.

Tsunade studied him. "By all accounts, you should be, because I forbade that particular trick for a reason. However, just this once, I'm going to let it slide. Besides, I have an eyewitness that tells me you were quite drunk and being egged on by a certain unrepentant annoyance. But if you do it again, I won't be so lenient. You'll be wishing that you were dead if I catch you pulling that again. Are we clear?"

Iruka nodded, swallowing. Definitely no more drinking, ever again.

There was another knock on the door and Tsunade looked up with an irritated frown. "What now? I told them that I didn't want to be disturbed by anyone after Iruka-sensei."

An ANBU stuck his head in the door. "Your pardon, Hokage-sama, but there is a delivery person here with a delivery…" He paused and glanced back over his shoulder. "—For all three of you."

Tsunade raised a curious eyebrow. "Eh? What in the world?"

A sweating Ino came in with a huge arrangement of lilacs and Stargazer and Tiger Lilies. She grinned at them as she set the arrangement on the table beneath the huge window. "Sign here." She thrust a clipboard at Iruka, who automatically took it. He signed his name absentmindedly while watching Tsunade pull a small card from the flowers.

She opened it as Ino slipped out and began laughing again.

"To the Hokage and the esteemed members of this morning's prank. Our thanks for the cleaning of the pup kennels. Signed, the Inuzuka clan." She read aloud between snickers.

Iruka blinked as Aoba began laughing too.

Aoba managed to get his breath back and chuckling, he told Iruka that he'd pulled a trick of his own. His jutsu had removed the fresh piles of puppy crap from the kennels and had dropped it directly under his chosen target's feet. The same trick had been used for the mud, which had come from the swampy edge of the forest and, well, even he didn't know where the banana peels came from, only that they had appeared.

Laughing, Iruka downed his sake and assured him he didn't want to know.

A/N: I claim no responsibility for the crack that is this story. Durgas (AKA Jarredgoddess, AKA Durgas Dragon) made me do it.

Beta by Micah_n10