Twenty Facts About Team Eight

by Tiamat's Child

Twenty things that are from certain angles true about rookie team eight.

Title: Twenty Facts About Team Eight
Author: Tiamat's Child
Rating: G
Fandom: Naruto
Pairing/s, characters: Kiba, Hinata, Shino, Kurenai, Akamaru
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Twenty things that are (from certain angles) true about rookie team eight.

Twenty Facts About Team Eight

1) Kiba enjoys pouncing people. Whether he hits them or hugs them afterward is an entirely secondary issue, as far as he's concerned. It's just not the point.

2) Hinata is accustomed to touches that are gentle. What she isn't used to yet is touch that is kind.

3) Shino isn't a particularly tactile person, at least not in ways that most other humans understand, but he sometimes touches his teammates anyway – a hand on Kiba's shoulder, a hand on Hinata's arm, careful, restrained, but thoroughly well meant.

4) Kurenai wonders sometimes why an illusionist got handed three very physical kids. Not that she's not grateful for them. But she wonders.

5) There was a tense moment the first day both Shino and Kiba brought Hinata lunch. Kurenai was about to step in when Hinata smiled, and took both boxes, and said, "Thank you! How did you two know I didn't get breakfast today?"

6) The third month they work together, Hinata holds her hand out for one of Shino's scouts, and is shocked when it comes to her, resting for a moment on the back of her palm. If she were anyone else, she'd babble with delight, but as it is she simply turns a tiny smile on Shino. She's the only one who sees his grin.

7) Akamaru has to be convinced that Shino's insects are not for stalking practice.

8) All of them get cold easily, and so Hinata hides in her boxy coat, and Kiba zips Akamaru into his jacket, and Shino is silently grateful for the heat of his high collar.

Kurenai just shakes her head at her charges sparring in winter clothes in the summer, and makes sure they get plenty of water.

9) Kiba pushes at Shino, testing, attempting to argue and bicker and sort out their ground and their places, set the jangling warmth between them into something understandable and defined.

10) Shino doesn't push back. He follows Kiba or he doesn't, but he never lets Kiba set them up as rivals. Shino's no one's rival. He's just himself.

11) Hinata doesn't offer direction often, but when she does the boys fall about her like planets, revolving on her tentative, half swallowed words.

12) Kiba and Hinata stalk Shino for a full half a day as practice before Shino stops in front of an ice cream shop and says, "I'll buy today, Hinata, Kiba. Does mint sound good?"

13) Kurenai worries about her team. When they're good, they're brilliant, moving together with an almost eerie seamlessness, fierce and easy and brave. But sometimes Hinata will lapse, and shake herself as if she's woken up from a dream, and be no use at all for the rest of the day. So far that hasn't happened in the middle of a true fight, but Kurenai worries. She worries when Shino turns away, retreating into the back of his own mind, away from his teammates and their task. She worries when Kiba bounds in without taking the time to check the team – because he's eager, because he's angry.

She's afraid they'll fall apart, get hurt, fail to cover each other, die.

She drills them over and over, working them hard, doing all she knows, wishing consistency was as easy to impart as power.

14) Kiba always eats in the middle of loud, noisy confusion, dogs underfoot and younger cousins complaining that it's not fair, he took the last slice of the good cheese, and his aunt attempting to thwack him without spilling anything for making the baby laugh and spit mashed banana everywhere, and his great uncle loudly proclaiming that the reason Kiba eats so little at breakfast is that his teacher is far too easy on him, back when he was a genin he practically had to eat a cow if he was going to survive to lunch, and one of his older cousins telling him to bring Hinata and Shino home for dinner today, it's going to be good and both of them need more meat on their bones, and another cousin screaming at him to tell Akamaru to just behave and take his damn worming medication already, and his great great aunt threatening to skin them all alive if everyone doesn't rinse their bowls –

The training grounds always seem eerily quiet in comparison.

15) Hinata always gets up early, long before dawn, and slips into the kitchens to gather up yesterday's leftovers while there's still no one about to see. It shames her to take her family's food when there is nothing she can offer in return.

16) Shino rests quietly, sprawled on the floor of his family's home, and half dreams as they move around him, indulgent of his youth, as light on their feet as if they too were treading on blood vessels and nerves.

17) Kurenai's been on her own for a long time, but, walking home in the rain, she always stops when Asuma waves and calls to her, or Gai, or Anko, or any of the others, and walks with them, sharing an umbrella and roasted chestnuts, or licorice, or the candied ginger that always makes her think of her mother, laughing and almost whole, and the space between her shoulder and that of companion becomes the entirety of Konoha, warm and beloved and safe as they walk.

18) Shino doesn't know what to do when Hinata nearly collapses in tears when he brings her water and a cold compress for her sprained and elevated ankle. "I can get it," she says, still soft, but higher pitched and louder than usual, "I can, Shino, I can, you don't need to, I can stand, I can, please let me – "

Kiba glares at him, but he has no idea what he did, and he hopes the lines his wide eyes are making in the skin of his face gets that through. "Hey, hey, Hinata," Kiba says, "It's okay, we like helping you."

Shino nods, and puts the compress on her ankle, and hands her the glass.

"I'm sorry," she says, and almost drops the water, "I am. I can walk."

19) Hinata always has the last watch. Kurenai always has the first. The boys insist on taking the middle two.

20) Kiba always tells anyone who'll stand still long enough that "Survival is our specialty!" Most people figure what he really means is that survival is his specialty, and the others are along for the ride, but Kiba means what he says, and he knows it's the truth, besides.