Thank you for all the people who reviewed! It was my first time attempting someone like Gai and it flatters me to know you all thought I did so well.
I am not sure what I think about this chapter, so feedback and constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated!
Kakashi knew something was up when Kurenai discreetly made the hand signs to dispel a jutsu for the fifth time and Asuma burned a second hole into his sheets.
He decided not to mention the matter and calmly pointed out the hospital's policy on smoking to Asuma—as in it wasn't allowed.
Asuma seemed to take things in stride slightly better than Kurenai. He shrugged. "Well, they haven't given me a good enough reason to quit and anyhow, what are they going to do about it? They just put me together again; they're not going to take me apart so soon."
Kakashi hm'd. "They could give you Xin as a nurse."
Asuma shuddered. "Ugh, no! Thank gods I'm still too wounded for that to be a worry."
"What brings down to this part of the hospital?" Kurenai asked, almost making it seem like she was making small talk.
He shrugged in an offhanded manner. "I was walking down the street after helping some Girl Scouts kick some Boy Scouts' butts and ran into a flying green platypus that said I should mosey over here." He spread his hands slightly. "So here I am. How are you feeling?"
"Less like shit." Asuma said, relaxed and lazy. "I only sort of feel like shit on most days and more and more like crap. They say I should get passed the crap stages pretty fast, but we'll see what will happen when we get that far. But enough about me. How have you been?"
"Mm, can't complain too much. The Hokage won't let me do anything of real interest, but what's new about that?"
"Kurenai tells me that you've been helping Iruka-san recover."
"All I do is make sure he doesn't do anything too stupid and hurt himself again."
"I owe that man my life." Asuma lit another cigarette thoughtfully. "Without him, I wouldn't be here."
"So I hear." Hmm…this could turn into a situation where he could kill two birds with one stone. Iruka hadn't taken up the bait on giving him information on what had happened, but perhaps he could get some more details from Asuma.
"He dragged both Hana-san and me across the entire damn forest and he was in no shape to do so, either." Asuma blew out a puff of smoke and Kurenai excused herself. "He's a good fighter. Doesn't know anything special, but I've never seen anyone so quick with the simplest stuff. And he's resourceful. He rigged up a trap that probably saved our asses with just a few exploding tags, mouthwash, and a shrunken."
"Mouthwash?"
"Yup. Damnedest thing I've ever seen. I guess it's roll-over from his prankster days; never thought I'd be grateful for anything like that."
"What, you didn't appreciate the lace?"
Asuma snorted and glared at Kakashi but it held no bite. "It itched. A lot. Anyhow, explaining that to Kurenai was an adventure. You got off easy with the ink prank."
"He does a good job of luring people into a false sense of security." Kakashi noted mildly.
"Until you turn your report in late." Asuma grinned before sobering. "You haven't seen him serious in a fight, have you? For a chunin, it's pretty terrifying. And he can switch from the least dangerous person to a deadly ninja in least then a heartbeat. He's good about even luring the enemies in to a false sense of security; that's probably his strongest gift right there." He took a drag on his cigarette. "Stubborn little fuck, as well. He wouldn't leave Hana or me behind, despite what we said. Kept telling us that it was his way of the ninja." He shook his head. "When that man wants something to happen, nothing's going to stop him from making it so."
"I know how that goes." Kakashi remembered the first day Iruka had decided that he was going to walk to his therapy.
"With some training and some motivation, he'd make a jounin even scarier than you in the morning." Asuma mused thoughtfully, the humour dancing as an undercurrent.
"Worse than hung-over green spandex?"
The mirth glinted in Asuma's eyes though his mouth stayed serious. "Quite possibly."
"Then I guess we're lucky he wants to use his gifts to terrorise those midgets and not us."
"I'll drink to that…if I had something to drink." Asuma gave Kakashi a sly sidelong glance.
"Not this time." Asuma heaved a sigh. "I'll bring some next time and we can try and see how drunk we can get before Kurenai or the nurses put a stop to it."
Asuma was almost unsuccessful in hiding the flicker of surprise, but he recovered well. "If it's really good stuff, we could get Kurenai in on it, but it'd have to be the really good stuff."
"We could tell Gai that Raidou said he didn't think Gai could properly guard a door."
"It'd be more believable if we said it was Genma."
"We could tell that Inuzuka brat on Kurenai-san's team that she's off to see another man."
Asuma roared, coughed, winced, and then laughed until he was wiping tears off of his battered face with bandaged hands. "She'd kill us for doing that." He wheezed out few moments later. "Absolutely massacre us."
A disapproving nurse bustled in and shooed Kakashi out, claiming that it was time for Asuma to have a check-up. He tapped the side of his nose as he slid out the window. Asuma grinned and copied the gesture.
He didn't feel quite like going and seeing Iruka's too warm smile yet, but he decided he could at least make sure the teacher was alright. He hopped from branch to branch until he reached the one that was below Iruka's hospital window. Keeping his charka levels low, he listened for a moment.
"…if they try that again, make them run laps." Iruka's warm rich voice slithered out the slightly opened window. "Twenty tends to tire them out too much, but somewhere between ten and fifteen will tire them out enough that they'll behave. Of course, if you want to shake things up and keep the kids from falling into a routine, making them sit silently and hold hands with each other is very effective. If they whine or squish their partner's fingers, add ten minutes on. Tell them it's training in stealth and learning how to work with all sorts of people."
Kakashi settled down on the branch. It sounded like Shikamaru was back and Iruka was walking him through the lesson plan. He loved listening in. Iruka was thorough and not only wrote up a lesson, he could point to places students would have troubles (and which ones they were), points where students would try to sneak out (and who they were), and what punishments should be allotted for any offence—as well as a few extra to have on hand, just in case. He even had justifications for every single punishment and in some cases, two—one for the wannabe ninjas and one for the irate parents that would come in and demand to know why their precious little armed terrors were in detention doing said punishment.
And he had hard lessons and practice sessions. Listening to Iruka made Kakashi wish he had known the man better back when he had a gennin team. He could have used so many of those ideas to tortur—train those brats. He had decided to commit them to memory on the off-shoot chance that the Hokage would decide to force another group of wannabes on him.
Shikamaru grumbled about something and Iruka laughed, a happy, full sound. "No, but you can pick a particular troublemaker to be your example for rope escaping techniques and then 'conveniently' spend the rest of the time helping others and 'forget' to untie them."
Hmm…that could be fun. And it'd serve the little shits right, too.
"Good luck!" He heard Iruka's call and Shikamaru's lazy muttering of 'so troublesome.' He'd wait a bit, then pop into Iruka's room and settle in the window to read the afternoon away (Shikamaru always left a stack of things for Iruka to grade)—
"Now Kurenai-san, what's it you wanted to talk about?"
—Or he could sit out here a bit longer. He didn't want to deal with Kurenai and Iruka, particularly when she was acting weirder than normal.
"So, guess who's downstairs visiting with Asuma."
"I don't know…Ino-chan?" Iruka sounded more patient than curious.
"No. It was your baby-sitter, Kakashi-san." Kurenai said.
"He's not my baby-sitter." The response sounded automatic. "And what's wrong with that? I think it's very nice of Kakashi."
"No, you don't get it. Remember how he doesn't let people get close? Well, that includes visiting people at the hospital. He never comes to the hospital unless he's in it!" Her voice lowered slightly and Kakashi could imagine her leaning in. "I hear he even went for drinks with Gai. Not a competition, but real drinks."
That seemed to get Iruka's attention. "With Gai-san? Are we talking about the same person?"
"Hard to believe, I know." He thought he heard a chair squeak; he guessed that she was leaning back a little bit. He flipped the page on his book. He'd forgotten what a gossip mongrel Kurenai was.
"I'm glad he's finally getting out with people." He glanced up at the window in surprise. What the hell was Iruka talking about? "I was getting worried about him, never getting out with others, but I'm glad that he is." He could hear the soft smile in the chunin's voice.
There was silence for a moment, and then Kurenai let out something that might have been a giggle if she was the giggling type.
"Kurenai-san…" Iruka sounded exasperated. "Stop that now. There's nothing to be tittering about."
"Am I embarrassing you?" She said, sounding slightly gleeful. "I think it's cute."
Iruka must have made a face because she outright laughed this time. "Does Iruka-kun object to be called cute?"
"We're not ten any more." Iruka sounded disgruntled. "I didn't laugh at you when I found about Asuma-san; I think I warrant the same respect."
Kakashi decided that it was time to bust up Iruka and Kurenai's little gossip fest. His butt was telling him there were nicer places to be sitting. Besides, it was starting to rain.
Both occupants in the room started slightly when he ducked in the window. Kurenai had a smoother recovery than Iruka did. "Kakashi-san," she nodded a greeting in his direction. "Enjoy your visit with Asuma?"
"Well, we got interrupted by a group of scantily clad nurses with a nasty perchance to bite, but I think we got away with minimum scarring and smallest amount of mess possible." He made sure to leer a little. Kurenai glared hard at him and Iruka discreetly coughed into his hand, his ears wonderfully red. He pulled out his Icha Icha. "Don't mind me."
"Well, if that's the case, I'd best go check on him, shouldn't I?" She stood up smoothly, still giving Kakashi dirty looks. "I'll talk to you later, Iruka-sensi."
"It was nice seeing you." Iruka smiled, but it didn't seem as warm as the Kakashi remembered. Maybe it was a trick of the light.
There were a few moments of silence after she left, and then Iruka ventured forth. "The doctors say I'm well enough to go home in two days."
"That's good." Kakashi didn't look up. "Are you still going to have therapy and all that?"
"Yes, of course." Iruka nervously scratched his scar. Kakashi noted that his shoulder was healing nicely. "Ah, Kakashi…will you still be around? When I get out of the hospital, I mean. I don't know that I'll be able to do much on my own and…well, I don't want to be imposing on you but I was wondering—"
"Iruka-sensei—"
"Iruka."
"Fine, Iruka. You are my mission until you heal." He thought he saw Iruka's face fall slightly at the word 'mission'. "And until I have received orders that you are fit, then I will be 'around', as you put it."
Iruka looked slightly panicked. "I didn't mean it that way!"
Kakashi heaved a dramatic sigh. "Yes, you did." He said mournfully. "You were looking forwards to getting rid of me. I saw the countdown that you keep under your pillow to when you were free of Kakashi Hatake and now you're going to have to add days to it…" He sighed again theatrically.
Iruka's liquid eyes had softened. He picked up his pen and turned to his grading. "I'm glad." He said quietly, his cheeks a dusky and warm red. "I was worried that my 'countdown'—as you put it—was going to be cut short. I'm relieved to know that it isn't."
There was nothing Kakashi could say to that.
