Like Father...

"So, your mother thinks we need to talk."

Sakumo looked up at his father with one eyebrow lifted in a way that Kakashi suspected all medics learned to lift their eyebrows after a while. "Yeah?" he asked.

They were sitting together on the porch, hunched over a go board. His father was wearing a pale gray yukata opened over a pair of loose trousers with neither his mask nor his headband and he looked, to Sakumo, like an entirely different man. He smiled down at the board. They had finished training not an hour ago and his father, well into his fifties now, didn't even look winded let alone tired while he had stripped himself of most of his clothes to compensate for how much of a sweat he had worked up just trying to keep pace.

"It seemed silly to me to discuss sex with a medic, but she insisted."

Sakumo blushed pink but laughed and looked up at his dad, who he noticed has also turned a faint shade of red. "Yeah, we've pretty much covered that in the academy and at the hospital," he said, sounding strangled. "What did she think we needed to talk about?"

Kakashi shrugged and reached out to the board to make a move. "I think she just wanted to make sure you understood that you could talk to both of us if something came up or if you had any questions." He smiled a little and rubbed at the back of his head. "Even though you probably know things in theory that would surprise me."

The boy blushed a little more fervently but laughed again anyway. "Maybe," he said, obviously embarrassed. "But there's a difference between theory and practice in everything."

His father couldn't deny this and didn't try to. Instead his mouth ran away with him and he wondered if he was really to blame for Ran's sudden outbursts. "So… there's not been anyone yet?"

Sakumo was now a shade and a half darker than his hair. "No," he admitted. "I mean, it's just… I can't do it—I mean I could, it's not like I've not had any offers—but I can't be in a relationship right now with training and missions and I don't think I can be casual about that kind of thing and that sounds stupid, doesn't it?"

Kakashi smiled. It was so refreshing to hear his son, who was so worldly and wise and smart, sound like an actual teenager every now and then. "I don't think so."

His son rolled his eyes. "It's all the other guys talk about," he said. "They brag about the prostitutes they've been with and which kunoichi they'd like to get in their beds."

"What do you talk about?"

"I ask them to consult me if they start experiencing any troubling symptoms indicative of a sexually transmitted disease and I refuse to bathe in the same onsen as them."

Kakashi laughed out loud and his son smiled.

For a few moments, neither said anything and instead focused on the game board between them. Then Kakashi said, with a casual air, "So, that teammate of yours is very pretty."

Sakumo sighed, sounding defeated and annoyed all at once. "Am I that obvious?"

His father grinned. "Your mother still doesn't know," he offered, trying to balm his son's wounded pride. For an experienced veteran like his father, the boy was sometimes too easy to read. "Well?"

Sakumo squirmed as he thought of his teammate. Fierce, harsh, demanding Shiori with the golden, hawk-like eyes and long, violet hair was the daughter of a war refugee and a master swordswoman in her own right. She had been a jounin since she was fourteen, terrified most of her senior commanders, and hadn't taken well to being stuck on a team with Konoha's most famous martial pacifist.

And, gods help him, Sakumo was completely smitten.

"I'm screwed," the boy said with a resigned kind of certainty.

Kakashi laughed. "I didn't know my mother much," he murmured. "But if your mother is anything to go by… yeah. We Hatake men seem to have a thing for that sort of woman."

Sakumo raised an eyebrow at his father. "Mom was scary when you married her?"

"Your mother has always been scary."

The boy chuckled miserably and rubbed at his forehead. "Well, I guess it can't be that bad," he said after a while. "I mean, you two are happy, right?"

His father smiled. "Your mother has given me everything I never dared to think I deserved," he replied. He reached out to comb his fingers gently through his son's hair and out of his doleful, gray eyes. "Like you and your sister."

Sakumo nodded slowly. "I'll be content to find someone who makes me half that happy," he replied. "Sadly, Shiori might kill me sooner than that."

Kakashi threw his head back and laughed again and his son grinned widely as he reached for the board to make a move. That was how Sakura found them an hour later as she came across the field toward the house, the dogs at her heels. Kakashi frowned a bit when he realized the group was down by one head of silver hair. "Where's Ran?" he called.

"She told me that she and the boys are camping out on the Hokage monument," his wife replied.

Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "You believe that?"

His wife laughed. "Of course not," she replied, leaning down to kiss him gently on the lips. "But I didn't ask. We'll find out soon enough when Shikamaru brings her home, dragging her by her braid." She paused. "That is if Naruto doesn't have something to do with it. Hokage or not, he's never grown out of his mischievous streak." She paused to kiss her son's forehead. "If you happen to find the time yet tonight—"

"I'll go look for her, Mom," he son cut in with a smile. "Don't worry."

She returned the smile with fondness and then straightened, lifting the grocery bags in her hands to show them off. "Whoever comes in to help with dinner doesn't have to help with dishes."

Father and son glanced at one another and then at their game board. "I'll wash if you dry," Kakashi offered as he reached out to move a piece.

Sakumo nodded. "Deal."

1. I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I know it's been ages since I updated and bleehhhh. I just really haven't had time to write lately and it SUCKS.

2. Someone asked about me writing a father/son companion piece to the earlier chapter that features Sakura's and Ran's talk about sex. Sooo here you go!

3. I am ridiculously unhappy with how this turned out, but I did really enjoy writing Sakumo and Kakashi together, because I realized that I haven't really done that since chapter one.

4. Don't talk to me about the manga. I just can't even.

5. House Calls! I swear, House Calls will be updated! I don't know when, I just promise that it's not abandoned and the final chapter will go up eventually!
I've come too damn far to quit!

Please review.