Side Effects, Chapter 17
Chibi-Naruto (groovin'): Go me! Go me! I'm a special treat! Go me! Oh yeah...
Chibi-Sakura: As if. Now, if it was Sasuke-kun, then that would've been a special treat...
Chibi-Sasuke (practicing the Chibi Glare of Death on a tree that seems distinctly unimpressed): ...
Chibi-Sakura: See? Wasn't that totally cute?
(Chibi-Sasuke tries the Chibi Glare of Death again. The fundamental problem with this, of course, is that chibi eyes are just too darn cute to petrify anything properly. Chibi-Sasuke is somewhat distressed by this, but tries not to let it show.)
Chibi-Sasuke (petulant): ...
Chibi-Sakura: Awww~~ isn't that just adorable? 3 (glomps grouchy!Chibi-Sasuke)
(Chibi-Naruto is torn between protesting why Chibi-Sakura isn't glomping him and breaking a rib laughing at how cute, cuddly, and totally not intimidating grouchy!Chibi-Sasuke looks.)
Chibi-Kakashi: Good, the kids are squabbling amongst themselves. Now, let's get back to the actual special treat that got so rudely interrupted -- the fan service from yours truly, of course. Curse the limitations of this PG-13 rating; I'll simply need to (flexing fingers) stretch my range more, to push the boundaries of insinuation...
Chibi-Sakura: I think you've pushed those boundaries quite far enough, you know.
Chibi-Kakashi: Excuse me. Go back to glomping your grouchy-chibi-victim over there. --Hey, Iruka, I was the special treat, wasn't I? (snuggle snuggle)
Chibi-Iruka (dreamy-eyed sparkle, faintly pink cheeks, rubbing two fingertips together a la Hinata-chan): ...I thought it was the chocolate ice cream...
(Chibi-Kakashi and Chibi-Naruto trade absolutely betrayed looks.)
Chibi-Kakashi: So what are we, chopped liver?
Chibi-Iruka (hastily): Of course I love you both! It's just that I hadn't had ice cream for six months... or caramel! Mmmm, caramel... (off in sparkly-eyed fantasy land again)
(Chibi-Naruto and Chibi-Kakashi look at each other again, and shrug.)
Chibi-Kakashi (slipping a hand around to get some groping in while Chibi-Iruka is distracted): I can think of all kinds of better places to put caramel, you know...
Chibi-Naruto (groovin' again): So anyway! Go me! Go me! Oh yeah--!
Iruka stared down in shock at the boy who was attempting to hug both Kakashi and himself at once and chattering a mile a minute.
"...So there was this huge bear, it must have been twenty feet tall, and it was gonna rip my head off and everything! Except I got it in a headlock and I body-slammed it -- er, okay, actually maybe it kinda sat on me -- but I still kicked its ass a good one and then I--"
Iruka looked up at Kakashi, unable to speak, utterly overwhelmed. Whatever hopes they might have had of being able to come up with a plausible explanation of adopting a foundling when they returned to Konoha-- well, those had just vanished like a puff of chakra smoke.
So had the rest of what he thought he'd be able to count on here, actually. Being able to live quietly as a married couple, being able to pretend that it was all right for him to be their smiling, female Iruka-sensei rather than a man in love with another man... able to enjoy the escape from the prejudices, and the pressures of their lives. Being able to teach young children only the gentle things in the world -- having the luxury to simply enjoy the pregnancy and their peaceful shared life together, as though they belonged here... and to forget, for a little while, that they didn't belong here...
Iruka bit his lip hard, fighting back a wave of tears, overwhelmed by shame that burned hot enough to scald.
I knew all this was just a fantasy. I've always known that. But it was so sweet, and... I didn't want to have to give it up, not just yet... I didn't want to have to face reality so soon -- the reality where I teach innocents not how to read, but how to kill; the reality where he comes back bloodied and staggering so often... I didn't want my own life back, not yet...Kakashi squeezed his hand gently; then a moment later, he hauled Naruto off of them by the scruff of his neck and tossed him a couple yards away, both hands planted on his hips with his best drill-sergeant glare.
"Naruto, you idiot--"
But before he could get through with the rest of the lecture, they both realized he'd picked up a soprano echo -- from Sakura, who was seething so visibly it looked as though her hair might burst into flame: "Naruto, you idiot -- you don't use flying tackles on ladies!"
"I know that!" he said, annoyed. "Where do you see a lady around here?"
Sakura burst into incoherent howls of rage.
Kakashi said, with remarkable self-control, "Naruto, I want you to look carefully." He wrapped his arm around the boy's neck in a gesture somewhere between a hug and a headlock, then aimed his chin at Iruka, who wanted nothing more than to curl up in a hole in the ground and die.
"Now, tell me," Kakashi said, quite conversationally. "How can you look at someone wearing a dress with a neckline like that, and not notice that the person wearing it is a woman?"
"But it's Iruka-sensei!" Naruto said, blithe as anything.
Sakura stormed over and grabbed Naruto by the headband and shook until his teeth rattled, shouting in his ear, "FIRST OF ALL, I'M A LADY TOO! Second of all -- so is Iruka-sensei, REMEMBER?!"
"Oh yeah -- I forgot! Ehehehe..."
Sakura ground the heel of her palm into her face with a groan; Kakashi, whose one visible eye held a peculiar blend of amusement, exasperation, and resignation, let the boy go and scruffled his hair.
"So now that you remember, now will you go say a more proper hello to Iruka-sensei?" Without missing a beat, he added, "It's nice to see you again, Sakura-chan. Quite a surprise, but nice..."
"It's a really long story," Sakura said with a groan, as Naruto stalked over toward Iruka and looked him up and down assessingly.
Oh, God, just let me die here and now...
He could see the slow bewilderment creeping into Naruto's face, and tried to brace himself for whatever was going to come out of the boy's mouth next.
"Iruka-sensei, you got fat!" he exclaimed, sounding somehow personally betrayed by this.
With a snarl of rage, Sakura grabbed a fallen branch from the grass and broke it over Naruto's head. "You don't say that to a woman, you insensitive moron!"
"Ow! But it's true-- OUCH! HEY--"
Shaking, Iruka took a half-step backwards, just one more thoughtless Naruto-outburst away from breaking and running from this entire horrible, ludicrous fiasco. But Kakashi was suddenly there beside him, with a supportive arm about his waist -- and a strength in that hold which said that he wasn't letting go without a struggle.
"It'll be all right," he murmured. "You can do this. We can do this. I'm right here."
"I know, but... oh, God..."
"I swear," Kakashi said, very softly. "It'll all be all right. Just wait and see."
Sakura had finished beating lumps into Naruto's head and kicked the whimpering huddled-up orange-and-blonde ball into rolling towards their feet again, then stood over him glaring bloody murder.
"We practiced, remember?" she shouted. "We practiced your pronouns all the way here!" She looked around hastily for any villagers who might be in earshot, then bent closer and hissed, "And you told me you could remember when to say 'he' or 'she', after spending all that time teaching Sasuke and me your jutsu so you could practice pronouns on us!"
"That was an excuse to get Sasuke in drag and laugh at him!" With a leer, he added, "Don't tell me you didn't enjoy Sasuke in drag too!"
"Sasuke-kun's here too?" Iruka yelped, looking around; Sakura was too busy blushing and protesting to manage a coherent answer to the question.
"He thinks he's doing lookout duty or something," Naruto scoffed. "Bastard. Probably going to 'guard' us from little kids with lollipops or something..."
Right now, with the kind of conversation they were having, being guarded from little kids with lollipops didn't sound like the worst idea in the world. Far from it, in fact... Iruka clung to Kakashi's hand tightly, trying to brace himself for the inevitable moment of realization.
Naruto sat up and squinted up at Iruka again, grinning from ear to ear. "So when did you get so lazy? No wait, I know -- You ate all the ramen I wasn't here to eat! That means I gotta stick around, and eat your ramen until you get back in shape, don't I!" He folded his arms and nodded agreement with his own point.
Kakashi hid his face in one hand with a quiet groan; this time Iruka squeezed his hand for support.
Sakura hit Naruto over the head one more time for good measure, panting, and then turned to look at Iruka with her mouth open to apologize for Naruto -- and the words got stuck in her throat, her eyes widening. She landed on the ground beside Naruto with a thump, pointing with a shaking finger.
"Oh, God," Iruka said, absolutely miserable.
It was nearly drowned out by Sakura's shriek: "Iruka-sensei~~! Iruka-sensei, you-- you--!"
Naruto looked back and forth between Sakura's finger, the quietly chuckling Kakashi, and Iruka, who was blushing fiercely enough that it was visible even by the moonlight. "...Huh?"
Sakura lunged for him; panicked, Iruka tried to back away, but Kakashi's gentle, inexorable embrace kept him from running or from falling. So there was nothing he could do but wait for the impact -- wait for her to slap him, or to demand to know how he could do something so -- unnatural, so at odds with the honesty he tried to instill in his students, so--
Sakura flung her arms around his shoulders and hugged him in absolute delight, then stepped back and looked at him with an ear-to-ear smile.
"I can't believe it! Why didn't you write and tell any of us? You know we'd have wanted to know -- if nothing else, Tsunade-san would love to study the medical implications -- but I can't believe you didn't tell us, Iruka-sensei! Kakashi-sensei's hopeless, but I thought you at least would tell us something this important!"
Iruka knew his mouth was hanging open, but he was having a hard time reorienting himself fast enough to realize that she truly wasn't revolted or horrified, and he wasn't quite sure about the inquisition but it didn't sound like she was actually angry either.
With a glint of mischief sparkling in her eyes, Sakura patted the soft, rounding bulge in the front of the dress, and started an astounding string of rapid-fire questioning.
"How many months has it been? Have you felt it yet? How are you doing? If you've been ill in the mornings, Tsunade-san taught me a tea to make -- of course, you're showing enough that for most people it would have gone away by this point, but some poor women have to put up with the morning sickness the entire time, I don't know how they can stand it-- but you look wonderful, Iruka-sensei; go on, talk! Tell me everything..."
And suddenly, it really was all right. Unable to speak around the huge knot of relief caught in his throat and the way his heart was pounding with the release of the fear he hadn't even known how to name, Iruka reached out and pulled Sakura close enough to hug.
"Thank you, Sakura-kun," he whispered, and swallowed hard to try to regain control of his voice and his emotions. "And I'm fine! You're right, the first couple of months were... not very pleasant, but since then I've been absolutely fine."
"So how far along are you?"
A little pink, he managed, "Beginning my sixth month, I think."
"Really? You don't look that big! But then I suppose the dress might hide some things -- it's gorgeous, by the way--"
An extremely left-out Naruto protested at the top of his lungs, "I said, 'HUH?!'"
Sakura toppled over backwards, one foot sticking up in the air and vaguely twitching. Kakashi nearly doubled up with laughter.
Iruka shot a half-lidded glare at his hilarity-stricken lover, then moved to kneel by Naruto's side and stroked the boy's shaggy blonde hair, a rueful apology for their laughter.
"It's not quite that I'm getting fat, Naruto-kun," he said, wry and gentle. "I'm just... I'm going to have a baby."
Naruto's jaw actually hit his knees. It looked painful.
"Naruto...?"
"SAY WHAT? I mean, what the hell-- I mean, HOW--?"
Oh, God...
Sakura, who had just started to pick herself up, fell flat again; Kakashi landed in the grass with a thump, completely convulsed with hilarity.
He said he was going to help me through this, dammit. Fat lot of help busting a gut laughing is doing me...
I'm a teacher. I can do this. Breathe. Keep breathing. Try again...Still, his face was burning so painfully that Iruka half wondered if it was possible to have gotten a sunburn from force of blushing, as he fumbled his way awkwardly, delicately through the beginnings of The Talk.
"Naruto-kun... s-sometimes, when two people... um... when they l-love each other very much..."
"The word is 'pregnant,' Naruto!" Kakashi choked, still shaking with glee. "Women do have a tendency to get like that, you know...!"
"But -- but you... but...!" Then his eyes widened, and he looked at Iruka in absolute horror.
"N-naruto...?"
"Women get like that," he whispered. "Women get-- oh, dammit, Iruka-sensei, I'm sorry--! It's -- it's my fault, isn't it? It's all my fault--! Dammit -- I -- I'm so, so sorry...!"
As Iruka stared in bemused shock, the boy burst into heartwrenching, bone-wracking sobs that shook his whole body.
"Naruto--"
Cautiously, Iruka reached to touch the boy's huddled shoulder; for a moment, Naruto pulled away, and then suddenly he twisted around and flung both arms around Iruka and sobbed into his chest.
With a deep soft sigh, Iruka began to rub the trembling little shoulders, and to smooth the untameable thatch of shaggy sun-blonde hair -- just to comfort him, not through any misplaced belief that there was any amount of smoothing which would settle that blonde mop.
"It's all right," Iruka murmured, with a wistful smile. "It's really all right. You haven't hurt me, Naruto-kun -- you've given me a truly extraordinary gift. I'm not angry with you. Not at all. In fact... I think I've never been happier in my life."
Still huddled up in guilt-knotted grief, Naruto didn't quite dare look up yet. "...You mean that...?"
"I promise," Iruka said, and curved a hand to the boy's cheek to try to coax away the tear-streaks with gentle fingertips and a gentler smile. "Of course I was surprised -- stunned is more like it, actually -- but... I love children, I love teaching, but I've always had to say goodbye. A part of me had always regretted that I would never be able to have a child of my own, and now... I won't always have to wave goodbye at the end of the day; I won't always send someone else's children home to other parents! The chance to have a child, a child of our own, truly... it's the greatest gift anyone's ever given me. So please -- don't cry. Because the truth is I can never thank you enough."
"R-really...? Really, for sure...?"
Iruka nodded, still smoothing the boy's hair with a careful touch.
"I... I didn't screw up...? I mean... you're really, really happy...? You promise...?"
"I'm absolutely delighted," Iruka assured him, fervently.
Suddenly, Naruto's face lit up with an ear to ear grin, and he turned to Sakura, wriggling with excitement.
"Hey Sakura! Iruka-sensei's going to have a baby! And I helped! Aren't I cool?"
This time Kakashi was the one who fell over flat in speechless bemusement. Sakura had a distinctly peculiar expression on her face, somewhere between "bit into a lemon," "what the (fill-in-the-blank)," and "is that level of stupidity contagious?"
Iruka put a hand over his mouth to try to keep the laughter from escaping, but he had a feeling it wasn't going to last long.
"You should name it after me!" Naruto nodded emphatically. "Naruto Number Two. It's got a classy ring to it--"
Sakura broke another branch over Naruto's head. "Just one of you is far too much for anyone to have to deal with, moron! And what if Iruka-sensei's having a girl?"
"Uhhh..." Only momentarily thrown off his stride, Naruto recovered with, "Then we call it 'Naruto's Cute Little Almost Sister' of course!"
In a voice absolutely choked with barely-suppressed hilarity, Kakashi gasped, "Don't you think you're taking a little too much credit for this?"
"But I was the one who taught Iruka-sensei how to do sexy-no-jutsu! Way to go, me!" He jumped around the clearing excitedly.
Iruka suddenly had a horrible, sinking vision of Naruto's level of comprehension of what was involved in making a child.
He knows 'pregnant' means 'having a baby.' He knows women get pregnant. Does he know how? Oh, God... I might have to finish That Talk anyway...
And the watermelon seeds just won't help clear anything up this time...
Iruka cast a desperate look at Kakashi, who'd pried himself off the ground and was sitting there with what had to be the world's most evilly smug grin behind that turtleneck's collar.
"Help me," he said, half a plea and half an order. Kakashi just laughed, in a way that was not at all reassuring, and wandered over to catch Naruto up in a headlock again.
"So the baby ought to be named after you, eh?"
"Yep! It'll be great!"
"What do you think the father might have to say about that?"
"Oh, Iruka-sensei won't mind!"
With a groan, Iruka buried his face in both hands; Sakura looked at what was left of her stick as though she were contemplating hitting herself over the head with it just for a respite.
One eyebrow quirked to a notch somewhere between hilarity and danger, Kakashi said, "No, Naruto. Iruka's the mother, remember?"
Naruto gave a sheepish giggle. "Oh yeah! Gotta work on that..."
"Right," Kakashi agreed, far too tranquilly. "So. What do you think the father is going to say about that?"
"How should I know?" Then Naruto froze absolutely dead motionless, not even breathing.
It was suddenly far, far too silent; Iruka looked up despite himself, in mute dread.
The look on Naruto's face was absolutely indescribable; Iruka could have sworn he saw each wheel click into place behind the boy's eyes, accompanied by earth-shatttering quantities of shock and horror and bemusement.
"I-iruka-sensei... is... the mother... and... and...--and somebody else has to be the father... so... that only leaves--"
Sakura scrambled backwards despite herself, through long experience with Naruto's temper's blast radius. She clutched at Iruka's arm for reassurance; he clutched at her too, and both of them cowered together, silently mutually debating whether the washed-up log nearby was sturdy enough to dive behind for shelter.
Kakashi, meanwhile, was standing at the epicenter, far too nonchalant, his visible eye arched in a happy curve. Iruka wondered why he wasn't running for cover yet.
Naruto jerked his head out of the headlock, jumped three feet back, and pointed a finger shaking with rage at the cheerfully waiting jounin. At the top of his lungs, he roared, "WHAT KIND OF PERVERTED STUFF DID YOU DO TO IRUKA-SENSEI, YOU KINKY BASTARD?!"
Suddenly, every visible piece of land between the pond and the forest was covered with visibly seething Narutos-- and they all jumped for Kakashi.
Iruka covered his eyes and clung even more tightly to Sakura's hands, not wanting to see what his lover was going to do to several hundred outraged copies of his almost-little-brother.
The one semicoherent thought that flickered through his mind was tinged with relief: Well, if he knows how to connect up that much of the puzzle, at least I don't have to finish That Talk... I think...
From the middle of nowhere, a shaggy gray dog trotted over and plonked down beside them to watch the show. A few seconds later, the sky started raining scraps of orange fabric that poofed into smoke before hitting the ground. Sakura had her arm around Iruka's shoulders, and was patting him with horrified sympathy filling enormous green eyes.
"And you've had to put up with them both...? For how long...? Iruka-sensei, I'm so, so sorry..."
The dog gave her a look, ears laid back flat in disgust. It scratched behind an ear with one foot, then turned away from her with a little harrumph; with a tired chuckle, Iruka reached over to scratch behind the dog's ears.
"It's not that bad," Iruka said, sounding lame even to himself. "Well... not usually, anyway."
The dog was quite friendly; it leaned into the scratching, then leaned some more, then started climbing into what remained of Iruka's lap. The rain of orange shreds was starting to taper off, too.
Struggling not to let the dog's tail-wagging enthusiasm topple him over backwards, Iruka arched his face away to keep from getting all the scar-concealing makeup licked off, trying to push the happily wriggling dog out of his lap a little.
"Down, boy! Sit. Heel. Stay. Down. --Don't you know anything that means 'get off?' Yes, you're adorable, but I can't just take you home with me--"
In the middle of the clearing, one last muddy, panting Naruto was glaring at a still cheerfully smiling-behind-the-turtleneck Kakashi.
"Bastard," he wheezed.
"Oh come now," Kakashi said wryly. "Weren't you the one dancing around delighted about how you'd helped Iruka-sensei with the baby? Double standards--"
"Let's see you dance around, you pervert!" Naruto pulled a double-fistful of kunai out of his jacket and flung them --
--and they all hit; Iruka choked on a scream at a spray of blood from...
...a log. It hit the ground and bounced, then rolled to rest lopsidedly against a couple of the kunai handles.
Naruto's jaw dropped open again. "Dammit, you kinky-bastard lazy exuse for a teacher, you mean that was a clone THE WHOLE TIME?!"
Iruka pulled his face back from the overfriendly dog yet again, staring at it in a slowly growing horrified suspicion. It whined quite pathetically at the glare, tail between its legs, turning the world's most woeful set of puppy eyes towards him...
...the world's most woeful set of... mismatched... puppy eyes...
"Kakashi, you-- you-- ARRGGHHHH~~!"
"Well, it was good while it lasted," the dog said, and then with a soft poof of smoke Kakashi was sitting in Iruka's suddenly-much-more-crowded lap and scratching behind an ear with a hand instead of a paw. "I hadn't realized you had such a soft spot for puppy eyes; gotta try that one again sometime--"
Iruka indignantly shoved his lover out of his lap, scrambling to his feet and fuming. Beside him, Sakura was stuck somewhere between indignation and shaking hilarity.
"Bad Kakashi-sensei! No doggy biscuit! Go sit in the corner!" she gasped, and then doubled over, clutching her ribs, laughing her head off. Iruka shot her a half-lidded look, then decided there was just no salvaging the situation after this and went to try to piece the sulking Naruto's battered pride back together.
"You know," he said to the boy, rueful, "it's been almost eight months since I had ramen with you at Ichiraku. And there's a ramen seller here at the festival. If you're sure you can keep the pronouns straight -- shall we go see whether or not this village's miso ramen can compete?"
That did it; Naruto bounced to his feet, all enthusiasm again, dusting off the worst of the grass and mud and completely ignoring his otherwise rather bedraggled state. "No way anybody's ramen competes with Ichiraku! But we gotta go try out the competition, don't we? So we can report back to home base and all!" Then, with a sheepish grin, he added, "Hey, Iruka-sensei -- can I ask a favor? Huh?"
"What is it?"
"I want to buy the baby his first bowl of ramen!" Scratching behind an ear, he mumbled, "Kinda... kinda like... a we're-almost-family family tradition or something... y'know..."
Iruka wanted to reply, but all the words had just left him; instead, he pulled Naruto close enough for a fierce hug.
In achingly overcareful gentleness, Naruto put his arms very, very lightly around Iruka's waist, and then patted the swollen curve of his belly with one wistful, wondering hand. And then the boy giggled a little, almost shy. "...Still think you got pretty fat already."
"That's it. You're paying for the ramen," Iruka growled, grinning despite himself.
"Hey!"
"What's the matter? You said you were going to buy the baby's first bowl!"
"Yeah, but..." Naruto hesitated, heaved a huge sigh, and said, "All right."
Iruka blinked, startled by the sudden capitulation. "...Huh?"
"It's a festival," Naruto said patiently. "I can't not buy a bowl of ramen for the baby at his very first festival! Come on, let's go..."
"It might be a girl, you know," Iruka said wryly.
The look of utter disbelief Naruto turned up to him was absolutely priceless. "Bad enough Sakura goes talking like that, Iruka-sensei! Cut it out, you're giving me chills..."
With a rueful shrug, trying not to grin too much, Iruka said, "Just mentioning the possibility, that's all. By the way -- what on earth are you doing here, Naruto?"
"It's a special super secret mission just for us! Okay maybe it started out being just for Sasuke but I wasn't about to let that bastard be cooler than me, and Sakura-chan reminded the Hokage how Kakashi-sensei was always talking about the importance of teamwork and she should go along too--"
Oh, I'm QUITE sure she did, Iruka thought, biting his lip and nodding with what he hoped was a thoughtful-listening expression rather than I'm-going-to-fall-over-laughing-at-any-moment expression.
"And the Hokage said he didn't think I could do it but I told him I could do anything Sasuke could do and better--"
Again, I'm sure you did..."...so we all came to practice our undercover-ness skills! We're supposed to blend in and not let anybody at all know we're ninjas, just like you guys! I mean you guys and girls -- I mean -- Anyway, Sasuke's got a sealed scroll and everything, except I told him I could take it but the bastard wouldn't hand it over of course, so he's supposed to give that to you for the rest of our orders, and then I don't know what we do except we work on blending in just like normal people so we don't blow your cover! It's this really advanced jutsu called suh -- sutter--"
"Subtlety?" Kakashi guessed, eyebrow quirked.
"Yeah, that's the word! And I told the Hokage I could kick Sasuke's ass at sutterty any day of the week too--"
Sakura was groaning with her face in her hands again. Over Naruto's head, Iruka shot a sidelong look at Kakashi; even with most of his face covered by the turtleneck and the eyepatch, it was obvious Kakashi was thinking the same thing.
Whatever we were doing here up until now, I think we've just officially started to earn our keep. Sandaime-sama, it is just not fair to ask anyone to teach Naruto how to work undercover when we've got a cover of our own to try to maintain... Sakura and Sasuke, fine, but Naruto?!
Well, if nothing else, it gives us motivation to develop a lot of advanced educational techniques very, very quickly...
Sakura tugged on Kakashi's sleeve a little bit, and said in a quiet voice, "The real story is that the Hokage was getting pretty desperate to get Sasuke-kun and Naruto out of the village. The two of you are the only people they'll listen to, after all, and neither of them have parents to keep them in line, and they were causing enough property damage with all of Naruto's stupid challenges even before the mountain... er..."
With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, Iruka echoed very faintly, "What about the mountain?"
"Sakura-chan!" Naruto wailed. "What kind of teamwork is that? I just had Iruka-sensei thinking I was cool and stuff!"
Sakura shot him a sour green glare, and didn't bother lowering her voice this time. "You know how Tsunade-san's probably going to be the next Hokage no matter what Naruto thinks otherwise? Well, Naruto decided he was going to be 'helpful.' And start on carving her portrait. Using Rasengan. Starting with her cleavage."
"It was the easiest part to see the shapes of," Naruto muttered.
Suddenly, Iruka's feet weren't working correctly anymore. Kakashi lunged for him before he could fall; Iruka clutched at his shirt desperately, white-knuckled.
Not... going to... kill...! NOT going to kill my student.. but.... but...!
"...Besides! The pervert sennin said he thought I got the perspective down good and everything!"
"Jiraiya-san is not a reliable judge when it comes to women's bustlines!" Sakura yelled. "And anyway, even if you did somehow think that ridiculous stunt was 'helping,' you should have left some CLOTHES on her!"
"But all the sculptors say you start with a piece of rock and then carve away everything that doesn't look like it! So I just carved away everything that didn't look like the old lady and--"
Kakashi hastily pulled Iruka into a passionate embrace, kissing him through the turtleneck and murmuring against his lips, "Breathe. Just breathe. Don't pass out."
"But he--!"
"Don't rip his head off either," he added under his breath. "I'm sure we're second and third in line behind Tsunade for that particular privilege. Just keep breathing... in, out; in, out -- there, that's right..."
And he kept holding onto Iruka quite tightly, as a precaution; even with just one eye, the man saw far too much for Iruka's currently somewhat bloodthirsty taste.
Sakura was not-quite-watching the two of them and blushing; Naruto had a distinctly nonplussed look on.
"Come on, you guys, do that somewhere else or something. --I mean you guys and girls! I mean... aw, hell... just -- just do that somewhere else..."
Through grated teeth, Iruka said with a fixed and rather toothy grin, "Then I suppose that means you aren't wanting the ramen after all?"
"Heck yeah I want the ramen after all! All right, change of plans, you two stop k-k-kissing like that and we go get ramen and then you go someplace, er, else..."
"Poor, poor Sasuke-kun," Iruka said, half a sigh and half a groan. No wonder he's still playing 'lookout' in the trees; I can't honestly blame him for not wanting to be seen anywhere around this disaster...
"Hey!"
Looking unerringly up at a certain point in one of the trees, Kakashi observed in a lazy drawl, "You know, Sasuke-kun, it'll be a lot easier to stay on unobtrusive lookout duty in a village when you're on the ground like the rest of us. You're not supposed to advertise that we're ninja, remember?"
There was a certain distinctive silence coming from the tree.
"Come on down," Kakashi said. "That's an order, by the way."
After a moment, there was a rustle, and Sasuke dropped to the ground a few feet away from the rest of them. He was staring fixedly off to one side. A little too fixedly.
"Sasuke-kun?" Iruka asked.
He didn't flinch. But to anyone who knew him, it was clearly taking so much effort not to flinch that he might as well have. His dark eyes flickered wildly toward Naruto, then toward Kakashi -- and then sharply away from Kakashi, because Iruka was right beside him.
...Oh dear. This is going to be more complicated than I thought...
Naruto, meanwhile, was staring back and forth between Iruka and Sasuke, and then he scowled fiercely. "Bastard, don't even think about trying to buy the baby's first bowl of ramen 'cause I already said that was my job!"
"It's not even born yet, idiot," Sasuke muttered, staring a hole in an otherwise harmless clump of grass.
"Why, you--"
Sakura grabbed Naruto by the collar and said rather loudly and quickly, "We'd better get to the ramen stall and make sure they haven't run out then, hadn't we? No time to fight right now!" From the look on the girl's face, this had obviously become a well-worn reflex over the months of their teachers' absence.
"...Right! You're so smart, Sakura-chan -- all right, bastard, I'll kick your ass after we have the ramen!"
"Hah."
"You little punk--!"
"Later, Naruto," Iruka said hastily, both hands up. "Ramen, remember? Miso ramen, all warm and steaming, and waiting for us..." He knew he wasn't as good with the food-as-distraction skill as Kakashi was, but then this was Naruto, so he hoped it would be good enough.
"Oh yeah, right!" Naruto ran over and seized Iruka's hand and started pulling toward the village; Iruka was careful to place himself between Naruto and Sasuke just in case, and Kakashi stayed at Iruka's side, an arm looped amiably about his shoulders. Sakura was watching Sasuke, of course, but her face held a bit of a worry-wrinkle between her brows, and Iruka couldn't help glancing toward the aloof, silent young man.
Sasuke was scanning the terrain, quite professionally -- and a little too visibly, and his searches always veered wide of having to look at Iruka and Kakashi. Iruka wasn't quite sure whether the problem had to do with the two of them or just with himself, but either way...
Sandaime-san, we are definitely earning our keep on this one...
author's note: I've seen about two dozen episodes of the anime. I know just enough about the later timeline to know that there's no point in time at which Iruka and Kakashi could have spent a whole year away from Konoha while Tsunade, Jiraiya, and the Third Hokage were all part of the picture. But I started this when I didn't know that much about the timeline, and I don't think it's actually possible to find a whole year in-timeline when Kakashi and Iruka could both know the Group Seven trio and not be in Konoha for that long... so anyway... I guess this makes it not really alternate-universe as much as alternate-timeline. I've got a sequel idea in my head, though, and I think I can wrestle that one back closer to actual timeline... later though... ^^;;