Disclaimer: Yeah, yeah. Naruto and it's characters certainly don't belong to me. This fanfiction is a work of (hella crazy!) fiction, and I am making no profit from this, aside from my amusement. Warning: This story contains slash, as in, (perhaps eventually) hot mansmex. If that's not for you, please bugger off.

Kakashi liked to pretend be was a cautious man. It made Hokage of all ages, creeds and genders feel a little better. He supposed it must be at least partially true. After all, he had outlived at three of them now. However, the Jounin didn't actually consider himself particularly careful. Just very, very lucky.

There were several reasons for this. Firstly, he was a ninja. The average life expectancy of a nin was about 40 years, and there was no way he could be careful enough to live much past that. Secondly, he had been part of the ANBU and left. As if being in the special forces wasn't enough, he'd left behind a reputation as hellion. More hidden villages than he bothered to remember had nin with grudges against him. Not only had he left the only place to maintain any level of appropriate training, and now he traveled with small children. And now, he was part of the Jounin betting pool.

He generally considered this to be the most dangerous decision of his career, surpassed only occasionally by his leadership of Team Seven.

It wasn't that the betting pool could physically end his life... Kakashi stepped past the numerous ninjustu guarding the door, including the one involving a half-plucked chicken. He smiled politely to the Sound nin masquerading as an ANBU and the fellow nodded back. There was no formal neutral ground that all nin agreed on, but the Jounin betting pool had been lost by Tsunade at one time or another to every Kage (she had held the original deed for years at a time) so that many nin considered it safe. Recently Tsunade had lost the deed to Orochimaru himself- something about Sasuke and Naruto. Understanding the snake Sannin would leave one of his underlings around- secure his investment. Despite the change in hands, very little around here would differ.

Kakashi brushed past most of the inter Jounin betting, surreptitiously glancing at on of the charts as he slouched past.

"Kuso." He was still the only Jounin who had been caught stealing panties. He knew there must be more, his own g -strings were all missing. More importantly, his rival and friend in the art, Asuma, had given up the time-honored tradition among mature, grown men to steal lacy otherthings of young women. Kurenai seemed to be making an honest man of him. Absently the teacher wandered if Sasuke would join him. The rooster's eye curled closed in the humor of that thought. The boy could use some action- to keep his mind off other things.

On that note- Kakashi veered away from the inter Jounin betting and entered the most intense betting pool in the building.

The Rookie Nine pool. Never had Kakashi made his way towards Maito's team, raising his eyebrows at some of the bets. Even though none of that year's team were still Genin, their generation had some of the most heavily contested bets running. They included everything form Ino's weight to when one of the Chunin would pass the exam.

Kakashi remembered why he was here and waked purposefully to the section devoted to his team. After wincing, he confirmed Kurenai's bet that Sasuke ate Ramen, adding a picture he had snapped the night before. He sighed. Naturally it was a sharp insult that another Jounin knew more about his team than he did, but Kakashi just hated buying her Ramen. She could be as hungry as Naruto when someone else was buying. Luckily he hadn't raised the bet to buying shortcake, that woman could really pack away pasteries. Besides she'd stolen his pantie-buddy.

Thank the gods he still had one ace up his sleeve. He turned to another section on team seven, focusing on Naruto and Sasuke. This section was practically the pride and joy of the pool. Few pools in the entire hall brought as many betters. Kakashi had seven seen Orochimaru and Uchiha Itachi place bets in person. Confirmed bets were hung on the wall, including a copy of the bet between Tsunade and Orochimaru that had won free rental of the pool and a hefty portion of the profit for three years. Kakashi looked closely at the document. Hn. Interesting. Sasuke had helped prank Gaara.

Whelp, time to win back some money. The gray-haired started sorting through the bettings until he reached the section on Naruto and Sasuke's emotional relationship. There were several different bets, one which included an ongoing private bet between Gai and Iruka about whether the boys would save each other or kill each other-oh. Looks like the bet had been discontinued after the Valley of the Gods.

"...Iruka has a filthy mouth." Kakashi observed as he read the comments left by the Chunin teacher.

He continued searching, hoping he wasn't too late. Nothing could have been confirmed. It was only last night when he'd seen Sasuke at the Ichiraku.

"Well, fuck." It wasn't there. Maybe something could be salvaged from any bets on stalking passing between the boys? He started shifting through the extra bets and notes that were collected for the benefit of pool.

Terribly dismayed at the thought of opening a bet. It would have to be public, and Hokage knew he couldn't afford to back that. The Jounin started to walk away when a stray sheet of paper caught his eye.

Replacing the stack with something that could pass for care on a rainy day, Kakashi snatched the floating sheet before it could wander away. It was a copy of just the type of bet he was looking for. A public bet on the boys hooking up. You could specify a prediction down to the minute, as well as who would serve as seme and uke. Utterly perfect. He turned to the second scroll, and what he saw gave him pause.

Then he started laughing. He didn't stop until the cleverly disguised Sound nin pretending to be a law-abiding Leaf citizen asked him if anything was wrong. The laughter slowly subsided then out of habit. Still holding in a few chuckles, Kakashi nodded.

"I am fine." He muttered, and the Sound nin wandered back to the section on Anko. The weekly special included a bet on what the woman wore under her fishnet. Naturally, the confirmation picture was worth more than the bet itself. Most men would be willing to sacrifice a third of the body parts Anko would remove if they ever got a picture of her in just fishnets.

Kakashi pondered the object of his laughter. Obviously, those unwilling to taint their reputation could chose a code name. Hizashi Hyuuga tried once, but most people knew who it was within a day. In a hidden village, very little wasn't known by the whole population. As if the betting pool wasn't evidence enough. Oddly enough, whenever someone tried to hide something, the whole community felt like they had been informally challenged when someone kept secrets. Suffice to say, the best way to keep a secret wasn't.

"Of course, I doubt that's what he had in mind." Kakashi laughed to himself. Using his most legible handwriting, the rooster Jounin scribbled a date and time two days after the initial bet. Just to light a fire under the insufferable boy's ass.

Naturally, you could choose a pseudonym or symbol to hide your identity... but Kakashi doubted that was what the author of this bet as in mind.

He added a small note.

"Naruto doesn't receive official Jounin rank for another two weeks."

The gray haired man chuckled once more and carefully set down the bet.

On the second sheet, in the author's designated betting slot, was the name "Rokudaime" and a bet that Sasuke would be dating Naruto. In three months. As the uke.

Somewhere Sasuke sneezed.

A/N- Yeah. Fun stuff. Review welcome. For the record, I have two more chapters of this, because for some odd reason I couldn't leave this as a one-shot. Feel free to yell. No flames please.