Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and I am making no money writing fanfiction.

…..0…0…0…..

After finishing their first drinks off in relative silence, other than the occasional comfortable story swap about work, the boys wandered in and Iruka sent them off to get ready for bed, as it was already eleven. Once they had departed, he regarded Kakashi for a minute, then jiggled his glass and asked, "Refills?"

Kakashi gazed at his glass, then at Iruka, his eyes pausing on the forgotten picture album at the end of the couch and answered with his own question, "Doubles?"

Iruka chuckled, "Damn, it's a snow day, we could do triples if you're up for it."

Kakashi smiled and handed his glass over. "Triples it is," secretly hoping Iruka didn't handle liquor well enough to avoid a few questions about said photo albums.

When Iruka returned a few minutes later, Kakashi had surreptitiously hidden two of the albums behind the cushion he had beside him. Taking his glass from Iruka, he tipped it in a salute and knocked back a long gulp. "That's good stuff."

Iruka smiled. "Jameson 18 Year Old Limited Reserve Irish Whiskey. It's my favourite brand. I have to ask the liquor commission to import it as it's not one of the regular brands here and if I forget and run out but haven't asked them to ship some lately, I'll sometimes drive all the way out to this little Irish restaurant in P.E.I. that imports directly from Ireland to buy a few bottles from them. I will settle for Bushmills 16 Year Old Single Malt Irish Whiskey if I have too, though."

Kakashi whistled. "Wow, that's some real brand loyalty you've got there."

Iruka laughed. "Nah, I'm just picky. I'm like that with almost all liquors. For example, I also only drink Minskaya Vodka form Belarus or Orkisz from Poland."

"So what's your backup for that?"

"Stolichnaya Elit from Russia."

"Tequila?"

"Sol de Mexico Tequila Anejo." Catching on to Kakashi's game, he added, "But Real de Mexico Tequila Reposado if I have to, though Sol de Mexico is pretty easy to get a hold of."

"Gin."

"Langley's number 8 Distilled London Gin. Hayman's London Dry Gin if that's ever unavailable, but like the tequila, it's usually available."

"Brandy."

"Janneau 25 Year Old Single Distillery Armagnac. I can only get it when my Dad heads over to Europe though, the commission here won't even special order it because it's over a hundred a bottle."

"You have rather expensive taste in alcohol, don't you, Iruka? Mind if I ask how a Canadian school teacher came to prefer high-end imported alcohols?"

Iruka laughed. "My mom was the one who really wanted kids. Dad enjoyed having us around, sure, but it was Mom who really pushed him for a family. It wasn't until I was older that my Dad got into the father-son thing; you know, when he could take his son out for a drink to watch the latest game in a sports bar…. He liked that I played football, but our best times and the times that were really real were conversations over a good glass of whatever we felt like that day- and believe me, my Dad had a lot to choose from. He travels a lot on book tours—he's an author, you know—and picks up his favourites when he visits other countries. I guess his favourites sort of became my favourites. Except for the brandy…. we disagree on that one, but he still gets me my Janneau whenever he's in France. What are dads for, other than to feed your expensive brandy habit, right?"

"So your dad is an author?"

"Yup. And my mom was in politics for a while, until the press got a hold of one of Dad's unpublished transcripts. It was rather risqué, so she went back to private law practice. That was all before me, though. I came along the year after the scandal, when my parents had re-settled and my mom realized that after concentrating on her career so long, she wanted a family pretty badly."

"Do you still drink with your dad?"

"Every Sunday after dinner. When they're in town, that is. It's kind of our tradition to have a giant Sunday dinner—we start the day at church because my mom loves her church, then it's brunch followed by a lazy family games day and a home cooked meal. Mom loves her housekeeper, because she's a wonderful cook but won't do meals everyday—only once a week—so Mom chose Sundays. The housekeeper's daughter, Shizune, is a wonderful cook as well." Iruka smiled distractedly and Kakashi wondered if perhaps Iruka had a thing for Shizune.

The thought kind of made Kakashi's tummy turn, so he changed the subject, "That's a nice tradition. Tell me about your first drink then." He waggled his eyebrows.

Iruka downed the last of his triple and eyed the bottom of the glass in mild disappointment. "Ha! You don't want to know."

"Yeah I do." Kakashi bumped his shoulder into Iruka's and looked at him encouragingly.

"When I was still in care, when I was ten, I was pretty stupid. This dumb friend of mine convinced me to drink with him. He was a year older than me and we were inseparable. We lifted a bottle of cheap vodka from our foster parents' cupboard and took off. I got so piss drunk that I fell off my bike riding back home and got this huge ugly split right across my nose." Iruka looked down.

Kakashi nudged his shoulder gently again with his own. "It's not ugly."

Iruka snorted, but Kakashi could see a small smile play lightly at his lips as he mumbled a slurry, "Thanks."

Kakashi fingered the corner of the album sticking out form behind the nearby pillow. He paused for a second, then, "Is that the friend who's cut out of all your pictures?"

Iruka looked up, startled, and a pained look flashed across his face before his features settled into a panicked deer-caught-in-the-headlights expression. "How did? I-"

Iruka cut himself off abruptly by standing up, schooling his features into a deceptive calm facade and setting his glass on the end table.

Kakashi watched him, a little taken aback by the reaction.

"I think it's time for bed." Iruka reached over and plucked Kakashi's empty glass from his fingers, placing it on the end table beside his own.

"You can sleep in the guest room, I'll show you there." Iruka disappeared briskly from the room and Kakashi hurried to follow, sorry he'd pushed the envelope.

…..0…0…0…..

The little guest room was cozy, Kakashi decided, but after his evening, there was no way Kakashi was ready for bed. He heard Iruka close his own door down the hall and what sounded like soft snoring coming from the next room over, where he'd seen Naruto and Kiba sprawled on a twin bed and sleeping bag full of body pillows and floor cushions, respectively, through the slightly open door on his and Iruka's' way up. He silently padded over to his own door and closed it with a barely audible click and went to rifle through his satchel.

Finding what he was looking for, Kakashi held his prize up in triumph, his laptop gleaming in the moonlight streaming in the window. The room was light enough that he didn't need to turn on the beside lamp, thanks to all the reflection off the snow outside and he didn't want to risk someone knowing he was awake and coming in, that would be bad for what he had in mind.

Getting comfy under the navy and cornflower blue patchwork quilt, he quickly booted up the machine and sat back waiting for the Internet window to load his homepage.

He typed in Google's address and then into the search bar, Iruka Umino-Senju, Campbellton, New Brunswick.

The top three hits were all about a teaching award that Kakashi vaguely remembered Iruka winning last year, followed by an article in a local paper's archives about Iruka coaching middle school basketball. The next two hits weren't about Kakashi's Iruka at all (funny how he'd begun to think of him as such…. it would not be good for his mental health if Iruka turned out to be straight, he knew), but some fictional ninja character Iruka Umino from a popular manga. Then there was one about a famous local politician, Tsunade Senju adopting an eleven-year-old Iruka Umino.

Kakashi clicked on that link and did a double take after reading the full article. Apparently, Iruka's dad wasn't just ANY old author, but the world-renowned Jiraiya, who wrote children's novels such as the "Tales of a Gutsy Ninja," series that Kakashi had read when he was a kid and knew several colleagues that had the entire series in their classroom. Now that he thought about it, Iruka's comment about his mom's career made more sense now. The silver-haired man remembered a scandal about eighteen years back, when he was a young teen, about Tsunade losing major points in her electoral ward after her husband's editor leaked a copy of an adults' only book, "Icha Icha Paradise" that had been penned by the children's author. Kakashi snorted, also remembering that Jiraiya had switched publishers afterwards, when it was found out the editor had leaked the copy via a tabloid reporter for two thousand bucks.

The erotic novel was actually very well written—Kakashi had a copy of it himself and he was surprised that one of his favourite author's sons had been right under his nose—though, he surmised, in his defense, that Iruka and Naruto had both kept their biological parents' name and hyphenated it with their adoptive parents' and Jiraiya did not write under his real name, but under a pseudonym—hence why Kakashi hadn't immediately made the connection.

As he clicked back to the search page results, Kakashi mused further, remembering that the uncle and two cousins in Iruka's photos looked an awful lot like the Sarutobis', a family Kakashi had spent a lot of time with as a very young child- though he hadn't seen them since his father died when he was seven. The Sarutobi patriarch, Hiruzen, had owned a bodyguard service company that worked very closely with his mother's alarm system company and his father's police dog training and breeding company.

Kakashi decided that it really was rather disappointing that after his parents' deaths he had lost touch with the Sarutobi kids, otherwise he may have known Iruka when he was that smiling teenager in the swim trunks and he wouldn't have wasted so much time thinking the man was a self-righteous prude. Oh well, what's done is done. I can still try to make a go of it…. If he swings my way.

Reading through the rest of the results, Kakashi was annoyed to note that none of the other listings pertained to his Iruka either. He navigated back to the search bar and typed in some of the additional information he had learned from the article about Iruka and his mom. Iruka had originally come from about eight or nine hours drive away, in Sherbrooke Quebec and his parents had officially adopted him seventeen years ago. With the new parameters of: Iruka Umino, Sherbrooke, Quebec, 1997, very different results popped up.

The first one was an article about foster children being left alone in hotel rooms with little to no supervision due to lack of foster parents, with just a one-line quote from Iruka himself, saying it, "sucked," while there were multiple quotes from his social worker, Ibiki Moreno, who seemed to agree with Iruka's view, though he was more politically correct about it. There was also a small quote from another child, and given the ages in the article, it made Kakashi wonder if he had found Iruka's mysterious friend, a certain Mizuki Otogakure.

Perusing the list of other sites and articles, Kakashi decided none of them were good enough to hold his attention, so he again clicked his mouse over the search bar and this time typed in, Iruka Umino, Mizuki Otogakure.

His jaw nearly dropped as an image of Iruka in a hospital bed, beside a picture of a white-haired man's mug shot appeared next to the top web hit.