Small Conversations

Sequel to "Things unsaid" "She was in Love", and "Losing an apartment, Gaining a House key"

Sometimes the big conversations happen in small parts.

Disclaimer: I don't own 'em, I'm just a spoony bard

Chapter 8

In which they talk about Uchiha Sasuke.

Kakashi poured a shot for the three of them. "I suppose this toast is to the two of you. I'm afraid I haven't been much help on the matter." He passed one to each Naruto and Sakura. "To a mission complete."

They each swallowed their drink and set their cups on the table. "Kakashi-sensei, we'd like to ask your help with something." Naruto glanced at Sakura, looking bashful. "You see, after Tsunade Baa-chan dismissed you, she gave Sakura and I another mission." It occurred to the pinkette that Kakashi should have a say in Sasuke's fate as well. He was also a part of the original Team 7. When Naruto glanced at her again, she nodded, telling him to continue.

"She told us his punishment was going to be up to us."

Kakashi stared at the blonde in front of him for several seconds. He blinked and looked at Sakura in the same manner. "The Hokage gave the decision to you?"

Sakura nodded, her and finding Naruto's under the table. "And it's only fair we include you. You were our Sensei." Naruto nodded in agreement.

"So, not tonight, because now that you're here, I think we should celebrate as a team." He shot his arm out in an orange blur to snag the wrist of the passing waitress. Waving an empty bottle from the table he smiled. "A new bottle for us if you will?" he pressed a wad of cash into the woman's hand. "Keep them coming until this runs out." He pressed a smaller bunch of bills into her apron pocket. "And so I can't forget to tip you later."

The waitress blushed and gave a small bow. "Right away sir." She left and came back a few moments later with three bottles which she placed in from of each individual. "When you are ready for your next round, please just wave and I shall be right over."

"I think," Sakura started, "I think we should play a special game of Embarrassed." She sat forward and poured drinks. "I think we should all tell one of Sasuke."

"It has to be about him, or does involvement count?" Kakashi asked. 'I just want to clarify.

"As long as he was there." Sakura nodded. "I just want to be reminded of some of the good things, you know?"

Naruto nodded and looked pensive for a few moments. A look of triumph graced his features and his face split into a grin. "I've got a real good one that neither of you were there for!" he slammed another shot of sake and grinned. "See, Kakashi wasn't our sensei yet. Remember back in the academy when they split all the guys and girls apart and took guys separately to have the whole sex ed thing?" Sakura nodded and Kakashi suddenly slammed his head on the table.

"I hated that class" he muttered, waving a hand for Naruto to continue.

"Well Iruka-sensei gets all us boys in the one room and shows us the video that has all the microscopic images of what happens during egg fertilization etc. etc. Then he gives us a lecture on the how people actually do it. Iruka was explaining everything using missionary position, and Sasuke raises his hand and asks him "So then when I saw you and Anko-sama on your desk, you were doing her from behind because you didn't want babies?"

Both Sakura and Kakashi burst into raucous laughter. Sakura could just imagine the embarrassment their former academy sensei had suffered for that comment. Kakashi poured more drinks while he attempted to control himself. Failing after a few moments and laughing again

"Doing her from behind because you don't want babies." He snorted, "I hope Iruka told him that it doesn't work that way."

"Kiba did actually." Naruto took the proffered drink. "Of course he went on afterward to explain various other positions as well, and poor Iruka-sensei had to dismiss us early because he couldn't take the embarrassment anymore."

"You do realize that chuunin isn't nearly as innocent as he plays at don't you?" Kakashi settled back into the booth. "He just has a soft spot for kids."

Sakura poured the drinks for the next round. "I remember when we were twelve. Ino started that damned fan club." She laughed thinking about how obsessed her younger self had been. "Ino and I got into a huge argument over which one of us was going to be president." Kakashi rolled his eye at her.

"When you were still in your "fan girl" stage, I wanted to tear your head off. Or tear his off and give it to you. I wasn't sure which really, as long as it stopped."

"Well it stopped." Sakura shot the silver haired ninja an evil glare. "Grated it took me until he left Konoha, but it stopped. And don't think for one second I'm not glad it did. I was an idiot back then."

"You got better" Kakashi acknowledged, slamming his drink and pouring another round.

"Shut up sensei. You're interrupting." She chastised. "Well, then if you remember how annoying I was back then, it'll make this funnier." She giggled, unsure of weather the sake she'd consumed or the memory was making her laugh. "Ino and I fought over who would get to be president. It got so bad between us that we decided to ask him who he would rather have in charge of the club. So Ino and I ran up to him and practically yelled in his face. He looked at us and said, "I'd rather kiss Naruto." Ino and I both cried, because well, we were stupid little girls, and the next day we were sorted into our genin groups, and Naruto got shoved into Sasuke, so they did kiss."

Naruto slammed his forehead on the table. "Oh god, you had to remind me of that. My first kiss and it had to be another boy." Kakashi was laughing into his arm while Sakura grinned with a look of fond memories on her face.

"Well afterwards, he said to Ino, "See, I told you I'd rather kiss Naruto." Sakura giggled. "I think we were both so mortified by it that we couldn't even say anything back!"

Kakashi lifted his head. "I remember the first long mission we took. Remember we stopped at that spa place on the way back?"

Naruto nodded, pouring another round. "We argued about room sharing, I remember."

"Well do you remember when we went to the baths?" Kakashi lifted his drink while he lowered his mask, not caring anymore if his two companions saw. "Good god, we got to the men's side, Naruto of course just drops his towel and jumps in. So I sat mine off to the side and get in, sit down, and look over at Sasuke who is staring at me. I ask him "what?" he turns all red and mutters something I can't understand. I ask him "what?" Again, and he blurts out, "your dick is huge." I thought I'd never stop laughing!" Kakashi laughed again, remembering how horrified the Uchiha had been after he'd commented. "And he was so embarrassed he didn't even get into the bath, he just left and went back to his room!" Neither Sakura nor Naruto commented on Kakashi's story, they were in awe over his masklessness. "What?" Their former sensei asked. "That wasn't funny?"

"It was funny Kakashi, but, um, did you, well your mask." Naruto stuttered, pointing at his face. Kakashi reached up and pressed his fingertips to his bare cheek."

"Oh, well, yes. I suppose after all this time you would be surprised. I'd actually forgotten you hadn't seen." He waved them off and downed his shot. "Naruto, I believe it's your turn again."

The blonde grinned as he poured more drinks. "Sakura-chan, you remember right before we got our gennin teams, we went on that camping thing?"

"Yeah, Ino tried to bring half her closet with."

"Sasuke found a giant spider in his tent, remember?" Naruto snorted.

"I remember, he screamed like a girl."

"He spent more time on his hair than you did Sakura." Kakashi stated.

After several rounds of this, neither Naruto nor Sakura could think straight. Kakashi appeared to be on the verge of passing out in the booth. The table was littered with empty bottles and bits of trash. Sakura leaned into Naruto's shoulder, humming a tune her mother used to sing when she was little. It seemed vaguely familiar to Naruto, something about sunshine on cloudy days. The bar had emptied as closing time was coming up quickly. He pulled himself to his feet and stretched. Sakura stopped humming and looked up at him.

"Ah, we should get going. They're gonna kick us out otherwise." He helped Sakura to her feet, steadying her against him. "Kakashi-sensei, come on." He poked their former teacher in the shoulder and laughed when the man grabbed his wrist and hugged it.

"You know I love you two." Kakashi lurched to his feet and stumbled into the pair. "Whoa. Yeah, you're like family. I love you, my family." The inebriated copy-nin threw his arms around them and all Naruto and Sakura could do was return it.

"We love you too sensei. Let's go." Naruto let Kakashi drape and arm around his shoulders as the trio made their way out of the bar and onto the street.

When Sakura woke in the morning she noticed three distinct things. One, she had a pounding headache. Two, her mouth felt dry, scratchy and gross. Three, there seemed to be an extra person in the bed. She sat up and groaned. Pressing her fingertips to her temples she relieved the pain with chakra and took in her bedmates.

A still mask less Kakashi was wedged between her and Naruto. He lay flat on his back with an arm draped around each of them. All three of them were still fully dressed, shoes and all. The covers of the bed hadn't even been disturbed. Form what Sakura could deduce, they must have stumbled back to her house and just passed out.

She slid from the bed and kicked off her shoes. Having taken care of two of the three disturbances n her morning, she made a face at the lingering taste of a night after drinking and headed to the bathroom for a shower a good teeth brushing. She was washing the shampoo from her hair when she heard the yell form the bedroom. Naruto was awake, and unless Kakashi was dead, he was more than likely as well.

She stepped from the shower and wrapped a towel tightly around herself. Felling much more awake and less 'I just spent last night partying my ass off', she went back into the bedroom. Naruto and Kakashi were both sitting upright and laughing. Kakashi's mask was back in place and he was rubbing his temples while he chuckled.

"Does anyone remember leaving the bar last night?" he asked. "God does my head hurt." He looked up and saw Sakura standing in the doorway. "You're a medic Sakura, can you?" he pointed to his head and grimaced. Sakura smiled as she stepped forward to press her hands against her former sensei's head. Chakra flowed between her fingers for a few moments before Kakashi let out a sigh of relief. She turned to Naruto next, but he shook his head.

"I may have drunk enough to forget how exactly we got here, but Kyuubi takes care of the hangover. How did we get here? I remember leaving the bar, barely. We couldn't walk straight, we ran into a wall, and that's about all I can remember." The blonde rubbed his forehead and slid off the bed.

Sakura shrugged. She didn't even really remember leaving the bar. The last thing she really remembered was laughing with her team about the time Sasuke had been mistaken for a girl on one of their missions. She remembered Naruto humming an old song, she remembered Kakashi taking off his mask.

"We stopped at Iruka-sensei's house." Naruto muttered. "I remember that." As if on cue, the smell of something cooking came wafting down the hallway into the open bedroom. Naruto sniffed the air. "Pancakes?" he slipped past Sakura in the doorway, kissing her cheek as he passed.

"Ok, you out. I need to change. Um, if you want, you can use the shower. I'll have to see if I have any clothes around here that might fit you." Sakura made her way to the dresser and pulled out a set of clothing for herself before opening the bottom drawer and digging through some older items. She produced a pair of pajama pants, plain black, and a men's undershirt. "I hope they fit. The pants were too big for me, so they should. The shirt might be a little tight." Handing them to the silver haired ninja still sitting on her and Naruto's bed she smiled. "And I'm really glad you showed up last night sensei."

Kakashi smiled through his mask. He stood, placed a hand on Sakura's shoulder in an affectionate gesture and made his way to the bathroom. A few moments later Sakura head water running and she began to dress.

In the kitchen, Naruto was surprised to find that Iruka was there. The smell of pancakes cooking was his doing. He was also setting up a pan to fry up some bacon. He greeted Naruto with a 'good morning' as he peeled strips of bacon and laid them in the pan.

"Um, Iruka-niisan, how come you're here?" Naruto asked. "I mean not that I mind or anything but last night is kind of a blur." He looked sheepishly at the academy instructor and gave him a smile.

"Oh well, you see, at three a.m. I was awoken to someone pounding on my door, yelling at the top of his lungs about family and love and how I needed to be with because I'm you're nii-san." Iruka smiled, obviously amused. "The three of you were so trashed that none of you could stand without the other two holding you up. You wanted to go to the memorial stone. It took all the convincing I could handle to get the three of you back ere and dump you on the bed. Then you asked for a family bed cuddle."

"Um." Naruto blushed crimson "I'm really sorry about that Iruka-niisan."

Iruka laughed. "Don't be. It was amusing. And I'm very happy to know that your team has become your family, and that you've not forgotten me." He reached over and ruffled Naruto's blonde locks. "We haven't seen each other much lately. I've been busy with the new academy, and you've been busy with missions."

"Good morning Iruka-sensei. So did you join the "family bed cuddle"?" Sakura asked, giggling as she entered the kitchen.

"Good morning to you, too. I trust you're the reason the three of you aren't taking turns praying to the porcelain god this morning? And no. I slept on your couch. Breakfast?" Iruka smiled again and handed Naruto and Sakura each a plate. They took it from him gratefully as he served himself and set another aside for Kakashi. "Is Kakashi-san going to join us or is he too embarrassed?"

"I don't think he was all that embarrassed." Sakura answered. "He's in the shower."

"He better save me some hot water." Naruto mumbled around a mouthful of pancake.

The three of them ate, Iruka filing them in on some of the ridiculous things they'd said and done on the way from his house back to theirs. They included asking him outright if he was 'doing' Anko, doing bad imitations of Maito Gai and his favored student, and apparently both Kakashi and Naruto had a pissing contest in the literal sense. Laughing Iruka told them that technically yes, he was 'doing' Anko, but it was more than just that, he'd taken several pictures of their Gai poses and Naruto had won the contest, he peed further than Kakashi, actually hitting the target of the moon's reflection some twenty feet off the bridge.

Kakashi had finished showering and joined them in the kitchen during this. The pants were a bit short, coming only about halfway down his calves, and the shirt was a tight fit. He'd left the mask off giving them all a good, clear, sober look at his face, which unlike rumor was not ugly or disfigured, or duck lipped or buck toothed. Iruka handed the copy-nin a stack of photos with a grin. He laid them out on the table, laughing at several of them in their absurdity before he came across one that left him with a gentle smile.

"Iruka-san, can I keep this one?" The photo was the three of them on the bridge under the moonlight. They all had their arms around each other and were smiling and laughing.

"Of course you can. You can keep them all if you'd like. I have the negatives and I can make copies of any of them if you'd like." Iruka stood, having finished eating and put his dishes in the sink. "Well now that I'm no longer needed to babysit I think I'll head home." He ruffled Naruto's hair again as he passed the table. "I'll see you all later. I have papers to grade."

After Iruka had left and all three had finished eating, Sakura put on a kettle of tea and sat in the living room. Naruto joined her on the couch and Kakashi sat in an arm chair. An uncomfortable silence filled the room.

"I suppose that now the fun and games have passed we're down to business then?" Kakashi broke the quiet.

"Yeah." Naruto sighed and pulled Sakura to his side. "So…" he trailed off, looking mildly uncomfortable.

"So I'd like to go over this again." Kakashi folded his hands under his chin. "Uchiha Sasuke is in custody, he's charged with high treason to Konoha. The Hokage gave his fate to you."

"That's the short of the long of it." Sakura said. "The standard sentence for treason is death, but I just can't. I mean this is Sasuke. He was part of our team, we grew up with him. He was like our brother."

"So no death." Kakashi closed his eyes and pondered for a moment. "Lifelong imprisonment?"

Sakura shook her head. "He's too powerful to keep locked away. Right now they have Morino-san and Ino's dad watching him, but they're often needed for interrogation."

Naruto sat upright, a hand over his stomach as he remembered his own seal. "Can't we seal him? Kinda like Kyuubi? You know, lock away his chakra?"

Kakashi frowned. "It's worth looking into. But I don't know if that will be enough. The whole village will be calling for his blood."

"Why don't we make him forfeit all Uchiha lands?" Sakura asked. "And um, well, we could make it so he can't have children." Kakashi blanched. Not that he himself had ever actually considered children of his own, but as a man, the entire idea was offensive. Apparently Naruto felt the same as he gave his girlfriend a withering look. "I'll take that as a no then." She said blushing.

"Try hell no." Naruto said. "Sorry Sakura-chan, but messing with a man's uh, well it's just not cool okay?"

"We can make it so that his bride has to be approved by either the council or the Hokage herself though. That's actually an old tradition that few families still practice. The Hyuuga's for example." Kakashi said. "Their spouse has to be approved by their family council. And since Sasuke's family is gone, it would fall to the Hokage or whoever she appointed."

"So we need to look into seals, we can strip him of his family lands, and make it so any bride must be approved." Sakura stated.

"It sounds like a good place to start." Naruto said.

"He should also give up the name Uchiha, and the fortune that goes with it." Kakashi said. "It will be a harsh blow. He can either take is mother's name, or if someone else is willing to have him, theirs. The village can use the money to rebuild on Uchiha land and expand."

"He can take mine, fi e wants." Naruto said. "He's still my friend and brother."

Kakashi nodded. "He'd be placed in the same sort of housing Naruto had previously and given a monthly stipend for living expenses until he can find a civilian job."

They sat in silence for almost an hour. Having decided the fate of their fallen comrade, words just seemed unimportant. It was a heavy decision weighing on them. Each hoped it would be enough to appease the Hokage and the village elders.

A/N: Someone said I made Kakashi mean? It wasn't intentional I promise. He's not really mean, just sort of awkward and perverted and blunt. Anyway, we're getting into the serious business of the plot here. I still noticed that people don't seem to want to leave reviews! SHAME ON YOU!