Chapter Three: Of Water, Soap, and Breaking And Entering

Sasuke gritted his teeth and yanked on his right arm. He got it all the way around to his front before it was torn back by the jerk tied behind him, who then hollered, "We've been through this, Princess! My arm doesn't bend that way!!"

"Well, we have to do something! Suck it up and let me make a handseal, and we'll be out of this mess!" Sasuke snapped back. Toshi gave a fake gasp.

"Oh, wonderful plan! Brilliant! Except, and I think we've covered this previously, my arm doesn't bend that far! You're the girly one; you should be more flexible. How come you're not volunteering to let me bend your arms 'till they snap like uncooked spaghetti?"

"Tch," Sasuke flipped his head to get his hair out of his eyes. Toshi sniggered.

"I thought so."

"Well, we have to do something."

"Are you guys still out here?" Both boys snapped their heads around to see Sakura standing a little way off, an eyebrow raised. "Jeez, what'd Sensei do to you?" she said, taking in the pair of them.

"Sakura! Help us out, here!" Toshi shouted. The pink-haired girl gave an incredulous chuckle.

"I don't think so," she said regally, "Sensei obviously left you tied up like this so you could figure out how to get loose on your own. Besides, I'm as tired of the fighting as he is."

"What?!" Toshi yelped, struggling beginning anew. Conversely, Sasuke stilled, fixing Sakura with a deadly glare.

"Sakura," he said in a very dangerous voice that promised death in the near future if she didn't heed him, "Untie us."

Sakura hesitated, but was still firm in her resolve as she shook her head. "Nope. Sorry, Sasuke-kun: I like you and all, but Sensei's scarier."

"You're supposed to be our teammate!" Toshi hollered. "What happened to that whole 'undying love for Sasuke-kun' crap you've been spouting for the last three years?! If you really loved him, you wouldn't leave him tied up and helpless!"

Sakura sighed. "You don't get it. It's because I love him that I'm leaving him tied up. It's for his own good. You two have to learn to get along."

There was a moment's silence: Sasuke was thinking hard, not really minding the conversation about him going on as if he wasn't there. Then, inspiration hit him and he said in a serious, bewitching voice, "Sakura, let us free, and I'll take you out on a date."

Toshi watched Sakura's resolve falter, and she hesitated, teetering on the edge. He crossed his fingers as best he could in his position, but his hopes were shattered a moment later when the pink-haired girl shook her head firmly and said, "Sorry, but Sensei's still scarier. And he said not to free you. Um, I gotta go."

And she left, before she could change her mind. There was a pause, and Toshi swore.

"We'll, we're screwed."

"Hn. I thought that would work," Sasuke admitted. Toshi barked out a laugh.

"Sensei must've done a number on her, alright," he half-laughed. Then he sobered. "So… what are we going to do?"

For a long moment, Sasuke considered. When he spoke, it was slow and deliberate, every word weighed carefully. "…We both hate Sensei, yes?"

"Without a doubt," Toshi agreed instantly. Sasuke nodded, his black hair mixing with Toshi's fiery red curls.

"I propose a truce," he said flatly. "At least until we kill Sensei."

"We can't kill him," Toshi retorted. "He's better than us, and he has the support of, like, a billion ANBU. They'd cream us!"

"…We'll figure something out." The words were serious, but neither boy truly meant it, and both knew it. They neither hated nor wanted to kill Kakashi, but were not above some form of petty revenge, even if they had to cooperate to achieve it.

Toshi grinned at the sky. "Then truce. Let's get out of this mess, then we'll decide what to do with our bastardized teacher. Can you reach my kunai pouch where you are?"

A moment's squirming, and then Sasuke grunted. "Hn."

Three minutes of awkward contortions and two cut fingers later, the boys were free.

"YES!" Toshi shouted, pumping a (newly freed) fist in the air. "I could kiss you, Sasu-princess! 'Cept, you know, I don't know where you've been… and I could catch something… and there are such things as taking collaboration too far, you know?"

Sasuke chose to ignore his annoying teammate, instead stretching out his sore muscles. "I still say we kill him," he commented. Toshi stopped his celebrating and rolled his eyes.

"Oh, sure," he drawled. "Because that's not high treason! Oh, just a little kunai in the back: he'll hardly feel it!" Toshi waved his hand, miming to match his faux-dismissive voice. "Of course, there is the little fact that he's a freak and even if we managed to stab his heart out, he'd still have time to turn around and grind us into dust before he even realised he was dead! And then, once he finally did notice his deadness, he'd probably be all, like, 'oh, well' and go on reading his Icha Icha!"

Sasuke had tuned out most of Toshi's rant through years of long practice, but he jumped and looked at the boy sharply at his last sentence.

"That's it," he said softly. Toshi blinked.

"Huh? What's it?" he asked.

"Icha Icha. Let's extract revenge on his book. That new one he got from Jiraiya-sama, that won't hit the shops for another three months."

There was a pause, and Sasuke looked around to see Toshi standing with his mouth open.

"That's… that's…" he stuttered, trying to find words. Then, he clapped his hands in front of him and bowed low from the waist, saying, "You are truly your brother's brother. That's pure evil. I see I have much to learn, oh great one."

Sasuke smirked.

Naruto padded after his new Handler, shyly sneaking peeks at him through his (newly washed) bangs. The man was an odd one. He'd refused to allow Naruto to step into the glass enclosure as he was, but had become increasingly embarrassed when the blonde had accordingly stripped off the loose and rather worn clothing he was wearing. Then, he'd fiddled with the silver stars fixed to the wall and Naruto had just had enough time to reach out to play with them himself before it started raining on him! Inside!

So, of course, Naruto had shot out of the glass box faster than a hummingbird on speed and stared at the warm running water that slowly began to fog up the glass.

Kakashi-sir had seemed disconcerted when all it took was an order from him to have Naruto inching back into the glass box, sticking to the edges and sucking in his stomach to avoid the freakish water, and Naruto deduced that he was probably used to dealing with less trained creatures.

In any event, he quickly got over it and began to explain that this odd contraption was called a shower and apparently it was where humans washed themselves, using odd liquids that stung Naruto's eyes and tasted bad when he licked them.

Kakashi-sir quickly forbade him from eating the strange substances – rather pointlessly, as Naruto was gagging and mentally swearing never to try 'soap' again – and began to explain how the rain-on-command thing actually worked while he forcibly doused Naruto in water and then soap and then water again.

Apparently, it was basically a fancy hose. Naruto liked this one much better than the high-powered industrial-type hose situated in Master's courtyard that Naruto's usual Handlers would use to spray high-powered streams of icy water at the jinchuuriki to get mud and other filth off them quickly.

Although he wasn't too keen on soap.

Now, he followed Kakashi-sir through the small house, hair still damp, wearing a new set of clothing made of decidedly softer materials than his last set, wondering if this was when Kakashi-sir would take him to his new cage. Surely he'd been inside, breaching the rules, for long enough?

But no, Kakashi-sir stopped in another room – this one Naruto knew was a kitchen, because when he was eight, he had snuck into Master's kitchen and stolen some extra food. He'd been punished brutally, both by the kitchen staff and Master, so needless to say he was a bit leery about entering a kitchen again.

"Sit down there," Kakashi-sir said softly – he seemed to give all orders in that sad, quiet tone. Naruto carefully edged his way inside, cringing already as he waited for someone to yell or throw something at him, but nothing happened, even as he settled on the floor next to the raised human table, legs tucked up under him.

Kakashi-sir had turned away and was fiddling with something over by the bench-thing, opening cupboards and moving things around.

"Are you hungry?" he said eventually. Naruto hesitated a beat before answering.

"Yessir."

"Don't call me-" Kakashi-sir cut himself off and turned around again, holding a bowl of some kind of human food in each hand. For a moment, he looked confused, sweeping the room with his gaze, before he spotted the blonde waiting patiently on the floor. He took in a sharp breath and strode forwards quickly, setting down the bowls on the wooden table with a sharp clink and turning to his new charge.

Naruto was beginning to panic at the sharp – annoyed? – movements. Was he doing something wrong? Kakashi-sir had told him to sit down, but maybe he wasn't supposed to be so close to where the people ate? He began to scoot away, hoping it would placate the human man.

For a moment, it didn't seem to work: Naruto was sure he was going to start yelling. He lowered his eyes in a programmed response, making sure his entire body was submissive. He was used to temperamental Handlers, and knew the best way to avoid pain was to grovel and pray they forgive you for whatever it is you didn't realise you were doing wrong in the first place.

To his surprise, Kakashi-sir just sighed heavily.

"Naruto, get up," he said. Naruto waited for a moment, unsure if he had really heard that command or not, before carefully rising to his feet. Kakashi-sir reached out his right hand and pulled a wooden chair out from the table, making its legs screech against the tiled floor, and said, "Sit here."

Naruto froze.

"But that's a human chair!" he blurted before he thought, then cringed at his outburst. Kakashi-sir just looked at him.

"It is," he agreed. "And I'm telling you to sit on it, and eat the food I give you. To save time, yes it is human food, but it's good for you, so I want you to eat it."

For a long moment, pet and Handler stared at each other, one determined to make the other comply, the other trying to decide which ingrained rule to disobey – obedience or servility.

Eventually, obedience won out and Naruto slowly gathered himself, moving to sit uncomfortably in the indicated chair and stare at the bowl placed in front of him.

Could that really be his food? Was he really being offered this – some sort of fried rice, steamy hot with chunks of meat and roughly cut vegetables mixed throughout it – to eat, instead of the usual fruit, bran, oats or slops he was used to being fed once a day?

Very slowly, waiting every half-inch his arm extended for Kakashi-sir to realize what he was doing, snatch the bowl away and deal him a box to the ear and his real instructions, Naruto reached for the food. A set of twin black sticks had been rammed into the rice, but Naruto wasn't sure what to make of them. He vaguely recognized them as the utensils humans used to eat, but wasn't truly sure of their function. Besides, he had hands and a tongue: that was good enough to manage any food he'd come across thus far.

Drawing the bowl closer to him, Naruto shot a furtive glance at the human, checking one last time he was really allowed to eat. Kakashi-sir was now seated opposite him at the table, but he wasn't paying a single bit of attention to his charge: he was reading a book, his left hand holding it open where he could see it while his right held two sticks expertly.

That was all the reassurance Naruto needed. If he really wasn't allowed the food, Kakashi-sir would be watching him like a hawk. Without further qualms, the blonde began to eat with typical enthusiasm, digging into the bowl with both hands and (occasionally) teeth as well, somehow navigating the sticky white rice from bowl to his mouth.

The next time he looked up, Kakashi-sir had finished eating and was totally engrossed in his book, and Naruto spared a second to wonder at the speed he must have eaten to be done with his meal already before instantly shoving the thought aside to make way for the all-important, all-encompassing idea that was his meal.

He didn't notice Kakashi watching him eat over the top of his book, a sad, vacant look making his eye glaze over with lost moments.

Naruto took a horrified step backwards, staring at his Handler, too appalled to even remember to avert his gaze respectfully – quite a feat, as he hadn't done that for more than six years.

"No," he said quietly, and then again, louder. "No! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!" He was shaking his head frantically, backing up, looking around for an escape, silently begging Kakashi-sir for mercy.

"What's wrong, Naruto?" Kakashi-sir sounded weary – and why shouldn't he be? It had been a long day, and it was past ten p.m. Plus, Naruto had a feeling he might have tried Kakashi-sir's patience when he'd attempted to 'help' with the dishes and ended up covered head to toe in small white bubbles.

What? They were fun, even if they did smell like soap and lemons. Naruto hadn't tried to taste them.

"I can't!" Naruto pleaded. "I can't. Don't make me! Please?"

"I'm failing to see the problem." Kakashi-sir looked around the room again before raising a hand to rub at his temple. Naruto guessed his head was hurting.

"It's a human bed," he whimpered, shooting a fearful glance over his shoulder at the futon Kakashi-sir had unfolded for him. "I… I've never… please. It's bad enough… I'm inside… but a human bed… please? I… I can't… that's going too far."

That seemed to catch Kakashi-sir's interest. "Too far?" he repeated. "What's too far, Naruto?"

Naruto half-winced: he wasn't used to humans using his name, and right now it was just adding to his discomfort. "Master's rules," he said slowly, dropping his eyes. "I… it's hard enough to even be indoors, in a human's home, when he's taught me all my life to respect boundaries. I… to sleep in a bed made for and owned by humans… it's too much. Please, do you… I know you're just doing your job, but… could you just take me to whatever cage you plan to keep me in? Please? If it's not safe yet, you could tie me up, or post chakra fences, or something."

Kakashi stared at the pitifully hopeful look in Naruto's eyes, mixed with a good deal of fear – that his Handler would punish him for asking something like this – and dread – that his Handler wouldn't force him to sleep outside in the cold without even a blanket. Kakashi bit back a furious flood of curses at whatever bastard was responsible for this. And he must have tried very hard, too – surely thirteen years wasn't long enough for this kind of damage to a boy's psyche?

"Naruto," he said sternly, falling with alarming ease into his 'Handler' role. "I want you to think of every single rule you have learnt at your master's house." Naruto nodded obediently, calming a little as the familiarity of orders soothed him. Kakashi fixed him with a long look, giving him a couple of seconds, before continuing, "Now forget every one of them. Don't talk back."

Naruto abruptly shut his mouth, which he had opened to protest. Kakashi wanted to cross his arms, but forced himself to simply let his arms hang passively by his sides. No threatening gestures.

"You are not under your master's rule at this point in time," Kakashi continued firmly. Or ever again, if I can help it. "As such, you are not under his rules. I have new rules for you. Most likely, many will be at least similar, and so you may abide by your lessons unless I specifically tell you to change your attitude. Understand?"

Naruto hesitated a beat, but nodded. "Yessir."

"Don't-" Kakashi broke off with a sigh. Typical. He'd just finished telling the brat… oh, never mind. "Now, I do not exile my subordinates outside at night in autumn," he said sternly. "It is insulting you would think I would leave you out to freeze. Though Konoha is still a relatively warm location, it is still significantly colder than Tea Country, where I understand you are from. So, you will sleep here. In this room. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir!" Naruto said instantly. He'd been cringing ever since Kakashi had uttered the word 'insulting', obviously terrified of being struck for his actions.

Kakashi resisted the urge to leave, hunt down this 'Master' and deliver a well-deserved knee to the nuts.

"Good. Now, it's late." Kakashi moved to turn the radiator on low, warming the room slightly for the night, before walking back to the door. "Go to sleep. Good night."

"Good night, Kakashi-sir," Naruto chanted instantly, dropping to his knees and bowing his head, obviously out of habit.

Again, Kakashi's head was filled with half-baked plans of a certain man's anaesthetic-free neutering. He closed the door carefully.

Sasuke and Toshi crouched together under the eaves of the apartment block across the street to Kakashi-sensei's apartment. It was late – after midnight – the night directly after they'd been tied together by their bastard teacher.

So they were here for revenge. Well, mostly to check out what they were up against before they sought revenge, but it amounted to the same thing.

"No visible traps," Sasuke commented eventually. Toshi rolled his eyes.

"…As one would expect," he drawled, "As we are being taught by a jounin, not an Academy student."

Sasuke looked for a moment like he was going to give a biting response, to which Toshi would have inevitably reacted with another sarcastic comment, sparking a spiralling argument that within three minutes would have degenerated into a brawl and several blood noses or similar, but somehow restrained himself.

Instead, he said, "Let's check it out."

"Yes, milady," Toshi mocked, but it wasn't designed to hurt. It was just typically him. Ever since he'd met Sasuke back in the Academy and mistaken him for a girl first glance, he'd been 'the Princess'. Toshi, likewise, had such endearing nicknames from Sasuke as 'Asshole', 'Mongrel', inspired by his mixed heritage, and his personal favourite, 'Fucking Idiot Who Should Be Stabbed On Principle'. Sasuke usually used that one right before grinding his nose into the dust and ramming several kunai in increasingly-deadly and/or unmentionable places.

But anyway.

Together, the boys crept towards the apartment. They had decided between them to enter using the front door, because to a ninja, that would be that path no-one ever even thought of using to enter or leave the home, and therefore only frequented by civilians, and therefore the least likely to be booby trapped.

Ninja were weird like that.

It was surprisingly easy to circumnavigate the wards and disable the three traps they found at the front door – clearly, they had been right. This was a weakness in Kakashi-sensei's defences.

"Spread out," Sasuke murmured. "See what you can find. Abort if Sensei turns up."

"Yeah, 'cause he's real likely to be prowling his apartment at one a.m.," Toshi said, sounding bored as he crept through the apartment. Of course, the fact that he sounded bored meant that he was exactly the opposite, and Sasuke comforted himself with the proof that his partner's heart was thumping at least as hard as his own as they began to search the apartment.

Both boys were in the kitchen and froze when they heard the soft sounds of a ninja not at all worried about being heard (just a hair louder than silent) in the hallway. But he only went a few feet, before stopping.

Kakashi pushed the door to the guest room open cautiously. For some reason, tonight he'd been unable to sleep more than two hours straight, and kept waking up filled with the urge to check on Naruto.

Which he had stubbornly ignored, because he had put wards all around the room that would alert him if someone attempted to cross them, and so it followed that Naruto was still safely alone inside the room. There was absolutely no need to reassure himself that Sensei's son was still there.

However, that reasoning was totally discarded when he'd been staring at the ceiling in his own bedroom and a small sound – a whimper – had reached him through the thin walls of his apartment.

Naruto's room was right next door. The boy was sleeping not five metres from Kakashi's own bed.

Standing in the doorway for a moment, Kakashi felt a stab of something definitely not panic – ninja do not panic, dammit! – when he saw the futon he'd set out was not only empty, but totally untouched, obviously not slept in. The panic was replaced with a decidedly less urgent concern as the silver-haired man spotted the child curled up on the hardwood floor. He was nowhere near the bed: he couldn't have just rolled out.

That worry was put aside as Naruto whimpered again, curling up into a tighter ball. Coming closer and feeling the vague tingle spread through him as his wards alerted him to his own presence, Kakashi could see him shivering, pressing against the radiator that still turned on low. Somehow, he didn't think the wild child was cold, even though he had no blanket or bedding.

Naruto's face was troubled, and he whimpered and moaned with almost unnatural quietness: the sounds would have been unnoticeable from more than fifteen metres, or if someone was asleep. Even so, Kakashi had no problem recognising what was ailing his young charge.

Nightmares.

Kakashi sighed, kneeling next to Naruto's twitching form in the darkness. He himself was no stranger to nightmares: he had had them every night between the ages of eight and fourteen.

Walking in on your father's suicide will do that to you.

But despite his vast amount of experience in the unsavoury things, Kakashi really didn't know how to react to this one. Who knows what kind of horrors he's haunted by? he mused to himself, watching as Naruto writhed suddenly, his face contorting with imagined pain, chakra fluctuating wildly in fear. Sensei had always comforted Kakashi by a midnight hug that neither would ever mention in the daylight hours, but Kakashi knew instinctively that wouldn't work here. He's never been hugged before: it'd probably frighten him even more. Poor kid. I can't shake him awake or anything, either: he doesn't like to be touched by his Handlers, and I don't want to frighten him, or he could attack me, and that could be messy.

Kakashi frowned, and half-shrugged. The simplest solution would be to just soothe the boy with his chakra, calm his mind by calming his chaotic chakra system. It was easy to do: Kakashi could use his own chakra to settle the blonde, and Naruto would be none the wiser. He'd sleep through the night, and Kakashi could go back to bed as well.

Nodding to himself, the Hatake reached out and placed a hand between Naruto's shoulder blades, feeling him shuddering, and just pushed some of his chakra into him, gently urging him to calm down and banishing the kid's fear.

It worked – for about ten seconds. Then, something clicked and a foreign energy flooded Naruto's body, radiating wave after shocking wave through his small frame.

Kakashi snatched his hand back, highly alarmed, and Naruto's eyes shot open, blue meeting grey for a half-second before the blonde opened his mouth.

And screamed.

Sasuke and Toshi both jerked violently at the loud, inhuman, feral scream that suddenly erupted, echoing around them in the enclosed space. The Uchiha stared in the direction it was coming from, feeling Sensei's chakra beginning to spike with fear, wondering what on earth was making that noise.

It couldn't be human. No human could ever sound like that.

Just as suddenly as it began, the scream – the howl of absolute suffering – ended, cut off as if someone had flipped a switch.

Toshi grabbed his arm.

"C'mon, man, we need to get out of here," he said urgently. Sasuke looked at him for a long moment. Toshi shook his head, pulling harder on the unmoving Uchiha. "Come on! We can't be found here! Whatever that was, it could be dangerous!"

"Then we should stay and help Sensei be rid of it," Sasuke commented coolly. Toshi shook his head.

"Sensei wouldn't have let it in his apartment in the first place if he didn't have a reason. But if we're here, we could screw up whatever it is. And… if it gets violent, we could be forced to kill it, and then Sensei might kill us, especially if it was really special, or something."

Sasuke considered.

"That's easily the first time you've ever made sense," he commented, turning. "Hn. We will go. It's too late for a trip to the outskirts tonight: you can stay with me until dawn."

It was amazing how Sasuke managed to totally dismiss the scream – or appear to – as he led his teammate out of his teacher's apartment and to his own.

But neither of them could truly rid themselves of the memory, or of the horrible ringing left in their ears.

Kakashi was still definitely not… ah, screw it. He was panicking. And he had a right to, dammit! What the hell had happened?!

Carefully, he turned Naruto over, noting the fine tremors wracking his well-toned teenage body. That surge of power – a chakra foreign to both Kakashi and Naruto, and yet definitely of human origin.

Not Kyuubi, then.

What did that leave?

Sweeping his gaze up and down the boy, he quickly noticed the obvious way Naruto had clutched at his collar in the eight and a half seconds before he'd passed out. Leaning closer, Kakashi pried his hands away and examined the area himself.

The delicate skin of Naruto's neck was an angry red, as if it had been mildly burnt. And, when he ran his fingers over it, the collar itself was slightly warm.

Frowning, a terrible feeling of sickened dread coiling in his stomach, Kakashi reached up and combed his unruly hair out of the way, and then opened his left eye. He had removed his hitai-ate before going to sleep, but had kept the sharingan eye closed, to save chakra. Now he opened it and looked again at the unconscious, twitching boy in his arms.

What he saw made him pale, and then growl – actually verbally growl – with anger.

The collar they'd put on him was not just a mark of ownership. It was chakra-sensitive, meaning that it would react to different types of chakra. But this was not just to secure or remove it, as he'd first supposed. No, this collar was designed to punish as well.

Obviously, it seemed to send out several jolting pulses of concentrated chakra through its wearer's system. Kakashi ground his teeth. Didn't they understand how dangerous that was?! To be strong enough to make him lose consciousness, the waves would have had to have been strong enough to damage his internal organs, impair breathing and momentarily stop Naruto's heart, not to mention what that much power could do to his brain! It was a miracle it hadn't killed him yet! And that wasn't even considering the extreme pain the kid would be in, before and after his brief reprieve of unconsciousness.

And worse, it reacted to alien chakra sources touching Naruto's own, so his gentle attempt at soothing the boy in his sleep, or – Kakashi gasped as he realised – something like a chakra fence would spark the collar.

One more thing. Kakashi carefully examined the way the collar was designed with his sharingan, noticing and clenching his fists as he recognised one more aspect of the thing.

Oh, Kami. They can turn it on. They must have a device – a radio or remote of some kind – and they can just turn it on. No wonder the kid's so terrified of doing something wrong. Man, this is going to be harder than I thought.

Naruto began to move, shifting in his arms and opening his eyes. Instantly, he began to grimace with the residual pain, tears filling his eyes, though he didn't shed them. Thanks to the sharingan, Kakashi could literally see the collar spark, a bit of his lingering chakra causing a flare in its own reaction wind-down, making Naruto stiffen and let out a pitiful cry of pain before twisting where he lay and vomiting up everything he'd eaten that night, all over the man cradling him up off the floor.

Kakashi found he didn't really mind, too focused on clearing the boy's mouth out so he didn't choke, rubbing his back in hopes of dispelling the tremors, one thought circling with an almost lazy fury through his brain.

Oh, he was going to do a lot worse than neutering to 'Master' when he got ahold of him. He was going to destroy that motherfucker.

Naruto was floating in a sickeningly familiar haze of pain, mind adrift from his body and stalling as it tried to reconnect, tried to decipher what had happened.

He'd been asleep… then his collar activated, out of the blue… but why did…?

It made no sense.

He felt himself beginning the slide back to full consciousness, slipping faster and faster into normal wakefulness.

The moment he was aware enough to register it, he noticed the acidic smell in his nose and bitter taste hanging in his mouth, and sighed. He'd vomited again. With luck it could just be hosed away, and his Handler wouldn't be too mad.

He was lying slightly awkwardly, he perceived. Face-down. Almost kneeling as his upper body was propped up on something… something warm… two strong limbs looped around him, holding him in place…

Shock ran through Naruto like a jolt of electricity. His position was so mind-bogglingly unfeasible, he hadn't realised what was happening at first.

He was being held.

By his Handler.

His whole torso was being cradled in Kakashi-sir's lap. Naruto held himself utterly still, heart beginning to thump with a little fear and more than a little confusion. What was happening? Why was Kakashi-sir here? What was going on?

Oh, hell. Naruto's breath caught as he realised Kakashi-sir's shirt was damp and sticky and thick with the smell of stomach acid: he had obviously thrown up all over his Handler.

Crap crap shit fuck! Naruto chanted mentally. He's gonna kill me! What do I do now?!

I could kill him,Naruto's darker side suggested.

I can't do that! You're crazy! You're me and you're crazy!

It's worth a shot, if he's going to kill me anyway…

… He probably won't actually kill me… I'm really expensive… and it's not like it was on purpose…

Why take the chance?

Because he'll turn my collar on! And that hurts!

He may not be able to. They probably don't have the remote here.

Then how do I explain the way my collar just turned on? Fairies?

Naruto's darker side retreated, leaving Naruto alone to face his Handle1r's wrath. After a moment's deliberation, he decided feigning unconsciousness was the best course of action. Kakashi-sir wasn't fooled.

"Naruto? Are you awake?" he asked, his voice low and calm. Naruto bit his lip, hesitating as long as he dared before he forced out his answer.

"Yessir."

"Are you alright?" The question threw Naruto for a loop, before he remembered that this was the first time Kakashi-sir had ever seen his collar activate, and Naruto had reacted quite badly to it this time, after all, vomiting and everything. It was natural Kakashi-sir would be concerned – he was paid to care about Naruto's overall health. He probably was wondering if Naruto was allergic to the chakra pulses, or something, like Yugito had been before they changed the frequency of her collar.

"Yessir," he repeated, shifting a little uncomfortably as his heart began to thump. He wasn't looking forwards to the repercussions of his bout of sickness.

Kakashi-sir eased him away until he was kneeling on the floor before the human, and Naruto took that as the cue to start grovelling.

Making sure he looked about as meek and compliant as possible, he stole a glance through blonde bangs and winced, beginning to panic as he watched Kakashi-sir examine the half-digested rice smeared across his clothes.

"Naruto, I don't think I need to tell you this is yours, but then, you were only semi-conscious at the time," Kakashi-sir began, his tone serious and just a bit dark. Naruto flinched – he must be mad.

"I'm sorry!" he yelped instantly, ducking his upper body so low his forehead touched the floorboards below him and arms reaching up to shield his head. "I didn't mean to!"

He waited, tense, breathing erratically and heart pounding wildly for Kakashi-sir's first blow to fall, praying desperately that the man would go easy on him and leave him still able to walk in the morning.

But nothing happened. For the longest time. Eventually, after what seemed like an age, the man shifted (Naruto flinched) and said, "Naruto, I'm not going to hit you."

The words were so bizarre Naruto took a moment to process them. When he finally deciphered what it was Kakashi-sir had said, he had no idea how to react, so he settled for just staying frozen in place, safe in his ultimate display of subservience and submission.

Kakashi stared down at the boy, huddled shivering on the floor before him, arms up around his head in an instinctive attempt to protect his vital areas.

So… what was he to do?

He wanted to shake him, to lift Naruto up and tell him again and again until he got it damn him that he was safe here, that Kakashi wasn't going to punish him because he had been in so much pain he'd thrown up. But the Hatake knew that would do no good.

So what could he do? Gentle words wouldn't work, touches wouldn't work, and Kakashi sure as hell wasn't going to do what the boy expected and beat him (cue furious growl and slight detail added to the forming make-Master-pay plan swirling in his mind).

That just left… walking away.

As heartless an action it seemed, it might well be the best possible way to prove to Naruto that he had no intention of ever hurting him.

So, bracing himself, he stood up slowly, wincing as the blonde visibly cringed, pressing himself to the floor as if hoping he could melt into it.

"I am going back to bed," he said, choosing to forgo more reassurances. Naruto twitched in shock at the words, and he turned and walked back to the door, carefully making enough noise for Naruto to track his movements. When he reached the hall, he paused and looked back at the boy, who was now peeking at him through his arms, disbelief and fear etched over his mostly-hidden face.

"It was an accident," he said firmly. "I forgive you. Now go back to sleep. Don't leave this room until I come for you."

And he swung the door closed on the jinchuuriki.

Then fought the urge to punch something. Or swear. Or cry. Or all three.

Sighing, he made his way slowly to his bathroom, stripping off his soiled clothes, intent on washing quickly before falling into bed.

He was suddenly exhausted.