I was thinking about this fic a bit ago and suddenly this very random, frenzied plot bunny appeared. So... here you go! Hope y'all enjoy!

~..~..~

"Mornin'."

The whole of his home was quiet, a true marvel when compared to its usual, incredibly noisy state.

Kakuzu grunted as gave the subtlest movement of his chin as an acknowledgment to Nagato's greeting. But he continued to read over the reports that had been handed in by the Tenshikage's ANBU detail that had been left behind in the village while he had been off, attending the summit and then accompanying Sasori to meet his family.

The fact that this report detailed less than two whole months' worth of activities and yet had enough paper to fill a whole was enough to prove to him that it truly had been irresponsible of all the leadership behind Ryogakure to allow him to house so many menaces to society under the same roof. He had been pouring over it for the better half of a day at this point and wasn't even a quarter of the way through.

Nagato's steps were barely audible as he walked into the kitchen; Kakuzu read over the entry about the way in which Deidara had wound up with a punishment of exclusively foreign missions after he had somehow managed to detonate his explosives within Yahiko's office because of an argument with Dosu of all the damn kids.

The silence between them was familiar, comfortable. It was a silence that Kakuzu had worked hard to foment between them during these early, almost ungodly hours of the morning. It was a silence they both required; sometimes, he suspected Nagato needed them much more than he ever had.

With a small sigh, Kakuzu shook his head at this set of antics, then set the papers down. He took a break from all of the reading he was doing to sip from his matcha, then noticed that Nagato had, once again, refused to turn on any lights. He made quick work of swallowing down the dredges of his drink, placed his mask back over his face, and stood up to turn the lights on.

Nagato hissed from within the kitchen and Kakuzu knew that his eyes were now pressed tightly together due to the sudden light, not from a vain; ultimately appreciated; attempt to not see Kakuzu's face.

"You're going to hurt yourself doing that." he chided without any real heat to his words as he made to sit back down on the only place he could find available in the dining room table. The brats had taken to using it as a dumping ground for mission gear far too long ago for him to remember; as long as whoever got wounded by this pile of disaster swallowed their complaints and dealt with their injuries without bothering him, he didn't care what they did with the table.

Not like it was ever used, anyway. These kids were incapable of a single shred of decency; meal times were had standing around, sitting on unorthodox surfaces, or running around to complete whatever task they had forgotten about.

If Kakuzu had been a more sentimental kind of person, he would wonder why there was always just one place available at the table, as if kept deliberately free from the rest of the mess, even though he knew none of the brats under his roof utilized it. He wasn't a sentimental person, though, and so never bothered himself about it.

"It's good training." Nagato grouched as he opened the refrigerator door; it wasn't and Kakuzu knew that the kid only did it out of some misguided wish to appease his worries of being seen without a mask. Nagato refused to admit it, though, so Kakuzu refused to speak it out loud and acknowledge any kind of ponderations he may or may not have about the kids under his care. "Have you had breakfast?"

"Nn." he hadn't and Nagato knew that. Kakuzu knew that no matter how much he protested, the little shit would force a plate onto him, so it wasn't worth wasting any energy trying to argue.

"Hm." was Nagato's curt reply before they fell into silence once again.

Kakuzu began to read up on the next set of misadventures that Dosu and Zaku had embarked on, observed but unbothered by the ANBU called Silver, because they had fallen for a lie Kin and Tayuya had set up to get them in trouble. He heard the way in which the kitchen began to liven with the soft sounds of moving pans and scratching cutlery as Nagato began to prepare breakfast for the whole of the household.

He felt a knot deep within himself; so deep he had been unaware of its existence; slowly begin to loosen as they returned to familiar, relaxed patterns.

~/~

Nagato had curled up onto his preferred hammock in the library-alcove, far from Kakuzu's presence but visible through the open doorway, when the next few menaces to Kakuzu's mental well being began to stir.

Hidan walked out of the bedroom space of the house clad in only a set of pants and sandals, bare in just about every other aspect. He greeted Kakuzu with a dismissive 'sup?' before he reminded Nagato to eat something, and then he had disappeared out the front door to begin his usual morning run.

Kakuzu didn't deem any of that worthy of so much as a glance, so he instead continued to read from the reports. He was officially a quarter of the way through and doubting just how much this village was willing to put up with when it came to these brats when he decided to put it down.

Nagato had not moved an inch within his space, still very much curled up around the same book.

Kakuzu stood, entered the kitchen, and looked for what he knew would be Nagato's first snack-meal of the morning. The bowl of rice that the young jounin had made was still cooling, the rest of the ingredients that would go into the morning batch of onigiri set up in covered up bowls all around the kitchen. Kakuzu frowned at this, then went to the fridge in the hopes that there was something he wouldn't have to construct for Nagato to eat.

It had most probably been Konan to leave a single plate of tightly wrapped onigiri at the very center of the top-most shelf of the fridge, left in such a position that the inner light shined over it like a beacon.

Kakuzu pulled it out, unwrapped it, and grabbed a piece of paper towel before plucking out a single ball out from the small bunch. It was the smallest in size.

He wrapped the rest back up but left the plate on the countertop. Then he made his way back to Nagato, wordlessly pushing his book down to gently shove the food in his face. The idiot blinked blearily at him, seemingly surprised by his actions, and Kakuzu frowned down at him. Nagato stretched and let out a confused sigh before ultimately humming in recognition; he grabbed the food with a look of gratitude on his face.

The idiot consistently forgot that he was just as human as the rest and needed food to exist. Yahiko had once joked about how Nagato had adopted the bad habit of forgetting about food being necessary sustenance from Kakuzu's own seeming habit of dodging meals at all times; Kakuzu just chalked it up to him being forgetful and a different kind of idiot from Yahiko.

Kakuzu returned to his spot at the table in time for Konan to see the way in which Konan appeared from the darkened hallway, already dressed and mostly prepared for her day. She offered a kind greeting before heading towards the kitchen and he grunted in reply... then he narrowed his eyes with distrust he didn't bother to conceal when she came to him rather than crossing the space into the kitchen.

"Father," she began and Kakuzu immediately knew she was up to something from how gently she uttered the word. "Would you help me preparing today's breakfast?"

He grunted and she offered small, apologetic smile before she raised her hands up; her left was rubbing at her right wrist. He frowned deeply, brows furrowing, and she sighed softly before looking away from him. "It is cold." was the only explanation she offered.

"You're supposed to be the best from these idiots." he chided as he began to go towards the kitchen; he hadn't even managed to sit back down in his place.

"It is easy to forget to care about yourself when you are blinded by caring for others."

If any of the other brats had said this, it would have been only natural to assume that they were trying to make some kind of underhanded commentary about him. But seeing how it was Konan out of all of them... he could accept at face value that she was saying this as acknowledgment for her own flaws; no snippy observations in sight.

This wasn't the first time that Konan had asked him for his help in making breakfast for the horde; it would undoubtedly not be the last time, either. Generally, she only asked for aid when her hands hurt far too much for her to sacrifice them on making a full breakfast for the mess of them. Her hands were a necessary part of not just her life, but her shinobi career as well.

On days like these, she needed to rest and take care of only herself. But did she take a break from thinking of others? Of course not. And he had grown tired of attempting to educate her on the finer points of selective selfishness after innumerable attempts were met with appeasing smiles and promises to not overwork herself, even when they both knew such promises were vapid.

Settling in for the monotonous and simple task that was making onigiri for breakfast wasn't nearly as practiced as other parts of this morning routine, but it was not novel by any stretch of the imagination. He took his preferred spot at the deepest spot in the counter, the corner in between the refrigerator and the rest of the damn space, as Konan settled a respectful distance away from him; even if it was far closer than he ever would have allowed only some years ago.

The passage of time had made him soft.

The peace and quiet in the household remained even as he and Konan worked on preparing a breakfast that would undoubtedly disappear before thirty minutes had passed. The sounds of them working in the kitchen were only ever truly interrupted by the soft turning of a page, faint and almost unheard seeing how Nagato was far from them.

He made the simple, unlaborious ham and egg balls that were as far as he was willing to work for these brats. This was a simple case of dumping pre-cooked bits of ham and egg into the seasoned sticky rice and then rolling them up into ugly, not quite right shapes that could barely pass for proper rice balls. He placed them on the tray that Konan had set between them without much thought, only truly willing to put in the bare minimum to feed the rest of these mongrels.

Konan, on the other hand, went through the arduous task of differentiating between the more elaborate fillings that Nagato had prepared, being mindful of how much each picky eater under his roof would need to have a filling breakfast and making specific servings for each of them. This was not a simple task, seeing how some of these fillings required to be housed in the center of the ball and couldn't just be mixed in; far too much work. And she spent time making sure that each ball she made was properly shaped, each one nearly perfect.

One thing he had never understood about Konan was why she refused to buy the molds that would make her intricate process so much easier to go through. He hadn't bothered because he wasn't about to waste money on such a frivolous, unnecessary thing. But she did care about presentation... ridiculous.

The time they spent working passed by fast enough and then Konan was leaving the trays of breakfast in the oven, loosely wrapped to preserve humidity. Then he watched her rub at her knuckles after she had closed the oven's door and he found himself frowning.

"With me." he ordered as he stepped out of the kitchen, heading towards the far too large couch that marked the living room he had never wanted; Nagato stretched in time to see him sitting Konan down and quickly buried his head back in his book when Kakuzu sent a glare his way. "You're all fools." he shook his head as he stuck his hand out, waiting.

Konan's smile was soft and particularly irritating as she lifted her right hand up and placed it delicately within his own much larger one. "But we're you're fools, father dearest."

How that term rankled him.

With a warning-filled clicking of his tongue, he set about massaging her far too tense hand.

~/~

"You're forgetting something."

Fū stopped in her mad dash to the front door upon hearing Konan's gentle chide. Kakuzu grunted as he glanced up from the report, only to find that the kunoichi in training was looking down at herself in seeming wonder, as if she couldn't understand what Konan had been referring to.

It didn't take him more than five seconds to know what was missing.

"What?" she asked, then gasped.

She hadn't gotten it. She hadn't even looked in the direction of what was missing.

Kakuzu watched as she ran towards the library and stuck her head inside, the jacket she had tied around her waist slapping against her thighs as she barely skidded to a stop against the doorframe.

"Did'ya remember to eat, big bro?"

He wasn't sure why Hidan and Fū were obsessed with making sure that Nagato didn't starve to death. But both Taki natives seemed to have a need to remind him to eat at all hours of the day; which was a trait they had, unfortunately, passed on to the rest of the people within the house.

"Yup." he heard the softest reply from Nagato, then Fūthanked him- which was strange, but perfectly Fū.

"See you guys later!" she began on her way to the front door once more, but stopped as soon as she heard Konan call her name. "What? He ate!"

The nerve... Kakuzu cleared his throat, then pointed down at her feet. Fū watched him with confusion clear on her face, then she finally glanced down and noticed that her feet were as bare as her stomach.

"Oh, shoes! Right. Thanks, Jiji!" and that name was somehow even worse than father dearest.

The infuriating girl ran off back into the hallway, actions so quiet that she had undoubtedly used some of her tailed beast's flight ability to not awaken the rest of the household. A few minutes later, she was back shooting off through the front door, whisper-yelling how she'd try and remind Hidan to take the outer routes of Ryo if they wanted to do some combat training... which made Kakuzu look over at Konan after she was gone, one eyebrow quirked.

Konan didn't even look away from the papers she had been grading as she explained how he would see once he got to around the middle of the report in his hands.

~/~

The sounds of the rest of the household waking up were disruptive to the peace and quiet that he had so enjoyed that early morning. Even if it was all stupidly mundane and expected, it was still irritating to hear the beginnings of the end of his quiet when a rooster somewhere nearby began to shriek at the beginning of the day which, in turn, prompted a loud thud followed by a string of twin curses from the room Dosu and Zaku shared.

Doors began to open, footsteps began to echo, and annoyed or eager mutters began to reverberate down the hallway. Konan stood up from the couch and began to make her way towards the kitchen, all the while Nagato resolutely closed the book he had been reading. Kakuzu remained rooted in place, wishing to enjoy what little peace was left before his day properly began.

After some minutes of the different people within the house beginning to awaken, he was able to hear hurried footsteps from the hallway and he closed the report that Platinum had undoubtedly written just to try and get a rise out of him- why else would the little shit think Kin sending communication to some academy student in the Leaf was worth writing down?

Zaku appeared in a loose set of pajamas, his hair disheveled and not nearly prepared for the day; his eyes were wide and wild as he searched for someone from the entrance into the main space.

"Konan!" he shouted out when she crossed from one part of the kitchen to another, appearing for just a flash in the doorway. "Did you ever get me that contact in Suna for that project I've got to do!?"

Kakuzu turned to look at the entrance to the kitchen, only to see the way in which Konan returned so she stood visible in the very center of it. With that calm serenity she always seemed to exude, no matter the occasion, she offered a small smile, "You did not remind me last week as I asked you and I believe he has gone on a month long mission in Kumo. You will have to resort to another source, little brother."

It was cold-blooded; Zaku shouted out in dejected horror before he disappeared back into the long, dark hallway, screaming for Dosu to wake up- they were in trouble!

Kakuzu watched the way in which Konan watched the little idiot disappear, noting the slightest curve upwards the corners of her lips took. When her eyes drifted towards him, she cocked her head ever so slightly to the side.

She knew what she had done. And she had done it on purpose.

Kakuzu huffed softly before he returned his gaze back onto the report, "About damn time."

The hardest part of being stuck with so many young children under his roof was how none allowed him to properly instill discipline. All of the traits and characteristics that were necessary for a ninja to thrive were some he hadn't even attempted to instill into any of these little brats- with the way Konan had been spoiling them all this time, none of the lessons would have taken.

Truly, it wasn't as if he needed to worry too much about trying to instill such lessons; no matter what they may have said, he was no parental figure to any of them. What they chose to absorb and practice in their lives was unimportant. If they chose to be foolhardy and adopt only the worst of characteristics, then their deaths were deserved. If they heeded the counsel of others and learned properly, then they would succeed. It was simple; out of his hands.

Konan's eyebrows raised slightly before she shrugged, offering no explanation. Then she was disappearing back into the depths of the kitchen, undoubtedly to finish preparing the onigiri for the rest of these mongrels. Kakuzu understood this part the least. All of the hard work had been done and all that was left to do was just stamp seaweed strips onto the formed balls... if nothing else, the little shits could handle that much.

Still, he wasn't about to say anything. Konan did as she pleased and heeded almost none of his words of advice. He didn't feel like wasting any more oxygen on this particular morning.

~/~

Breakfast had been served, Hidan and Fū had returned from their morning run, and those that had not woken up with the academy students had been forced out of their beds to interact in what was likely the only social period in which so many of them would be available in the house.

Kakuzu was subjected to the buzzing cacophony that was all of these little ingrates conversing with one another as they finished preparing for the day that was to come. He remained seated in his place in the table, one of the few prime seats in the open space that was this stupid home's social space to watch all of the chaos unfold.

Kin was not able to find some of the equipment she would need to take into subterfuge class while Tayuya's preferred musical instrument had seemingly disappeared even though she swore she had left it on top of the pile of weapons at the table. Kakuzu watched them both run, much like Zaku had earlier that morning, in an attempt to find their objects.

Yahiko was dragged out of bed kicking and screaming by a displeased Deidara, who had apparently been assigned on Yahiko-wake-up duty after the little explosion in the bedroom- which was apparently part of the reports that he had yet to get to. Kisame walked into the mess with Samehada in one hand and a familiar musical instrument in the other, growling and snapping about how the next time something that wasn't his wound up next to Samehada, he would be taking violent measures to stop little would-be-thieves from taking his prized sword.

Tayuya had run up to him, looked him square in the eye, and told him she would like to see him just try and catch her before she was stealing her instrument away. Kisame stood stunned as she rushed to grab breakfast from the kitchen; she wasted no time and reappeared to rush through the front door with two rice balls in her left, her flute in her right, and a third ball trapped between her teeth.

Kisame was about to shout at her to respect her elders, but then Kin was appearing before him, asking him if he had seen the pack they had bought together a few months ago; undoubtedly reminding him of the fact that he had never bothered to try and hide that he favored Kin over all of the other terrors in the house. He stopped, blinked, and then murmured to ask her if she had checked the top of the bookcase in the study.

The atmosphere around her turned cold as her whole stance tightened and Kakuzu sighed softly; she was screaming bloody murder for Deidara to appear before her unless he wanted her to destroy his room.

At some point, Yahiko managed to crawl his way through the chaos around the rest of them and grab breakfast. Kakuzu felt a presence to his right and, when he loked down, found that the man that he was supposed to proudly call the Third Tenshikage of Ryogakure was curled up against the legs of the chair he sat in. There was an almost oblong looking ham and egg rice ball in the hand he was holding up to his mouth, another perfectly shaped onigiri that had the special filling Nagato had prepared just for him in his other.

"I don't feel like existing today." he mumbled into his food, his gaze unfocused in the direction where Hidan and Fū were attempting to bully a still somewhat asleep Zabuza into doing something or another as Haku tried to intercept them to no success. "Can I go with you when you go missing nin?"

Kakuzu huffed at the absurdity of such a statement. Bringing any of them along would defeat the purpose of escaping and disappearing.

He didn't say as much, though. Instead, he reminded the idiot, "Use Orochimaru and Danzou. Stop avoiding your duties."

"Paperwork." the idiot hissed, as if that was all that was necessary for him to explain just how horrible things were to explain why he was willing to shirk all his duties and run away.

"Danzou." he repeated and Yahiko's small nibbles on his onigiri quicked. "Orochimaru." and that was the last thing he was willing to say.

He continued to watch the way in which the rest of the idiots finished up with their morning routine of chaos, taking particular enjoyment in how pale Zaku and Dosu looked as they waited for Kin to finish up with everything she needed to pack up for the school day. They waved goodbye with no true enthusiasm and Konan really twisted the kunai by wishing for them to have a great day and excel in all their classes.

A still not fully awake Zabuza managed to escape the clutches of the Disaster Duo and enter the safe haven that was Konan's kitchen. Haku reminded the final child in the house that she needed to go to school today and he would not stick around for her if she insisted on bullying Zabuza... and then the green haired idiot shouted out that she hadn't remember she needed to go to school.

Orochimaru swooped in from the hallway at that point to throw supplies her way and directing her into the nearest bathroom in order to avoid another undressing incident in the middle of the living space.

And Kakuzu wondered for a moment if he should ask where in the world that snake loving asshole had appeared from, seeing how he had not come in through the front door at any point during the past night or early morning. But then he remembered how the bedroom that was supposed to be his own, sectioned off and untouchable to the rest of the mongrels, had begun to be utilized by the aged shit at some point he couldn't even remember... and then he sighed.

Nothing was sacred or respected by these terrible people.

He wished he could say he had at least expected from Orochimaru, considering how he was more than fifty years old at this point. But, unfortunately, if he tried to say such a thing, it would have been a lie. He expected only the worst from the jounin after he had dumped those four kids on his doorstep.

Beside himself, Kakuzu stiffened in his stance as he remembered that.

Yahiko finished chewing on the last piece of the ham and egg monstrosity Kakuzu had carelessly crafted and asked, "Everything okay, Kuzu?"

And he wanted to tell the little shit to step off- this was a problem because of him. But he just chose to growl at him to finish his breakfast, he needed to be in the office in less than an hour and he had spent just fifteen minutes eating half of his shitty breakfast.

Yahiko howled for Konan and Nagato, ratting him out for having insulted the meal that they had both worked so arduously to create; but neither of his old teammates responded in any way. Taking this for the demand of silence that it was, Yahiko quieted down and continued to nibble infuriatingly at the perfectly shaped onigiri he had left.

In the space of a few months, one of the four menaces that Orochimaru had dumped on his doorstep was set to graduate. Yahiko had agree to have Orochimaru teach them once they became genin but... genin teams were composed of threes and Tayuya had yet to manage to create any kind of positive relationship with any of her classmates- so damn focused on excelling that she didn't see any good in teamwork.

This was going to be a problem he was going to have to solve, wasn't it?

Kakuzu grunted as he closed the report that was so thick it could have easily been confused for a historical tome and placed it on the clear space in the table; having to push a few kunai tips that stuck out from the pile away before he did so. Then he stood up and began to walk into the hallway that lead into the separate rooms, more than aware that all of the disorder he enjoyed to see in these mornings was as good as over with.

He heard Yahiko squawk after him to ask if he could drop by the office later that day to help him deal with some of the fallout from Kage summit that he had yet to address.

He didn't bother to respond.