When Naruto emerged a half-hour later smelling like him, drowning in his clothes, the most bizarre impulse to hug her welled up in Kakashi, so powerful he swayed forward to do so, his eye fixed on the way his shirt hung almost to her knees and revealed her delicate collarbones, the way she'd rolled his sweatpants up so she wouldn't trip on their extra length, her bare feet on his tiled floor and her wet hair hanging down her back in a messy, crooked braid.
"Better?" he asked, and she nodded. "Hungry?"
She nodded again, just as he'd thought she would, and he guided her to sit at the table. He didn't have much in the house, but he had bread, and peanut butter, and honey, and memories of Kushina making he and Minato peanut butter and honey sandwiches when they came home exhausted from training, so that's what he made her, served with a glass of milk and another of water.
The satisfaction Kakashi felt at finally having Naruto with him, eating and wearing what he'd provided for her, made him sort of dizzy. Made him unable to stop himself from watching her from his place leaning against the counter with his arms crossed, something in his heart squeezing as he watched her lick honey from her delicate little thumb and chug the milk like she'd been dared to finish it all in one go. She looked up at him when she was finished, her expression screaming hesitance and insecurity, and tilted her head to the side, like he was a puzzle she was trying to put together. He wasn't expecting what she was going to say.
"Are you okay, sensei?"
Kakashi turned her words over in his mind for a moment. On one hand, yes, he was great, better than he'd been in years, sincerely and utterly contented by her presence in his home. On the other hand, his fingers still itched with the need to avenge, to mete out punishment where it had been earned, to destroy, to bring Naruto the heads of her abusers for her approval. He was almost upset Naruto had killed the man before he could, though he thought that maybe the knowledge that she'd defended herself would be beneficial to her. At the same time, he couldn't tell her any of that, and he didn't, merely answering, "Are you okay?"
Naruto chewed on that for a moment. "I… I don't know," she answered, eyes on her empty plate as she moved to cradle her glass of water between her palms. "I didn't… I didn't let myself think very much about it. I think I was pretending it wasn't real. Just… nightmares. But now you know, and… It feels so much more real." An errant tear was dislodged when she blinked, and she wiped it away quickly, like she didn't want him to see. "And I really didn't mean to kill him."
"If you hadn't, I would have," Kakashi admitted before his brain had caught up with his tongue. "And it wouldn't have been anywhere near as quick. You did him a favor."
He watched the way his words made her shiver, her beautiful blue eyes flickering up to him with the most tempting hint of hope pooled within them. "You're mad," she observed softly.
Mad was putting it lightly. "Pissed," he agreed darkly, studying her delicate face, tracing his eyes over the whisker scars on her cheeks. "Nobody is allowed to touch you like that." Not if I have anything to say about it.
"I thought—" Naruto started, but then she bit her lip, and Kakashi would have killed to crawl inside her head and know what she'd been about to say. "Um. Are you sure I can stay here?"
Kakashi jerked his head once in the affirmative. Permanently, if you want, he didn't say. It wasn't at all unusual for jōnin to house orphaned or abused genin. Less common now since Naruto was the youngest of the war orphans, but it still wouldn't raise many eyebrows. Everyone knew that the girl had been living alone since she was little. When this got around, no one would blink twice at him moving her in. He'd ease her into it, he thought, even as some hysterical part of him screamed that he was giving up, that he still needed to keep his distance, that he was a black hole and he was going to swallow her. But when the liquor is right there in the cabinet, it's easy to just… pour a drink, and insist you have everything under control.
Her sad blue gaze didn't raise from the table as she ventured so softly that Kakashi leaned forward to hear her better, "I'm sorry… I know I'm not, like… your favorite student, or anything…"
It took a lot of self control to keep himself there against the counter and not wrap himself around her like a snake, so much so he failed to stop himself from stating evenly and honestly, "You are my favorite student."
She huffed, a self-deprecating little smile twisting her lips in a way that was desperately sad. "You don't have to lie to make me feel better, sensei, I'm not going to break in half."
Kakashi waited for her to look up at him, for their gazes to meet, waited for that little stiffening in her shoulders and widening of her eyes that told him Naruto had registered the intensity with which he was staring her down. "You are my favorite student, Naruto." He hoped the exposed portion of his face was as unreadable as his voice sounded. "I'm sorry I made you think otherwise."
The most beautiful blush he'd ever seen bloomed on her cheeks, and she dropped her gaze again. He wanted to make her look at him, wanted her eyes to be on him always, but all he did was move to start quietly making up the couch, leaving her to sip water at the table as he pulled extra pillows and blankets from the linen closet in the hall. With only a moment's hesitation, he entered his bedroom and switched his own blanket for one of the clean ones from the closet, giving into his canine instincts to surround her with his smell.
…
Naruto stared up at the ceiling of her sensei's apartment in the dark, trying and failing to process the events of the night. She found herself fixating on the way the older man was treating her, finding that far more tolerable than thinking about how the first half of her evening had gone. She thought at length about how different and strange his behavior was. How angry he'd been that she'd been hurt, how he'd carried her and kept touching her, guiding her from room to room, tucking her into bed. The blankets were still tight around her body, and in her mind's eye, she replayed the moment he'd leaned over her in the dark, smelling like the woods and clean clothes and man as his hands touched all along her sides, pushing the blankets under her body until she was snug on his couch. It was all so disparate from the aloof, hard to please, sometimes kind of mean sensei she was used to.
Naruto didn't much like being touched. It made her fight or flight kick in, and it wasn't exactly that she didn't feel that way when her sensei was the one doing it; it simply wasn't unpleasant. It was sort of thrilling, to be on the receiving end of his undivided attention, after months of practically begging him for scraps. You are my favorite student. There was simply no way that was true. When Sasuke was so talented, and Sakura was so smart and pretty, and Naruto was just… clumsy and hardheaded? It made no sense. Just like the way her sensei had been looking at her all night made no sense, like he was afraid to take his eyes off of her in case something bad happened while his back was turned.
Naruto was so, so tired, but every time she shut her eyes, she heard her attacker's voice, felt his thing pressed against her stomach where he'd pushed her shirt up over her breasts. Heard him say, you ready for me to finally rearrange your guts, blondie?
She was pretty sure that wasn't how it worked. 99% sure. But it had scared her badly, looking down at how far up her stomach he stretched, imagining it tearing her open, tearing through her, stabbing her. So she'd stabbed first. Self-defense, they'd called it. But Naruto was haunted by the thought that she knew non-lethal ways to incapacitate an enemy. The thought that she'd used her training to kill a civilian.
Her sensei almost seemed proud of her, that she'd done it. Told her he would have killed him if she hadn't. And she had to marvel at that, that her sensei would kill a man that posed no real threat to her life, just because he'd touched her. It had made her feel warm and safe, the way she'd felt the entire time he'd had his hands and eyes on her. Now, though, alone in a strange apartment, she just felt scared.
A dumb idea started forming in her mind, as she stared sleeplessly at the ceiling, every little noise outside making her jump and cower into the blankets. The idea that if she could just be close enough to her sensei to hear him breathing, she would feel safer, and be able to sleep, and finally, finally put this awful day behind her. Maybe he'd let her. He'd been so indulgent of her, had treated her with uncharacteristic gentleness. Could she push him for more?
Naruto knew she shouldn't. Knew he'd already let her into his space when she knew how private he was, knew that she had no right to ask him for even a smidgen more. Knew she was already in debt. But she found herself pushing to her feet, pausing to fix the cuffs of her sensei's borrowed pants and check that the knotted drawstrings were still tight on her waist before she gathered her bedding in her arms and crept down the hall towards his bedroom door.
And she knew she wasn't going to get away with him not noticing. She knew firsthand that her sensei was a light sleeper, had seen him bolt upright at the sound of one of her teammates leaving their campsite in the night to heed nature's call. Naruto was banking more on him just not calling her out on it.
The doorknob turned under her palm, the door apparently having been left unlocked, and she pushed it open. Inside was absolute, pitch darkness, like a cave, and she almost gave up, frightened. But she could hear her sensei's steady breathing, and she already felt safer, so she shuffled inside, shut the door behind her as silently as she could, and quietly arranged herself on the floor. She almost thought she'd gotten away with it, was nearly asleep by the time her sensei spoke up.
"You can't sleep on the floor, Naruto. Come here."
…
Kakashi had left his door unlocked on a complete and utter whim, some vague fantasy of his pretty young charge waking up from a nightmare and seeking him out staying his hand when muscle memory brought his fingers up to the lock. He would have bet a lot of money against it panning out, but as he laid in bed into the early hours of the morning, fantasizing about all the ways he'd be extracting the price for Naruto's suffering, he heard her. Heard her little uncertain footsteps down the hall, heard her hesitate after the faint rattle of her hand wrapping around the doorknob.
Heart thudding in his chest, Kakashi watched the door open, shining the smallest amount of light into the carefully curated darkness of his bedroom, watched her outline hesitate in the doorway before stepping inside and shutting the door behind her. He expected her to say something. I had a nightmare, sensei, maybe, and he'd soothe her and tuck her back in on the futon, maybe sit in the armchair until he was sure she was asleep. But the shuffling he heard came no closer, and settled into silence, the only sound her quiet, even breathing. He cracked his sharingan eye open, and took in the flat, black and white image of her curled up in a nest of blankets on the floor, right in front of his door as though she didn't dare invade his space any more than she had to.
Naruto… just wanted to be near him. Felt safe with him. It made something Kakashi recognized as greed well up in him as he considered his options. He couldn't bear to send her away. Couldn't stand the thought of letting her sleep on the floor. The solution was obvious and dangerous and inappropriate and he went for it anyway, summoning her to him.
She held her breath, utterly silent for a moment after he acknowledged her, and he started to worry he'd have to press the issue when he saw her begin shuffling to her feet, dragging her blankets with her. That was good, he thought. Might as well preserve the tiniest bit of decorum and not share blankets, or body heat. When she was close enough he could have reached out and pulled her in, he shifted backwards on the mattress, and said in the most neutral voice he could muster, hiding as much of his need to hold her as possible, "Do you want to sleep here tonight?"
"With you?" she asked, something like awe in her voice and her eyes. Had she thought he'd turn her away? Maybe she had. He should have. Maybe she was working under the mistaken assumption that he was a well-adjusted adult.
Kakashi almost felt like he was testing her. Seeing how far he could push before she'd start seeing the red flags he was waving, almost trying to scare her away. Some part of him still wanted her to run from him. "We'd have to keep it between ourselves," he murmured, staring hard at the way her lips pulled down into a confused little frown. "But if you need to, you can."
"I don't need—" she corrected, defensive, but she stopped herself. Then, slower, "I'll be okay on the floor, sensei. I just… couldn't sleep. Thought I'd feel safer if you were close by."
Kakashi thought over how he should respond, what he should say to get her into his bed. Not—not like that. He just wanted her close, that was all. "Well," he mused. "I'll have trouble sleeping, thinking about you having to be on the floor." There was an easy solution, of course. He could drag the futon in here. It would only take a second, and it would keep him on the razor's edge of propriety. But he played dumb. "I have plenty of space. You can use your blankets and I'll use mine. We won't be touching or anything, it won't really be different from when we camp together." Except it was different, and if she had two brain cells to rub together she'd run screaming. But—luckily or unluckily, he wasn't sure—she didn't.
Her little, "You're sure you don't mind?" was so sweet and shy that it threatened to break his heart all over again. He made an affirmative noise, unwilling to speak as he had no idea how his voice would come out, and felt her slight weight dip the mattress next to him.
He held himself as still as physically possible, terrified of spooking her, fascinated that she was willing to get into bed with a man twice her size and age after what she'd literally just gone through. The amount of unwarranted trust she placed in him made earning it his top priority. He watched as she settled in next to him, her eyes squinting against the dark at him, so much curiosity on her tired little face that it made Kakashi smile. He wanted to know what she was thinking, almost wanted to ask, but he had a gut feeling she was wondering if his face was uncovered.
Naruto should have been more worried about whether other parts of him were covered, if she was smarter. Kakashi lacked a shirt, but was wearing pants, and she didn't know either of those things. So much trust, so much blind trust that her eyes fell shut without any further discussion, her long lashes brushing against her cheeks. Naruto was so beautiful like that, even in the strange flatness of the sharingan's night vision. So sweet and peaceful and precious, her lips parting just a tad as her breathing deepened and slowed, finding sleep quickly in his bed.
Kakashi watched her a long time, despite the drain on his chakra from using his eye, letting his satisfaction at her proximity distract himself from his murderous rage. Letting it stay his hand from reaching out to stroke his fingers across her whisker scars, brush over her thick braid. Letting it keep him from wrapping himself around her, pressing her against his body and keeping her there.
Boundaries. He had to maintain boundaries. For her sake, and the sake of his sanity as well. Don't touch the pretty sleeping girl. He could be good. As long as he could have her with him, he could be good.