Fifteen minutes later, it became clear that Naruto fucked up on alprazolam was a problem Kakashi was unequipped to deal with. See, he'd imagined her becoming sleepy, maybe even having to carry her home, but he'd forgotten how damned stubborn she was, and now he was watching her fight sleep like it was life or death, insisting that she didn't need to go home. He was acutely aware of the villagers watching him with suspicious eyes, and was certain someone would intervene if he tried to take the clearly drugged girl anywhere by force.

"Please, Naruto, let's just go home—" he tried, reaching out for her only for the girl to weave away from him. Gods, he was exhausted.

"No, sensei," she was insisting, her words slurred. "I heard you tell—tell 'em, that— you gotta meet them, I don't want you to be late. It's that—the sketchy place by the school, right? That's where everyone says that—where people say you guys go to drink together. Can I have a drink, when we get there?"

"Absolutely not." She grabbed his hand, and he let her drag him along, doing a remarkably good job of both taking them in the direction they 'needed' to go and avoiding running into anyone, especially considering she was swaying as she walked. "I don't have to go, Naruto, and I would need to take you home first anyway—"

"I'll walk home by myself! I'm a—I'm a big girl, sensei, I'll be fine."

"What if I need you to walk me home?" he tried. "I was drinking earlier, you know—"

"Perfect, I'll walk—walk you home after you're done hanging out with your friends—your buddies." Naruto offered him a big, cheesy grin, her pretty eyes glazed over. "That's it, isn't it?" She pointed, and yup, that was the sketchy dive bar where he and his colleagues drank on Saturdays. Kakashi was praying they wouldn't let her in, but he knew for a fact that they didn't card, and as a rule of thumb, asked no questions and saw nothing, which was precisely why they drank there. Sure enough, there was no reaction whatsoever from the bartender as the visibly underaged girl dragged him inside by the wrist, and most of the patrons gave them little more than raised eyebrows and shaken heads. Asuma and Kurenai were facing the door, though, seated in their usual booth in the back, and their eyes went wide as Naruto announced to them, "Don't—don't worry, Kurenai-sensei, Asuma-sensei, Guy-sensei—all the senseis, I brought—I brought him! We're here."

That drew more attention, and Kakashi went into damage control mode, sweeping her under his arm and hushing her as he herded her towards the booth as quickly as her clumsy feet would allow. Guy gamely made space for them, and Kakashi shoved Naruto in before he sat down, blocking her from being viewed by the rest of the patrons. She didn't seem at all disturbed about being a ninety-pound teenaged girl in a bar full of shinobi and sketchy characters, and didn't seem bothered by being sandwiched between two grown men twice her size. She put her palms down on the table, leaned in, and whispered loudly, "He was trying to bail on you guys, but don't worry, I didn't let him."

There was a brief silence in which Kakashi activated his mask genjutsu, grabbed Guy's drink—some fruity concoction, the same thing he always drank—and downed it, then drained Asuma's beer and Kurenai's gin and tonic. "I'm here," he agreed, clanking the last glass down onto the filthy, damaged tabletop, certain his body language was communicating how emotionally drained he was, considering none of his companions attempted to rescue their drinks. Kakashi twisted in his seat, made eye contact with the bartender, and twirled his finger in the air, signaling that they'd like a round of their usual drinks.

"Why is she here?" Asuma asked, visibly still trying to recover from this chain of events. "Why is she drugged?"

Naruto spread her hands in front of her face. "Doctor gave me algorithm," she explained, words slurred.

"She means alprazolam," Kakashi supplied, grinding his palm into his exposed eye. "She had a panic attack, they gave her a full bar. I couldn't convince her to go home, she was preoccupied with me not making my engagement. I was afraid I'd get arrested if I just threw her over my shoulder and carried her… so here we are."

The girl scoffed, but now that she was no longer walking around, sleep was coming for her, her eyelids drooping. "It's rude to bail on plans, sensei," she admonished softly as the bartender arrived, setting their drinks down without a word. But maybe the man paid more attention than Kakashi thought, because there were five glasses, the last one appearing to be orange juice. "Thank you, mister," Naruto told the bartender politely when he set it down in front of her, and he smiled at her. Kakashi would have been willing to bet a large sum of money that the weathered older man with a neck tattoo was incapable of smiling, but the fact that Naruto was the one that managed to prompt the expression didn't surprise him in the slightest.

Kakashi took a sip of his whiskey on the rocks, watching the girl cradle her glass and drink deeply from it. "She'll be out soon," he told his friends as she set the glass back down and slumped against his arm.

"No I won't," Naruto mumbled into his sleeve, wrapping her arms around his bicep and pulling him into a position that was more comfortable for her. "I'm gonna stay up, and learn all you guys's secrets."

"Sure you are," he comforted her fondly. Her breathing deepened and evened out almost immediately, her grip on Kakashi's arm growing loose, and he made eye contact with Guy over her head. "Hope you're comfortable." Kakashi and Guy were both thigh to thigh with the girl to fit in the booth, after all, but his 'rival' just smiled indulgently.

"Beauty sleep is important for a young lady in bloom," he asserted. "My Tenten will sleep for fourteen hours straight, left to her own devices. It's an enviable skill!"

Kurenai groaned sympathetically. "Yeah, all through puberty, I slept like a corpse, for as long as I could get away with." Then, quieter, "How did it go?"

Taking a much more purposeful sip of his drink as his buzz returned, Kakashi shrugged. "I don't know. Mostly fine until the end. The cervical swab hurt her pretty badly, look what she did to my hand."

He displayed the limb in question, only realizing his error when three horrified faces tilted slowly from the half-moon marks on the back of his hand up to his face. "Kakashi," Asuma began, sounding like he was pleading, "Please tell me you were not in the room for her pelvic exam."

Kakashi groaned, letting his head loll back on his shoulders. "She begged me to stay. I don't know, the only doctor that could do it was a young guy, and she was scared, and the doctor didn't seem to think it would be that strange for me to be there… I don't know if I made the right choice." Then, staring down into his glass, he mused, "I mean… who else was going to hold her hand? Isn't that the least I could do for Kushina, since she isn't here to do it herself?"

"What happened to the king of boundaries?" Kurenai asked, disconcerted. "A nurse could have held her hand, Kakashi. A female nurse."

He stared at her over his glass as he took another sip. "You tell me that now… Would have been useful information before we went, Kurenai."

"I think it's very gentlemanly," Guy defended him, drink sloshing in his glass as he gestured with it. "Kakashi has clearly stepped into a paternal role for young Naruto, and is doing his best to navigate the woes and tribulations of fatherhood."

With a dark thought about whether he was trying to be her father or her daddy, Kakashi snorted. "I'm just trying my best, moment to moment. There's no manual for what to do when your dead mentor's daughter gets dumped on your doorstep after she's just killed a pedophile that broke into her place... Or if there is, no one has lent it to me."

Kurenai looked like she was going to argue, but unexpectedly, Asuma took his side as well, looking thoughtful as he sipped his beer. "I don't know. If Ino was scared… and no one else she trusted was around… and she asked me like she really, really needed me to be there… I would probably say yes."

Kakashi toasted him. "See, you get it. She looked like she would cry if I said no. 'A safe person to be broken around,' isn't that what you said, Kurenai?" He gestured widely, though he was careful not to jostle the sleeping girl on his arm. "The fact that she wanted me there, doesn't that mean I'm doing a good job being her safe person?"

"I'm afraid she's becoming your safe person," she argued, and Kakashi flinched, because… yeah. That wasn't inaccurate. "You two becoming codependent isn't going to help her in the long run."

Tipsy, frustrated, and drained, there was an edge to his voice as he countered, "Maa, so I should be cold and withholding? Do you really think that's better for her than letting some of my defenses down and letting her see me as a person? Do you think that's better than me holding her hand when she asks? She had nothing. She had no one. And I—" He paused, suddenly aware of how fixed his friends' attention was on him, and aware that he was going to lose them all when they learned how he really felt about Naruto. "I… didn't have anyone either. Now we have each other. She challenges me to grow, and I challenge her to grow. I can only imagine we're good for each other."

Kurenai crossed her arms, her drink untouched in front of her. "What are you going to do if Naruto wants to kiss you, or be your girlfriend?"

Kakashi paused, looking down at the girl asleep on his shoulder. "I don't think she has any interest in anything like that," he deflected carefully. "I think the abuse is going to cause an elongation of her 'boys are icky' phase, to be honest. She has essentially zero interest in it." He finished his drink and clanked it down onto the table. "So on the off chance she eventually develops a crush on me, you want me to treat her like I don't care about her?"

"No, Kakashi, I just—I don't want her to get hurt."

That was easy. "I'm not going to hurt her. I will never hurt her. She's safe with me."

"Super safe," Naruto agreed sleepily, startling them all. She didn't bother opening her eyes. "Leave 'im alone. I know what it's like when a man wants to hurt me… this ain't it."

"How much of that did you hear?" Kurenai asked, and Kakashi remembered he'd mentioned Minato and Kushina. His pulse started to pick up, but the little blonde scoffed.

"Never fell asleep. Awake the whole time." She was so clearly lying that he couldn't stop himself from laughing softly at her antics, and the sound drew more confused stares his way.

"She really makes you happy," Guy realized, sounding like he wasn't sure if it was good or bad news.

Kakashi didn't answer him or take his eye off his girl as he asked her quietly, "You ready to go home, now?"

Naruto squinted her eyes open only to roll them at him. "Been waiting for you," she complained, eyelids drooping.

"There's no way she's going to remember any of this," Kakashi sighed, pulling out his wallet and throwing down enough to cover the last round. "Look, just—trust me. If anything starts feeling unhealthy, I'll come talk to you. Okay?" There was a round of nods, and he carefully supported Naruto's weight with his hand as he shifted away from her and stood up. "Can you walk?"

"Sure I can," Naruto insisted. "Watch this."

Obediently, Kakashi watched as she slid down, nearly disappearing under the table before Guy hoisted her back up by her arm. "Okay," he sighed. "Alright, Naruto, c'mon, I'll help you." He supported her with an arm around her waist, taking most of her weight as she stood on unsteady legs. "Say goodbye to the other sensei."

Naruto squinted at them, then waved. "Hello," she told them sweetly, and thank the gods she was so damned charming, because Kakashi could sense their attitude towards them both becoming less tense. He could almost see the thought forming in Kurenai's eyes, how could I think he'd do anything like that to her? The only problem was that he would, he planned on it, he just wasn't going to hurt her on the way down. Never hurt her, just become hers. It would be worth his social world turning upside down. He just had to make sure their bond was ironclad before anyone learned about it.

"Good job," he soothed her. "We're heading out, then. Come on, Naruto."

…

They didn't make it far before Kakashi was carrying her, enjoying her reassuring weight in his hold and her delicate arms wound around his neck. They got a couple looks, but really, who cared? He got Naruto inside the apartment with minimal issue, setting their bags down by the door before he locked it behind them. He'd thought she was asleep, but her grip tightened as he lowered her into her bed, pulling him back down when he tried to straighten up. "Stay," she demanded sleepily.

"Here, in your bed?" he clarified, looking at the late afternoon sunshine streaming in through her window. She nodded, and he was weak for her and tipsy, so he slid into the bed next to her, let her curl up on his chest. She hummed, a happy sound, as his fingers wound into her hair, and he couldn't stop himself from asking softly, "Why do you trust me?"

"Safe," Naruto answered instantly, nuzzling her nose into his vest, and probably they should at least take their shoes off, but his eyes felt heavy and he liked the shape of her under his arm, liked her weight on his chest. "You don't make me want to run away when you touch me... One of the only ones."

Kakashi laughed, letting his eyes close as the room swayed pleasantly. "I feel similarly about you," he admitted, secure in the knowledge that this was all going to be a blank in her mind tomorrow. He kissed the top of her head, and she wiggled closer to him, fingers curling in the fabric of his collar. "Go to bed, sweetheart."

He heard Naruto's smile in her words. "Knew you wanted to call me pet names."

"Shut up and go to sleep."

...

Kakashi had never fallen asleep intoxicated in someone else's bed. It wasn't the kind of risk he usually took. Therefore, his first instinct upon waking up to dawn light in a strange place was panic, and he attempted to sit up only to find himself pinned, and—

The sleepy and adorably angry sound his shifting produced in his bed partner made things slot back into place. The blue walls were familiar, as was the blonde hair splayed messily across his chest. That was right. He'd fallen asleep in Naruto's bed. That had been stupid. If she let that detail slip to anybody, he was screwed… But maybe he could still extricate himself without her realizing he'd ever been here. The drug had to be largely out of her system by then… judging by the early grey light, it had been at least twelve hours since her dose, possibly more… so if he could just—

"Did I pass out on you?" Naruto asked in a voice soaked in sleep. "Sorry. I don't remember much after we left the doctor. … Did we go to a bar?"

Well, there goes that plan. "Briefly, yes, at your insistence. It's fine. But—" He stopped himself, wondering if he should explain that this was inappropriate, or if that would tip her off that he wasn't maintaining appropriate boundaries with her generally. Surely she knew that when grown men asked her to keep secrets, it was for nefarious purposes?

But she didn't. Bless her soul, she didn't. "Don't worry," she assured him on a huge yawn as she pushed herself up into a sitting position. "I won't tell anybody you're a big soft teddy bear." Her words were teasing, no suspicion or fear in her eyes at all, and Kakashi briefly marveled at how underdeveloped her self-preservation instincts truly were. "Thank you."

"For what?" He began to stand, stretching out his stiff joints as he did so. He really wasn't that old, but he hadn't exactly been kind to his body over the years, and his sleeping position hadn't been the most conducive to good joint health.

She waved her hand dismissively, rubbing at her eyes. "Everything. I know it wasn't fun to come with me to the doctor, and I know you didn't want to sleep on a twin-sized mattress last night. Can't have been comfortable, especially with me weighing you down."

"It's fine," Kakashi insisted, only for the shoulder her weight had been rested on to pop audibly when he rotated it. She giggled, and he bit his cheek to stop himself from smiling at her. "It's early, do you want to go back to sleep?"

"Is that an option?" Naruto was already laying back down, though, curling up on her side and hiding her eyes in the crook of her arm.

"Sure. I'll wake you up for breakfast. Well, maybe. I might just eat it all without you."

"Mean," she accused, sounding like she already had one foot back in sleep.

Kakashi watched her a moment, listening to her breathing even out, slow, and deepen, thinking about how badly he'd like to hold her against his body, preferably skin to skin… The golden expanse of her bare back would feel so lovely against his chest. An errant image of himself undressing her while she was knocked out the previous night entered his head against his will, disturbing him even as he identified it as an intrusive thought and not a real desire. "You have no idea," he told her under his breath.