Chapter Text
If there was one thing that Kakashi knew about his Team Seven, it was that this team had the worst luck in all of Konoha. There were enough examples he could give of that – one of those being their spectacularly horrible trip to Wave a few weeks earlier – but he was currently too tired to think about it much. Because their two-hours-long C-ranked escort mission had escalated into an unfortunate encounter with some missing-nin robbers and had ended up taking nearly an entire day. And now they were finally back in Konoha, and Kakashi really just wanted to get home and go to sleep.
His genin seemed to share that thought, judging by the way they dragged their feet. Naruto had recovered from his post-battle exhaustion quickly, but Sasuke and Sakura still looked deadly tired. They’d each gotten caught up in their own fights, and they’d really given it their all. They were both shivering as well; that was a little weird, since it was a warm summer night. Naruto didn’t seem bothered by it, though, so he’d given his jacket to Sakura.
Honestly, it all could’ve been worse. At least everyone had gotten home safe.
And it was at that ironic moment, when that relieved thought crossed Kakashi’s mind, that Sasuke collapsed.
Kakashi saw him fall from the corner of his eye. He managed to catch his student before he hit the ground. “Hey,” Kakashi said, gently shaking Sasuke’s shoulder. “What happened? You’re not injured, are you?”
Sasuke’s eyes were closed, but he was squeezing them shut too tightly for him to be unconscious. He was breathing heavily, and shivering. Still shivering.
When he didn’t reply, Sakura shook her head. “I don’t think he’s hurt,” she said. She, too, sounded vaguely out of breath. Naruto had taken a step closer to her, as if he was afraid that she’d suddenly fall over, too. She swallowed, and continued: “We’re both really tired, though. And cold. I think it’s…”
“Chakra exhaustion,” Kakashi finished her sentence, nodding. He took off his glove and carefully pressed the back of his hand against Sasuke’s forehead. His skin was just a little colder than would be expected in this warm weather – the effect of his body not having enough energy to properly keep warm. But he could still move all of his limbs, which meant that he still had enough chakra to function. He could probably sleep it off within a day, maybe two days; Kakashi wasn’t entirely sure how quickly Sasuke recovered.
Just to be sure, he checked Sakura’s temperature, too. She was cold to the touch as well; Kakashi could feel her shiver underneath his hand.
Sakura was looking increasingly anxious, so Kakashi gave her a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry about it too much – I don’t think it’s too severe,” he said. “You’ll need to stay in bed tomorrow, but you’ll be fine after that. We’ll call off training so that you two can rest.” When she nodded, apparently understanding that everything would be okay, he continued: “Let’s just get you home for now. Naruto, can you carry Sasuke?”
Sasuke grumbled and shot Kakashi a glare through his eyelashes. “I can walk just fine,” he protested. The fact that his voice shook, didn’t really help in getting his point across.
“I’m sure you can,” Kakashi replied with a smile, “but it’s for the best if you spare your energy.” He paused to think for a second. “Naruto, you take Sasuke home. I’ll go with Sakura and explain to her parents what happened.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that, sensei,” Sakura said. She was pretty much leaning against Naruto at this point. “My parents aren’t home, anyway.”
That stopped Kakashi dead in his tracks. He indeed remembered her talking about how her parents were out on a mission and would be gone for another full day. Which meant that she would be all by herself while she recovered – and so would Sasuke. And Kakashi didn’t like that thought.
In all honesty, they would probably be fine. His little genin were pretty resilient, and Kakashi himself had slept off chakra exhaustion all alone plenty of times when he was their age. Still, it sucked to be home alone when you weren’t feeling well, and the idea of making his students go through that just didn’t sit right with Kakashi.
The hospital wasn’t an alternative – Kakashi had enough experience to know that resting in a hospital was much worse than resting at home. He couldn’t pile all of his students into one of their homes so that he could keep an eye on them, either; that just wouldn’t be practical. Which really only left one option.
“Never mind,” he said, “I’ve got a better idea.” He carefully scooped Sasuke off of the ground. “Come along.”
Kakashi ended up carrying Sasuke, despite the kid’s new set of weak protests. Naruto followed him, carrying Sakura piggyback. Kakashi checked on the two of them from time to time – because he could easily see this situation turn into a fight – but Naruto seemed to understand that this wasn’t the right moment to tease Sakura, and Sakura seemed too tired to protest being carried by him.
It was a ten-minute walk from the gate to the apartment building. Kakashi walked this route pretty much every other day, but his students had probably never been here before. “Where are we?” Naruto asked as they entered the apartment building. He was looking around curiously, as if he would recognize his environment if he just looked for long enough.
“We’re almost there,” Kakashi replied – he was only half paying attention, because his brain was working at top speed. “We’ll need to climb some stairs, so be careful, okay?”
“That’s not really a good answer, sensei,” Naruto muttered, but he followed Kakashi up the stairs without saying much else. It wasn’t until Kakashi fished his keys from his pockets and unlocked the door to his apartment, that stuff clicked in Naruto’s mind. “Ah! I get it!” he said. “This is your home, isn’t it, Kakashi-sensei?”
“Be a little more quiet, please, Naruto,” Kakashi replied. “My neighbors might be asleep already.”
“Oh. Yeah. Sorry.”
Kakashi opened the door and let his students in. Something in his mind was still screaming that this was a very bad idea, but he tried his best to keep those thoughts quiet. His kids didn’t have anywhere else they could realistically go. Still, he really hoped that they wouldn’t ask any uncomfortable questions. He might have to kick them out if that happened.
He laid Sasuke down on the couch in the living room, and then turned around to Naruto – the kid was standing in the doorway, clearly unsure what to do. “Naruto,” he called, and pointed to the closet in the living room. “There’s some blankets in the closet; please make sure your teammates are warm, okay? Oh, and there’s a futon in there, as well – I’d appreciate it if you’d take it out and put it on the floor, so that Sakura has a place to lie down.”
Naruto nodded, grinned, and snapped a salute at Kakashi. “Yes, sir!”
While Naruto got to work in the living room, Kakashi went to the kitchen to make tea – at least his kids would feel less cold with something warm to drink. He opened the windows as well, to let in the warmer air from outside.
He returned to the living room with two steaming mugs, and found himself pausing in the doorway. Sasuke was lying on the couch, underneath an old blanket with a faded shuriken pattern. Naruto was balanced on the edge of the couch, next to Sasuke’s feet. The futon was laid out in front of the couch, with the short side of the futon against the long side of the couch. Sakura was sitting on top of it, wrapped in another blanket, with her back against the front of the couch. Their sandals were neatly arranged off to the side where no one would trip on them.
Kakashi secretly smiled underneath his mask, because the three of them looked so cozy. “Here,” he said, handing a mug of tea to Sakura. He gave the other mug to Sasuke, who sat up to take it. “Careful – it’s hot.”
As the two of them slowly sipped their tea, Kakashi turned to Naruto. “Say, Naruto? I need to ask something of you.”
“What is it?”
“Could you go report our mission to the Hokage?” Kakashi asked. “I didn’t want to drag your teammates into the office, but it still needs to happen.”
Naruto jumped up from the couch. “Consider it done!” he declared, and plopped down on the floor to put his sandals on. “I’ll go report. I’ll be back in a second – wait.” He suddenly hesitated. “Should I come back? Or should I just go home?”
Kakashi smiled at him, and shrugged. “Do whatever you want. The rest of your team is already here, anyway. And I have another spare futon lying around somewhere.”
Naruto beamed, because of course he would. “Okay, then! I’ll be back soon!”
“You can come in through the window when you get back,” Kakashi called towards Naruto as he sprinted towards the front door. He only got a quick “sure!” and the slamming of the front door as a reply. Kakashi sighed at the noise, but it was a fond sigh. A loud Naruto was a happy Naruto, so Kakashi found it very hard to sincerely feel annoyed.
Kakashi stood in the doorway, comfortably leaning against the doorframe. “So how about the both of you?” he asked, studying Sasuke and Sakura. “How are you doing? Everything okay?”
Sakura shrugged and took a sip of her tea. “My muscles kind of hurt, so it’s nice to sit down.”
Kakashi hummed. “That’s part of chakra exhaustion, yeah,” he replied. “It should get better if you don’t move around too much. Warn me if it gets worse, though; I have some painkillers that you could take.” He knew from experience that the ache from an exhausted body combined with the muscle soreness that sometimes came after an intense fight, could get nearly paralyzingly horrible.
She nodded. “I will.”
“Anything else to report? How about you, Sasuke?”
“Feeling better,” Sasuke replied, half mumbling into his tea. He wasn’t looking at Kakashi. “There’s just something I don’t understand.”
Kakashi raised an eyebrow. “What is it?”
“I don’t… understand why you’re letting us stay here.”
Oh. Well, that made sense, since Sasuke was almost painfully like Kakashi was at his age. “I don’t like the idea of you recovering in an entirely empty house,” Kakashi replied, “with no one to help you if you need anything. Because I know what that feels like, and I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone else.” He smiled. “I really don’t want to force you, though. If you want, I’ll bring you home. That counts for you, too, Sakura.”
They both shook their heads. “I don’t want to be home alone like this,” Sasuke said. He was still making intense eye contact with his tea, but his shoulders visibly relaxed. Kakashi thought that he was going to leave it at that, but then he quietly added: “Thanks.”
Sakura nodded along with him. “Yeah. Thank you, sensei.”
“It’s okay. You don’t have to thank me.” He needed to change the subject, quickly, or he’d probably explode from the warmth that was building in his chest. “By the way – you’ll never finish that tea if you just keep talking. I have a book about dogs; maybe I could read that to you, or something?”
“We aren’t toddlers,” Sakura murmured, at the same time that Sasuke said: “I like cats better.”
Kakashi raised his eyebrows at them. “So?”
They hesitated for a moment, before Sakura took a sip from her tea to hide behind her mug. “Okay, then.”
Kakashi got the book from his bookcase, and sat down on the floor with his back against the couch, next to Sakura. The book was non-fiction, so the texts were a little dry and boring, but that was kind of the point, wasn’t it?
Sasuke was the first to start yawning. He’d already finished his tea, and he was lying down again, comfortably wrapped in his blanket. He rolled onto his stomach not much later, his arm dropping down from the side of the couch, and Kakashi knew that he was asleep. Sakura was still sitting upright, her back against the couch just like Kakashi was sitting, but he was sure that she’d dozed off as well – she was leaning heavily against Kakashi’s side, far too heavily to still be awake. Her hand was still loosely gripping the ear of her mug; Kakashi carefully freed the mug from her fingers and put it on the floor a bit further, where it wouldn’t be knocked over.
He closed the book silently and sighed. Well, it looked like he was stuck here for a while, what with Sakura leaning against him and Uchiha ‘Light Sleeper’ Sasuke lying right behind his head. He might as well give in. He leaned his head against the couch behind him and closed his eyes.
Before he could fall asleep, someone climbed in through the kitchen window and patted light footsteps into the living room. Kakashi half-opened his right eye. Naruto was standing in the doorway, grinning almost impossibly widely. He stuck up a thumb at Kakashi – he’d managed to report to the Hokage, then.
Kakashi nodded, and whispered that Naruto could sleep here, if he wanted – there was a second futon lying underneath Kakashi’s bed. Instead, Naruto shook his head, still grinning. He walked over to Kakashi and sat down next to him on the floor, on the side opposite from Sakura.
Smiling, Kakashi leaned his head back against the couch. He didn’t really care, anyway. Naruto fell asleep faster than he did, somehow ending up sprawled out across the floor and Kakashi’s legs.
Kakashi’s genin recovered quickly – or, at least, they recovered faster than Kakashi’s back did from sleeping on the floor.
He wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.