ANBU Naruto

Part 22

(A/N: Without further ado, the chapter you've all been waiting for!)

When Kakashi first got assigned his team, he figured he would just fail them like all of the ones before them. Nevermind the fact that this team contained the last Uchiha and his sensei's precious son who also happens to be the village jinchuriki. He thought that them failing was inevitable, even if deep deep down his soul prayed that this one team would pass, would take the emptiness out of his life.

When they passed as a team with a very uncharacteristic Naruto leading the charge, he was absolutely terrified even as part of him cried in relief at being given a chance to be close to the remnants of his precious people.The last Hatake had lost all of his other precious people through every fault of his own. (Or so his brain whispers when it gets too quiet. When the days and nights and missions and blood blur together until the thoughts scream at him and vanish all the tentative quiet in his mind he'd managed to build.) He floundered, not knowing how to train anything but ANBU without breaking them.

Then, Naruto stepped up to the plate. Training and scolding and praising the other two. Every bit the leader his father was but so much more and once again he was rescued by a blonde shoving their way into his life and heart, even if the feelings are less platonic than they had been for his sensei. The whiskered teen saved what otherwise would have been a catastrophe waiting to happen.

And just when he thought all was going well. When he finally let himself relax for the first time since he last saw Minato-sensei, the mission to wave happened. He had thought his feelings for Naruto were gross for a multitude of reasons, even had he not been his precious sensei's, whom he saw as a father, son. The age difference being the most major after the whole pseudo little brother thing.

But they survived, and he made peace with his feelings and even admitted them when his precious Naru-chan needed to hear them the most. And even though it will stay just innocent hugs and kisses and cuddles and hand holding until the blond is at least sixteen, he can't honestly say he regrets it because all he really needs are these simple affections that make him feel like all the pieces of his broken heart and holes in his soul are being pieced together and filled in bit by bit every time it happens.

The other two help as well. Seeing them grow and become happy and at peace with each other and himself does his being good. It may look like patchwork but he's becoming more whole than he's been in a long time. They even managed to get Sakura her own little one room apartment to get her out of her emotionally, and occasionally physically, abusive house.

His friends, which he wouldn't have admitted to even himself that he had prior to gaining his team, noticed the gradual but overall dramatic change as well. As evidenced by the fact that they tentatively invited him to the bar to discuss the Chunin Exams for their teams. Naru-chan had pouted adorably when he told him his friends had invited them and that he decided to go, effectively cancelling their plans to cuddle all night. He kissed his forehead, which caused the younger to blush, before shunshining to the outside of the bar.

When he plopped down in the booth next to a loudly booming Gai, the only seat available at the booth, the three did a double take, staring at him with wide eyes. "Yo." he said with an eye-smile and a lazy hand lift that was more genuine than they've seen in over a decade and caused Asuma and Kurenai to blink stupidly while the green spandex was knocked out of his stupor. "MY ETERNAL RIVAL! YOU ACTUALLY WILLINGLY CAME OUT TO SOCIALISE? WHAT A YOUTHFUL DAY INDEED!" The loud man said in his usual lack of an indoor voice. Kakashi just gave another eye-smile causing even the silver-haired man's best friend to look at him questioningly. "You guys wanted to talk about whether or not to enter your new teams into the chunin exams, yes?" Hatake asked. This finally allowed them to begin with their meeting.

In the end, he told his still pouting blond all about the night, minus the decision to finally enter his team in the exams of course. He is confident that between his and Naruto's guidance, they are all three ready to take on this next hurdle in their careers. And if by some very off chance they don't pass, he wasn't going anywhere even if they do.