Ripple (The REWRITE for Ninetails in Naruto! Oh Well!)

Chapter 12

(Me adding an explanation or my own little input )

(Just normal ol' parentheses)
_____________________________

3rd Person POV (semi-edited)

 He could feel his left eye twitching, except he couldn't, because he couldn't feel anything.

 After weeks of paperwork, disagreements, arguing, and screaming- after so many exhausting  nights, he'd been looking forward to collapsing, into the closest thing to a dreamless sleep he'd had in years. He'd forgotten one thing though: he was fighting for Naruto's custody, baby Naruto. Babies were needy; they cried for food, for bathroom, for sleepless nights, or for no reason at all. 

 He was 5'3, and (sadly) hadn't hit his puberty growth spurt yet, so a larger bed hadn't been a concern. It was close to the ground, lumpy, creaked and shook easily, and it's not like he slept in it anyway. So his "bed", if you could even call it that, was shitty- and the baby wasn't having it. Naruto refused to sleep anywhere not right in his arms, hated his bed, but wanted Kakashi to be laying down too. He was out of his comfort zone, his area of expertise, getting tunnel vision, and losing all feeling in his legs- from toes to the tingling, numb feeling in his thighs.

 Which is how he found himself cradling the small (so, so terribly small) bundle to his 14 (almost 15! not, never a child) year old body. In his cold, small, cramped apartment with little more than the necessities- except he has no food, only baby formula and mission rations- and a million doubts in his head.

 He resolutes himself to be better, for the baby's sake. He'll take a week off (as horrible as that sounds, it was a condition- he couldn't raise a child with his current schedule), and he'll get groceries, clean up the apartment, actually get a damn heater, instead of just "sleeping" in chakra coating and thin blankets. A water purifier would need to be considered as well, better safe than sorry, and he didn't trust his shitty apartment that he never bothered to fix, or move out of, or stay anything more than 3 hours in. The current apartment would do for now, but he'd like to move out of it before the baby turned three. That was a thought for later though. 

 When the baby finally settled- for the fourth time that night- the teenager turned back to his bed, and curled up around Naruto, giving up having him sleep in a different location, and breathed, trying to transfer as much body heat as he could to the baby. He was so, so tired, and his fingers trembled- the most he could do was half breaths, and his entire mind was mush. Yet he looked at the (finally) sleeping infant he was curled around, and found he couldn't regret it even a little bit, because he was the happiest he'd been in years. As if sensing his gaze and deciding he didn't like it, the baby's  face scrunched up, and Naruto opened his mouth, prepared for another bout of wailing.

 Damn it.

 He's got more paperwork in the morning too, and he still hasn't written a fucking grocery list, let alone baby essentials. At this point, maybe even Gai could help him raise this (precious, miracle) damned child. Kakashi's lips still twitched into a smile, despite not being able to feel or move them, despite everything.

                                            ___________________________________

Okay, so it's really short, and I'm truly sorry about that. My first year of highschool, and the first semester just came to a close. I'm recovering from a lot of tests, and at the same time suffering from a whole bunch of new material being dumped onto me. I thought a bit of maybe fluff/ a follow up with Kakashi and baby Naruto would help us all. I really wanted to show that this isn't anywhere near a perfect situation for a baby, and that Kakashi is just a child himself (he's fucking 14), and considering how his ANBU years are presented to us, his living situation definitely is barely suited for human life of any kind, let alone an infant. I just wanted to highlight how Canon!Kakashi might've not taken baby Naruto. Please tell me if there are any typos.

 Have yourselves a good day/night/evening- I'll see you again soon.