Fox eat Dog

Warning: Kakashi is overly emo and extremely bi-polar but trust me... in time it'll all make sense. You'll just have to wait a few chapters for the explanation. O__o

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It was silent in that backyard for a short eternity. You could hear the crinkling of Kakashi's gloves as his fists tightened, his posture rigid and unyielding. It was apparent he was completely furious over the last spoken words from his cocky ex-student. Rather though, what was most vexing, the said annoyance was practically glowing with triumph.

The air around Naruto; completely at ease and confident with himself, which even though Kakashi promised death and dismemberment from his every pore he didn't cease to exude the aura of success. At this the jounin began to tick off methods of not quite death in his mind... but just how far he could go without letting Naruto die as he punished him.

He didn't wish for him that sort of peace.

“Oh come on Kakashi! You deserve it. You think I liked showing everyone my private parts? It's me who should be killing you! So comb your hair back over the horns and tuck in the tail.”

The jounin did lose some of his momentum but didn't stop his seething, this was serious and the blond was trying to play him for a fool!

“Naruto you're doing your laundry butt naked, am I suppose to buy that you have something like a sense of decency?” The tone was so icy it burned but it was not so harsh with the choice in words, but how much Naruto could feel his teacher meant them.

“What the hell has snared your balls in a vice? One minute you're giving me the cold shoulder, the next showing me you almost have a soul then you're back to being a witch with the letter b. Do you show Sakura and Sasuke this much pleasant attitude or is it just me?” The scarcely dressed man asserted his words with dignity and a certain amount of disdain but Naruto didn't have the control to keep his expressive eyes from showing Kakashi just how much his words effected him. The older man wouldn't have been surprised if tears started to spill over his cheeks any moment. Something inside the copy ninja shook and he couldn't mustard up as much anger as he had before. The idiot nin just took the wind from his sails...again.

Though not one to show regret or be apologetic the sharingan user shrugged his shoulders and continued on with an indifferent attitude.

“You stole my books Naruto how do you expect me to be courteous? If you'd act as mature as Sasuke or Sakura maybe I'd treat you with more respect.” Rather then the whisker marked boy get furious at his teacher like the jounin figured he would it looked as though he was just slapped. Not that prissy kind of slap Jaraiya gets from agitated women. The kind of slap that hits your soul and leaves you vulnerable. It caused Kakashi to check himself.

A small voice continued just as the blond looked away from the silver hair ninja going back to his menial task.

“They're inside under my mattress if you want them so bad Hatake-san.” He spoke with little emotion but what you could hear from the defeated, tired tone was pain and a small amount of anger. For Kakashi there was a furious rage inside at dealing with the blond's emotional instability. Words effected him harder than any woman or child the jounin ever met and the worse thing of it all..

It affected him in return.

He stood there watching the other pick up his wet clothes from the basket he hesitated to do something. Anything. Why couldn't he just make up his mind and leave? Yet he couldn't get that look out of his mind, those wounded eyes. There was something distasteful in the way Naruto said his name so formally like that, like a pin prick to his skull he felt no matter which way his head turned. Yet he didn't move or take any action and it was his present company that pointed it out to him.

“Well aren't you going to go get your prized books back?” He asked it like a question but it was so flat it sounded like something Sasuke would say about say about his family. Lifeless, hollow, dead. The jounin reacted immediately and left the backyard going towards the front of the house and out of the other boy's sight.

As for himself the usually joyful boy sucked in a huge breath refraining from letting any tears slip. It just hurt so damn much to hear Kakashi say that. It could be said a lot of people he knew didn't respect him like Kiba and Shino, but they at least had some, some enough to know despite the way he was he was still a good ninja. It could be said at least everyone treated him like he was a child a lot of time but this really hurt coming from his former teacher...

He really didn't have the faintest idea why.

Why did it hurt so much? Why did he care? Why did he expect Kakashi to just change overnight to be, well... a decent friend? Or at the very least a sub-par human being. His teacher was and always would be secretive, perverted, stand offish... just about anything but warm and kind. Yet then there were times, the few rare moments that Naruto saw glimpses of what was or could have been a, dare he say, sweet Kakashi. Someone who actually gave a fuck, who would be there, someone he could depend on if the situation was desperate. The web the sharingan user wove in making himself into the most independent and self-sufficient human out there sure did a lot in keeping people away. People needed someone to need them and in turn they needed their help in return. The old jounin sure did show time and again he didn't want anyone's help and wanted no one to rely on him. It was obvious Sasuke shared that in common with the decrepit old fossil. If not for his brotherly bond with Naruto he probably would have stayed on his self righteous path of self-destruction.

That bond provided in a serious ass kicking which nearly got them both killed.

Is that what he needed to do? Kick Kakashi's ass? Was that possible? Sure the man was getting on in years living past the expected age of twenty, that also made it a disadvantage for Naruto because old dogs have a lot of tricks and this one kept on learning more. The blond couldn't even use his porn tactic again. His strength certainly put Naruto at the forefront but it hadn't stopped underdogs from winning before, and he wouldn't put it past Kakashi to run if need be. The man was a prideful asshole, not stupid.

Violence was not an option. Yet all his pranks hadn't done anything more than piss the jounin off. Should he really do nothing else then respect Kakashi's privacy? Before he wouldn't have even thought about it but things between them seemed to be getting worse not better. Maybe he should give up...

“What the fuck!”

“Hee hee hee, ha ha ha ha!”

In a surprise attack someone squirted what appeared to be ketchup all over his clean white sheets. Followed by some evil demented cackling. Poking his head out from behind the sheet barrier proved to be a flawed idea as he was immediately dosed in a face full of the tomato paste. It was in his eyes for crying out loud.

“Fuck Kakashi I can't see! That shit hurts!”

Rich laughter filled his ears but he couldn't see just what the other was doing, or planning to do next.

“Maaah, surely complaining isn't the best thing you can do, I remember someone once put old rotten eggs under my floor board so that I couldn't find the awful smell for days. You know how putrid the scent was in summer heat?”

Wiping his eyes and face off the ruined sheet he almost could see stuff again abet it was a bit blurry. “Dammit Kakashi how long ago was that? Three years?”

“Try two months. You left before I could get you back.”

The blond was quiet a moment and more than slightly unsettled at the change of events. When he could make out more than just blurbs of color and the lines of the jounins face holding his ketchup bottle with a cocked hip, and absolutely no porn, the older man didn't look the least bit angry like before. He looked like he was laughing on the inside and out. He looked happy.

Did Kakashi have a bipolar disorder or something?

“So you decided to get me back for that now? Satisfied?” Naruto was slightly guarded and rather pissed, why would the jounin come back out and act like nothing happened? Why did his attitude change by the minute? What could Naruto possibly do to figure it out?

“Hardly, there is still the ice showers from you cutting off my hot water line, switching all my underwear with a smaller size, stealing my clothes when I went swimming in a lake, paying a woman to pretend I was with her child while I was out on a date...”

“Dammit Kakashi I wouldn't need to do those things if you just talk to me once and a while!” Naruto cut the other off in a rage and the jounin cease listing pranks off on his fingers looking unexpectedly shocked at the confession.

“You're always busy, but you're never doing anything and don't think I don't notice how you duck your head farther in your book when you see me near! It's like pulling teeth out of a hungry man-eating tiger to try finding you when you're not out on a mission and when I do you brush me off with, 'We'll do that later.' When is later Kakashi? Next to never? Sometimes I really believe...” What started off of a passionate rant ended with the blond mumbling off looking away as to avoid seeing something ugly and unpleasant. The man in question himself was stunned glad that he was hidden under all the layers of cloths or else the pink his skin turned would surely make he bury himself in the dirt in embarrassment.

It had been years since anyone challenged his taciturn attitude like this. Years. Not since he was a boy. It was so terribly ironic that as he tried avoiding a conversation like this the last two decades it came full circle again. It really was useless trying to avoid fate and the end to Naruto's sentence was obvious. It was something just like he said all those years ago.

'You hate me.'

There really was no use in avoiding the inevitable as everything ended up turning out just the way you didn't want it too. Now he was standing before one of the few people he cared for in the world with that person in near broken tears. All just because of he refuse to buy him ramen once in a blue while.

'But I had good reason not too!' Though he couldn't very well say what that reason was, certainly not to this person. Now he had to somehow smooth this over and in the future spend some time with the blond, lest this happens again. Shouldn't be too hard to do right? And it wouldn't be often, once every couple of weeks... perhaps every other month...

Why was Naruto making this hard for him?

“Naruto I thought you knew better than that. Stop sulking.” He died a little on the inside but a ninja did what was needed. Walking towards the other male who was watching him with weary eyes Kakashi did something that he promised himself he'd read tons of porn afterward to make it up to himself.

He gave the younger man a hug.

It was awkward and weird. Naruto was still as a board and Kakashi hadn't hugged anyone since his teacher. (He didn't count having sex with lovers as hugs, they lacked affection.) Sure all he was doing was staring at the neighbors fence while he kept one hand between the boy's shoulder blades and the other on the middle of his back but it felt mechanical. He also couldn't see the other's face, avoiding it for that purpose, so he had no idea what the blond was thinking. As always Naruto answered his unasked question obediently.

“I hope you kiss better than this or I can see why you never have a date.” The older man wanted to bash his face in the idiots shoulder then pull his yellow spiky hair. Of course he sucked at hugging, he didn't like showing affection! Then Naruto shifted wrapping his arms tentatively over the jounin's body and Kakashi never so painfully been aware of their difference in body mass before, even when he thought he did.

His clothed face was being smothered in the younger ninja's shoulder so that only his eyes were visible. What once started out as a embrace to console the teen looked to be the other way around from the outside. The image as it would appear to anybody walking by was as though the silver hair man was being comforted. With both of the boy's arms wrapped around his shoulders so that he could feel a warm hand on his neck and his side under his arm, Kakashi basically couldn't be seen from the waist up and even then if you were standing behind Naruto you could only see a tuft of grey bushy hair and some hands. It was certainly more difficult to breath with his mask and a face full of hard muscle to block his airways. He actually had to tilt his head up so his lungs didn't have to struggle and Naruto use that opportunity to nuzzle his face his silver hair. Now Kakashi was really feeling awkward.

“You're like a...”

“Just shut up and take my snuggling abuse. Stay still for another minute then I'll let you go.” Naruto cut Kakashi's barb off as the jounin readied a comment to break the tension forming in his stomach. Yet aside from the clench in his gut hoping the steely grip the blond had on him would release soon, the jounin decided that he wouldn't do this again for another twenty years. No amount of smutty stories would make his body forgive him.

At least Naruto wasn't going to cry and really give Kakashi a bad day.

Good to his word though the teen released him not long after he said he would going as far to smile meekly. For Kakashi it was worth the awkwardness to see that sorrowful look in his blue eyes had dissipated. Now that his work was done he was ready to go home and curl up in his bed with every issue of Icha Icha ever printed...

“You feel that much less of a man for giving a friend in need a hug? Didn't you use to preach about someone leaving their friends hanging was worth less than trash?”

“I was talking about for dead.”

Naruto shrugged his bare shoulders as two mismatched eyes fixed on the movement.

“Some fates are worse than death.” The far-away tone in Naruto's voice led to the jounin wonder what situation he was thinking about, there were too many to guess and he wasn't about to ask. Instead he stared at the open ketchup bottle he dropped on the ground.

“Like getting molested by your former teacher for one. I should tell Iruka on you.” One brown eye darted to the blond's face that cheerily mocked him. There was no trace of that defeated and weary emotion felt in his expressive sapphire eyes. So the veteran ninja would forgive him... for now.

“I'd say it was the other way around, I never felt so violated and I have been tied naked to chair in a torture chamber before. You might want to put a shirt on before you go accusing me of rape as well.” Naruto looked at his bare arms just as Kakashi put his hands in his pockets looking to make a quick getaway yet not two steps later he had the blond on his heels, now with a orange T-shirt on.

“Let's go eat some ramen.”

“Don't you have laundry to finish?” Inner Kakashi responded with; 'Go away I had enough of you today!' He refrained from a harsher comment for obvious reasons. Thankfully the younger man brushed the question off without a thought, unfortunately he also brushed it off altogether.

“Nah it's just drying and I can iron it later. Come on I wasn't finished from last night.” He nudged the jounin's arm and the older man wanted to make a ran for it. Yet if he left now he'd basically redo the damage he just sacrificed his pride to undo! How would he get out of this? Hadn't he done enough today already? Though the hopeful look in Naruto's eyes almost begged him to yes.

Tomorrow, he would stay inside all day and play deaf, dumb and dead.

“I'm not your adoptive mother I can't eat ramen everyday, we are going to a regular restaurant and you are paying for your half of the food.” He had to put his foot down somewhere. Yet as Naruto pouted the obvious relief in his eyes at the older man's response said it all.

“I don't get to eat ramen everyday and Tsuadae doesn't even go there unless she's buttering me up for something...”

“I was talking about your other mother, Iruka.”

“If he heard you say that he wouldn't take to kindly to it.”

“I'm hardly afraid to see what the chuunin could do to me.”

“Ahh Kakashi you know that egg thing?”

His visible eye glanced over at the lean form near his shoulder, he also notice the blond was barefoot on the pathway. They'd have to buy him some shoes before going to eat...

“Iruka did that to one of his teachers when he was a kid, along with a whole bunch of other nasty stuff I wouldn't dare try. Do you know how to rig a toilet to give you an instant enema?” The jounin's footsteps slowed at the boy's words. He knew Iruka was a trouble maker like Naruto as a boy but at the time Kakashi was a jounin when the brunette was still in the academy and he was more worried about surviving his next mission then village gossip. The thought of the 'butt cleansing' was dismissed from his mind and it was his turn to shrug his shoulders.

“That was when he was a kid, I'm sure he has matured since then.”

“He put peroxide in Sasuke's shampoo bottle turning his hair blond when he called Iruka a 'useless ninja'.”

Kakashi stopped walking altogether and turned to Naruto; the look of complete bafflement in his eyes. Not so much that the docile teacher pulled a prank on someone at his age but that he did it to Uchiha Sasuke and lived afterward.

“I know I was wondering how he got away with that too..." Sometimes it really was like Naruto was reading his thoughts. "but Sasuke for as much as a bastard that he is has a soft spot inside his black heart, somewhere. When they both showed up the next day sporting bruises and broken limbs, it was easy to see the jerk went easy on him.” Now the silver hair ninja wondered how he missed that one. It couldn't have happened too long ago and usually word of that spread fast. Was he away on a mission or he was just that out of the loop?

“Yeah he is an asshole but that's because he doesn't know how to let loose and unclench his butt-hole unless you beat it into him. Actually I'd say you and him are very different for that sensei.” Kakashi continued walking unusually enthralled with the conversation, why was it so easy for Naruto to peek his interest when he didn't even want to eat lunch with the guy? He was some kind of brain ninja and even better at coaxing you into opening up and having a good time than at taijutsu, and that was saying something. Even Neji who ignores everyone will have a conversation about ramen with Naruto and seem to enjoy it. Though Kakashi had his suspicions of Neji's motives...

“People always compare you like you're two feet of the same person but you're not nearly as cold-hearted and you can admit to some stuff. Sasuke would have sooner kicked dirt in my direction but you... you stayed and cheered me up.” The blond pause obviously changed his words for Kakashi's benefit. As it was the older nin made Naruto feel like shit and he corrected himself; going as far as to let the blond in his personal space for a hug and Naruto knew it. Sure he was pretty much incapable of apologizing but with most of the people the young leaf ninja associated with already the jounin was infinitely more reasonable then them. Trying to get Kiba to admit he was wrong even with something simple as a song title was like trying to get the world to rotate in a different direction.

As for Kakashi he wanted to run away again. He kept feeling a twitch in his abdomen that was frustrating him beyond belief. Yet he made his bed, either lunch with Naruto or immense guilt over leaving him in tears. Though the teen was a big boy now, surely he could stick it out? Titling his eyes a hair he studied the goofy face beside him before stuffing his hands in his pockets and averting his eyes to the road before him. He could do this, he would do this because afterwards he was hiding again for no less than two weeks with just himself and his novels. Naruto's feelings be damned, he needed alone time.

"I know it hurts your feelings oh so much to hang out so I won't keep you for too long but I am curious to know, what exactly do you do all the time?"

The copy ninja made no outward appearance that he even heard Naruto and only after a long pause he answered.

"What's it to you?"

The curt response was odd as usually the older man would indirectly brush him off but the jounin certainly wasn't acting himself today and in all honesty the blond preffered the brash straight answer.

"You're always alone, I rarely see you around town besides buying groceries, I can say I saw you leaving a bar once or twice but overall your style of life, it's just so... alone." The teen's eyebrows furrowed as though he was concentrating on something that eluded him. As they entered the market area of town they once again shared a long silence. The hound summoner knew this lunch seemed too easy to be true and that the boy would do exactly as he didn't want him to.

Try to pry into his life.

"I'm not judging you or anything, obviously you're old enough to do what you want and live how you want. I'm just curious to know more about you." Naruto readily corrected himself as though he could feel the tension rise from within Kakashi during the long pause. Though things still weren't right and the bushy hair ninja wasn't so eager to share his secrets. Yet he had to shut the boy up somehow.

"Don't you have a pretty looking girl you could throw them lines down on?"

The whisker face boy's cheeks flushed and his eyes wandered off towards the passing scenery.

"Come on like I say something like that to try to pick up a chick. Come on I've know you since I was a kid and I don't even know what your favorite color is. You're so secretive and it's annoying." The boy then pouted given the jounin a inquisitive eye and jutted lip. Though Kakashi hated the inquiry the expression on Naruto's face made him smile and he had to reframe from laughing. It was like the boy lived frozen in time at the age of twelve never growing up. Always curious, constantly acting before thinking, he wouldn't be surprised if he still slept in that ridiculous hat.

"So you just want to know more about my favorite things?"

"Well it's easy to tell what your favorite book and movie is... More like what kinds of stuff did you do as a kid? Do you have any hobbies aside from reading porn? Is there some hidden pleasure you never tell anyone you do? You know it's like ever since the first time you introduced yourself to us and all you said was your name. I know almost as much then as I do now. " The jounin frowned again as he considered that blowing off the kid now would only cause him problems in the long run. He'd have to say something and make it count.

"Well when I was five I graduated from the academy, when I was six I passed the chuunin exams and later that same year I had my first kill." The veteran ninja purposefully kept his voice neutral and flippant intending to add to the shock of his statement to his former student. If this didn't shut the boy up he'd tell Naruto about the first time he lost his virginity. Now that was a story to never be repeated aloud.

"Being a ninja isn't just a job Naruto it's my life. For even though everyone in the village believes this for themselves; only a handful live by this. Understand?" As he finished speaking he stopped walking as the blond followed suit a few steps ahead of him. It seemed as though the teen was quietly taking in his words as Kakashi was trying assert the fact though his life wasn't a open book, it was truly better off that way. He had very few things in this life to himself, and he wanted to keep it that way. He didn't want to share those things when people would never understand. It's not that he hated them for their normal lives since he never had one, he just knew they wouldn't understand. His privacy was for him and he needed it.

Then in a slow turn Naruto's deep blue eyes looked at him with the most jubilant expression the jounin almost wanted to ask what he said to make the boy look so happy. Certainly he would look at Kakashi was shame or pity for what he just revealed to him now. Why did the boy look so damn happy?

"You know Kakashi-sensei I do. I knew what kind of man you were from when I was a child thinking how cool you were for protecting us from Zabuza. Though I also learned something else from all these years of being around you."

There was a deliberate pause and Kakashi was almost impatient waiting to near what he'd say next. Why was he smiling like that? Why did he look like he knew a pleasant secret? Why was his smile always so captivating?

"You will always manipulate the conversation to your advantage."

"What?"

"You are more than a tool for your village, you are a human. The proof is in the porn." After the teen left Kakashi besotted he twisted back around walking ahead with a little strut leaving the copy ninja staring off at his retreating form with a newly forming respect for him. Oh sure he greatly respected Naruto, more than he'd ever admit to the kid, and even though he basically brushed off his up bringing with a 'whatever' the fact was he saw through the jounin's words finding the underlining motive. In a sense he was proud of his student. And yet...

This would make conversation a whole lot more difficult to avoid in the future.

"Hmmm you think so?" Kakashi caught up to the bare footed teen who ignored the onlookers who seemed more appreciative of his looks than disgusted. He briefly wondered if the boy noticed the same.

"Well then I'll let you in a little secret you don't know..." Naruto paused in his footsteps again, his ears almost visibly perking up at the admission. The silver hair male stood beside him face to face, eye to eye as he lowered his voice so that no one else would hear, this seem to excite the boy more his eyes almost twinkling with excitement though he tried to hide it with a serious expression.

"My favorite color is blue." Naruto's eyes widen at his words and he quickly began walking away again leaving the surprised teen staring at the wall instead of the person once standing in that spot. It wasn't long before he could feel a familiar presences at his heels and a voice that was disappointed as it was amused.

"Kakashi-sensei is a practical joker and very annoying."

"So are you."

"Yeah but then I'm not on the receiving end."

Kakashi chuckled as Naruto grumbled and it was a picture perfect ending like from a movie seeing the two walking side by side down a street where it couldn't be more crowded though it was as though they were the only ones there.

It was just a shame less than three hours later Kakashi was swearing off people and planning to get Naruto back for the terrible evening.

The boy never did learn when to shut up while he was still ahead.

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Okay okay this chapter was erratic, but I wrote it in less than a week which is awesome for me. Basically I had to start their tentative friendship somewhere so Kakashi will be somewhat less of a prick for at least a little while.

And the hug was purely for fangirl purposes since there is still no romance for a while. Hope you've enjoyed yourselves and reviews are much appreciated with yaoi cookies on top!