Give Me, Take You

Title: Clear It All Away

Fandom: Naruto

World: Give Me, Take You 

Chapter: 6

Characters: Inoichi/Genma, Naruto

Word Count: 1397

Warnings: nothing, but paperwork

AN: I am absolutely dead on my feet. Why? Because I have been doing noting but cleaning and packing up my girlfriend’s place for the last few days. Gonna do more come Sunday and Monday night. Fun times.

But still, enjoy.

To the lovely smint45: Thank you soooo much for your reviews. :D I have missed seeing your name in my inbox and the reviews that come with it!

I have implemented a way of just responding to reviews at the end of a story (as long as I actually remember them) from now on to save space and time. But just know I do see them and read them and love them!

*~*~*~*

Handing over his entry papers to Kotetsu and Izumo, Genma sighed as he relaxed, happy to be back in the village. Inoichi rolled his eyes in amusement and handed his own entry papers to the two chunin. “Naruto-san is waiting for you two for your reports. Tsunade finally moved him on to dealing with the bigger reports,” Izumo told them. “At least for the moment. He’s still thinking of just becoming an advisor to whoever takes the hat or to take the hat himself.”

“Paperwork sucks,” Inoichi chuckled, shaking his head. “I know that feeling oh to well. Let’s go check in with him. Maybe bring him some of that onigiri that he has a thing for,” he drawled.

“No bribing the future advisor or Hokage,” Kotetsu teased. “Iruka already took him some of that. Swing by that ramen place. They’ve been experimentin’ with new ramen flavors. Pick him some up for lunch. Knowing that idiot, he’s forgotten to eat again.”

Genma raised an eyebrow. “He been forgettin’ to eat?” he asked, taking his papers back to tuck them into a pocket.

“Not really. Not until he’s real hungry at least,” Izumo said, handing Inoichi’s papers back.

“We’ll do that then. Make sure your friend is fed. I’m surprised that Iruka hasn’t been keeping up on that,” Inoichi hummed.

“Rescheduling issues and Archive updates on seals, among other things,” Izumo stated, the two men humming, knowing just how much work went into dealing with the Archives. Not to mention the schedules. “Come on. Let’s get some food for Naruto and ourselves, and we can do the report without an issue.”

“Yeah,” Genma sighed, following after his friend. His mind was calm for once after such a mission, but after the night that he had had, he wasn’t to surprised. They had talked about how many rules Inoichi had broken but wasn’t to worried since sometimes the rules could be bent. Especially by one who was so far up the chain in the Giving/Taking program.

Inoichi wasn’t to concerned about it, instead just shrugging it off and telling Genma he shouldn’t worry about it either. It seemed as if he wasn’t the first person to need a little help during a mission. All ANBU were trained in how to recognize what their partners needed and, if able to, help them.

Genma had just wrinkled his nose and told Inoichi that he didn’t need to know that. In any way.

Gathering the food, making sure that there was a mix of food that the ramen stand offered outside of ramen, the two headed to the office Naruto had settled in. Knocking on the door, Genma lent in and raised an eyebrow at the fact that the younger male was sprawled out with an icepack on his wrist and a damp, cold towel over his eyes.

“Too much paperwork?” Genma asked.

“No. To many idiots. Way to many,” Naruto replied, reaching up with his other hand and moving the towel from his face. “Tell me that you have a properly written report,” he said, looking up at the two men.
 

“Of course we do,” Inoichi chuckled. He held up the bags full of food. “And we come with lunch. Both Genma and I need food after all of the traveling that we did to get here.”

“Ugh, food,” Naruto groaned, pushing himself up to flop onto the couch. His office was smaller than the original Hokage’s office. As far as Genma knew, the room was originally used for the secretary of the First Hokage, but after the secretary for the Second had used the passages to let in enemies, it had been moved. And now it acted like an extra office for training Hokages and Advisors.

Naruto had done some remodeling. Light grey paint was on the walls along with pictures of the Hokages, just as the Hokage’s office. Genma knew that behind each picture was a small, carefully guarded safe that held the wills of the Hokages.

When Naruto had gotten the truth of his parents out of Tsunade after finding his father’s will behind the picture during the painting process, the cold shoulder had gone on for a month. He had opened the Uzumaki and Namikazi estates during that time and only spoken to Tsunade when he had to.

But now that he was looking, Genma noticed that the small seating area where Naruto would either meet with his fellow advisors in the future or would sit when talking with his own trainee, was new. There was a soft couch, one that was high enough for even the taller or older visitors to get up from easily. Across from the couch, surrounding the table between that held a tea set, was a love seat and a chair.

Just enough for a meeting.

The three sat down, Inoichi handing out containers. As they ate, Inoichi and Genma gave Naruto their report as he idly compared it to the mission reports that they had handed to him.

“So it went well?” Naruto asked after swallowing a bite of food.

“As well as one of these missions go.” Genma shoved some rice into his mouth and shrugged at the curious look. Chewing and swallowing, he continued. “Getting in and out was the easy part. Getting to the target was a bit of a bitch. But it was done and Inoichi only had to make one idiot forget about us.”

“And the person?” Naruto asked, scanning over that part.

“Will have a slight headache but will only remember getting hit on the back of his head. Nothing else,” Inoichi promised. “We did hit him on the back of the head by the way. Just to cover our tracks.”

“No doubt,” Naruto drawled. “Why did I agree to this?” he asked.

Genma smirked. “Because you’re helping the village in a better way then fucking them?” he asked, watching the slight blush spread over his cheeks.

“Not fucking everyone.” He paused. “Just a few and I haven’t even started my training.”

“All those little details,” Inoichi huffed, watching Naruto click his chopsticks at him.

“Just be glad that Genma is one that I would trust with such details. If I do take on the Hokage’s hat, I’m going to have him as one of my advisors,” Naruto said. Genma huffed. “Shikamaru already said he’d rather do the paperwork then deal with missions. So he would be my other advisor.”

“Good luck in getting him to do more than sigh,” Inoichi snorted.

Naruto just smiled sweetly. “Good way is to ask him and remind him that he was the one who chose the job. Knowing him, he’d take some missions every so often just to get out of things,” he drawled, crossing his legs and rolling up the scrolls. “Once we finish lunch, I’ll stamp these and send them to Tsunade.”

“How is she? Holding up okay?” Inoichi asked, knowing the date of Jiraiya’s death was coming close.

“Yeah.” Naruto pursed his lips before relaxing on the couch, chopsticks stirring his noodles. “It’s hard, but it’s getting better. It’s only been a couple of years after all.”

Genma smiled and tossed a wrapped cookie over to Naruto. “Yeah. You’re both healing but it’ll take time,” he said. “Anyways, why you still waffeling on this whole thing with the Hokage hat?”

Naruto smiled. “Because I have the recognition I want. Yeah, I’m not dating anymore. My thing with Hinata went south after all, but we’re still pretty good friends. I just...I don’t know if I want the hat as much.”

“There’s those new computers, right? Thinner? Smaller, if I remember right. The entire tower and the Archives are being outfitted, aren’t they?” Genma asked.

Naruto nodded. “Iruka is working on scanning things but it takes some time. The stuff is still pretty new after all,” he replied, the three settling in and talking about mundane things. They watched as Tsunade’s secretary came in and dropped off fresh paperwork before leaving with a bow. Naruto just wrinkled his nose at it and stood up, finding his various baskets.

Including the trash basket. “Help me go through this shit.” Inoichi groaned but shut up when Genma whispered something that made him shift and clear his throat. Naruto just shook his head and they started to go through the forms, trying to figure out what needed to go out.