sunshineverse | [closed; Sept 2/3/4]

That bad -- ah, Sasuke realized after what was probably an unacceptable amount of thinking. It was hardly unusual for shinobi to drink in order to handle missions, but as much of a mess his last few missions had been, they'd been more or less successful with a minimum of casualties. This was all because of what was happening close to home, some combination of concern for Hinata and a certain amount of empathy for her unwilling intended.

That, and the fact that apparently when Hyuuga Neji got to drinking, he really got to drinking. Sasuke scrubbed at his face in a frustrated attempt to see if it would help clear the headache. (It didn't.)

"It's not about missions," he said out loud, making a vague hand gesture that probably didn't make anything clear. "Stuff -- village stuff." He paused, then with an expression that made it obvious what he thought about it: "Clan stuff."

Kakashi let out a breath at that. Being out of Konoha so often himself he'd missed out on an awful lot of nosy report-peeking and Gossip 101's with the various blabber mouths dotted about the village, and so wasn't as clued up as he could be on Sasuke's recent ventures. So he was definitely relieved to hear that his missions hadn't drove him to the bottle.

At his elaboration, a pale eyebrow raised and disappeared under his headband.

"Your clan?" he asked. It wouldn't surprise him if Sasuke confirmed - after all, Kakashi himself had felt the cold, strict glare of the Uchiha more than once for his borrowed sharingan.

"My --" Sasuke's expression grew blank with confusion for a moment before he remembered just whom he was talking to and a hint of colour hit his ears. He hadn't been around for the actual event, but he'd heard enough dark murmuring from elders in the clan and an equivalent amount of irritated grumbling from Obito to get an idea of how Kakashi was viewed. And now that he knew the full story of how the eye had been given ...

"No, not the Uchiha," he said, clarifying with a hasty shake of his head. Hoori chirruped a low disapproval and buried his head under one fluffy wing, as much to say I'm ignoring you since there are no rodents as anything else. In tones that made it clear that he thought that they were significantly more of a pain than his own clan, Uchiha standoffishness about bloodline notwithstanding, he added: "It's the Hyuuga.

"Have you seen the official announcement about Hinata?"

Kakashi shook his head, "Ah, no. Should I have?" and raised an arm to awkwardly scratch at the back of his head.

In all honesty he supposed he should have known. After all, he was nosy, and it wasn't like he wasn't familiar with Hinata.. Despite being a very unofficial stand-in sensei, he still cared for her and knew of her clan's reputation well enough to understand that they weren't the most nurturing of families.

"Is everything alright?"

Kakashi not knowing explained the immediate link to the Uchiha, at least, a minor relief. It also afforded the hope, however slim, that news of the engagement hadn't travelled so widely yet that people outside of the village were hearing of it without making direct inquiries; that meant that the eventual breaking of the engagement wouldn't hurt Hinata too much.

"It's not alright," he said shortly, and then glanced around: however isolated the alleyway was, it still wasn't precisely an unobserved conversation spot. "Can we find somewhere private?"

He paused, then added with a wince: "And not so ... bright?"

Kakashi couldn't help the short chuckle that escaped him. He himself had turned to lean on more than one sake bottle at more than one occasion in his past, so he understood the appeal... and also understood the consequences as much as Sasuke did if that squint was anything to go by. Genius or not, alcohol had a silver tongue that could entice even the most strong-willed shinobi.

"Sure thing," he said, beckoning over his shoulder as he turned back down the alley way. "You don't mind coming over for a visit, do you? I have hangover cures."

Hangover cures might as well have been announced with a heavenly chorus for the shift in Sasuke's expression. Up until now Kakashi had largely been a source of jutsu and an obviously-unwilling babysitter for Obito's team, but here was another topic that Sasuke could apparently benefit from.

"Yeah," he said, nodding and then regretting the movement. "Oh -- is it alright if this one comes along as well?"

Hoori butted a sleepy head against the side of his face for calling him this one, but otherwise turned what might have passed for a beseeching gaze on Kakashi. The effect was probably somewhat lessened by the pointy beak and sharp claws.

Kakashi turned back to look as he walked, even though it was reasonably clear who this one might have been.

"I, uh," he swallowed. It wasn't that he didn't like birds, he just-.. Didn't trust them. They were a little too beady eyed for his liking. "Sure. Why not."

Casual as ever, Kakashi started walking again, but when Sasuke fell into step with him, he cleared his throat and muttered, "He doesn't bite, does he?"

There was hesitation in that tone, enough that Sasuke eyed Hoori with a jaundiced eye: he was probably going to get chewed out by enormous goshawks claiming that he was spoiling their chicks, but he didn't particularly like the idea of sending a young bird back home on its own. When the agreement came, though, he lifted a hand to stroke up the bird's side, a warning to behave.

The question made him blink, then squint at Kakashi.

"Only me," he answered. "When he's hungry." A pause, then he added: "These guys are making me glad Itachi's the one responsible for heirs."

... maybe that wasn't something Kakashi needed to know, but he wasn't operating at full capacity.

"You're an excellent father figure," Kakashi laughed, unable to stop himself. He knew all too well that Sasuke's position on continuing lineage was as far away from interested as was mortally possible, but it was still amusing to hear his distaste.

He led them straight, his feet following an automatic route they'd learnt by heart from the many times they'd traced it. He didn't even have to think about it, and instead focused on his companion.

"How is your brother, by the way?" He asked as if he were some distant relative rather than Itachi's friend by babysitting coincidence.

Edited 2014-11-25 13:28 (UTC)

"Don't tell anyone in my clan that you think that," Sasuke perked up out of his hungover slouch in genuine alarm, an expression turned on Kakashi that was as close to pleading as he'd ever get. He didn't get the same kind of pressure that Itachi did, but Sasuke's jounin promotion might as well have been a signal flashed into the sky that he was somehow now game for breeding.

"Tell them you think Itachi would be a perfect parent and much better than me," he added after a moment, unconsciously giving Hoori a scratch when the bird butted his head against the side of Sasuke's. Some of the paranoid tension drained out when he registered the question, shoulders drooping a bit instead.

"Or, tell them if you ever see him. Itachi's fine, he's just busy."

"I won't tell them anything; if I did they might actually trust you with children.." Kakashi said in casual tone, as if he were adding information, but there was a twinkle in his visible eye and a tell-tale pull in his mask connotative of his teasing. "At least a goshawk can fly if you drop it."

The light hearted joke stayed firm to distract the young Uchiha of thoughts of his brother. It was probably Kakashi's stupid fault for breaching such a sensitive subject so casually, and he made a valiant attempt at a distracting U-turn as soon as the words left his mouth.

"At least there's plenty of things around to keep you just as busy, hm? Missions, and between them, drinking your weight in sake..." He chuckled mutedly, and turned to lead Sasuke down the main street leading to the jounin compound.

Sasuke was horrified enough at the prospect of being pushed into marriage and child-rearing that he missed the teasing tone in Kakashi's voice, instead shuddering slightly and reaching up to give Hoori a ruffle to indicate I'm glad you aren't a human infant.

"It wasn't my weight," he protested belatedly, picking on the most recent and easiest-to-tackle comment. "We were pretty sobered up when we left."

At least, he'd been; he wasn't sure if Neji would have made it into his own apartment if not for being forcibly steered in that direction.

"It was enough to give you a grudge against daylight, though.." Kakashi pointed out, keeping his voice politely low so that there wasn't an opening for possible eavesdropping from the surrounding abodes. "That or you're an incredible lightweight."

That last one was hardly a tease, and he masked it well with a bright little smile as he ascended the short amount of stairs to open his front door. He was giving Sasuke a free cure-all, and he hadn't seen him for a while... The ragging was probably to be expected.

"So, what's this about the Hyuuga?"

"Wh -- I'm not a lightweight either," Sasuke protested, although a part of him was uncomfortably aware that he did seem to get drunk much faster than Neji did. Then again, he also sobered up much faster, given that he'd been fishing Neji out of potholes and cracks in the road both visible and invisible. "There was just ... we spent a long time."

That was about as much as he wanted to get into the details of exactly how he and Neji had chosen to handle the news that he now sighed about, letting his shoulders relax a little once he'd stepped into the blessed darkness of Kakashi's entrance hallway.

"The Hyuuga have engaged Hinata and Neji," he said, once the door was shut. "Against their will."

He paused, turning over his shoulder to show the raised silver eyebrow in danger of disappearing under his headband.

"Ah.." That, apparently, was his only input for the moment. He wasn't familiar with Neji beyond rumor and what he'd heard from Gai, so all his sympathies lay with Hinata and with Sasuke by proxy, considering the closeness of their friendship. He was essentially nothing but their babysitter sensei when Obito was otherwise indisposed, but there was something about watching the team grow up from fumbling little genin that endeared Kakashi to them, and despite the fact that the Hyuuga clan dynamic was worrying enough, he felt for them.

He wandered toward the offside kitchenette in his standard box-like jounin apartment, the gears in his mind whirring as he considered how to describe his condolonces.

"...So what's the plan?" he asked instead - because if he knew Sasuke at all, there had to be some solution to their discontent forming in his mind.

Just the words the plan were enough for Sasuke's shoulders to slump slightly as he removed his shoes, lining them up neatly in the entryway without conscious thought. Hoori fluttered off his shoulder at the change in angle, but he was easily the best-behaved of the chicks, clicking across the floor on careful talons.

"If Naruto could get his act together he could counter-offer," Sasuke muttered once he'd straightened again, though he didn't mention that he'd begun to doubt how much patience Hinata had to wait for their blondest and slowest teammate. "Or Hinata and I could pretend all the rumours about us have been true all along.

"But she needs to get out of this with her reputation intact," he sighed. "Mine matters less, but she's the clan heir. Our only hope is to demonstrate genetic difficulties."

To which end Sasuke had been buried in the extremely dense records of clan Hyuuga birth records in between everything else, but the amount of everything else going on had been simply too much for him to have gotten very far.

Kakashi let his visible eye carefully follow the down-feather behind of the chick while Sasuke spoke, his hip leaning idly on the counter and his shoes still resolutely on his feet. What were household manners if not something to squander in his own home? He was so intent with watching the bird with a careful gaze of distrust that he almost missed the few comments about clans and heirs and.. uh, reputations, was that?

He cleared his throat as if it would disguise his momentary daze and restore his half respectable reputation as Sasuke's stand-in sensei and apparent support crutch in times of ~~whining~~ need. It was probably a good thing his intelligence was so heightened, as otherwise he might not have gotten away with the ruse cleanly.

"And what about Neji? Does he have any options?"

Sasuke was, all told, still rather more used to being ignored and overlooked than paid attention to -- it wasn't out of his experience to be tuned out at clan functions where his awkward formal greetings to an endless parade of elders never quite rolled out as smoothly as Itachi's. It still slowed him in the middle of explaining the situation, though, Kakashi resolving into an individual instead of an extension of Obito as Sasuke abruptly remembered (through the hungover haze) that a sometimes-sensei probably wasn't quite as invested in the sordid details of his sometimes-students lives as Sasuke might have presumed.

Hoori, sensing that he was being watched in the meantime, tilted his head around to give Kakashi a stare that looked more baleful than it was.

"Ah," Sasuke stumbled at the question, frustration giving way to awkwardness. "Neji is branch clan, he doesn't get much of a choice in anything." With no particular sense of irony, he added: "The Hyuuga are barbaric like that."

Kakashi was honestly just.. unnerved by birds. He wouldn't admit it, even to himself, but even the little clicking of the tiny talons that were not at all threatening were setting him vaguely on edge... even more so when their owner turned to give him a look with those large orange eyes. Ugh.

"True," he muttered, then shifted his attention to Sasuke, a much more comforting thing to focus on rather than the sinister presence of the bird... and... something he should have been focusing on from the beginning. Ah damn, why was he so bad at this? Probably half the reason he'd never gelled enough with a team of his own to keep anyone secure.

"But in the mean time," he continued without taking a beat of a pause, with an air entirely the opposite of a man who'd just had a guilty emotional epiphany. "Make yourself at home; let's get that hangover cured, hm?"

Perhaps the usual bird didn't care to sense fear, but these were chicks that had tried to peck out Sasuke's eyes the first time he'd met them; Sasuke blinked in confusion when Hoori turned on one claw and started to stride more purposefully toward Kakashi. Seeing no particular threat in the movement (if anything, curiosity), he let the chick be and found a spot against Kakashi's kitchen counter to lean, not entirely sure how thoroughly to take make yourself at home.

"Is it even possible to cure a hangover?" He asked, peering around the space. It was definitely a bachelor's apartment; he could tell at a glance that there was something less than the thorough use Mikoto's kitchen got at home. "I thought it was just 'avoid lights and noise'."

Leaning against the counter was probably as homely as Sasuke could have made himself in Kakashi's barren little apartment with it's disappointing kitchenette, so Kakashi was satisfied with Sasuke's movement.

"Well, you're standing upright which tells me you're on your way to curing it by yourself, but there's a few things we can do to speed up the process."

He turned and started to pilfer through his almost empty cupboards for the few things he needed. He almost seemed lost in their depths, like this kitchen didn't belong to him at all. With his back turned, he'd also failed to notice the tiny predator approaching, but he couldn't ignore the soft clicking of it's claws. He side-stepped stealthily toward the furthest corner of the little kitchen.

"I know you don't like sweet things, but sugar and calories are what your system needs. I had no time for hangovers when I was younger, so I tried every method I could think of to ensure I wouldn't be laying useless in bed all day." He wasn't entirely sure why Sasuke needed to know that much, but was distracted from feeling stupid for sharing as he found the little bottle of honey he'd been looking for.

Given that standing upright had been something of a feat at first, Sasuke took it as a good sign that Kakashi considered this in itself progress. Then again, if accomplishing something he'd been doing since a toddler was progress nowadays ... he didn't really want to think too hard about it.

For a number of reasons, but mostly because it made him wince through another pang of headache. It was enough that he didn't pay much attention to Hoori spreading his wings, launching himself with a short run and hop to clatter onto the sink countertop in order to peer at Kakashi from a closer vantage point.

"Sugar," Sasuke muttered in the meantime, a certain amount of unhappy acceptance inevitable in his voice. "And this works? Consistently?"

Kakashi gave the sudden appearance of the bird a look like it had just deeply insulted him and every one of his ancestors, and pressed a little more into the corner of his kitchen. There weren't many places he could dodge to in order to escape the birds beady gaze, and without peripheral vision at the other side of his head, it was a little difficult to just keep an eye on the progress of the feathered fiend.

"Uhh...it-" he mumbled slowly, stalling as he concentrated on the bird that was doing an excellent job of shaking him up. He was trying to be a supportive elder here and the bird was making it incredibly difficult.

"It.. works differently for everyone, but in my experience, yes." He awkwardly flailed an arm out to see if he could shock the bird enough for it to find the floor more appealing. "At the very least it's simple science, and it's preferable.. Your choices are this, or I drag you back out into the sunshine for a few laps around the village and a course of high-intensity training to burn the alcohol out of your system." Despite his predicament his voice remained almost level, but he knew it would be impossible for him to fix up the cure he'd been intending to make with a bird on the counter... and there didn't seem to be an easy way to make it leave.

Prey instinct had kicked in from Kakashi's cagey behaviour; the sudden movement made the bird's wings flare for a moment before settling again with a disapproving ruffle. Fortunately for his sometimes-sensei, Sasuke took the pause in Kakashi's words to notice where his summons had gone and leaned across the space to lift the bird back to his shoulder with a frown and a scolding: "You know you're not supposed to walk around where human food goes, Hoori."

It earned him a butt on the side of his head (wince-worthy with the headache already happening) and Kakashi a disdainful tilt of the goshawk's head, but Sasuke and bird leaned out of Kakashi's space with a vague apology, followed immediately by a look of abject horror at the alternative.

"Sunshine and laps," he repeated, sounding like taking a blow to the head might be preferable. "I'll try the sugar first, thanks."

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