Chapter Text
Sasuke's acting weird.
He's sitting curled over a sheet of paper instead of with his arms crossed, shooting glares at any who dares approach him before their last class of the day starts. Naruto squints, but he can't figure out what he's writing.
Quietly, Naruto leans over his desk to peek at Sasuke's notebook.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Shikamaru murmurs, but he's lying face-down on the desk beside Naruto so he doesn't get a vote. Naruto quickly shushes him. Sasuke's stupid head is blocking his view. If he could just get a little closer then-
"Crap!"
Naruto tumbles face-first over the desk and slams into Sasuke's back, who shouts in complaint.
"Watch where you're going usuratonkachi!"
"I was! Someone bumped into me! Why do you always assume it's my fault?"
"Gee, I don't know, dead last," Sasuke taunts. He slides his notebook shut, then elbows Naruto. "Move already."
"Fight me then!" Naruto shoots back, red in the face as he shoves Sasuke's very pointy elbow away from his ribs. "I'm stronger now, I've been practicing. Believe it!"
Sasuke slants his gaze away and scoffs. "Like it'd even be a real fight."
"You bastard!"
"Boys!" Iruka-sensei's voice shouts, startling them both into facing the front of the class. "Fighting, again?" he asks, dropping a stack of scrolls onto his desk and leaning heavily on his hands. "What is this all about?"
Without thinking, Naruto snatches Sasuke's notebook and flicks it open. "It's about- wait, a bird man? In the forest?"
"Give that back!" Sasuke screeches, lunging for the pages Naruto is still trying to read from, jumping down the rows of desks to be out of Sasuke's reach.
"A…bird man?" Chouji asks. "What's that?"
"Is it like the demon dog Naruto made up before?"
"I didn't make it up!" Naruto defends, whirling on Inu, and his split-second of righteous indignation allows Sasuke to snatch his notebook back. "The demon dog is real! He's like a- a- a fairy dogmother! That's it!"
"Fairy godmother," Sakura corrects. Then, "I'm sure Sasuke's, uh, thing isn't anything like Naruto's imaginary pet. Isn't that right, Sasuke?"
"Yeah, what's a…bird man?" Inu asks, trying her best not to cringe doubtfully over the words. She's almost successful.
"It's none of your business," Sasuke complains. Then he tosses his gaze out the window, broody and condescending, and says, "There was somebody in the forest last night." The backs of his ears turn red and Naruto takes a step closer to make sure his eyes aren't playing tricks on him. "That's all."
When Sasuke realizes Naruto has crept closer again, marveling at that bright and mottled shade on unbothered Sasuke, of all people, Sasuke grits his teeth and shoves him.
Naruto, of course, shoves him back.
Iruka-sensei's hands pry them apart and they both get detention.
**
Iruka knows about Naruto's demon dog stories. How could he not? It was all the boy could talk about for weeks, more and more insistent when his fellow classmates refused to believe him, and Iruka had decided to keep an ear out for any ridicule, because if Naruto needed to have an imaginary pet, then, well, there wasn't any harm in that. Not when Iruka was beginning to notice the sadness that hung around him like a cloud when all the other students ran to greet their parents at the end of the day. Or how the local grocer had upcharged him, at eight years old, for an odd mix of fruit and ramen cups.
Iruka was an orphan, too. Orphaned because of the nine-tailed fox, yes, but softening towards Naruto. The vessel. The boy.
And there was taunting, here and there, that Iruka shot down with quelling looks. More concerning were Naruto's tales themselves. The demon dog brings food and water, the demon dog fixed the hole in my roof, the demon dog brought me a bucket for a bath since they shut my water off, the demon dog made the graffiti disappear.
It didn't take long for Iruka to learn that Naruto lived alone in the red-light district, in an apartment that could barely be considered livable, and not in the orphanage like Iruka thought. And after Iruka took him in- to an apartment with a functioning roof and warm water and regular meals and a bed- tales of the demon dog trickled to a stop.
Now, Iruka sits behind his desk with his his hands steepled below his chin as Sasuke tells him about the bird man hiding out in the woods and about his complete and utter disrespect for tomatoes, Naruto by the window with strict instructions to zip it. Not that Iruka expected him to make fun of Sasuke. He could tell from the start that Naruto was the only one who believed Sasuke saw a bird man in the woods.
Iruku doesn't know if that's a good or a bad sign. Doesn't know what he's dealing with at all, actually. Sasuke isn't one to make up stories for the sake of it, and god knows he's been through enough to justify coming up with much crazier things.
Iruka doesn't know what, exactly, he's missed, but he doesn't want to do wrong by Sasuke, too. Not after everything that's happened to him.
It isn't easy, being alone in the world. And if Sasuke isn't lying, then…
Decision made, Iruka asks Sasuke to lead him to the bird man's hideout and allows Naruto to accompany them, despite Sasuke's protests and Naruto's boasting, with one pointed eye on the ANBU guard that follows Naruto around. The ANBU- Hound, if he's not mistaken, given the way he doesn't tense when Iruka clocks him- tilts his head.
Your job, Iruka tries to convey, because if there is any danger, Iruka's job will be to get Naruto and Sasuke out of it.
Sasuke leads them to a….nest, of sorts. It certainly looks like one- a large blanket padded down with straw and moss, and beside it a basket full of nothing but baby tomatoes.
Uncertainly, Iruka raises his eye to the treeline, waiting for some sort of sign.
The ANBU drops into view a moment later, and with unmistakable clarity, signs the letters b-e-d. Then gestures to the nest.
Iruka raises an eyebrow.
Again, the ANBU gestures towards the nest and then to Sasuke.
Yeah, no.
Iruka may not know exactly what's happening but he will not be sending his student to sleep in the middle of the forest on a pile of straw.
Iruka drops his hands onto the boys' shoulders. "Let's go back to my apartment for dinner. Sasuke, grab those tomatoes, would you?"
"We can just take them?" Naruto asks. "What about the bird man?"
Sasuke remains silent, but Iruka can see the same question in his eyes. And his interest. They must be a favorite food of his.
"Yes, I know who this place belongs to and they wouldn't mind. They know it's not a proper place to sleep."
"And what about detention?" Sasuke asks, reaching easily for the basket.
"Sasuke," Naruto hisses.
"Helping prepare dinner will complete it," Iruka decides. "Now come along."
Iruka steps out for a breath of fresh air after dinner. After all the dishes have been washed and the excess water cleaned from the kitchen floor and the spare futon pulled out for Sasuke in Naruto's room even though he swore up and down he didn't want to stay, scowling down at the frog-themed pajamas he was lent even as he put them on without a fight.
The relief in his expression was clear as day, smoothing out the usual tension around his eyes and, not for the first time, Iruka's heart breaks for him.
And it seems his isn't the only one.
The night air is cool when Iruka steps outside and he closes his eyes to savor the light breeze.
He's not sure when Naruto's ANBU guard appears next to him, but at some point he realizes there's another person's breath out of rhythm with his own.
"What the hell happened today?" Iruka murmurs.
He doesn't open his eyes, not even when the silence between them starts to feel sheepish. Not even when the ANBU explains that, after being checked out for injuries and insider knowledge, Sasuke was sent back to the Uchiha compound to live on his own and that, lately, ANBU have spotted him wandering the village at night more often than not.
Iruka presses the heels of his hands into his eyes.
One day- one day- Konoha orphans will be sent to the actual goddamn orphanage. But, "Straw?" Iruka asks. "Really?"
The ANBU doesn't react.
"And a trap? You can't treat children like that."
"It worked for Naruto."
"It worked for-" Iruka starts to echo, baffled, until it clicks. "You're the fairy dogmother."
The ANBU pointedly turns their head away.
"Well," Iruka sighs, crossing his arms, "this is a real shitshow, huh?"
The ANBU hums.
"Language, sensei."
Iruka laughs, but sobers quickly enough.
"I've got my hands full with Naruto," he admits, "I can't afford…"
"Perhaps Nara," the ANBU offers tentatively, "or Tsume?"
Iruka considers it, but, "Sasuke doesn't particularly get along with their children, and I suspect he'd feel…alienated. But maybe…maybe it wouldn't hurt to ask. Just to see. Living at the compound's gotta be…"
The ANBU makes to leave and, thoughtlessly, Iruka reaches for their arm to stop them.
And the ANBU lets him take it.
"I- uh, sorry, I just…what about…?"
You, Iruka doesn't say, but the ANBU seems to hear it regardless.
"You obviously care," Iruka continues, eager to make his case if there's even a sliver of a chance. "And there are books on this sort of thing, you know? And he's really very gifted. Smart, too. Er, ignoring the tomato trail thing, really that was out of character. He's-"
"Sensei."
"Hm?"
The ANBU flickers out of view without saying anything else and, for a second, Iruka takes it as rejection, but then Naruto and Sasuke tumble out the front door, gunning for his attention over whether tomatoes are considered a fruit or a vegetable like whoever wins the debate will be crowed the next Hokage and Iruka breathes a sigh of relief.
It wasn't a no.
And when Iruka notices one of his own books on parenting missing from his bookshelf later that night, he smiles.
It isn't a yes, yet, but it's something close.
And Iruka started much the same way- with a book filched from the library on budgeting.