Work Text:
“We’re late,” Sasuke says, and Kakashi mentally recites I will not yell at this puppy, I will not yell at this puppy, I will not yell at this puppy, a mantra that has gotten him through over ten years of being the veterinarian of record at a dog rescue and almost eighteen months of foster parenthood.
“Yes,” he responds, as mildly as he can. “I suppose we are.”
They have just pulled into the parking lot of Illuminated Adventures, a very unlicensed lightsaber fighting party place that Kakashi found on page three of the google results for “twelve-year-old boy birthday party.” Sasuke had shrugged when Kakashi had suggested it. He’d shrugged when Kakashi had asked which kids in his class he wanted to invite. He shrugs now, without unbuckling his seatbelt, and says, “We should just leave.”
Kakashi raises an eyebrow at him in the rear-view mirror. Sasuke glares back.
“If we leave now,” Kakashi offers, “you can be in charge of letting Gai and Lee know.”
Sasuke glares harder, but Kakashi works with a wide variety of unfriendly people and animals on a regular basis, and, plus, he’s been building up a Sasuke-specific resistance.
“Your call,” he says, and Sasuke grumbles something about birthday parties as punishments, but unbuckles his seatbelt and grabs his indoor shoes.
From across the parking lot, Kakashi can see Gai bobbing manfully, probably engaging the other parents in the kind of small talk Kakashi is only too happy to avoid, and he wouldn’t say he made them late on purpose, but he might admit, under interrogation, to having thought about it for more than a few minutes. With any luck, they’ll be able to grab the other kids and slip right in without more than a “Hello, parents!” on his part.
“Get the napkins,” he directs, sliding the Deluxe Vegetable Platter that is Sasuke’s idea of party food from the passenger seat.
“Ugh,” Sasuke replies, but he gets the napkins – the staid navy blue that by all rights should be the choice of an adult with a mortgage and a midlife crisis instead of this prematurely glum preteen Kakashi’s been trying very hard to introduce to literally any joy whatsoever. When he shoots ahead, Kakashi knows that it is not to meet Lee or the other kids. He had fondly hoped, the first dozen or so times this sort of thing happened, but by know he knows there’s not a chance.
No, Sasuke just wants to make it clear which of them is at fault for being late. The joy of not having every moment scheduled is one to which he seems particularly immune.
“Kakashi!” Gai booms, and, “We appear to have missed our booking!” which presents a bit of a snag.
“Great,” Sasuke says. “Can we go now?” and makes to head back toward the car.
Before Kakashi has the chance to threaten dire consequences should fun not be had today, Lee informs the assembled crowd that they cannot possibly go, since the season of youthful not-Star-Wars is upon them, and Gai assures the parental figures that he has managed to sweet-talk the pimply teen behind the counter into pushing their reservation to the next slot. The only catch is, apparently, that the next slot also involves a birthday party, but both the pimply teen and Gai are convinced that the party room’s two long tables will be sufficient to hold everyone for both auspicious events.
“We’ll be done at four,” Kakashi crinkles a smile at the other parents as he begins to shepherd their children into the building. It is not a big herd. Flock? What is the collective noun for a group of four kids, one of whom is incredibly sullen and one of whom seems to have glitter in his hair?
“I’ll be back with the C-A-K-E,” Gai calls after them, and Sasuke says, “I know how to spell cake,” and Kakashi says, “Thanks a million, Gai,” and Lee says, “Who is your favourite Jedi?! I prefer those whose use of the Force shines with their indomitable will!” and the door closes behind them and Kakashi feels like this is probably the worst idea he’s ever had.
Because they’re early, now, for the next slot, Kakashi has the uncertain pleasure of fanning out napkins and pulling the giant water bottles out of his backpack while listening to Lee’s increasingly desperate attempts to get Sasuke to make some conversation, any conversation, on the topic of Star Wars and/or lightsabers and/or birthdays and/or the colour of the carpet. The other two kids are off in their own clump, and Lee is very heroically Not Looking at them, even though it’s clear that he, at least, considers them friends and would really rather be chatting with them about the relative merits of Luke Skywalker and Boba Fett than trying to get the world's most reticent preteen to acknowledge his existence.
Kakashi is contemplating releasing Lee from his Gai-imposed Duty of Friendship and handing Sasuke the novel he’d squirrelled away against this exact situation when in walks the group with whom they are sharing this party room, and, abruptly, the whole atmosphere changes.
Because “walks” is decidedly the wrong verb. A cluster of kids about Sasuke’s age swarm around a man with a ponytail, a floral-print short-sleeved button-down, and a scar slashed across his nose. They are all yelling and laughing, the polar opposite of Kakashi’s sad little troupe, and the man is clearly the centre of gravity even as he holds a cake box high above their heads and narrowly avoids tripping.
Someone does trip, though: the loudest kid, blonde, with weird facial scarring that makes Kakashi immediately, instinctively peg him as another foster.
From the corner where he is ignoring Lee, Sasuke snorts, audibly. Kakashi braces himself to dive into conflict-resolution mode even as the blonde kid yells some garbled challenge and Floral Shirt Dude says “Naruto!” very loudly and very firmly.
“He started it!” Naruto declares. Sasuke snorts again, and Kakashi comes to the unavoidable conclusion that separate tables will not, in fact, be sufficient. Is acquiring a mortal enemy a step up from refusing to engage with other children? Kakashi makes a note to ask Sasuke’s social worker during their next check-in.
He crosses the room in two big strides, puts himself in the way of Sasuke’s line of sight, the way he would for any other agitated puppy.
“Kakashi,” he sticks out his hands to take the cake from the other man’s arms by way of introduction. “Sasuke’s foster figure, to use this month’s approved phrasing. For what it’s worth, we’re working on the whole lashing-out-when-uncomfortable thing.”
He’s met with a smile that’s…a little dazzling, if he’s honest. Woah. Okay. “Iruka,” the man says, letting Kakashi take the cake. Their fingers brush. Iruka’s hands are warm. “Working on the same thing with my kid, whose name you already know.”
In Kakashi’s peripheral vision, Naruto, whose name Kakashi indeed already knows, grins like a maniac when Iruka says “my kid.”
Kakashi avoids looking over his shoulder to gauge Sasuke’s reaction, because every fostering relationship is different, as he tells people at the rescue. And it’s not like he needs Sasuke to be his son. Or even his younger brother, or any kind of familial relationship. But it would be nice, maybe, to be able to skip over the fostering thing when making introductions. It would probably be good for Sasuke, even, to not single himself out with the label.
Iruka is crouched and rummaging through his many bags when Kakashi returns to his side from setting the cake on the table. Kakashi asks, “Can I help? I think we’ll be sharing the party room, so we might as well share some of the labour.”
There’s another blinding smile, and, good grief, if that keeps happening Kakashi is going to forget himself. “Sure,” Iruka says. “Do you want to just…hold this stuff, while I wrangle them all? I can get yours, too, if you want.”
“Please,” Kakashi says, a little more fervently than the situation warrants, perhaps, but it earns him a laugh that’s just this side of musical so it’s definitely worth coming across as a little out of his depth.
Iruka wades into the knots of children and soon has them all changing into indoor shoes, lining outdoor shoes up neatly against the wall, taking off jackets and sweaters to reveal Star Wars shirts of various sorts. Sasuke, far from being immune to this kind of treatment, is probably having the time of his life, Kakashi reflects. There’s nothing Sasuke likes better than having a structured sequence of tasks to perform.
Lee, too, is being handled skillfully: easily overstimulated, he’s prone to bursting into tears at odd moments, but Iruka has carefully placed him with a little bit of extra distance on either side of him, and is speaking in a low, firm voice as he compliments Lee’s green Yoda t-shirt. Lee is beaming, but not the kind of beaming that can lead to a manic episode. Kakashi swallows against the dryness in his throat. When did he get to the age where “good with neurodivergent children” became this attractive?
“Okay,” Iruka finally says. “Now we still have a few minutes before our mission briefing, so let’s stay close and stay together!” There are some resounding yells of affirmation. Even Sasuke manages to look like he’s following the “stay close” instruction on purpose.
Iruka walks purposefully over to where Kakashi is still holding the bags, like some kind of statue, and takes one back. There is a resumption of quiet hubbub as the kids speculate about – what had Iruka called it? Their mission briefing?
“Elementary school teacher?” Kakashi guesses, and Iruka blushes – blushes because Kakashi is meant to fall in love with him immediately, or something – and says, “Oh, no. I work at City Hall, though, in admin, and you could say that kids are easy in comparison.”
“Adult humans are the worst,” Kakashi agrees. “I work at a dog rescue and, let me tell you, the dogs are much nicer to socialise with.”
Iruka has pulled out a bright orange plastic tablecloth is carefully smoothing it over what Kakashi supposes is his table. “What do you do at the rescue?”
“I, uh,” Kakashi starts, trying desperately to avoid sounding like he’s bragging, even though he (also desperately) wants Iruka to be impressed with him, “I’m the vet.”
“You don’t look old enough to have been all the way through vet school!” Iruka blushes again as soon as he’s said it, and adds, “You know, grey hair notwithstanding.”
Kakashi flashes a grin of his own, can’t help it, “you don’t look old enough” means Iruka has been looking at him. Assessing him. “Skipped a few grades in elementary school, took year-round classes in my undergrad, anything to get out of human society and into canine society faster.”
Iruka is shaking his head as he arranges bottles of no-sugar-added fruit juice and a stack of compostable cups in the middle of the table. “Taking care of a bunch of traumatised, sick dogs sounds ridiculously peaceful.”
His tone is wry, a little harried, so Kakashi asks, “City Hall that busy?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Iruka sighs. “I got pushed to a supervisory position recently, and it’s been…a challenge, let’s just say. People suck at filling out forms, for one thing, and they seem to get really mad at me when I have to tell them to start over. I guess I got really good at paperwork when I started the process with Naruto.”
Iruka looks at the tape across the flap of the cake box with a considering air, and before Kakashi knows it, he’s pulled out his pocket knife and is getting to feel the warmth of Iruka’s fingers against his again. He mentally congratulates his past self for somehow knowing that having a pocket knife would be key to finding love.
Out loud, he says, “I think more people would foster if the paperwork wasn’t so horrible,” and Iruka laughs in agreement. The cake box is filled with orange-frosted cupcakes topped with little chocolate weapons. Kakashi wants to bet that Iruka made them himself, and he should not find that as charming as he does.
Sasuke is manifestly Not Listening to the pimply desk teenager give a safety speech, which is because he’s watched the promo video for Illuminated Adventures at least a dozen times this past week and Kakashi has 100% caught him practicing with a broomstick when he thought he was alone. But the kid responsible for all of their safety doesn’t know that, so it’s in Sasuke’s best interest to look like he’s listening. He leans over to nudge Sasuke. Nonverbal cues are their shared language, so Sasuke gets the meaning.
Nonverbal cues are their shared language, so Sasuke looks up to make eye contact with Kakashi, swings his eyes over to Iruka, raises an eyebrow, and looks back at Kakashi before turning to pretend he’s paying attention to the instructions. It’s moments like this that Kakashi feels are evidence of the fact that Sasuke is perfectly socially aware, despite what social workers and therapists might say about his attitude being purely the result of a trauma-induced inability to connect.
The trauma is always there, though, and in the next moment the pimply teenager tells them to pick partners and Sasuke’s whole body tenses up in what Kakashi knows is an anticipation of not being picked. Lee is the obvious choice to save him from this fate, but Lee is right up in front by the teenager, and Sasuke, naturally, is at the back of the little group.
So, too, it appears, is Naruto, who glues himself to Sasuke’s side and makes the lines of Sasuke’s body sag with relief even as his face twitches in irritation. Prickly loners, Kakashi reflects, sometimes need to be forced out of their loneliness. Maybe Naruto will be Sasuke’s Gai.
“I’m gonna beat you,” Naruto says with great confidence, and Sasuke replies, “Sure, you are,” which means they’ve just started a lifelong friendship, if Kakashi’s own experiences are anything to go by. He is uncertain how, precisely, he will explain this to the social worker.
“So, how long have you been fostering?” Iruka asks into the silence once the small not-jedi have all trouped onto the training field. Through the observation window that takes up a whole wall of the party room, they can be seen paying very close attention to what looks like an instructional video.
“About eighteen months,” Kakashi responds. This is great. This is a good choice of conversation topic, and Kakashi definitely has stories that only a fellow foster parent will appreciate, and maybe Iruka will appreciate them enough that Kakashi can hear his laugh again.
“Ah,” Iruka says, “that explains the vegetables.” This is not a good conversation topic, in fact. “Still trying to prove you know what you’re doing, eh?” This is the worst conversation topic.
Because the thing is, Iruka is cute, maybe too cute, and there’s a part of Kakashi that desperately wants to impress him, to progress from small talk to flirting to getting his number to getting married (okay, wow, put on the brakes, Hatake), but there’s another, larger part of Kakashi that has spent the past eighteen months working his ass off to be a good foster figure to Sasuke regardless of what outside observers think.
And he is. He is a good foster figure, who let his kid pick a Deluxe Vegetable Platter as a snack rather than trying to force him to eat, like, chips or something, because Sasuke’s definition of joy and Kakashi’s are not the same, and that’s okay. Because giving Sasuke the opportunity to feel supported and validated in his choices – regardless of whether he actually takes that opportunity – has been the easiest part of this whole thing.
Even as he formulates a response, he can hear how defensive it sounds. This is the part of foster parenting that they don’t tell you about: you’ll spend fruitless hours trying to convince other people that you’re not just doing it out of a sense of inadequacy. That just because the kid doesn’t share your genetics doesn’t mean you aren’t able to understand what they need.
“Not to you,” he finally manages. “I don’t need to prove anything to someone who’s gone as far as a customised birthday banner.”
Iruka glances over from where he’s applying copious amounts of tape to the string holding in place the last section of “HAPPY BIRTHDAY, NARUTO!” and just as quickly looks back at his hands.
“Naruto had a…rough start, shall we say? And he’s been with me for three years but I still feel like, every day, I’m making up for all the good things he should have had. Like I’m proving to him that he deserves to be loved and cared for.”
Kakashi feels his anger fizzle out, as quickly as it had sparked. Sasuke’s had a rough go, himself, even though three years ago he had bio parents and a brother he idolised. Packed into those three years is a lot of helpless hurt that Kakashi goes out of his way to mitigate by allowing Sasuke a sense of control over his own life.
He doesn’t know how to respond, though, without giving away too many of Sasuke’s closely-hoarded secrets, so he turns back to the window to watch a little pink-haired girl absolutely wail on first Sasuke, then Naruto. In the background, Lee is borderline fainting, probably at the power of her youthful zest for life.
It’s because of the awkwardness in the party room that he’s watching the activity room, and it’s because he’s watching the activity room that he sees a miracle.
“Iruka,” he says, and his voice must sound as frantic, as awed as he feels, because Iruka comes over right away. He’s almost as tall as Kakashi, and he stands close enough that if Kakashi were to shift his weight their shoulders would brush, but right now there is something more important going on than the fact that he can feel Iruka’s body heat along his side. Kakashi points, but Iruka’s probably already looking where he is because their kids are talking, Naruto gesturing animatedly and Sasuke nodding with the kind of concentration he normally reserves for cleaning his room, because their kids are moving to stand back-to-back, because Sasuke, who is like one of those dogs that comes in and flinches from even the gentlest contact, is somehow trusting a kid he’s just met to have his back.
“Oh my god,” he breathes, and Iruka chuckles.
“Yeah,” he says, and there’s something so fond in his voice that Kakashi has to wrench his gaze away from where all the other kids are just rushing Sasuke and Naruto to see the contended affection on Iruka’s face. “Yeah, Naruto has that effect on people.”
When Gai arrives, cake box and about forty brightly-coloured helium balloons in tow, he blinks in consternation at the two very different party tables. Sasuke’s is austere, navy napkins and paper cups, the bottles of water that Sasuke insisted were what he wanted to drink, the Deluxe Vegetable Platter. A stack of plates for the cake. Naruto’s, on the other hand, has a party hat at each setting, compostable cutlery in napkins folded like frogs, alternating red and yellow plates, flat platters of chips and dip, no fewer than three flavours of juice.
“Kakashi,” Gai says, handing over the cake. “Sometimes I worry you and Sasuke are a little too cool.”
“Hence the balloons?” Kakashi teases, but Gai is shaking his head seriously, eyes still fastened on Iruka’s Pinterest-level party setup.
“There is a time for restraint,” Gai begins, but then his eyes drift up toward the banner and snag on the observation window, and on Lee, who has blindfolded himself with his t-shirt and is taking all comers.
“Lee!” Gai cries, since now is apparently not a time for restraint. “Oh, Kakashi, look at him! What a moving display of intense passion and the pure love of sport!”
“Moving,” Kakashi agrees, his eyes on Gai. Not all fostering matches are good ones, but Gai's with Lee has brought out the best in both of them; even if that best is sometimes a little too damp and a little too sparkling for Kakashi to know how to deal with, the fact of the matter is that Gai is Kakashi's best friend, and fostering Lee has been the kind of good that he so richly deserves.
Iruka makes an intentional-sounding noise with the napkins, and when Kakashi turns to look at him, there is something awkward in his expression. He doesn’t look up when he asks, “Your…partner?” and Kakashi’s heartbeat kicks up a notch, because he is not an expert in human body language but Iruka is telegraphing all kinds of disappointment right now.
“Best friend,” he corrects, adds, “I’m single,” for good measure.
And maybe Kakashi is just projecting, but when Iruka blushes and rubs at his nose scar he looks kind of…pleased? This impression is helped along when he says, “Um, me too. Single, that is. I’m single.”
If they were not in a room with Gai, and cake, and balloons, and a birthday banner, Kakashi thinks he would probably have to do something more than smile giddily, but Gai and the balloons and the birthday banner are all sparkling and the cake probably needs to come out of its box before there are small elbows to knock it onto the floor, so he tears his eyes from Iruka’s and reaches for his pocket knife.
His pocket is empty, and Iruka says, “Oh!” and turns to the bench where they’ve stowed their various bags.
“I meant to give this back to you,” he says. “I got distracted by the safety instructions.”
When he places the pocket knife in Kakashi’s outstretched palm, Kakashi gives into temptation and lets his fingers linger on the inside of Iruka’s wrist. He doesn’t think he imagines the way Iruka’s breathing shifts. He knows he doesn’t imagine the helium-light feeling bubbling inside his chest when Iruka runs a knuckle against Kakashi’s thumb as he pulls his hand away.
“I’m easily distracted myself,” Kakashi offers. Iruka snorts and gestures to the cake box. “I can see that,” he replies, which is a very good sign, Kakashi feels pretty confident that they’ll be engaged, at least, within the month.
He doesn’t say it, though, because there is a time for restraint, and focuses instead on unboxing the cake, which is shaped like a tomato because it was the only way he could convince Sasuke that, yes, everyone would be expecting a cake and thus, yes, he had to have one.
The box is lying flat on the table and Kakashi is carefully sliding the silvery cake board out of it when he hears Iruka’s laughter, again, like music, like the only song he wants to hear for the rest of his life.
“Okay,” Iruka chuckles, “what, is this a practical joke, or is Sasuke just obsessed with vegetables?”
“I know,” Kakashi complains, “I keep wanting to be, like, a fun foster figure? But he does his homework right away, and he treats cleaning his room like a life-or-death mission, and he fucking loves vegetables, and he doesn’t want to play team sports but he is beyond committed to his martial arts classes. Like, this kid practices stretching, I shit you not.”
Iruka is shaking his head and, miraculously, has not stopped laughing. “Wow, I hate you a little bit. If Naruto had his way, he would never even take a bath, much less eat a vegetable or do his homework or clean his room. But I have to admit, he also practices a lot, for everything. And he has a tough time with team sports, despite really wanting to be good at them.”
“Well,” Kakashi points out, “the two of them seemed to be handling teamwork pretty well a moment ago.” When he turns away from Iruka’s warm brown eyes to assess whether this statement still reflects reality, Kakashi sees that the pink-haired girl has wedged herself into Sasuke and Naruto’s back-to-back setup, making it a triangle, and the other kids are continuing to let them have it. Lee looks ready to burst every time one of his blows is blocked; Kakashi can see him mouthing what is probably a stream of invocations of glorious battle and youthful camaraderie. No wonder Gai has been so silent: this is the kind of riveting expression of passionate drive that he lives for.
Naruto is whooping and hollering, the pink-haired girl is sporting an unsettlingly feral grin, and – he looks again, more closely – Sasuke is smiling. It’s a small smile, to be sure; anyone who hadn’t spent the better part of the last year and a half learning Sasuke’s micro-expressions probably wouldn’t notice anything different. Kakashi himself has seen the kid smile maybe a half-dozen times. Ever.
“Why don’t we push these tables together,” Iruka suggests in a suspiciously wet voice, breaking into Kakashi’s reverie. “I don’t think we’ll be able to easily separate them when they get back in here.”
So they reset everything so there’s navy interspersed between the red and yellow, and Iruka produces yet more party hats, somehow. Kakashi slides one onto his head and Iruka giggles. They split up the balloons and tie them to two chairs, and when the kids come tumbling in, sweaty and chattering, Sasuke’s hand firmly clasped in Naruto’s and the pink-haired girl’s arm wrapped around both of their necks, Naruto’s momentum dragging all three of them, Kakashi catches Iruka’s eye and sees a lot of future playdates there.
Sasuke, naturally, doesn’t blink at the new table setup, although his shoulders are set in a way that Kakashi has come to recognise as discomfort. Naruto, who seems like the kind of kid who’s never even recognised his own discomfort, much less anyone else’s, drags Sasuke over to one of the balloon-festooned chairs, plunks him down, and shoves a blue birthday hat at him.
“No,” says Sasuke, although his shoulders have relaxed significantly, and Naruto whines, he wheedles, he fucking begs until Sasuke, with a put-upon sigh, sticks the hat on his head.
“It’s my birthday, too, you know,” he grits out, and Naruto says, “Uh, duh, that’s why you gotta wear the hat,” and slides his own orange hat on.
Kakashi snags a green hat from the table and hands it to Lee, who is vibrating beside him. “Have fun?” he asks, and Lee proceeds to list all the synonyms for “fun” that he knows.
The pink-haired girl, per the defiant scrawl on her cup, is SAKURA!!!. She is currently arm-wrestling Naruto, after handily beating every other kid at the table, over the last corn chip. Naruto is still chewing the celery he shoved in his mouth after Sasuke taunted him over not eating vegetables.
Kakashi turns away from this fascinating display to scribble his number on the back of the vegetable platter receipt, and, when Iruka’s cleanup takes him past where Kakashi is standing, tucks the receipt into Iruka’s breast pocket.
“Just to be clear,” Iruka says, blushing furiously and shoving a garbage bag at Kakashi with the implicit demand for his help, “this is so Naruto and Sasuke can hang out, right?”
Kakashi grins and begins dropping crumpled napkins into the black void. “Sure,” he says, “that, too.”