A/N: Here's my first Naruto fic! It's going to be largely un-planned-out fluff and humour, involving a little angst here and there... Honestly, I just didn't know how else to start off. I'll delve into more mindless, illogical humour in the upcoming chapters, possibly crack. Don't expect anything seriously angsty like Beyond the Edge, this is gonna be way less dignified and more like free roam, my fingers! so yeah, I've got no plot except vague-ish ideas. Gotta embrace the fluff yo~ Also, there'll be some OOC-ness since it's about seven years before canon starts so their personalities were bound to change a bit, and of course, canon derailment.

Consider yourselves warned. (*cackles*)

Dedication to zxrysky - HAPPY BIRTHDAY IMOUTO-CHAN! Thanks for being an amazing sister and also for dumping a pile of amazing Naruto fics on me and dragging me into the fandom. It's totally going to help my grades, yeah. /fist pump/ Anyway, I'll post the next chapter soon since I know you've already read this one heheh but bear with me won't cha?

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto!

Hope y'all enjoy! :)

Chapter 1

First Meetings

Kakashi first meets his sensei's son as barely more than a war-hardened and grief-stricken teenager with the unshaking belief that less attachment means less pain. His ANBU mask tucked safely in his vest, he finds that his legs have somehow brought him to stand before the Memorial yet again, and he manages a bitter laugh at the irony of it. He'd been searching for some place capable of driving the images of bloodshed and death away after that latest mission, because the use of his Sharingan still brings back too many memories, too much pain.

He sits down and leans carefully against the cool stone, resigned to another night of sleeplessness. Vaguely, he remembers that he has to report in to the Hokage about the mission (a success, as always, but it never really feels like success anymore) but figures that a day late won't matter, especially since the Sandaime already knows that if there had been a problem, he would have reported in immediately.

Tilting his head back, Kakashi stares up into the deep purple sky, and tries to think of stars and clouds and cooling night breezes, and nothing of the blood that can never quite be washed off his hands or the uncountable lives he has taken before – and even after – he had realized what killing truly meant. And it is somewhere between Heaven and Hell that his mind lingers momentarily on Earth, and he hears the unmistakable thudding of shuriken in wood.

Instantly, he is alert and on his feet with a kunai balanced on his fingertips, poised for release any moment. Even as he does so, he is already racing towards the direction of the sounds, leaping into a tree to scout out the situation first. His heart pounds in his ears and adrenaline runs through his system, anticipating a fight, an attack, anything-

-except for a little boy huffing and puffing in exertion, throwing shuriken way off his target.

Kakashi very nearly falls off the tree in sheer surprise, and that's quite the accomplishment, considering that there's not much that can make the ANBU Captain jump anymore. Hanging upside down with only chakra sticking the bottom of his shoes to the thin branch (he prays it wouldn't break), he can't help but think, God, I over-reacted.

…That is a major understatement.

Either way, the child is as welcome a distraction as any, and he swings back onto the tree to observe what the kid is up to. It soon becomes clear that he's doing nothing but training, and strange as it is to do so at midnight, Kakashi can't be bothered to question it. He absent-mindedly counts the number of misses and hits, notes that the boy has a completely wrong stance, and observes that his shuriken are so blunt that more than half of them simply bounce off the wood harmlessly.

The kid doesn't yet look Academy-aged, but surely his parents would have taught him better?

An orphan, his mind suddenly provides, almost without conscious thought. He finds that the word still rouses many emotions better left dormant, and he desperately pushes them down again, forcing himself to focus instead on the slightly fraying hems of the boy's jumpsuit, coloured in a most visually-assaulting orange. Being an orphan certainly would explain a lot.

He takes a closer look at the kid's features, and cannot help the sharp intake of breath or the slight widening of his eyes, even as conflicting thoughts crash over him like the unrelenting waves of a tsunami – getaway and helphim and I'msorry I'msosorry at the same time.

The resemblance is strikingly, undeniably, clear in the boy's blond hair (the exact same shade of golden-silver under the moonlight that he'd come to recognize as his sensei's), and his brilliant, brilliant blue eyes. He can't possibly be anyone other than Minato's child.

Goddamn, Kakashi thinks, because doesn't he have enough reminders of his failures already, without a living one this time? But even as he watches, the boy is slowly falling forward, body slanting to the ground and his grip loosening on the two shuriken in his hands, and before he knows it, before the smoke even dissipates from his shunshin, the kid is already in his arms and Kakashi realizes that the blond is so much smaller than he should be for his five years of age.

That thought is quickly pushed aside when he looks down at the boy's face, because this close, he is a spitting image of his father, and Kakashi cannot think or breathe at all. Close up, he can even see the kid's mother in the shape of his eyes, can sense her presence in the fiery feel of his chakra.

He can't possibly abandon this boy, not when he'd already fallen so short of his sensei's expectations, but what can he do? He's bad luck, he knows that – anyone who has ever gotten attached to him have met early ends, and there's no way he will be able to live with himself if he manages to bring this fate down on an innocent child, however unintentionally, much less this kid sleeping peacefully in his hold.

Come to think of it, he has forgotten just how long he'd gone without peace. There is no peace in his ANBU missions, only tension and blood and adrenaline, and there is no peace in his Konoha, because all he sees are endless reminders of his foolishness and his failures. Somehow or other, it occurs to him that this little Namikaze seems like a bundle of that exact emotion, and by contrast, he is startlingly aware of how revoltingly filthy he is. He feels the sudden urge to drop the blond – what is he thinking, touching a child with bloodstained hands like his?

However, before he registers it or even decides on a destination, his legs are already flying and he is heading towards the village hospital. He knows the kid isn't in mortal danger, knows it as a tangible thought in his mind – he'd only fainted out of exhaustion, not chakra depletion – but Kakashi still cannot stop the anxiety or the near-panic running through his veins. He doesn't like closed eyelids or limp forms like this, even with the steady rising and falling in time to the kid's breaths, and sometimes he thinks that he cannot stand peace at all.

Because Minato and Kushina had looked so tranquil in death, smiled even while passing on, but the gray-haired teenager they'd left behind simply could not fathom how, couldn't understand why. It had seemed so wrong: his grief in the face of his sensei's quiet contentment, his silent, desperate prayers for him to return when he'd seemed so ready to move on.

He had hated being so selfish, detested himself for it, but what else could he have done, when he'd lost every single one of his precious people and he had no one other than himself to consider anymore?

Abruptly, the kid stirs in his arms from the slightly rough travel and mumbles something about ramen and Hokage and all sorts of inane things, jarring him from his thoughts. For a heart-pounding second, Kakashi holds his breath, worrying that the child will wake and react badly to the situation that he's somehow landed in.

Who knows – he might start screaming or shouting for help, and that had to be one of the most god-awful things that could happen to the single ninja most famous for his aversion to attention and anything even remotely related to social interactions. Besides, it is doubtful that anyone would want to be found looking suspiciously like he had just attempted kidnap.

Just when the blond looks deceptively like he'd fallen back into a deep sleep, he cracks open one sleepy eyelid and blinks blearily up at the rather intimidating (to his eyes) ANBU. The man stares back down at him with an unreadable expression before coming to a halt, carefully balanced on a rooftop not far from the village hospital.

With the moonlight shining and the mysterious ninja's silver hair glowing like a halo above his head, it occurs to the boy's young, sleep-addled mind that he rather resembles a, "Tenshi?"

Kakashi, in turn, half-chokes and half-scoffs at the mere suggestion, albeit the thoughts that float into his mind are bitter. An angel has to be the last thing he can possibly be. He is, on the other hand, reasonably certain that there is a special place reserved in Hell just waiting for his eventual arrival. So he shakes his head no, and wonders at the slight twist of guilt in his gut for the little (adorable) frown-pout hybrid the kid now wears.

"Who are you, ANBU-san?" The question is refreshing in its honesty, because it's been far too long since Kakashi has heard anything so void of suspicion or awe or anything other than innocent curiosity. But even though he is known as a great many things – the White Fang's son, a genius, Sharingan no Kakashi, Copy-nin Kakashi, and now ANBU Captain Hound – none of his titles seem particularly meaningful in the face of that expectant expression, and he doesn't know what exactly to say.

In the end, he settles simply on, "Hatake Kakashi."

If there is any recognition, none of it shows in bright cerulean eyes. There is only the genuine satisfaction of finally having a name to pin to a face, so Kakashi plunges on, "What's your name, kid?"

He doesn't miss the hesitation or sudden uncertainty that flashes across childish features as the kid whispers 'Uzumaki N-naruto', and it drags a long-faded memory to the surface. He recalls it indistinctly from one of the rare times he'd actually bothered to linger in ANBU Headquarters beyond receiving missions or giving reports, and he'd heard the name uttered between troublemaker and prankster, demon and monster.

It hadn't mattered much to him then, but now that the rumored "monster" is in his arms as nothing more than a little boy with too-wide eyes and too-blond hair, an irrepressible rage bubbles up in him. He knows Minato would never have wanted any misfortune to befall his and Kushina's child, and if he were still alive, he'd undoubtedly be showering Naruto with love and affection – too much of it, probably – but what has the kid become now? A scapegoat of all things, scorned and abused all his short life when the Yondaime couldn't have wanted him to be treated as anything short of a hero.

It is only the kid struggling to sit up, pushing and pulling on his flak jacket that momentarily keeps at bay the wave of uncharacteristically intense emotions and brings him back to Earth. Strangely enough, he finds himself in the midst of trying to keep a flailing five-year-old from tumbling out of his arms.

"What are you doing?" In his confusion and panic, he must have sounded harsher than he'd meant to, for Naruto suddenly freezes, and the twisting feeling in his gut makes him feel worse than ever.

The boy seems to be waiting for something, a rebuke or a criticizing remark, and whines defensively, "Gotta go train! Gonna become Hokage one day!"

"You just fainted out of exhaustion," Kakashi points out helpfully. An awfully big dream for such a tiny kid, he thinks, but wisely chooses not to say it out loud. No doubt Naruto already has more than his fair share of people putting his dreams down. Besides, becoming Hokage is quite the common ambition for kids that age.

Hey, aim high, dream big, right?

"I'm fine now!" Naruto insists, and wriggles in his arms. The jōnin barely manages not to sigh, and wonders how it is that a five-year-old can crumble his stoic mask better than any enemy-nin has managed to.

He ignores the pounding headache coming on, and soldiers on, "I'm bringing you to the hospital." He makes sure to use his ANBU Captain voice that makes all of his team members gulp and obey immediately, but finds that he doesn't have the energy to even be surprised when the blond completely disregards his I'mgoingtotearyoulimbfromlimbifyoudon'tlisten tone and squirms all the more harder.

Really, he's barely managing not to drop the little brat as he leaps from one roof onto another, and knowing his luck, most likely onto some poor unsuspecting bastard's head.

Meanwhile, Naruto is chanting 'hate hospitals!' in a remarkably shrill voice that only stubborn five-year-olds can achieve. Each chant makes Kakashi's ears ring and his heart pound, and he is certain that he's growing increasingly paranoid. Surely that shadow over there wouldn't be an ANBU squad come to apprehend him for attempting to kidnap the village's jinchuuriki? And that couldn't be- ohdearLorditmoved!

Wait, that's just a bird.

This time, Kakashi does sigh, partly out of relief and partly out of exasperation. God, his reputation will nosedive and splatter at rock bottom if anyone is present to witness his composure falling apart in the hands of a kid. He sighs again, and gives up. There is a reason he can't deal with brats, and besides, he himself isn't too fond of the sterile structure that nonetheless holds a tinge of the coppery smell of blood and death, nauseatingly mixed in with the fragrance of fresh flowers.

Warily, he stops on the edge of a building just two leaps away from the hospital, and asks, "Fine. Where do you want to go, then?"

"…Train?" (In reality it sounds something more like 'twain' and Kakashi curses his luck for landing him with such a cute kid.) Big azure orbs bore into his, gleaming with boyish hope and just the slightest dash of pleading, and Kakashi's resolve crumbles like pie crust in the overzealous hands of a toddler. He runs a hand through his already ruffled hair, and idly wonders whether anyone will notice if he grows a few gray hairs from this whole ordeal. He has to admit, puppy dog eyes truly are formidable weapons.

This is how the infamous copy-nin finds himself back in training ground three at approximately one in the morning, half-dragged along by an all-too-cheerful and overly-orange brat. Without realizing it, the images of bloodshed and death have already become the furthest thing from his mind, and there just might be a fond tilt to his lips as he corrects Naruto's stance and demonstrates once with his own shuriken, forming a henohenomoheji.

Ah, but there's always the kid's slack-jawed look of awe, and well, it's never been said that Kakashi's ego doesn't enjoy a bit of wide-eyed reverence.