During the Wave mission, Sosuke had made it a priority to try and copy the hand signs to Kakashi's summons. He thinks he might actually have gone off the deep end because Sosuke knows that reverse summoning oneself can result in death, but damned it all if he isn't curious.

They get a week off to do whatever they want once they get back and Sosuke makes some half-assed excuse to Sasuke that he wants to go over to Shino's to sketch some new bugs. Sasuke just waves him off and Sosuke goes and finds the most abandoned training ground possible.

He knows the signs-he practiced them until his hands cramped-but he still hesitates before forming them. Sosuke gives himself one last chance to back out but doesn't end up taking it as he flies through the summoning jutsu with a wide grin.

Sosuke can feel a migraine setting in when he sits up and comes face to face with a dune colored… is that a jackalope? The rabbit with antlers starts charging at him lightning fast and Sosuke only just manages to jump up in time to avoid having his face speared through.

Instead, the jackalope's antlers go into his calves and he lets out a string of curses that would make the most hardened shinobi blush.

"Oi! What the hell was that for?" He demands rubbing the bleeding areas on his legs with a pout.

The creature cocks its head to the side and in Sosuke's voice mimics, "Oi! What the hell was that for?"

Sosuke feels a chill go down his back at hearing the accuracy in which he was copied. Perhaps reverse summoning himself wasn't such a good idea after all.

Other jackalopes come hopping into the clearing and soon enough Sosuke is surrounded by sharp horned rabbits. As a last ditch effort he tries reverse summoning himself again, hoping it will take him back home.

He lands with a thump in the training grounds he left in and promptly passes out in relief.

…

Sosuske, embarrassed and pissed off, limps home slowly that night. Sasuke thankfully doesn't ask what happened to him but he does eye his legs with a raised brow.

Those fucking fur balls didn't even give him a chance to try and ask about signing a contract! Sosuke spends the next few days seething with rage over the entire predicament. His soul mate of a summoning animal is a complete prick and he'd be lying if he said he wasn't a little bit hurt by their hostile reactions to him.

It isn't until Sosuke is wandering the village in the middle of the night that he gets an idea on how to appeal to the little bastards. There's a bartender hauling two battered jounin out by the scruffs of their shirts and depositing them on the ground. A bar brawl, no doubt, but it kind of gives Sosuke a weird idea. Alcohol was known to make some persons more aggressive but he wondered if it could have the opposite effect if the someone was already a dick.

When Sosuke returns to wherever it was that the jackalopes were from, he comes prepared with a bottle of whiskey that he had to use a henge in order to buy.

He holds it up in offering and the creatures eye him before one that is clearly the leader hops forward a few paces.

"Alright, you've got our attention," the jackalope says, "What do you want?"

Sosuke returns home later that night, drunk off his ass, but with a summoning contract in hand.

Who knew that the way to win over a jackalope was to get it drunk?

….

Kakashi's visible eyebrow shoots up when he sees Shinamon for the first time and only just barely gets out of the way in time before getting his legs gorged by the bloodthirsty beast.

Sosuke is on the ground giggling at the display of his teacher taking safety in a tree.

"Sosuke, what the hell is that thing?" Kakashi asks with a glare in his direction.

The laughing boy gathers Shinamon up into his arms and cuddles him close, "It's one of my summons! This is Shinamon, isn't he adorable?"

Kakashi's deadpan expression earns himself another round of guffaws.

"I wouldn't say adorable so much as evil."

Shinamon copies the copy-nin perfectly and his teacher doesn't look any more amused than he did before.

Shinamon, tired of the game, turns around in Sosuke's arms and looks up at him, "Where's my whiskey, brat?"

Sosuke groans but reaches into his bag to pull out the mostly empty bottle to pour a shot for the jackalope.

"You would get an alcoholic for a summons," Sasuke grumbles from his own tree.

…

Sasuke bangs on the door, "I swear to god, Sosuke, if you make me come into your creepy ass room to wake you up."

Naruto sends a worried glance to Sasuke, "Is he okay? Why won't he come out?"

Sasuke groans and rests his forehead against the doorframe, "He must have had a migraine last night. Whenever he gets those he becomes sound sensitive and so he'll go to sleep with earplugs in. The dumbass won't wake up unless someone goes in there and bodily does it."

Kakashi rolls his one visible eye, "Just go get yourself ready, we'll wake your brother up."

Sasuke departs with a vaguely thankful look on his face and Naruto slowly opens the door.

The room is covered in various knickknacks and oddities that fit Sosuke's quirky personality quite well. The walls are adorned in strange paintings, clay masks, and charms. There are several glass cases that line the far wall and have different kinds of skulls and pelts displayed in them. The floor is covered in dirty clothes and discarded scrolls and other miscellaneous items.

Sosuke himself is face down on his bed sleeping with the covers half strewn off the end of the bed and Kakashi sighs. Naruto only momentarily hesitates before stepping around his stuff to get to the bed and shaking his prone teammate's shoulder.

Sosuke takes in a sharp breath and lifts his head, squinting in their direction for a moment before he rapidly jumps up. He gets tangled in the bed sheets and goes tumbling across the floor with a yelp.

"Shit! What time is it?" He asks while fighting his way out of his bed sheets.

Kakashi looks down at him with an amused look, "Congratulations, you're later than me for once."

Sosuke sends him a dirty look before digging through a pile of clothes in the corner of the room. Kakashi assumes that must be the 'clean' pile. Sasuke sticks his head into the room to see what all the commotion is about and scowls.

"You're disgusting, Sosuke," he says while kicking a few pairs of shirts away, "You're room is a pigsty!"

Sosuke sighs and runs a hand through his messy hair, "Yeah, I'll clean it up later."

When the younger of the twins stumbles out of the room and into the light, none of them miss the dark bags under his eyes. Sasuke gets a pinched look on his face before he says, "You'll probably never get it done unless I help you."

It's his way of apologizing, Kakashi realizes.

Naruto links his hands together behind his head, "Are you okay, dude? You don't look so hot."

Sosuke just waves him off while he shuffles his way to the bathroom to brush his teeth, "I'll be fine once I get some coffee in me."

Before Sasuke closes his brother's bedroom door, he takes one last look into it and frowns.

…

Kakashi claps his hands together and cheerfully says, "We're going to be doing tours of different departments today."

His three genin send him bored looks before Sosuke, from behind the rim of his coffee cup, says, "Why?"

Kakashi waggles his finger at him, "To see the different jobs you can have after you advance, silly."

The three of them groan but obediently follow after him like a row of ducklings when he starts walking.

Their first stop is a large, non-descript building that Kakashi helpfully declares is T&I.

Sosuke squints at Kakashi suspiciously but doesn't comment when he ushers them inside. Ibiki is standing in front of the security desk waiting for them with his arms crossed and his meanest look being sent their way.

Immediately Naruto and Sasuke freeze up under it but Sosuke just takes another drink of his coffee while staring back at the man. Ibiki's steal gaze drifts over to Sosuke and the boy gets that look on his face that tells Kakashi he's about to say something stupid.

"So," Sosuke starts and everyone but Ibiki groans, "are you just one big guy in a trench coat, or three smaller men stacked up on top of each other."

Ibiki's scowl deepens and a bit of killing intent leaks into the air, "What the hell did you say to me?"

Kakashi chuckles and sets a hand on Sosuke's head, the boy is still deeply unaffected and sipping at his coffee.

"Mah, as you can see, my cute students are all very quirky."

Ibiki doesn't look amused outwardly but Kakashi can see the little twinkle in the interrogator's eyes that points towards him being fondly intrigued by the child.

"When was the last time your student had a psych eval, Hatake?" Ibiki asks while pining his gaze onto Kakashi.

Sosuke visible stiffens and clutches his coffee cup so hard that the styrofoam dents. The boy sends an accusatory look to Kakashi that the man ignores.

"He's never had one that I'm aware of," Kakashi says and tries not to care that he's lost all the trust of one of his students in a mere matter of seconds.

"Well he's getting one today," Ibiki says turning on his heal, "Follow me, brat."

Sosuke shoves his coffee into Kakashi's hands so hard the liquid sloshes over onto his vest and stalks after Ibiki with a scowl.

Sasuke and Naruto both send glares Kakashi's way.

"You're a real jerk, Kakashi-sensei," Naruto declares and exits the building with a huff followed closely by Sasuke.

...

Tenzo meets up with Kakashi in the ally way behind T&I.

"It's for the best," Tenzo tells his former ANBU captain, "Ibiki is the best one to get him to talk about stuff."

Kakashi nods but runs his hand through his hair. He feels like what he did was mean, after all, while Sosuke was weird, he never hurt anybody because of it.

…

Sosuke stares with a bored expression up at Ibiki with his arms crossed in front of him.

The interrogator smirks and takes a seat on the other side of the table while setting Sosuke's personal file down on the table top. He opens the folder and starts riffling through the contents.

"Are you aware that you have a mark in your file that declares you unfit for diplomatically sensitive missions?" Ibiki asks, leaning back a bit.

"I can't imagine why," Sosuke drawls, "I'm universally popular and well liked."

Ibiki raises a brow at that and pointedly slides the thick stack of complaints against Sosuke forward.

The boy pretends not to notice.

"Your current and past sensei's think that your strange disposition is a type of defense mechanism. Would you say that's true?"

Sosuke cocks his head to the side as he thinks, "Well I have to weed out the lizard people some how."

"Lizard people?"

The boy nods fervently, "Yeah, you know. They walk around wearing human faces but aren't. You'd be surprised how many there are out there."

Ibiki crosses his own arms and level the genin with a stoic look, "I would start taking this seriously, if I were you. You are being reviewed on whether or not you're fit for service."

The boy adverts his gaze and slouches down into his seat.

Ibiki decides to try a different tactic, "Kakashi was telling me that you got a summoning contract recently. He said you were pretty excited about it."

Sosuke nods shyly, "They're jackalopes. They're kind of grumpy but I love them a lot."

Ibiki frowns, "I don't think I've ever heard of such a creature before."

The boy sits up, starting to get more comfortable as the conversation progresses, "They're basically rabbits with antlers; although, don't say that to their faces. I didn't think they existed but surprise surprise they do."

"Have you gotten forehead protectors for them yet? You can get ones specially made for summons."

Sosuke quirks his head to the side again while he thinks and earnestly says, "No I haven't. Do I have to pay a fee or anything?"

Ibiki promises to get him the forms to look over before he sends him on his way.

The two of them converse about summons and training for a good while and Ibiki waits until Sosuke looks fairly comfortable before starting his next line of questioning.

The man points to the scar on Sosuke's neck, "Do you ever get phantom pains? I get them all the time, especially from the ones on my head."

Ibiki pulls off his bandana to show the boy who grimaces at the sight of them.

Sosuke shrugs, "Not really, but I get sore throats really easily now."

Ibiki nods in understanding, "You know, your records show that you've never given an official account of that night. You're one of only two people to have survived, so your statement would be very helpful in the case."

Sosuke's face goes blank and Ibiki is surprised by how quickly the boy was able to school his features, "I don't remember what happened."

Ibiki presses, "Not even a little bit?"

The boy shakes his head, "Just blood."

"You were found along the west wall of the village hiding under a house, two whole days after the massacre. You attacked anyone who tried to reach in to get you out."

Sosuke shrugs, "And?"

Ibiki leans forward to rest his elbows on the table, "Somehow you managed to get away and not only survive Itachi, but miss being found by ANBU."

"I'm just really good at hide-and-seek I guess."

"Is revenge something you think about? I know Sasuke has mentioned it to Kakashi a few times that he himself would like to enact justice on Itachi," Ibiki says and the man can't help but feel like he's poking a sleeping bear with the cold look Sosuke sends him. The kid is absolutely fearless, the man thinks.

"I just want to do my thing and keep my head down," Sosuke says smoothly, "I'm not the kind to go looking for trouble."

Then, Sosuke leans forward, "Whether or not trouble finds me, however, is a different story."

…

Sosuke leaves T&I with a blank face but internally he's well into the middle of probably the worst panic attack he's literally ever had. Sosuke doesn't waste any time reverse summoning himself to the Sleeping Forest (the home of the jackalopes).

He takes a heavy seat at the base of a tree and waits a few moments before he starts screaming. The strangely supernatural wildlife of the forest startles at his shrieks and they scatter quickly. The jackalopes remain, though, watching him with their beady little eyes as Sosuke tries to get all his feelings out.

When he's finished he's curled up on the ground, panting for breath, and his summons approach him cautiously.

"You alright, kiddo?" Shinamon asks and Sosuke just shakes his head.

He isn't fucking okay; he just got a first hand experience in the bowels of T&I because he'd made the stupid mistake of letting someone other than his brother see his breakdowns. I guess this was just a note to himself that he couldn't trust anyone in this world, not even Kakashi.

When he's calmed down a little bit more, Sosuke sits up. He's never going to let himself be in such a vulnerable position ever again if he can help it. However, it seems that fate wouldn't be on his side.