!!!warning!!!

this fic contains : yaoi (kakashi x iruka brand), a catboy, gratuitous misuse of jutsu, bad management of pre-existing characters, ooc-ness, poor word choice, bad grammar, and one curse word in a pear tree.

this fic does not contain : plot, good times, ice cream, paperweights

warnings from the future: will contain sexual acts with said catboy, hopefully of the hot or at least interesting variety but i can't make any guarantees.

that said, enjoy! :)

oh yeah, and i don't own anything. not a single thing.

--------CH 01: Asuma's Suffering--------

Asuma had known from the start that this was a bad idea. Just like practicing an untested jutsu is a bad idea. Especially when practiced on living things. Especially on human living things. Really Very Especially on well liked human living things, such as, for example, on a certain academy instructor widely known as Umino Iruka.

Asuma sighed, perched on the edge of the couch seat, trying to ignore the wiggling between his legs. He drew his knees sharply inward, hoping the added pressure would dissuade any more movement. There was a squeak and a few seconds of stillness, followed by even more vigorous wiggling. Closing his eyes and taking a drag from his cigarette, he resolved for the umpteenth time to devise a way to say no to Kurenai. He replayed the events in his head.

His phone had rung, and this time it wasn't his mother.

"Hello?" queried a familiar female voice. Yes, quite certainly not mother.

"Hello?"

"Asuma-san?"

"Yes, speaking. Who's this?" Although he knew perfectly well to whom the heavenly voice belonged.

"It's Kurenai"

"Oh, hey. What's up?"

"Ummm, are you busy right now?"

"Right now?"

He glanced at the unfinished paperwork, his apartment that really needed tidying before his mother came calling, and the half done embroidery in his hands. He then demanded that his heart stop with all that irregular beating.

"No, I'm not. What'd you have in mind?" He grinned widely, hopeful.

"Well, uh, I need a favor. I need you...I need you to watch someone for me, just for a little while."

Asuma's smile began to wane, as well as his hope.

"You...need a babysitter."

"Uuummmm...in a way, yes. Just for a very short while. Please I'm desperate."

Asuma paused, so Kurenai started up again, using her special honey dipped, candy coated, hubba hubba voice.

"Please Asuma-san? I'll make it up to you." she drawled, ending with a playful upward pitch.

Asuma, having no defense against that, relented.

Of course, had he known the someone he had to watch was a post mis-jutsued Iruka, he might have reconsidered. (heh, not likely!) In any case, Kurenai had departed to seek the Hokage's counsel, leaving Asuma in a ruined apartment, holding down the fort with a noisy, restless, crouching catboy-Iruka sitting between his legs.

Thankfully Iruka made for a rambunctious cat and not a vicious one, refraining from taking a chunk out of Asuma. Though he was in more than close-enough proximity to do so. Nonetheless, a too-swift turn of the head made Asuma rather nervous, adding to his foul mood.

Iruka shifted against the thigh he faced, which happened to be Asuma's left thigh. It's twin was applied firmly behind him across the shoulder blades, the pair acting as pincers to keep him seated, his knees having no choice but to be drawn up and pinned to his chest. To one side he felt the rough fabric of the couch chaffing his skin, to the other were two calves hemming him in like prison bars, the feet glued to the floor and cruelly unmoving, no matter how plaintively or shrilly Iruka yowled. This was even worse than all that cloth he'd been trapped in earlier, Inner Iruka the cat reflected. At least most of that had been dispensed with. Or, that's what Inner Iruka the cat would have said, but to us all it would've sounded like this : mewmewmewmewmeeeewmewmewmewmewmewmeeeewmewmewmewmewmewmew. mew. fuu.

Asuma looked down at the source of all the pitiful caterwauling. He really wasn't a cruel man, but Iruka left him no choice. He would not have to be so confined if he would just sit still and keep his clothes on, but today was determined not to be Asuma's day. So at present he was trying his best to keep his cool, to keep things under control. He'd wanted to hog-tie the schoolteacher, but Kurenai had been firmly against it, not wanting to add insult to injury. Well, Asuma reasoned, (unaware he was counting his eggs before they hatched) at least no one was around to see him.

All things considered then, it was just the right moment for Hatake Kakashi to make an appearance. Wearing weekend slacks and a button down shirt, sans hitai-ate and mask for the day, he appeared amidst vanishing tendrils of spent chakra. Asuma opened one eye a crack, then closed it again, sucking in another sweet draft of smoke. Oh greeeeaaaat, said Asuma's expression. Kakashi laughed.

"I knew you'd say yes, Asuma-san." Kakashi's tone was full of disgusting merriment.

Asuma's eyebrow twitched.

"Well, what do you want then?" growled the older man, not bothering to veil the crossness in his voice.

Kakashi smiled in unabashed amusement.

"I just wanted to see for myself. Kurenai sounded rather concerned, but it doesn't look too bad." Kakashi noted the broken state of everything in the room, before turning back to Asuma and his charge.

Kakashi stepped closer, peering down at Iruka, now possessor oftwo grey-brown tabby ears and a tail. Iruka in turn watched Kakashi silently with wide eyes, ears perking in his direction. Kakashi crouched by Asuma's leg, his hands and chin parked neatly on the man's outer thigh, facing the chuunin. He noted the sleek bared shoulders and the unbound hair that grazed them. He wondered at the underdressed state that was so unlike the chuunin, but kept silent on the subject.

"Iruka sensei?...Iruka sensei?" Kakashi called with a slight lilt in his tone.

Iruka blinked.

"Kitty kitty ?"

With a charming little swivel of his ears, ringed tail poised in the air, Iruka mewed. An astonishingly accurate, undeniably adorable cat-like mew. Kakashi smiled warmly.

Asuma cast his eye down on the genius ninja, quirking an eyebrow.

"He's not exactly Iruka at the moment you know. I don't think cats really care what you call them." Or so he'd heard, having never owned a cat thanks to some smothering mother types who hadn't allowed him any pets.

Kakashi never broke his gaze. Instead he reached his hand over, smirking.

"Does he bite?"

Asuma snorted, then puffed.

Kakashi scratched behind Iruka's curious new set of ears. With eyes gone half-mast, Iruka craned his head, leaning into the touch and taking on an expression of blissful concentration. Kakashi's grin spread, though he quashed it before Asuma could see. Rising, hands back in his pockets, Kakashi came to a decision.

"You know, I've heard that milk puts a cat right to sleep" he said in his most helpful tone. Asuma studied the man warily, but Kakashi knew Asuma was beginning to see things his way. One could hear the clicking of gears' teeth coming from Asuma's head.

"Hmmmm...Peace and quiet would be nice...then I could put some feeling back in my legs...and clean up some...Kurenai would like that, wouldn't she..."

"Alright then, catch him as soon as I get up." Asuma slowly relaxed his grip, would have done it gleefully too if not for present company. Kakashi bent to scratch behind Iruka's ears, listening to the cat-boy purr. Iruka did not move except to position those curled fingers on various spots around his head. Asuma, normally not a snorter, snorted again. He started down the hall, heading to where he guessed the kitchen might be. "Don't let him take those boxers off!" he called back.

"Sure thing, Asuma-san." came Kakashi's earnest reply. "Wouldn't dream of it" he added quietly, that hidden smile resurfacing.

"I wonder if Kurenai keeps any scotch?" Asuma mumbled as he surveyed the kitchen. Retrieving the milk carton from the fridge, (no such luck with that scotch) he began pouring into a cup, but thought better of it and instead poured some milk into a saucer. As much as he didn't want to see Iruka lapping this stuff out of a saucer, he didn't want to be holding the cup for him either, or sopping spilled milk out of the carpeted floor.

That, as it turned out, wouldn't have mattered, because there was neither hide nor hair of either Iruka or Kakashi in the living room when he returned. A quick scan for any remaining chakra confirmed his suspicions.

Asuma took an especially long, hard and deep drag, but this time with his eyes quite open.

"Well, shit."

Not his day at all.

----tbc----

aha, you made it to the end!

::lonely cricket chirp::

well, mr. cricket, this is my first fic so i hope i got all the warnings right, and wrote stuff ok. i don't remember anything about asuma's family so let's assume his mom is alive out there somewhere, and just ignore that ass of u and me crap. feel free to correct me but i'm not listening lalalalalalala

also, this was inspired by a piece of japanese fanart of asuma, kakashi and an iruka catboy found at the blackbird gallery. link to fanart in my profile. that fan art, of course, was in turn inspired by the manga / anime Naruto by Kishimoto.