Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. I did sell Iruka the stickers, though.

AN: Hello there, my long lost readers. Or am I the long lost one? I do lose track of these things. Yes, I know it's been over a year since I've written and posted anything here and that's just terrible of me! For shame, Dark. For shame! So I'm back with a hit of comedy to lighten the mood. It's a quick on that I wrote for the KakaIru LiveJournal Community's April Fools Day Prompt Challenge and the delightful Vescas (our moddly mod of moddness) hit me with the prompt of Laundry Stains.

Seriously? Laundry stains? I never thought I'd get inspiration to write anything for that and then this happened... and I don't know how O_o

Tis the Season to be Fruity

"I look like I killed a clown," mutters Kakashi, "messily."

"Yeah, well I look like I went on a good old fashioned massacre," snaps Anko and yanks angrily at her coat, scarlet and vermilion streaking its usual beige. "I haven't been this covered in red since I gutted a Forest of Death leech during my Chuunin exam."

Aoba chuckles and says, "That was pretty gory. My team could smell you coming from half a click away," as he pokes at a lime green smear on the leg of his uniform pants. "Made you easy to avoid."

"How was I supposed to know the damn thing'd just fed?" Anko grumps. "This is ridiculous. We look ridiculous!" she yells out to the Mission Room in general and there's muttering of agreement. There's not a shinobi to be seen that's not wandering around without bright splashes of paint or dye or whatever covering them. The village has never been so colourful. Autumn splendor's got shit on April Fools Day.

"It could be worse," Kakashi says as his eye curves into an amused arch, "we could be pink like Genma."

"It's not pink!" Genma snaps from where he's lying across a couch, arm draped over his eyes like a heat wearied princess. "It's salmon."

"There's only so many colours in a man's world, Genma, and salmon's not one of them," Kakashi says and Genma deigns to lift his arm high enough to fire a glare at Kakashi and his snickering friends.

"So do we know who's little prank this is?" Aoba asks and Anko immediately perks up, saying, "My money's on whoever's clean and I'm willing to lay high odds that person is Iruka."

"Yup," Kakashi's agrees," can't fault your reasoning there."

Asuma joins them, leaning on the wall and holding a cigarette between canary yellow fingers. "It's not like Iruka to repeat pranks, though. Didn't he do this one already, what, ten years ago?"

"Twelve," Anko says. "And it wasn't this large scale. He's not supposed to be on duty today but Iwashi-san called in sick so we're pretty sure he'll come in to cover the lag."

"And that's why we're sitting here waiting for him," Aoba adds.

Asuma takes a long drag on his cigarette and asks through a cloud of smoke, "Aren't the two of you living together now, Kakashi?" Kakashi hums his affirmation and Asuma says, "Then you should know if he'd been preparing for an assault of this scale."

"Not really," Kakashi says and scratches the back of his head sheepishly. "When we've got spare time at home we're usually planning arse-ults of a different nature."

Aoba and Asuma both groan at the terrible pun and Anko kicks at Kakashi's shin, saying, "I call beer tax for disturbing imagery."

"You'd watch if we let you."

"True," Anko agrees. "The disturbing imagery is for the boys."

"Then I owe them a drink and not you."

"Stingy!" Anko yells, likely because she hasn't yelled anything for at least five minutes and she's starting to suffer from withdrawal.

"Hey, this smells like kiwifruit," Aoba says, bent over and sniffing at his pants.

"How thrilling for you," Asuma says blandly.

"I'm not kidding, it smells exactly like kiwifruit. Come try it."

Asuma blanches. "I'm not going to 'try it'."

"Why not?" Aoba demands. "Just come and sniff my pants."

"No," Asuma snaps. "That's disgusting. Stop asking me to sniff your pants."

"'s not disgusting," Aoba mutters, sulky. "If your pants smelled like kiwifruit I'd sniff them."

"And then I'd punch you in the face," Asuma states and lifts his cigarette to his lips, pauses, frowns, very deliberately smells his yellow fingers, and transfers his cigarette to his other hand. "Sniff my finger," Asuma says, stretching his hand out to Aoba.

Aoba screws his face up and says, "Hell no."

"Seriously, smell it. It's banana."

"No way, I'm not smelling your finger until you sniff my pants."

"Oh my god!" Anko yells – she must have been getting close to her limit again – and glares at the two men. "Just smell each other at the same time."

Asuma and Aoba nod and Asuma bends down as Aoba takes hold of his wrist and lifts his hand to his nose.

"This is too fruity, even for me," Kakashi deadpans as he watches two fully grown and trained shinobi sniff at each other like curious dogs. "I weep for the future of our village."

"Hey!" Aoba exclaims and shoves Asuma's hand onto the green stain marring his pants. "Check it out."

They both lean over and sniff and Asuma grins, saying, "Fruit salad."

"I know, right!"

"Oh my god!" Anko yells again and Kakashi yawns to relieve the pressure in his ears. "My coat smells like cherry and pawpaw but you don't see me gyah!" she screeches as Asuma and Aoba grab hold of her coat and start trying to wrestle it off her.

Iruka walks in, then, and Kakashi's gratified to see that he's covered in a messy mix of purple and green. Anko's screaming, "Not for you! Not for you! Hey, that really does smell like kiwifru- not for you!" and it makes Iruka pause his steps and call out, "Oi, no hanky panky in the Mission Room. How many times do I have to tell you, Anko? C'mon."

"It's him, he's here!" Anko squawks and smacks Asuma and Aoba on their heads. "Focus, soldiers."

"The scent gets stronger if you scratch it," proclaims Aoba with much delight.

Iruka stops in front of them, frowning at the tangle of limbs they make. "What are you doing?"

Really, they're there to watch Iruka and see if he's the one responsible for covering every shinobi in the village in a rainbow of fruity scented paint. But it's not like they can tell Iruka that, it'd be breaching mission protocol; revealing the objective to an enemy. That doesn't mean they aren't fumbling for an explanation. By the time Iruka has raised an impatient eyebrow, Aoba manages to blurt out, "My pants smell like kiwifruit."

Asuma and Anko immediately jump in on the explanation, talking over each other and saying, "My finger smells like banana," and "I have a berry nice coat!"

"We're making fruit salad," Aoba finishes with a winning grin.

"Okay, first of all: beer tax for the terrible pun," Iruka says pointing at Anko and she whines into Aoba's pants where her nose is still smooshed. "And secondly," Iruka strips off a bandage from around his arm and tosses it to them, "grape for the mix."

"Yeahea!" Aoba crows and pounces on the bandage.

Iruka grins at Kakashi and Kakashi smiles back, eye curving into its patented arch.

"You look very fetching," Iruka says as he gives Kakashi the once over. "Nice to see you finally adding some colour to your wardrobe."

"Likewise, that green is most definitely your shade," Kakashi answers and Asuma groans from the floor, "Could you two be any more gay?"

"That depends," Kakashi says with a glint in his eye, "on whether if this stuff tastes as good as it smells." And he looks pointedly at the purple smear across Iruka's crotch.

"Someone lend me a rusty spoon, please. I want to dig my eyes out before they get started," Asuma calls to the room in general and is largely ignored as Anko yells, "I'm watching!" because she's been getting to yell a lot lately and sees no reason to stop a good thing.

"This does not taste like kiwifruit," Aoba says very solemnly, to which the general consensus is, "Eww."

Iruka decides that this is a good time to back away slowly and get to work. Asuma, Anko, and Aoba – Kakashi feels that there's something very telling in all their names start with A and makes a mental note for the future naming of his and Iruka's children (he's still sorting out the finer details of that particular jutsu and working up the courage to present it to Iruka) – manage to untangle themselves and go back to their watchful perches.

"Iruka's as messy as everyone else," Aoba says and Asuma hums his agreement.

Anko gives them a disparaging look and says, "He's not above pranking himself," in the exact same tone Kakashi once heard her say to a very drunk and amorous stone shinobi, "If you suck my friend's cock first I'll let you buy me a drink. Don't worry, sperm tastes like ice cream," and Kakashi doesn't know why she's using that tone of voice but it's creeping him right out.

Asuma squints at Iruka and declares, "I don't think he did it."

"We'll never know if he did it unless he admits to it," Anko tells him and Asuma frowns, saying, "Then why the hell are we wasting time watching him?"

"Because," Anko says, smoothing out her stained coat primly, "there's no way I'm going out on mission looking like this."

Kakashi, Aoba, and Asuma all blink at her and Aoba mutters, "You really are a girl."

"No, I'm a woman and I have awesome boobs to prove it."

"Don't believe you, tangible evidence is required. You'll have to show me," Aoba says and Anko gives him the stink eye.

"Not for you," she says with a smile that's all sharp teeth and Aoba grumbles.

"Nothing good is for me today. Why can't I have nice things?"

Asuma lights himself another cigarette and stands. "Right, I'm off to do laundry."

"Laundry's for chumps," Kakashi says as Aoba wonders, "Will this stuff even wash out?"

"It'd better, or Tsunade-sama's going to tear someone a new one for causing the issue of replacement uniforms. It'll mess with her budget." And with that, Asuma wanders out of the Mission Room giving a lazy wave over his shoulder.

"I hope it washes out. How weird would it be going on missions like this, smelling kiwifruity fresh?" Aoba says and the others agree with a half-hearted, "Very."

Kakashi's not bothered. He's already covered his tracks well enough that no one will be able to pin this on him. He just wonders if Iruka's figured out why Kakashi's been stealing and hording his scratch'n'sniff stickers. From the little smirk Iruka sends his way, Kakashi figures he's been made. But that's alright; Iruka's the one that kept bringing home bulk packets of smelly stickers and not getting angry at Kakashi when he pilfered them.

~The end~

AN: As a point of interest, I've written more stories than what I post to this site. I'm under the same name - DarkAuroran - over at LiveJournal and my master fic post has a list of all the stories and locations.