Fic: Bad Decisions and the People Who Make Them

[oroburos69]

Title: Bad Decisions and the People Who Make Them
Fandom: Naruto
Beta: lady_of_scarlet 
Warnings: Humor, with strong elements of crack, and Sakura is very underage. Also, people making very inappropriate choices.
Rating: FRM or R for the sex scene that isn’t a sex scene
Summary: A compendium of bad ideas and the side effects of training a fifteen year old to be a fully qualified medic. Also, the weirdest blood limit in Konoha.
Pairing: Sakura/Kakashi
Length: 5800 words.
AN: All the ‘science’ or medical stuff is bullshit or completely pulled from wikipedia. It’s really not my area of expertise.

Earlier stories in this series:
Something to Look Forward To
Worth It

“Kakashi!” Sakura yelped, scrambling to keep from running into him. She thought about it, checked her watch, and decided that Kakashi couldn’t possibly make the next three hours as mortifying as Lee could. “You’ve got to help me,” she begged. “I need your willing participation in an activity I don’t have time to explain, okay?”

Sakura could almost see the gossip hounds in the mission room snap to attention, but she didn’t have time to worry about that. She only had seven and a half minutes to get to the hospital with someone in tow.

Kakashi snapped his book closed and put it away. “Okay,” he shrugged. “Where—”

“Excellent.” Sakura grabbed his wrist in a chakra reinforced grip and started running back. “We don’t have any time, so just follow me!” She let go of Kakashi before she jumped to the rooftops and started running, hoping that his curiosity would make him follow.

Kakashi caught up with her easily. “I don’t need weapons, right?” he asked jokingly. Semi-jokingly, anyway.

Sakura shook her head. “No, you’re just going to make sure I come out of the next three hours sane.”

“Sounds serious.”

“Oh, it is,” Sakura said grimly, without a trace of irony. Tsunade thought Lee’s crush was hysterical, which led to him being used as the training dummy for medical jutsu far more often than Sakura liked. But not this time, damn it. Sakura dove off the roof into the closest window. The civilian inside screamed, and Sakura dodged around him and into the hallway.

Kakashi caught up amid the echoing sounds of chaos in the room she’d just left. “Have you considered working on your stealth?” he asked with a hint of disapproval.

“No time!” Sakura responded, jumping over a cleaning cart and ricocheting off the wall into the examination room. “I found a training dummy!” she shouted, interrupting Tsunade’s conversation with Lee.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Kakashi’s mask move. Sakura was almost certain that he was mouthing, ‘training dummy?’ to himself, but he didn’t say it, so she was safe.

“Such enthusiasm!” Lee cheered, grinning far too brightly. Sakura winced and looked away. What the hell did he brush with, bleach? “I’m so inspired! I will hold your display of youth in my heart forever and ever.”

Kakashi gave her a sympathetic look, and pulled out his book. Sakura covered her eyes in shame, well aware that everyone in the hallways outside could hear Lee.

“...Sweet Sakura Blossom of Youthful Konoha, will you do me the great honor of accompanying me on a Voyage of Fiery Spectacles and Thunderous Amazement?”

He was using the hand gestures, Sakura noted in despair, edging away from his outstretched arm. “Lee—”

“Yosh!”

“—Are you asking me to go to the fireworks?” Sakura asked carefully.

“Indeed you are as Wise as you are Beautiful, Beloved Sakura!”

“No,” she said. She’d said yes once. Never, ever again would Sakura be so stupid.

Lee started to cry. Sakura stared at the ground in abject humiliation, wondering what she had done to deserve this. “Then I shall run a hundred laps around Konoha!” he wailed dramatically, pulling at his gleaming black hair.

Sakura cringed and did what was necessary. “Maybe you should go do that now,” she said. “You know...for youth,” she whispered, hoping that Kakashi and Tsunade wouldn’t hear.

“I will do double, for you!” Lee disappeared in a flurry of flailing limbs, squeaking sandals, and muttered exclamations.

“Is he always so...enthusiastic?” Kakashi asked. He almost sounded worried.

“Pretty much,” Sakura muttered through gritted teeth, wishing he’d drop it so she could forget that Lee existed.

“Ah, young love,” Tsunade said as she rummaged through the storage closet.

Kakashi hummed thoughtfully. “I could talk to Gai, if you want. Lee’s getting a little carried away if he’s making you this uncomfortable.”

Sakura felt a fragile blossom of hope stir—Goddammit! “Do you think that would work? Could you institute some kind of rule where he could only bug me, like, once a week, or—or every two weeks?” She didn’t dare hope for anything less frequent. “Or get him to want to be my friend instead of—” Sakura’s brain refused to complete the sentence, so she just stared at Kakashi pleadingly.

“Whoa. You might not want the friends thing,” Kakashi warned her. “That could translate into eternal rivals, and trust me, you don’t want that. It's bad.”

“I already tried,” Sakura said bitterly. “Lee said my fragile blossom of youth was too lovely for his rivalry, or something like that. I think he just didn’t want a girl as his rival.” She was mostly lying about the last bit, but Sakura hoped that Tsunade would hear. Tsunade had very strong opinions about sexism, and if Lee was in traction then Sakura could out run him.

Kakashi ruffled her hair, probably making it stick up all over the place, but Sakura sighed and let him. Nostalgia was a powerful force. “I’ll talk to Gai,” Kakashi said. “If anyone can convince Lee to do something, it’s him. So what was all that about a training dummy, hmm?”

Tsunade dumped a load of towels on the padded table in the centre of the room. “You didn’t tell him?” she asked.

“He agreed to help without knowing what he’d need to do,” Sakura said, her heart finally slowing down because she was nearly certain that Kakashi wouldn’t back out now.

“What did I agree to?” Kakashi asked. He shifted toward the door as he watched Tsunade spread the towels out.

Sakura stepped in front of the door and leaned against it. If Kakashi left then Tsunade might make her use Lee and Sakura wasn’t about to let that happen.

“Sakura gets her first lesson in massage today,” Tsunade told him, a lazy grin splitting her face. “So strip down and get on the table, test dummy.”

Kakashi shook his head. “No way,” he refused. “That’s just—no. I’m not doing it. I’ve remembered a very important appointment I must be getting to. I’ve got to go.” Kakashi edged toward the door, not taking his eye off of Tsunade.

“Please Kakashi?” Sakura begged, “If you say no I have to use Lee.” Sakura hoped her voice conveyed how upset that idea made her, because holy hell, she didn’t want to have to touch a naked Lee.

Kakashi faltered, looking away from Tsunade.

Sakura sensed weakness, and went in for the kill. “Think of the eyebrows...and touching!”

Kakashi froze, then grabbed for the doorknob. Sakura slapped his hand down.

“Okay, don’t think of the touching,” she muttered. “But the eyebrows, you know I have a point here. You wouldn’t make me do that, would you?”

“If it means not being naked in front of the Hokage and my former student?” Kakashi hissed, trying to push Sakura to the side. She used chakra to stick to the floor and door. “Then hell yes.”

“Did the eggplant party mean nothing to you?” Sakura asked. “Besides, you get a towel and your underwear.”

Kakashi slumped against the wall in defeat. “I don’t wear any.”

Tsunade cackled. Sakura blushed and did her absolute best not to think about it. “Two towels?” she offered nervously.

“...would I get to keep my mask?” he asked.

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Tsunade said, raising an eyebrow and giving Sakura the ‘we will speak later’ look. Sakura shrugged, the heat in her cheeks dying down. The eggplant party was hardly incriminating, even if Tsunade remembered to ask.

“Okay,” Kakashi agreed grudgingly. He shuffled away from Sakura like she was going grab him and start massaging right there, and then stared at Tsunade. An awkward silence seeded, germinated, and sprouted into a fine young tree before Kakashi chopped it down. “So. You’re going to stand there and watch me get undressed?”

“You’ve got absolutely nothing I haven’t seen before,” Tsunade said with the bored conviction of a very old medic. “Nothing,” she added for emphasis when it looked like Kakashi was doubting her.

Sakura spun the only chair to face the wall and sat in it. “You’ve probably got nothing I haven’t seen before either,” she offered, trying to make the situation better, bef wondering why she’d thought that would make it better. Sakura forged onward, bravely questing into embarrassment. “Unless you have six nipples. Tsunade swears there’s a clan in Konoha that does, but I haven’t seen it.”

Utter, dead silence behind her. Sakura swallowed uneasily, examining the plain white wall in front of her with all the intensity of a teenage girl who knows that there’s full frontal male nudity behind her that she’s not supposed to be looking at.

Tsunade let out a muffled snicker.

“Okay...” Sakura said quietly. “Please tell me that it’s not the Hatake clan that has six nipples,” she joked weakly.

Kakashi muttered something inaudible and the doorknob rattled.

Sakura swung around, ready to stop him—holy shit. She squeezed her eyes shut. Tsunade had been locking the door. “Sorry Kakashi,” Sakura mumbled, even as she committed every mental resource at her disposal to memorizing that brief glimpse. Significantly superior to the nothing she hadn’t seen before.

“They’re...um...mostly invisible, unless you’re looking for them,” Kakashi said, sounding like he was being strangled by his own embarrassment, and Sakura realized that the Hatake clan did, in fact, have the weirdest blood limit in Konoha.

The little bastard inside her that sounded like Naruto poked her and Sakura caved. “Are they on your face? Is that why—?”

“No they aren’t on my—! Can I still change my mind—?” Kakashi protested. Sakura could almost taste his embarrassment. It was awesome.

“Got your clothes,” Tsunade said though her laughter. “Get on the table, nipple boy.”

“...how?” he asked.

“On your stomach. We’ll do a slow reveal,” Tsunade decided, and Sakura had to muffle her laughter into her fist. Tsunade had a bedside manner that was hysterical for anyone who wasn’t her patient, mortifying for those who were. “Excellent. Sakura, your virgin eyes are safe.”

“Virgin eyes? You had me running STD tests all last week,” Sakura protested. She turned around, then paused and tilted her head. “Huh. Small towel,” Sakura said contemplatively. Kakashi was blushing all the way down his back, how weird was that?

Tsunade beamed at Sakura and waved her over. “Slowest striptease I’ve gotten all year,” she said casually, laying her hand in the middle of Kakashi’s back. “But good choice in grabbing Kakashi. He has a lot more old injuries than Lee does.”

Sakura nodded, scanning Kakashi’s back and noting the many scars. “Will we be working on the scars today?” she asked, poking at a broad white line that ran from Kakashi’s shoulder to the opposite hip. Tiny perpendicular lines showed that he had torn the stitches out at least once.

“I don’t have enough time, but if you can convince him to meet up later, feel free to practice on Kakashi. He’s got plenty of scars, and several of them are causing him pain or stiffness,” Tsunade informed her. “Now, name the three types of massage that are exclusive to Konoha or medic-nin.”

“Chakra healing, Tenketsu Shiatsu, and Amma,” Sakura listed, ticking them off on her fingers as she went.

“Name the fourth type that we don’t acknowledge publicly, but still use for muscle strain,” Tsunade ordered.

“Flaming Spring Blossoms of Youth Massage,” Sakura replied promptly, “...and every time I say that, it sounds more like a brothel.”

Kakashi shifted restlessly. “Gai developed a form of massage?” he asked.

“And to our eternal regret, it was actually useful. I’d have him working in the hospital if I didn’t think it would make ninja avoid the hospital.” Tsunade paused. “You know, more so. Anyway, good work, I assume you read up on the basics?”

“Yes for the first three, sort of for the last one,” Sakura said. “I mean, I studied the pictures but—”

“Don’t worry, no one actually reads the writings. I can teach it to you, though.” Tsunade grimaced. “Practically had to re-grow my eardrums, but I can teach it. And the prisoner cracked like an egg, so it was really a good day all round.”

“Trying to convince yourself?” Sakura asked.

“Hell yes. Now let’s get started before the need for a drink overwhelms my good sense. See here?” She stabbed a finger into the skin about half way down Kakashi’s back. He yelped and wiggled, the towel covering his ass sliding down to indecent levels.

“Un-huh,” Sakura said, allowing herself a blatant stare at Kakashi’s butt. Damn. “Latissimus Dorsi?”

Tsunade snapped her fingers, dragging Sakura’s attention back to her. “Easy to tell when there’s so little body fat, eh?”

Sakura nodded. “Yep.” So much better than Lee. Not that Lee had body fat, but Kakashi must have been at the front of the line when they were handing out hot. Wearing a shirt should be a crime for him—though if Kakashi really did have six nipples, Sakura could kind of understand. Maybe.

“Speaking of which, I’m not exactly pleased that I can count all your ribs, Kakashi,” Tsunade informed him. “Anyway, we’re starting here. Mimic the position of my hands on his other side,” Tsunade ordered. She grinned at Sakura, and gave her a slow wink that was somehow more embarrassing than anything else that had happened today.

Sakura put her hands in position, then frowned. “Kakashi, are you warm enough?” His skin was chilled.

“I’m a bit cold,” he admitted, his voice muffled by a combination of mask and towels.

“Just a sec,” Sakura said, ignoring Tsunade’s eye-roll. She grabbed the space heater from the storage closet and plugged it in, then slapped her hands back into place over Kakashi’s back. He twitched. “Okay, ready!”

“Alright, figure out what wavelength Kakashi’s chakra is at right now, and adjust yours to match it,” Tsunade ordered.

Sakura sent out a thin line of chakra into the nearest coil and started counting. “Sixteen millimetres,” she muttered after a second, speeding up her chakra to match. Kakashi must be nervous, that was a short wavelength given that he was resting.

Tsunade drew her left hand down Kakashi’s ribs, setting it at his waist. “Follow my movements, using a veneer of chakra over your hands.” Tsunade nodded her approval when Sakura obeyed, and continued, “All right, three major things that the scrolls wouldn’t have told you. This is a great opportunity to give someone a full medical exam without them noticing, don’t ever use your full strength unless you feel like breaking bones, and if anyone ever asks about ‘happy endings’ you get a free pass to use them for whatever experiment you have in mind.”

Sakura frowned. “The scrolls said that full strength might be needed on occasion,” she pointed out. They had said so clearly, several times.

“For normal people, yes. For you and me? Not so much. Your chakra enhanced strength is developing rapidly, and your natural strength is following suit. Incidentally, be more careful with civilians. There were three complaints last week about bruises from you touching them.”

Sakura shrugged, following the slow pattern Tsunade was tracing on Kakashi’s skin. It almost outlined his chakra system, with the occasional deviation for major muscle groups. “They’re lucky I only bruised them. They were trying to flirt with me.”

Tsunade chuckled. “You had three people flirt with you while you were doing STD tests?”

Sakura sighed. “It’s like they forget that I know exactly how diseased they are,” she said. It was funny now. Then, not so much.

Her chakra suddenly cancelled out. “Crap,” Sakura muttered, realigning her wavelength to Kakashi’s, doubling the amplitude through constructive interference, but avoiding the cancellation effect of destructive interference.

“That’s another thing you’ll need to watch out for,” Tsunade informed her. “Patients’ chakra can do strange things when you interfere with it this much. It isn’t harmful in this case, but watch for it.”

Sakura concentrated, and found the strange blip that had sent her chakra out of sync with Kakashi’s. “What is that?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea, no one does,” Tsunade admitted. “Now, see if you can give Kakashi a full exam without being blatantly obvious about it.”

“He needs more sleep,” Sakura said. That was always the easiest thing to tell. “And water, and food,” she added after a second. Also easy, and she’d managed to keep her hands following the same pattern that Tsunade was setting. “And to either start taking multi-vitamins or double up on them.”

“Good. Now poke around at his chakra system and tell me what you find,” Tsunade said.

This was a bit more difficult. Sakura found herself hesitating as she tried to check Kakashi’s chakra system while maintaining the same pace as Tsunade. “Okay...” she muttered. “His chakra system is...empty, maybe? It’s like it’s supposed to hold a lot more chakra than it does. But the energy that is there seems denser than normal or something.”

“All three are true,” Tsunade said. “Now, why are they true?”

Sakura spread out the sensor net she was using. “...the sharingan draws chakra constantly?” she asked in disbelief. “How is he even alive?”

“You should see it when it’s uncovered,” Tsunade told her. “The drain is amazing. Most people would probably have died within a year from chronic chakra exhaustion.”

“It’s not that bad,” Kakashi muttered lazily. He sounded about two steps away from falling asleep.

Sakura watched the rate of chakra drain into his left eye. “You do know that about forty to fifty percent of your chakra is going toward maintaining your eye, right?”

“Okay, so it is that bad, but it was a gift,” Kakashi said.

“Mmmhmmm,” Sakura said doubtfully. She didn’t really see the logic. “It would be interesting to see if compensating by eating or sleeping more would help. I think maybe you need to.”

“Good luck with that,” Tsunade said. “He’s been underweight since he was ten.” She lifted her hands off Kakashi’s back and moved down to his feet. “If the patient seems really twitchy, start off with their feet. Many shinobi are more comfortable when you don’t have your hands near their neck or spine.”

“And civilians?” Sakura asked, joining Tsunade at the foot of the table.

“Fuck ‘em,” Tsunade said.

Sakura snickered. “Really?”

“Yeah. They aren’t usually dangerous and are here by choice, unlike shinobi. If they’re uncomfortable, they can request someone else to do their massage. They don’t have enough chakra or bad enough injuries to make most of what I’m teaching you necessary, either.”

Kakashi flinched when she touched his foot. “I thought you said most shinobi were less twitchy with feet?” Sakura asked for confirmation. She had a completely different angle for staring at Kakashi now, but it was no less...inspiring.

“It tickles,” Kakashi mumbled. “And it feels weird.”

Right, massaging feet. “Should I try to do a physical, too?” Sakura asked, pressing her palm to the ball of his foot and sliding her other hand over the heel.

“Visually, yes. But for right now, check for range of motion in his ankle,” Tsunade replied, pressing Kakashi’s foot downward, toward his shin, and pulling it back down. “Incidentally, there’s a pressure point on the upper edge of the arch of the foot. The medial plantar nerve coincides with a major tenketsu, and if you press down on it with a bit of chakra—”

Three things happened more or less simultaneously. Sakura located the pressure point that Tsunade had mentioned, and she gave it a chakra enhanced poke. Kakashi yelped, kicked his foot free of Sakura’s hand, and squirmed halfway up the table to get away. His towel didn’t survive the journey. And the third thing? Tsunade finished her sentence.

“—You can cause an instantaneous orgasm. As you’ve found out.” Tsunade used her hold on Kakashi’s foot to drag him back down the table, chuckling with only a hint of schadenfreude.

“Right,” Sakura said, feeling relatively certain that her face was going to combust in another moment or so. “Sorry, Kakashi.”

He buried his face in a pile of towels. “No problem,” he muttered, and Sakura tried her best to ignore the fact that Kakashi’s voice had dropped an octave.

“You know, I’ve been meaning to teach Sakura those pressure points, and they happen to be an excellent way of encouraging chakra production,” Tsunade said with faked innocence that wouldn’t fool a blind man. Or a deaf one, for that matter.

“Kakashi didn’t really sign up for that,” Sakura protested, though truthfully, she wouldn’t mind continuing. After the first rush of embarrassment, it had been kind of cool, drawing a reaction like that. “I mean...okay, I can’t think of a better test dummy, and if you make me use Lee for testing pleasure pressure points, I swear on the Hokage Hat that I’ll go missing-nin—”

“If I say I don’t think I’d mind, is that going to get me a free pass for whatever experiment you want?” Kakashi asked cautiously, pulling his head out of the pile of towels and glancing at them over his shoulder. He was flushed, but he looked more alert that usual. Of course, some species of sloth looked more alert that Kakashi usually did.

“Actually, no. Tsunade offered, you didn’t ask,” Sakura said. She stared at Kakashi in confusion, because she hadn’t thought he would want...

“It did feel good,” Kakashi pointed out defensively. “You don’t have to look at me like I’ve grown another head just because I want more.” He looked away and set his head back down, obviously taking himself out of the conversation.

Sakura blushed, and remembered what Kakashi spent most of his time reading in public. Perhaps it wasn’t so odd.

“Excellent, everyone agrees,” Tsunade said cheerfully. “Now I’ve only got two hours and forty-five minutes to finish teaching Sakura the basics of chakra healing massage, tenketsu shiatsu, and pressure points. Let’s get started.”

His foot twitched when Sakura picked it up, and she had to squash the urge to run her thumb along the ball of his foot and send her chakra through his tenketsu.

“Interestingly, there’s no less than three pressure points that can provoke a similar reaction located in and around the foot,” Tsunade said, pressing her thumb down along the arch of Kakashi’s foot.

“Just out of curiosity,” Kakashi said, “how many are there in total?” The pinkish flush was starting to fade from his back, Sakura noticed. And he hadn’t replaced the towel that had been the last bastion of his modesty. She noticed that too.

“About forty-two,” Tsunade replied. “Now put your thumb in the hollow of his heel on the side of his foot. This is the medial plantar nerve again. Slide your thumb until the tip of it is pressed against ankle bone. Now send down a chakra thread from the centre of your thumb.”

Kakashi didn’t kick free of her hand this time. Instead, his toes curled up and every muscle in his back shifted and flexed. Sakura knew she was smiling like an idiot, but it was just so cool. “Awesome,” she whispered, delighting in the color that was spreading across his back.

“Fun, isn’t it?” Tsunade asked. “But if you increase the energy of your chakra to more than double that of his, it causes an equal amount of pain. Then it is a very effective torture tactic instead of an obscure form of therapy for chakra exhaustion.”

Sakura nodded, and double checked to make sure she was matching Kakashi’s chakra closely. “So what’s next?”

“The last one on the foot we’ll have to roll him over for,” Tsunade explained, “So we’ll move up to the leg. The back of the knee actually has six tenketsu. Savor that information, because it took three weeks of bargaining with the Hyuuga clan before they agreed to mark them on a scroll. Five of the tenketsu are located over the tibial and common peroneal nerves. Arrange your fingers so that three are placed over the tibial and two over the peroneal nerve. Now send out chakra through all five fingers.”

Tsunade had to put her hand on his back to keep Kakashi on the table. He groaned, shuddering under their hands, arching and almost thrashing. He wasn’t trying to get away.

Sakura sucked in a desperately needed breath and prayed that neither of her teachers could sense how turned on she was. Given who they were, though, that was probably a lost cause. “So, if you extend the period of time that you add chakra to the system, would it increase the effects?”

Tsunade’s smile was actually an irredeemably perverted smirk. “Try it and see.”

This time, Sakura started more slowly, gradually increasing the quantity of chakra she was imputing into Kakashi’s system. He started shivering at about half the amount she’d used in the initial spike. Sakura slowed the rate of increase then, drawing it out. It felt like titration, adding the last drops slow to get the exact result needed and no more. Sakura liked titration.

“Fuck,” Kakashi hissed, squirming and rocking against the table, fighting against the weight of Tsunade’s hand. “More? Please.” He was sweating, and Sakura had to hold his leg down to keep her hand over his tenketsu. “Sakura—”

Sakura increased the volume she was adding, focusing on the buck and shift of Kakashi’s hips and the darkly shadowed area below, the gleam of sweat beading up on his skin, and the pink tinge that colored his pale, pale skin.

“Please,” Kakashi gasped, grabbing at the towels underneath him and ripping them, the sound of shredding cotton loud in the quiet room. “Sakura!”

Sakura licked her lips, tasting salt. She was sweating. The space heater was making the room too warm. She increased the flow of her chakra incrementally.

“Fuck!” Kakashi choked out, and Tsunade had to hold his head against the table to keep him from hurting himself. “Just do it!”

Sakura shook her head, trying to get her hair out of her eyes. She wanted him to call her name again. She lowered the flow a tiny bit.

“Sakura!” he cried, straining beautifully against the hands pinning him down.

It was easy to double the amount of chakra she was pouring into him. Easier still to triple it when Kakashi started growling and snarling and trying to fight his way to his hands and knees. Sakura reinforced her grip with chakra and watched, her eyes wide as she tried to memorized what Kakashi looked like, how he sounded, the feel of his skin and the smell of his sweat. It was because of her. He was like this because of Sakura Haruno.

Fucking shannaro, bitches.

“Sakura.” That was Tsunade. Sakura had to listen to her. “Stop.”

She stopped the flow of chakra and swayed, dizzy. Kakashi made a sound that she secretly classified as a sob and sagged against the towels, shaking violently.

Tsunade snorted. “So? Does drawing it out increase the effects?”

Sakura nodded, and wondered if it would be too obvious if she left the room right now. “I’d say yes.”

“...wanna die...” Kakashi muttered, and Sakura’s heart jumped in fear. She’d kept her chakra on the same wavelength, right?

“What?” Tsunade demanded, rolling him on his side so she could see his face. The towels underneath him were...yeah, he’d probably enjoyed at least part of it. Also, that was almost definitely an extra nipple. “What did you just say?”

“...if it ever comes up...” Kakashi said, blinking very slowly as his breathing returned to normal, “...that’s how I want to die. Only surrounded by my porn collection instead of in a hospital. Can I put that in my living will?”

Sakura giggled, feeling a tiny bit hysterical.

“Brat,” Tsunade sighed, setting him back down. She stroked his hair gently, rousing a contented mumble. “How about we give you a break for a couple of minutes? Get you something to drink, and some new towels.”

“Mmm. These ones are wet,” Kakashi agreed sleepily.

Tsunade laughed. “I noticed,” she told him, dragging a sheet out of the storage closet and draping it over Kakashi. “I’ll go get you some water. Sakura will change the towels.” She beamed at Sakura’s grimace and added cheerfully, “It builds character.”

The door clicked shut behind her and Sakura was alone with Kakashi.

“You okay?” he asked after a minute, jerking Sakura out of her daze.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Are you?”

“I haven’t felt so good in...I can’t remember. Long time,” Kakashi replied. “Thank you. I know this is weird, and we’re probably going to be weird around each other for ages, and it was probably a bad idea—”

“Nah, it won’t be weird,” Sakura cut him off, waving her hand dismissively.

He rolled onto his side and peered at her from under a shock of unruly white hair. “Really?” Kakashi asked hopefully.

“Yeah, really,” Sakura told him with confidence. “I spend, like, all of my time acting like I’ve never had a close up look at people’s genitals when I meet them in the street. And if I can manage that with Mr. Green-Penis, I’m pretty sure I can manage it with you.”

“That’s good,” Kakashi said, resting his head on his arm. “I really enjoyed the eggplant party and I don’t want us to be uncomfortable, but I’m finding it hard to regret the last half hour.”

“It was fun. Tsunade tried to teach me this stuff before, with someone else I cannot name because of medic-patient confidentiality, but he made the weirdest noises and Tsunade had to cancel the rest of the lesson because she was laughing too hard to talk,” Sakura said. “He sounded like a water buffalo,” Sakura reminisced, her face screwed up in remembered disgust, “...but don’t tell Tsunade that I told you that, okay? The medic-patient confidentiality thing is important.”

Kakashi snickered, then broke into a yawn. His mask slipped down his nose a bit, but stayed determinedly in place. “My lips are sealed.”

“Good.” Sakura stood up and stretched out. “I’m going to get you some fresh towels. Is there anything else I can get you?”

“A wet washcloth?” he asked. “And how hot do you think the room would have to be to get Tsunade to take off her jacket?”

Sakura laughed, “The first I can do. The second, we’ll see, but I will confirm—” she leaned in and whispered the next part in Kakashi’s ear, “—that Tsunade’s boobs are amazing. Natural wonders of the world, swear on the Hokages’ graves.”

“You’ve seen them?” Kakashi asked, his eye bright with childlike wonder.

“Yes,” Sakura said, “I was both humbled and awed.” She pulled a second stack of towels from the storage closet and dropped them by the table. “I’ll be right back.” Sakura grabbed the top towel and went into the attached bathroom and wet it down.

“Maybe you could use henge,” Kakashi suggested. “To share the knowledge.”

“Whoa,” Sakura said, jerking the sheet off him and dropping the wet towel on his side. “There’re female solidarity laws about that.”

Kakashi yelped and wiggled half-heartedly. “You used cold water? Did I piss you off?”

“Actually, I didn’t think about it. Now stand up and get cleaned off before I start counting nipples,” Sakura ordered, picking up the clean towels and shooing Kakashi off the table.

“Hey, don’t make fun of my socially crippling deformity,” Kakashi protested, stumbling a bit as he stood and turned to face the wall.

“The socially crippling deformity that’s only visible if you’re really looking for it, and can easily be covered up with clothes?” Sakura asked, cursing Kakashi’s mostly useless modesty. She really wanted to see. The dirty towels made a pile in the corner, and Sakura hoped that the bitchy cleaning lady would have to pick them up.

“I suffered adolescent angst over it. I’m entitled to consideration,” Kakashi replied, dabbing tentatively at his stomach with the towel.

“Meh,” Sakura said dismissively. “You get consideration from strangers, not friends.”

“Friends?” Kakashi said, looking over his shoulder at her. His eye conveyed surprise, and maybe a bit of happiness. Sakura hoped it was happiness, anyway.

“Well, the last time someone came by my apartment after my shift and tried to get me to heal them, I broke their jaw,” Sakura admitted. “Then I screamed at them and called them a peeping tom so I wouldn’t get in trouble.”

“I guess I don’t go to just anyone’s birthday party,” Kakashi mused thoughtfully. Sakura was almost certain that he was smiling.

“See? And I certainly don’t blow my grocery budget on eggplant for just anyone, so we must be friends,” Sakura concluded, smoothing down the last of the new towels.

“Must be,” he said, and damn if an entire colony of warm fuzzies didn’t suddenly explode in her chest. Stupid nostalgia.

“You can lie back down, if you want,” Sakura offered.

Kakashi threw the wet towel over his shoulder and it landed perfectly on the pile in the corner. “You wouldn’t be watching and waiting, ready to count my nipples, would you?” he asked suspiciously, sending a wary glance over his shoulder.

“...no,” Sakura muttered, turning around to face the wall. “But real friends let friends count their nipples.”

The towels rustled as he lay down. “Let’s test that. Let me count your nipples,” Kakashi said.

“Hell no."

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