Iruka has a system for his heats. It's a good system, as it should be, given how much time he's had to figure it out. Village bound shinobi aren't issued suppressants after all, and it isn't worth the cost to buy his own. Not when his heats are so regular. Not when the only time he ever takes missions that last longer than a day is during the summer break, when he can be gone from the village for an entire two weeks sometimes.

Academy teachers, medics, archivists, researchers, desk shinobi; they all work primarily in the village and tend to be the specializations that most active duty omegas gravitate towards. Iruka is hardly the only one in that situation.

That doesn't mean that he doesn't sometimes miss the four years that, as a field-active genin and new chunin, he'd been issued suppressants and only had to deal with one heat a year. (Medically mandated, to help prevent the suppressants from building up in the system and potentially causing severe health problems further down the line.) At least he is lucky enough that his heats come every four months like clockwork, and he can predict them within two or three days most times.

And now, a week out from the genin team assignments for his newly graduated class, rather than going grocery shopping the way he had planned after his evening shift at the mission desk, he has to hurry home, having felt the encroaching pre-heat for hours now. It's a few days earlier than expected, but he probably shouldn't be surprised. This would hardly be the first time he reacted to stress and trauma (emotional or physical) by going into heat afterwards.

By the end of his shift his pheromones were strong enough that even Kotetsu, who is notoriously nose-blind, had noticed and had used every excuse possible to pass through the mission room as often as he could to check in on him.

Iruka makes it up the stairs and to his apartment door without running into any of his neighbors, which is a relief. It's always a bit...awkward, interacting with people at this point. He hurriedly lets himself through his wards and through the door and then spends several moments braced against the wall just inside trying to breathe through the pain radiating from his back.

Once he's able to move again and begin prepping for his heat, it's quite a bit harder to construct his nest than usual. The recently severed muscles are still slightly swollen around his spine, and twinge with every movement, no matter how careful. The physical damage done directly by Mizuki's shuriken has been mostly healed by now, with a combination of medical care and time. Emotionally, Iruka is still feeling wrung out and just a little bit broken, like a limb has been amputated. The whole "stabbed in the back" thing wasn't just literal.

Iruka tamps down on the thought, the last thing he needs is to start putting out the pheromones of an omega in distress and in pre-heat. His wards are good but not entirely scent-tight and he really, really doesn't need every alpha and beta on the floor circling his door right now. Anko might actually bust his door down in her own particular brand of rambunctious inquiry and he doesn't have the energy to make her pay for it or repair it herself.

Fire races around his middle and up and down his spine when he moves too quickly reaching for one of his sofa cushions and he crumples against the wall between the kitchen and living room, gritting his teeth while his back spasms painfully. He might look pitiful enough right now she'd just do it without him even needing to ask. It can be hard to tell with Anko.

Eventually the pain recedes enough he can continue his hobbling journey from his tiny bedroom to his tiny living room, arms full of blankets. He's already arranged every pillow he owns in the corner between the armchair and the lamp and now he proceeds to drape all his blankets over most of the pillows, adding an extra layer between himself and the floor. As far as nests go it isn't much but it's enough for Iruka. He drapes the last blanket, a large, thinly-woven thing that he dropped an entire B-rank's pay on three years ago, from the armchair and lamp themselves so that it hangs over the entire construction like a tent. (Or one of the blanket forts that he and his dad used to build on stormy nights.)

Since he is both single and unmated, Iruka's heats are the grumpy, restless, unsexy kind. They don't take as much of a physical toll on his body as heats triggered by an alpha's mating pheromones would but are still their own particular brand of unpleasant. Iruka's heats are on the extreme end of the emotionally needy spectrum, and it's always a battle to not leave his apartment and track down everyone he cares about to drag them back to the nest where they'll be safe.

The med-nin say it's likely a side-effect from Iruka's first heat coming so soon on the heels of the Kyuubi attack and the loss of his parents. He gets anxious and fretful, and completely sapped of energy. He cries a lot when he's alone, which is most of the time. His friends check on him sometimes, and Anko brings him food regularly, but it never feels like enough.

Mizuki knew about the crying. He'd laughed. Tears well up in Iruka's eyes instantly, damn hormones. Mizuki had never stayed for any of his heats, he would hang around during pre-heat but always left by the time Iruka finished his nest and Anko showed up with ramen. It had always made Iruka sad, but now, he thinks of how Mizuki had stood over him in the clearing. He'd sneered down at him, grabbing his neck and calling him a pathetic omega and other, crueler, cruder names and he wonders if maybe that was a good thing.

Iruka shakes his head in an attempt to physically clear his thoughts away and berates himself for thinking so badly of someone who was there for him when he had no one else, before the Sandaime noticed him, but he still can't quite shake the creeping feeling that he dodged a kunai. (Even if he hadn't dodged the shuriken.) He throws himself into his nest, ignoring the flare of pain, and buries himself in blankets; face shoved under the pillow from his spare futon.

It smells like Naruto.

Ever since that night, just over a week ago now, Naruto has been sleeping at Iruka's almost every night, and inviting himself over for breakfast on the days when he doesn't. He was there waiting when Iruka limped his way out of the hospital, and suddenly every corner of Iruka's life has been invaded by eye-searing orange and a bright grin. He can't find it in himself to regret it, as hard as the increased grocery bill has been on his wallet. Iruka has lived alone since he was moved out of the orphanage when he was twelve. It's familiar in a distant, faded way, waking up to the sound of someone else clattering around in his kitchen (Setting fire to his stove).

By the time he feels the slight buzz of someone authorized passing through his wards and entering the apartment, Naruto's pillow is thoroughly damp with his tears. He hears the clatter of Anko kicking her shoes off into the wall, before she appears just outside the nest.

"Hey, Iru-chan!" she grins at him, her voice ever so slightly softer than usual. "I brought food." She places an Ichiraku takeout bowl next to Iruka's stash of water bottles holding down the edge of the tent-blanket and squats down to be on his level. Iruka is pretty sure if he looked up he'd be able to see straight up her skirt.

There is a rustling and the sound of Anko breathing in deeply a few times, assessing Iruka's state. "Not yet?"

Iruka shakes his head, still buried in the pillow. He knows his eyes will be red and swollen from the tears, so he sticks with peeking up at her through his hair. He doesn't want her to see, even though she'll be able to smell it. "Still pre-heat. It'll probably hit during the night."

Anko grimaces slightly and then smiles somewhat apologetically, leaning down a bit further to get as close to looking Iruka in the eye as she can manage. It thankfully has the side effect of removing the possibility of her flashing him. "I don't know when I'll be back. I'm heading out now to a job. Ibiki's probably already waiting on me but I'll check in when I can."

By the time Iruka's tired brain processes all that, she's already gone, trailing neutral alpha pheromones and the smell of ramen across Iruka's empty apartment.

Iruka manages to choke down most of the ramen and then buries himself back under Naruto's pillow and tries not to think. The only thing he knows of that would have Anko so busy at T&I is Mizuki and his betrayal. A mess Iruka helped make. He should have seen.

He'd never thought that Mizuki's resentment of Naruto went that deep, that he'd ever really meant all those digs about how it had to be Iruka's omega instincts that made him care so much about the boy who housed the demon fox. (And "so much" was so very little, now that Iruka looked back on it. So little up until it was almost too late.) But if he'd known maybe he could have helped.

But as usual, he'll just lay here while other people clean up after him. Useless. Alone while the people he cares about deal with things much more important than himself. And he still can't help but be selfish. Wish that someone would stay. Even though he knows he shouldn't want anyone to waste their time like that. He's been taking care of his heats alone since he was ten. He'll be fine.

He pulls Naruto's pillow down into his chest and curls around it. Trying to imagine that it is Naruto himself, alive and safe and happy, and that instead of a pillowcase his nose is buried in fluffy golden hair.

It doesn't work.

Iruka's night is a restless one, as predicted, the full force of his heat hits shortly before midnight and he spends the next few hours drifting in and out, trying to ignore the stabbing, shooting pain in his back and the dull, gaping pain in his chest that dwarfs it. The heat-induced ache in his joints and soreness in his neck aren't even worth mentioning.

At least he has his own space now, he tells himself. His first three heats had been spent in the heat room at the orphanage, and after that, when he'd lived in communal housing as a genin, in a succession of heat rooms at the hospital. Even if he's alone in this space at least it is his. He stifles a whine and buries his face even deeper into the pillow which is starting to smell less like Naruto and more like Iruka's tears.

There is no way he smells anything but distressed now. Mizuki is as right about Iruka as he is wrong about Naruto. He's pathetic and needy, nothing but a burden. No wonder no one wants to go to the trouble of staying.

He can't stop the tears from forcing their way out and he doesn't even really try. There is no one to see anyway. Worn out by his injuries, his heat, and his tears, Iruka drifts off into a fitful sleep.

He's woken by the ward-buzz and clumsy footsteps. Before he can clear the sleep from his brain enough to wonder why Anko sounds like a barely trained pre-genin, a small voice is whispering loudly near his head. "Iruka-Sensei?"

Squinting, Iruka forces himself to look up. Naruto is crouched there, his face very close to Iruka's and looking very, very concerned and confused, an absolutely adorable little wrinkle in-between his eyes. Iruka has to fight the urge to reach out and squish his cheeks. The fact that he's stiff from sleep and any movement would probably set his back on fire helps.

"Are you okay, sensei?" Naruto leans in closer, sniffing the air. Iruka realizes through the fog of being in heat and only half-awake that Naruto can smell him; but probably doesn't know what he's smelling. Come to think of it, its likely that Naruto's only real exposure to dynamics and how they work has been the mediocre sex education module at the Academy. Iruka manages to tamp down on his reflexive spike of killing intent at the thought of his nemesis.

"N'rto?" He pauses and tries to discreetly clear his throat. "What're you doing here?"

Naruto leans closer, his breath puffing warm in Iruka's face. "I came over for breakfast. Are you sick? Is your back hurting you?"

It is, but that is somewhat irrelevant at the moment. "I'm in heat, Naruto."

"Huh?"

Oh for- Iruka is in no shape to be giving remedial lessons on biology right now. Not when all he wants to do is pull Naruto into the nest with him where he knows the boy will be safe and he can feed him all the ramen he wants. And he can barely pull his hormone-addled brain together enough to string together a coherent sentence. Heat sucks.

"Heat. Naturally occurs every three to four months for omegas. Suppressants can be used to limit it to one or two a year. Heat."

"Oh." Naruto looks a little apprehensive. "I thought that was, y'know…" he trails off, waving his hands in the air, the slightly constipated expression he always gets when confronted with "pervy things". Iruka sighs.

"Heats are sometimes of a sexual nature but only when triggered by alpha pheromones, usually the omega's significant other." He shoves his face back into his (Naruto's) pillow. "Most of the time it's just a surge of hormones connected with ovulation."

Naruto makes another confused sound but Iruka is done. He's able to relax a bit more, since Naruto is here and very clearly not in danger, even if he's too bewildered to be properly termed "happy." Its close enough and Iruka will take what he can get.

When this is all over he'll sit Naruto down and explain it to him in a way he can understand. Maybe he isn't allowed to properly correct whatever weird ideas the clan kids are taught at home but he can at least make sure Naruto has a comprehensive education on the topic. The small corner of his brain that never stops thinking like a teacher starts poking at his dream lesson plans and figuring out how to adapt them to be more Naruto friendly.

Naruto stands up and starts to move away and Iruka is surprised enough that he isn't able to stop the whimper, no matter how hard he tries to bite it down. Naruto freezes and Iruka wishes with all his might that he was strong enough in doton to get the earth to swallow him up.

"Iruka-sensei?" Naruto sounds unsure, which only makes Iruka feel even more distressed. And before he can say or do anything, Naruto is climbing into the nest. Iruka blinks, unsure of what to do. He's never had anyone in his nest before.

Naruto wiggles under the blankets to nestle up next to Iruka and shoves his head up under Iruka's chin, hard enough that his teeth clack together. Iruka is still frozen, too heat-addled and sore to bother shifting.

"You have a lot of water here." Naruto chirps, as if making himself comfortable in Iruka's nest was the plan all along. "You should probably drink some. You look like you need it." He pulls a bottle from the stash into the nest with them and opens it before shoving it into Iruka's hand; spilling some over them both. Naruto flails a bit, trying to wipe it up with the sleeve of his jumpsuit.

Iruka lets himself be nudged upright enough to drink without choking. He doesn't realize how thirsty he is until the water hits his chapped lips and then, before he knows it, he's drained the whole bottle. He stares at it blankly for a moment, still caught up in trying to process the warm feeling of having Naruto pressed up against him. Breath and heartbeat and all.

"Wow, you're really out of it, huh."

Iruka frowns and tries to focus past the returning waves of fogginess and lethargy to remember why Naruto shouldn't be here. His vision is still blurred and he blinks his eyes, trying to focus on the small orange and gold blob curled up beside him.

The morning sunlight from the window glints off of Naruto's hitai-ate and a part of Iruka feels all warm and blissful knowing that Naruto accepted that gift from him when he became a genin-oh.

"Naruto," Iruka manages to say after a couple of false starts. "Why're you still here? Training?" He can feel his coherency slipping away again and it's incredibly frustrating.

Naruto shrugs, pressing close against Iruka, the metal of the forehead protector digging into his arm. "Eh, Kakashi-baka-sensei gave us the day off."

Even through the heat-haze, Iruka is cognizant enough to be mildly scandalized. "Naruto! Shd'n't talk 'bout yr' s'nsei that way."

His disapproving glare feels weak but it does seem to have an effect as Naruto mutters an apology. (Iruka chooses to ignore the accompanying 'but he is.') He lets it go and curls around Naruto, burying his whole face in the boy's untameable hair. This is so much better than a pillow.

He should send Naruto away, let him make better use of his free day, but maybe he can be selfish and keep the warmth and clean smell of unpresented child, a child that he would do anything for, in his nest and feel just a little bit less alone.

Iruka lets himself sink into the bliss that is the rhythm of Naruto's breathing and heartbeat and the feel and sight of his fingers carding through Naruto's hair, catching on the tangles and slowly combing them out. The brown of his skin standing out against the bright gold of Naruto's hair. He'll have to drag Naruto to the bathhouse when his heat is over and help him wash his hair. It's something he still struggles with, even after Iruka taught him basic personal hygiene when he kept turning up to class dirty and unkempt his first few months at the academy.

He tightens his grip on the small boy beside him. He knows what it is like to be alone. And he still let Naruto go through the same awful things. And somehow this amazing, bright little boy has not only forgiven him without hesitation, he's let Iruka become a part of his life and has become the very center of Iruka's own in such a short time. (He knows Naruto would never, will never, expect it of him but Iruka will spend every day of his life trying to make it up to Naruto and make sure that he never doubts that Iruka is there for him. He will do whatever it takes so that Naruto never feels alone again.)

"'Ruka-Sensei, can't breathe!"

He's crushing Naruto. Oops.

Iruka relaxes his grip a little and Naruto sucks in a lungful of air but stops squirming. So Iruka continues to hug him close.

He isn't aware of very much after that. He's not usually this out of it during his heats, but between Mizuki's betrayal (abandonment) and his injuries, he's a mess and his hormones are an even bigger mess. With Naruto's arrival, he settles enough to sleep some more, drifting in and out of consciousness for awhile. At some point, Naruto coaxes him into eating some of the miso soup that Anko must have dropped off.

Another time he's awoken by the muted sounds of the television. He has to smile at the completely absorbed look on Naruto's face as he watches what sounds like reruns of All My Ninja, a civilian made soap opera that is wildly popular with many shinobi, despite its absurdities and gross inaccuracies. He manages a chuckle and Naruto shushes him, not looking away from the small, slightly fuzzy screen.

"All these people are dumb. If Emika loves Kaito why is she pretending to love Reo? And I think Reo knows?"

He's still talking as Iruka drifts back off to sleep.

The next time he wakes its to the prickle under his skin that means someone unauthorized is undoing his wards. The surge of panic and adrenaline throws him out of his haze and into coherency. He pushes himself up onto his knees, shedding pillows and blankets the whole way; disturbing Naruto. He is almost laid flat again by the searing pain that rips through his back , but he ignores it and Naruto's squawk of dismay. He scrabbles for the kunai he keeps stashed under his armchair, pulling Naruto further back into the nest with the other hand. Naruto quiets quickly.

Iruka has just barely grasped the kunai when he feels the intruder take down the last barrier and slip through the wards. It's only long practice in keeping his head that lets him breathe through the instinctive panic. His nest is being invaded and he doesn't know who he's going to have to defend Naruto from this time. (It's not the first time in the past week his apartment has been broken into by angry people looking to hurt Naruto. He's improved his wards, but apparently not enough.)

The last time this happened, the front door had been kicked down and Iruka focuses in that direction. He breathes softly, straining his ears. The hall outside his apartment is silent. Not a single sign of the intruder. Not so much as a creak. Slowly, he inhales.

Iruka's heat-sensitive nose picks up an alpha scent drifting in from the window and he whirls to face whoever it is, somehow managing to make it all the way up to his feet, kunai in hand. He has to lean on the armchair to keep from immediately crumpling in pain, but it's still something of a success.

He knocks the blanket tent down in the process but barely notices, too intent on identifying the threat to his child in his nest.

"Maa, Naruto." says a vaguely familiar voice, "Don't you have somewhere to be?" The tone is lazy and cheerful, but has an underlying displeasure that Iruka registers as a threat.

Iruka's eyes adjust to the midday light and...

It's Hatake Kakashi.

Hatake Kakashi, one of the village's top jōnin, is sitting on Iruka's windowsill. Hatake Kakashi, Naruto's jōnin sensei. He looks back into the nest, now something of a wreck, at Naruto.

Naruto has his stubborn face on.

Iruka is starting to suspect, in his still muddled brain, that Naruto is playing hooky on the Copy-Nin.

"You said you had the day off." He says, shocked and confused enough to accidentally throw Naruto to the wolves. Or, well, wolf. He cringes internally. He knows very well from his eight years of working at the mission desk that most jōnin don't like to be inconvenienced and have very unique ways of expressing it. And he doesn't have much experience with Hatake to predict how he'll react. Most of his missions were the sort where he reported directly to the Hokage and he didn't even show up at the mission desk (with some of the worst reports Iruka has ever seen) until a couple of years ago and that means ANBU and there is no way that Iruka can stop an ANBU from hurting Naruto. Intellectually, he knows that Hatake has the right to discipline his students however he sees fit as long as it does not impair their ability to function in the long run and that actual parents don't even get to say anything about it much less him but his heart and his instincts are screaming at him that Naruto is his. His child. His responsibility. His to protect-.

"Well I wasn't going to leave you alone." Naruto huffs, cutting off Iruka's spiraling panic as he glares defiantly at both Iruka and Hatake; who is still crouched on Iruka's windowsill, slowly filling Iruka's apartment with a subtle but pervasive alpha scent which is not helping Iruka keep the terror gnawing at the edges of his rational brain at bay.

Naruto pushes his way up next to Iruka so he can see both of them clearly. "It's your heat and you're hurt." He actually scowls at Hatake as if it is his fault before focusing back on Iruka and Iruka is both proud and terrified. "I can't just not be here."

Hatake sighs; his scent hasn't changed a bit since the first moment he appeared and Iruka can't figure out if he's even angry at all and somehow that's even worse. Iruka has long perfected the art of yelling at authority figures and it's always the ones that don't seem to react who are the most dangerous. Right now, he needs to minimize the trouble Naruto is in.

"Go, Naruto." He nudges the boy towards the jōnin in the window. "Your training is important. I'll be fine." He does his best to smile reassuringly and hopes it doesn't look half as fake as it feels. What he really wants to do is kick the strange alpha out of his home and drag Naruto back into the nest where he can keep an eye on him. But that's selfish and impractical. And it's not Iruka's wants that are important right now. "I'm always alone for my heats anyway. I'll manage."

Naruto squints at him for a moment and Iruka dares to hope he's actually listening for once before he turns back to his jōnin-sensei. "I'm not leaving." He folds his arms over his chest and sticks his chin out.

"Those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash, right? That's what you said!" He points accusingly up at the alpha whose scent finally wavers, spiking minutely in what might be surprise. "Well I'm not going to abandon Iruka-Sensei!"

Iruka gapes for a moment and he thinks Hatake might be doing the same thing under his mask.

Naruto turns back around and points at Iruka this time, poking him in the chest with one small, very strong finger. "You said I wasn't alone anymore. And the Will of Fire means I won't ever be. That goes for you too, believe it!"

Iruka must have moved because suddenly Naruto is in his arms and he's hugging him tightly. He almost steps back, but Naruto is clinging to him just as fiercely and Iruka decides that he doesn't really care about Hatake right now. He's not going to be the one to pull away from this.

Hatake shifts in the window, making enough noise that Iruka can hear him and he even coughs a little. Almost awkwardly, which really only just adds to the surreality of the entire situation. "Naruto, I expect you back in training in three days. You'll have a lot to make up for and I won't take it easy on you."

And then he's gone. Just like that.

Iruka pulls away from the hug enough to stare at his window in confusion. Did...that just happen?

Naruto cheers and grins up at Iruka. "D'ya want to keep watching All My Ninja?"

Before Iruka can process the mental whiplash from serious to...Naruto, and formulate a response, he feels the wards letting someone in and Anko kicks the door open, laden down with takeout containers, a dango stick in her teeth like Genma with his senbon.

"I got food!" she announces triumphantly, before freezing, nose in the air, to take a couple of deep sniffs, her eyes darting between Iruka, Naruto, and the window. The dango stick falls to the floor, forgotten. Iruka would swear that she flicks her tongue out to taste the air like a snake, but decides to believe that he's imagining things. For his own sanity. Or what is left of it.

"Why does it smell like alpha in here?" She practically throws the bag of food onto the rickety little table Iruka has in his kitchen and rushes over to the window, a snake already starting to emerge from her coat sleeve. Iruka deliberately does not to think about if she summons them or...stores them up there. Somewhere.

She actually growls and her pheromones flood the apartment without warning, heavy and possessive. Iruka is enough on edge already that it almost tips him over that edge into actual panic and he shoves Naruto behind him for the second time in what seems like as many minutes. (The part of Iruka that isn't a hormonal, over-sensitized, anxious mess is starting to get pissed off about this.)

Anko notices his (over)reaction and seems somewhat abashed, which is a look Iruka has never seen on her before. "Sorry, just," she takes a deep breath and the angry alpha scent in the air becomes less oppressive. "Are you okay?"

Iruka is a little taken aback by her blatant, genuine concern. Anko doesn't do concern. They've been neighbors for six years and the closest to concern she's ever come was her rather rough variety of tough love. And bringing him hot, fresh food every twenty-four to thirty-six hours during his heats.

Despite what Mizuki had insinuated more than once, Iruka and Anko weren't that close. Or that close. They really only saw each other at the mission desk or in the building's laundry room.

But Iruka trusts her. She'd had every opportunity to take advantage when his suppressants had failed and he'd gone into heat a week after moving into the apartment. He'd practically thrown himself at her in his loneliness. Instead of... doing anything she'd bundled him up in a makeshift nest of his own blankets and kept him fed and hydrated for the four long days he spent sobbing into her shoulder.

They've never talked about it, but his very next heat she'd started delivering the food and checking on him and it was a practice she'd faithfully maintained every four months for the last six years.

Maybe she'd had an omega family member. Most unmated alpha's aren't so casual about dealing with heats. (They usually expect sex or immediately start panicking. Or both.)

"Iruka?" she prompts and he realizes he's been zoning out. Again.

"Yeah, m'fine." He manages to respond after another long moment of trying to remember what the question is. "We're fine."

Anko exchanges glances with Naruto and Iruka would normally be extremely insulted at the way they are communicating over him and about him but he's just too tired to care right now. He's injured, in heat, his territory has been thoroughly invaded and all he wants to do is curl back up in his nest with Naruto. A look behind him reveals that said nest has been completely destroyed in the course of the Hatake Invasion and aftermath thereof. Now it's just an uncomfortable wad of knotted up blankets on the floor.

Iruka blinks to hold back the tears that begin welling up at the sight and forces himself to swallow past the lump in his throat. The inability to control his own emotions is one of the most frustrating things about being in heat. Not that he's very good at it outside of heat either. He is not going to cry over this. He refuses.

"Right." Anko says sharply, hands on her hips (the snake has mysteriously vanished); pulling her coat back to reveal just how much she is wearing. Or not wearing as the case most certainly is.

"You, Brat. You fix up the nest. Make it cozy again or whatever. You," she turns on Iruka and drags him over to the table, sitting him down on the thin cushion beside it with enough force to jar his wound even if it wasn't irritated from all the moving around he's done these past few minutes. "Sit. Eat."

She pulls a bowl from the bag of takeout and plops it in front of him, shoving a pair of disposable chopsticks into his hand. "I'll make tea."

She heads straight for the cabinet where Iruka keeps his tea and he's too tired to even question how she knows her way around his kitchen so well. (He has enough experience with jōnin to know he probably doesn't want to know.)

It's...nice. Sitting at the table, slowly eating ramen and listening to Naruto fuss in the living room while watching Anko fuss in the kitchen. It's warm and fuzzy and his brain is already slipping back into the soft, happy haze he'd been lulled into earlier by Naruto's presence.

Naruto finishes with the nest and bounds over to the table to begin inhaling his own bowl of ramen. Anko sets out the tea just as Naruto's starting in on a second bowl. She snags the last one for herself but tips half of it into Iruka's steadily emptying bowl before pouring the tea from Iruka's mother's teapot (one of the only things he'd been able to salvage from the wreckage of his childhood home) into his mismatched cups.

After they are done eating, Anko puts the cups in the sink without washing them and Naruto tosses the trash in the bin and they both drag Iruka (which seems to be happening a lot today) back into the living room and his nest. Iruka dozes off to the warm pressure of Naruto on one side and Anko on the other, the two of them quietly (for them) bickering about the quality of the fight scenes in All My Ninja.

Iruka tastes the silent tears on his smiling lips and realizes that this almost feels like having a family again.

Thank you so much for reading! Drop me a review to let me know what you thought! (And potentially also get a sneak peek of future installments in this 'verse ;) )