Archive of Our Own

“I think I need some new clothes,” Naruto says.

Jiraiya looks up from his new manuscript, wooden end of his brush between his teeth as he’d chewed over revisions, and sees that Naruto is right.

They’d been on the road for a while, maybe two years if he bothered to calculate the timing, and ever since, Naruto had been working hard. He regularly pushed his body to its limits and then pushed those limits back and back and back. At first, Jiraiya’d had no idea how long they would spend together on the road—dual purposes of training and keeping Naruto safe from the Akatsuki made for an unpredictable time-table—but soon enough, weeks had turned into months. The passage of time became noticeable only by the changing seasons, and now, apparently, as Jiraiya studies his young pupil, it is obvious also in the fit of Naruto’s clothes.

The boy holds his jacket in his hands like it is a stranger to him, and he turns to Jiraiya, sticking one arm through the material to reveal several inches of skin at his wrist. Surely, if he put both arms in and attempted to zip, it would simply break from the strain. An odd thing to have escaped Jiraiya’s attention, he thinks, but then again, Naruto foregoes his outer layer most days during training, keeping only to his white undershirt. Most times he abandons that too, and Jiraiya knows they bought several of those to counter Naruto’s intense, clothes-destroying training sessions.

Jiraiya gives Naruto a more critical once-over, and it is immediately clear that it isn’t just the jacket Naruto has outgrown. His pants reveal a bit more ankle than he thinks the cropped style is meant to, and the waistband seems to dig into his skin, creating the illusion of pudge, which Jiraiya knows has been trained out of him. If he thinks about it now, which he is, he realizes that Naruto has lost most of his puppy-fat along with the inches he’d grown. His shoulders are filled out, his cheekbones and jaw more angular. And the look in his eye has changed. Gone, is childish insolence, sloughed from his resting expression in submission of something more seasoned.

Technically, Naruto is still a genin, and yet he’s experienced more than most jounin his age. As a child, his isolation, lack of support and friendships had stunted him; the losses he’d endured and his sheer force of will had propelled him in others. And of course, there is the fox-spirit. Always that, to play a part in how Naruto grows. Who he becomes.

Jiraiya directs his attention back to his manuscript, crossing out a bit of dialogue and rewriting it. “We can go shopping tomorrow. It’s about time we headed to town for a resupply anyway.”

Naruto sighs and lets the fabric drop. “I don’t exactly have money for that.” He kicks it to the side with his bare foot.

He goes barefoot a lot too, Jiraiya observes. He’ll need new shoes. In the back of his mind, behind the marginal amount of scene-setting his literature requires, he starts calculating the cost of all that Naruto will need.

It’s only when the tea-kettle screeches sometime later that Jiraiya realizes he’d never responded to Naruto’s maudlin comment.

Too late now, he thinks and stretches. He’s been sitting cross-legged for several hours. But he’s gotten through a hefty chunk of revisions, which is a pleasant change of pace. Naruto has been solely focused on perfecting his Rasengan techniques and variations, so Jiraiya has left him to his own devices, but he still finds himself often distracted and unwilling to pick up his own work in favor of watching Naruto train.

He’s an inventive little brat, to be sure, and while he doesn’t have the chakra finesse of other shinobi his age, a skill Naruto has honed to a fine point during his time with Jiraiya is his ability to problem solve. Can’t form the Rasengan by directing his energy alone? Add a couple of shadow clones for extra hands. It’s not cheating if it works.

He is attempting to do the same with the Giant Rasengan, with sporadic success. Holding Minato’s Rasengan has always proven a challenge—hence the necessary shadow clone—so harnessing nearly three times as much energy, even if the gathering method is the same, is stumping the boy.

The one time Jiraiya had tried to offer help, Naruto shot him the dirtiest look imaginable—and he has a plethora of them at the ready for his Sensei’s antics, it seems. Jiraiya had agreeably backed off, leaving Naruto to figure it out for himself, but it has been weeks. At this point, Naruto isn’t the only one impatient for progress. The Giant Rasengan isn’t his only project; Jiraiya also has Naruto working on strengthening his contract with the toads, but he’s been neglecting his involvement with them in favor of perfecting his jutsu.

And Jiraiya knows they won’t be able to stay in their secluded cabin outside of Yugakure forever. There have been whispers.

Whispers were what originally drew Jiraiya to the Land of Hot Water. It was said that one of their missing-nin had become a member of the Akatsuki, but no matter how much charm Jiraiya put on, the citizens of Yugakure were tight-lipped as to their identity, protective of the shame of their village and the slaughter that had happened years before. There was only so long that Jiraiya could handle the rejection, in and outside of their fantastic hot springs, for which they were known. He and Naruto would need to move on soon from this steamy location.

The Akatsuki, if rumors are to be trusted, are also on the move, and though Jiraiya doesn’t have a solid location yet, it is definitely happening in more than one place, which means many members are on the move.

Not to mention the fact that Jiraiya also keeps his ear out for news of Orochimaru and Sasuke, but Jiraiya has been keeping those particular whispers from Naruto. At the merest whiff of his friend’s possible location, Naruto would be off like a shot, proclaiming himself ready, that they couldn’t wait any longer, that Sasuke needed to be saved now.

And Naruto isn’t ready. Not yet.

They don’t talk much about Sasuke, but Jiraiya can’t imagine that Naruto has forgotten.

Sasuke disappeared over two years ago, and Naruto had scarcely waited until he was fully conscious to demand that Jiraiya take him for special training. He wanted to get stronger, surpass his friend, and use those new strengths and new skills to bring his friend home.

Frankly, after everything that had happened, Jiraiya had already been planning to take Naruto on officially as his pupil—he’d even worked it all out with Kakashi—but it was fun to watch the boy squirm in his hospital bed, wrapped head to toe in bandages, determination blazing behind his big blue eyes. Making him wait a further six months so he could be properly healed wasn’t nearly as pettily motivated as Naruto had accused. Jiraiya had things to do, things to tie up, leads to follow. There’d have been little use in leaving Konoha without a real direction in mind, even if Naruto couldn’t fathom of such reason at the time.

“What all do we need from town?” Naruto asks, slurping down instant ramen. He’s made three containers worth for dinner and is already on his second.

Jiraiya sucks at his teeth, shakes his memories free, and stands to join him at the table. “Besides everything for you? Food.” He flicks a finger at the empty ramen cup. “Selfish brat.”

Naruto gives him a crooked smile and slides the third container in Jiraiya’s direction. Steam is still curling out from the edges of lifted paper.

Jiraiya grins in return, breaking apart the chopsticks keeping the lid down. The ramen can’t have been sitting too long; the broth is piping hot, and the noodles still have a good chew to them, for being instant, of course. Jiraiya isn’t one to complain about food, though. Drink, on the other hand, he has many opinions about. Sadly, they are nearly out of this too, so Jiraiya doesn’t bother getting up for the last few swallows of sake.

“I told you: I don’t have money for that kind of thing.” Naruto shrugs and stacks his empty Styrofoam cups to the side. “I’ll last a little while longer with what I have.”

“You’ve literally grown out of your shoes. There is no ‘lasting longer.’ Where did your money go from the last mission?”

Naruto twists his face into a sneer. “Spent it covering your ass at the onsen last month, didn’t I?”

Jiraiya wipes away some oil from his bottom lip. He prefers the spicy flavor that Naruto sometimes gets, but the black sesame one isn’t bad. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t act like you don’t remember,” Naruto shoves his chopsticks accusingly towards Jiraiya’s face. “I’ve seen you drunker than that. You completely terrorized the women in the pool beside us and got us kicked out before I’d even gotten a toe in the water!”

At Naruto’s freshly outraged expression, Jiraiya chuckles. He remembers. They’d been tossed out the door in only their towels, personal effects lobbed at their faces with demands of compensation for the trauma—the indecency—quickly following. Jiraiya had been laughing so hard that it had been up to Naruto to fork over the extra cash. His poor frog wallet was emptied, and they hadn’t taken any jobs since that evening last month.

When they settle in one place for a while, Jiraiya lets Naruto on specific missions for the pocket change. Local things like odd jobs around the village or keeping the roads safe. Low-stakes missions where he can get some experience with his new techniques, but nothing that leaves them too exposed. Nothing that takes them too far from the bounds of their safe little bubble.

“I remember it differently,” he responds primly. “My research was disturbed. Frankly, they should have compensated me.”

“No one reads that trash anyway.”

“Kakashi does,” he says, matter of fact. Jiraiya knows Naruto is lying. Their travels together have informed Naruto, with unfortunate clarity, just how popular Jiraiya’s erotic novels are, but it’s an easy way for him to dig at his teacher and Jiraiya allows it. “He’s very interested in my ‘trash.’ Do you know how many times I’ve had to send one of his dogs away because I don’t have an updated release date for him yet?”

Naruto wrinkles his nose. “Kakashi is a dirty old man. He’s an exception.”

I am at least twenty years Kakashi’s senior,” Jiraiya states, and then instantly realizes this is the wrong information to provide.

Naruto rests his chin on a fist and grins up at Jiraiya, full of mock-innocence. “Pervy grandpa.”

“Do not curse me with such titles.”

“Naaaasty.”

Jiraiya reaches out to swipe at Naruto, but the boy is already leaning back with a laugh. “The last thing I want is some little ninja running around claiming to be my heir.” He gives a dramatic shudder.

“Heir to what?!” Naruto hoots. “You write porn for a living. What a legacy.”

“My business is not porn,” Jiraiya scoffs. “What a predictably pedestrian way of looking at erotic literature.”

“How expectedly egotistical of you to call it literature.”

For some reason, Jiraiya thinks of their verbal sparring as another type of training. One cannot always resort to calling him a pervert. It may be true, but it does get boring.

“That literature pays for our lodging, our food—”

“I pay for our food,” Naruto grumbles, but Jiraiya barrels on, unconcerned.

“—and it will pay for your clothes tomorrow.” He grins lasciviously. “You’re like a kept boy.”

Naruto makes an unattractive gagging sound and pushes himself away from the table. “You’re disgusting, and I’m going to bed.”

Jiraiya lifts his cup for the last few swallows of broth. “Don’t forget, shopping in the morning.”

Naruto waves him off, wriggling out of his ill-fitting pants before crawling into his bedroll.

Because he’s a considerate sort—no matter what Naruto says—Jiraiya keeps himself quiet as he moves around the cabin. The trash can wait to be bagged in the morning, so he stacks their empty ramen cups on top of the bin. He takes a last lingering look outside before heading to his own bedroll, disrobing, and settling down.

In the darkness, his mind wanders. They’ve been renting out this private cabin for nearly three months now, but Jiraiya thinks it might be time to move on. Sometimes, when Naruto gets stuck in his training, it helps to get on the road for a little bit and find some new scenery. Kickstart his energy with an unfamiliar environment. And of course, it always helps their own cover to not be in one place for too long.

Jiraiya frowns, turns over, and leaves his back to the front door. This place is perfect, though, and difficult to give up. It was pretty, spacious enough for the two of them without either one feeling particularly stifled, and it’s remote. Yugakure is a private, peaceful village with strong inclinations towards pacifism. It’s well-established enough to have everything they could need—shopping, onsens, the occasional local job—without being too popular to attract tourists. It’s early spring yet, and winter has been slowly retracting her claws from this village. The warmer it becomes, the less likely people are to flock to such a naturally warm place, due to the near-constant steam that wafts up the hill from the village. Here, they can remain hidden from the Akatsuki, and it is less likely that either of them will hear wayward comments about Orochimaru or Sasuke.

Despite Jiraiya’s placations that they would meet again when Naruto is ready, the boy is impatient, thinks himself ready now—even though his lack of progress with his jutsu is a marker of the exact opposite. Still, Jiraiya knows that Naruto makes progress in inches first, and then miles, as long as he is spurred on by something. Some challenge set, some personal goal to meet… He recalls the way Naruto had struggled to get a hold on the original Rasengan jutsu, and how all it had taken was a challenge and deadline from Tsunade, before he figured it all out. Seven days to master a jutsu that only a handful of people could perform.

Well, there will be no greater personal goal to meet than realizing he and Sasuke will be facing each other once more, and the chances of that will become more likely the more they move around.

They’ll stay a little longer, Jiraiya decides. At least until Naruto makes the next crazy leap of progress. It’ll happen soon, surely. Soon.

Jiraiya doesn’t realize the moment he falls asleep, only that he wakes mid-snore to the sun directly in his eye.

He winces at the unpleasantness and twists away from the beam, cracking his lids open when he feels cool shadows on his face. The morning sun comes in through the window by the door, but Jiraiya doesn’t need to look around the room to know he’s alone. When Naruto is serious about his training, he can be trusted to keep his own timetable. In fact, Jiraiya often must drag him away from training to take care of himself. Rest, food—it is all secondary to Naruto’s private measures of success.

Jiraiya finally sits up, eyes out of the sharp beam of sunlight, and indeed finds himself alone in the cabin. He stretches leisurely, scratches his chest, and stands, crossing the room to look out the window.

Up on the nearby hill, not thirty feet away from the cabin, is Naruto. He is meditating, still as stone.

It had taken quite a while for Naruto to learn to quiet his mind enough to get to this point. Meditation had been a new form of training that Jiraiya introduced recently, both in efforts to soften Naruto’s natural, kinetic energy, and also as a way for him to connect deeper with his chakra.

In the past, Naruto had relied upon the energies of the fox-spirit to replace the feeble hold he had on his natural chakra, and it almost always resulted in unnecessary damage to himself and his surroundings. The kyuubi’s chakra is impossibly strong, yes, but with the demon locked away and desperate for release, the chakra is also erratic, unpredictable, and something that Naruto can’t smother unless he is unconscious. Not a good thing to be, when the Akatsuki are sniffing him out.

Jiraiya wanted Naruto to focus on harnessing control of his own energy, his own chakra, and strengthen his hold on that without assistance from the kyuubi.

He watches his apprentice for a moment.

Naruto sits cross-legged, bare feet tucked up in the crease of his knees. From this distance, Jiraiya can just make out that his eyes are closed and can see the steady inhales and exhales of his chest. He’s shirtless, so the sunlight glinting off his tawny skin helps Jiraiya to more accurately time his breathing.

Five…Six…Seven, Jiraiya counts along with the inhale, timing Naruto’s exhale at four beats. It’s not bad. Progress has been made, but he isn’t yet to the ten-eight breathing count that Jiraiya wants. He leaves Naruto to the easy meditation in favor of having his morning tea.

When he finally feels refreshed and is dressed for the day, he pokes his head out the door and calls for Naruto. He wants to get an early start in town.

Naruto unfolds himself and stretches before yanking his undershirt on and grabbing the jacket. He hesitates, clearly torn between wearing it and leaving it behind, but eventually ties it around his midsection as he jogs over to Jiraiya.

“Let me grab my shoes,” he says, and disappears inside for a moment before returning, hitai-ate in hand. He ties the fraying, pitiful scrap of fabric around his wayward hair. “Where are we going first?”

They walk down the hill in step with each other. Naruto’s strides, Jiraiya notices, nearly match his in length. “The tailor. I can’t bear to look at you like this another day. It’s sad.”

“It’s not my fault!” Naruto exclaims, pouting. “If anything, you should have noticed earlier. I’m nearly as tall as you, now.”

“You are not, you br—” he turns and tips his head down to look at Naruto’s eyes, no doubt squinted closed in childish displeasure, but he finds himself looking at Naruto’s bicep instead. Jiraiya blinks, slides his gaze up and up until his chin is parallel with the ground, and he is looking in Naruto’s eyes. They are still squinted closed, but it is with his crooked smile and cheeky laugh.

Somehow, without Jiraiya truly realizing it, Naruto has grown nearly two heads taller. He’s still shorter than Jiraiya, but only by a few inches, and Jiraiya is wearing his platform sandals. Barefoot, they’d be nearly equal.

Huh. Jiraiya blinks again. When the fuck did that happen?

Naruto gives a little laugh, interlocks his fingers behind his head, and strolls away down the hill, leaving Jiraiya to watch him with a scowl. He still looks like an idiot in those pants that dig into his hips, hems that have been unrolled as far as they will go and still don’t come close to his ankles. His toes hang over the edge of his shoes like some sort of troglodyte, but it can’t be denied.

Naruto has grown up right in front of him.

Jiraiya hurries his footsteps to catch up, gives Naruto’s head a swift shove to unsteady his footsteps, and Naruto’s squawk makes him feel much better.

Being at the tailor’s is… an adventure.

Clearly, Naruto has never done this before, as he fights the man the entire way when he is simply trying to get proper measurements. His shoulders and arms didn’t garner much resistance, but this is the third time that Naruto has swatted at the kneeling man who holds a tape measure to his crotch.

After the second time, Jiraiya confiscated Naruto’s weapons pouch. No need for blood to be spilled.

“Sir, please hold still,” the tailor begs, frustration mounting to an obvious peak. He looks to Jiraiya for assistance, and Jiraiya sighs.

“Naruto, let the man do his job.”

“He can do his job without grabbing me,” Naruto hisses, bringing up a knee to protect himself and nearly catching the man in the chin.

“He’s not grabbing you; he’s measuring you. If you’re insecure about the number, just say that.” Jiraiya inspects his nailbeds, clocking Naruto’s indignant spin towards him from the corner of his eye.

“I’m not insecure!” Naruto shouts and thrusts his hips forward. “Go on! Measure!”

The tailor grumbles but doesn’t look his gift-horse in the mouth. Swiftly, he takes the measurements he needs, makes his notations, and pronounces Naruto finished.

“Well?” Naruto demands, and the tailor struggles to get to his feet. Even standing, he remains at a mostly bent posture.

“You’re the picture of youth and vitality,” the tailor says dryly.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.” The tailor makes his way around the opposite side of the counter that Jiraiya is leaning against. “The last thing to discuss will be fabrics, colors, and embellishments if you want any. After these decisions are made, I can get to work. Your garments should be ready by the end of the week.”

“Wait, you mean I can’t take them today?” Naruto frowns, pressed up against the counter with Jiraiya.

“Unfortunately, custom work takes time. You’re not buying off the rack here.”

“End of the week will be fine,” Jiraiya confirms, and turns to Naruto. “Colors; c’mon, I’m hungry.”

Naruto elbows him, none too gently. “You’re the one who dragged me here in the first place. Can’t I just get this?” He gestures to himself and the tailor frowns.

“You want the exact same thing?”

Naruto shrugs. “They’re just clothes. If my training continues like this, they’ll probably get ruined too, and then we’ll have to come back and do this again.” He looks behind him towards the platform, expression cross.

“Not unless you have another growth spurt.” Jiraiya puts his hand on the top of Naruto’s head and rubs his hair like a dog. Naruto dodges out of his grasp, eyes pinched and sour. Jiraiya grins. “Besides, I bet you bought all your clothes off the rack until now.” He looks back at the tailor. “You service shinobi, correct?”

“Indeed, I do,” he answers, ducking down to grab a binder. He plops it down on the counter with a thump that has Jiraiya’s brow quirking up. “We have a wide array of fabrics well-suited to the shinobi lifestyle. Flame retardant, kunai-resistant, extremely durable, and available in a range of colors for your aesthetic pleasure.” He flips through the book as he speaks, and Naruto leans forward, fingering a square of tightly woven black. He pulls at it a little and it stretches nicely.

“What’s this one?”

“That’s one of our blade-resistant fabrics,” the tailor explains. “The thread is tightly woven with chakra. It’s lighter than armor but better than nothing. No fabric is fool proof, but this material is well suited to taijutsu users who rely on their flexibility being unimpeded by bulky plates of armor.”

“I bet this is what Bushy-brows wears,” Naruto murmurs thoughtfully, and continues flipping through the binder.

Jiraiya tunes out while Naruto asks questions and the tailor answers. They are much more pleasant to each other in this light, for which Jiraiya is grateful.

Eventually, Naruto nudges him into awareness again. “Hey, Ero-Senin.”

“Don’t call me that. Are we done here?”

“Are you sure you want the same colors you’re wearing?” The tailor presses.

Naruto looks down at himself. “Why? What’s wrong with it?”

“Well, it’s,” the tailor pauses, glancing furtively between Naruto and Jiraiya. “It’s the same.”

“It doesn’t really matter to me, but I guess I could do black instead of the blue?”

“Is that the only change?”

“Yeah, why not?”

The tailor looks at Naruto over his narrow, frameless glasses. “It’s a lot of orange.”

“All black, then.”

Jiraiya sighs. “The ANBU wear all black.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like I have their mask. It’ll be fine.” Naruto nods decisively to the tailor. “All black, please.”

He notes Naruto’s choice without further comment. “Any embellishments?”

“Nah.” And then Naruto’s face brightens. “Oh, wait!” He rushes over to where his jacket is slung over the back of a chair and presents it to the tailor. “This red spiral on the back—could you put it on the new jacket?”

“The exact one?”

“Yeah, would that be hard?”

“Not at all. You’ll have to leave the jacket with me.”

“The shoulder spiral too, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“If you’re wanting more than one jacket, only one will have the exact pieces,” the tailor warns. “The others will be replicas with a charge for the additional customization.”

“We only need one jacket,” Jiraiya cuts in. “Just size it up a little.” He gives Naruto an appraising look. “Two to three inches allowance should do it.”

“Very good, sir,” the tailor agrees.

“Can we keep the design the same, too?” Naruto asks. “Like the…” he points, runs his finger along the stitching, the separation of blue and orange fabrics. “I don’t know what to call it.”

The tailor holds his hand out for the jacket and Naruto passes it over the counter. “Every garment has multiple blocks of fabric that are sewn together to create designs and patterns.” He follows the stitching that marries orange and blue. “It’s no trouble at all to keep the blocking the same, even if it’s all the same color. I would follow this pattern for your body type anyway.”

Naruto tilts his head in confusion. “What does that mean?”

“You’re so slender. And you said most of your attacks come from your hands, yes?”

The tailor had asked Naruto several questions while measuring him about his fighting style, though Jiraiya had not listened carefully, but Naruto nods dutifully.

“It would make sense for you to have a different fabric on your chest and shoulders—something light and flexible to allow for good range of movement up top, and something sturdier, more durable and resistant to attacks below. Your shoulders will continue to fill out, making you broader, but right now you’re still very feminine.”

Jiraiya bites down hard on his smile to keep from laughing outright as Naruto sputters, a sudden blush morphing quickly from gentle pink to full-on scarlet.

“I am NOT feminine!” He looks desperately towards Jiraiya and, realizing he will get no help, spins on his heels. “I’ll be outside, Ero-Senin.”

Jiraiya sighs dramatically once he and the tailor are alone and shoots him an apologetic glance. “He’s embarrassed. Still growing.”

“Yes,” the tailor says, and looks down at his calculations. “Are you ready to pay, sir?”

“Yeah, I just have one thing I’d like to change.”

When he points out the alteration, the tailor raises a brow at him, then looks pointedly towards Naruto. “Are you sure, sir?”

Jiraiya shrugs. “What can I say: It’s grown on me.”

“Then I have one custom jacket; two pairs of custom pants; three undershirts, black; two mesh undershirts, also black; one pair of shinobi sandals, black; and one extra-long hitai-ate band.” He rattles off a number that has Jiraiya gaping. Primly, the tailor adds, “for your services today, the hitai-ate has been marked free-of-charge.”

“How generous of you,” Jiraiya grumbles, but he gets out his wallet all the same.

The tailor packs the undershirts, which had been off the rack, into a paper sack for Jiraiya and reminds him of when the clothes will be ready for pickup, then waves goodbye.

The first thing Jiraiya does when he makes it outside is complain. “You’re expensive. Definitely a kept boy.”

Naruto scowls at him. “Shut up. Where are we getting food?”

“Grocery store.” Jiraiya takes off towards the left with a quick pace, leaving Naruto to scramble after him. “You just bled me dry, so we’re going to need to cook for the next few days.”

“We were out of ramen anyway,” Naruto says agreeably.

“We are not spending our remaining budget on instant ramen. Eat a vegetable, please.” He eyes Naruto. “Maybe then your shoulders will look a little less feminine.”

“Maybe I’ll kick your ass, how about that?”

“HA! You couldn’t even if you tried.”

“Could so,” Naruto insists. “I’ve made progress! I’ve almost got it down.”

“Good. Then you won’t mind showing me your progress this evening.” Jiraiya slides his gaze towards Naruto, knowing he can’t protest now, or it would come out that he hasn’t made that much progress yet. That he is still struggling.

Stubborn as anything, Naruto responds hotly, “Great.”

“Fine!”

“FINE!”

They stare at each other for a moment, chins jutted out, chests leaning forward into each other’s. Grown, but not grown up, Jiraiya thinks, and it is a small sting that he doesn’t feel nearly as intimidating without towering over Naruto. The boy’s newfound height is putting him off kilter in more ways than one. Uncomfortable, Jiraiya sucks at his teeth.

“Go home; go train. I’ll bring you something to eat. And take this,” Jiraiya thrusts the bag from the tailor’s into Naruto’s hand. “Wear at least one thing that fits you.”

Naruto’s attitude melts away as he looks into the bag. His grin is quick, bright and full, morphing his face from childish to handsome so fast Jiraiya can only blink at the sudden change.

“Thanks, Sensei!” he throws over his shoulder, taking off at a jog in the opposite direction through town, headed for the bridge and hill that will take him back to their shared cabin.

Jiraiya scratches his chest idly, then the back of his neck. He can’t keep up with Naruto’s mood-swings, and hopes that the constant hormonal shifting from embarrassed, to childish, to grown beyond his years, will mellow out soon before he gets whiplash.

#

“Go on, then.”

Naruto scowls. “It took you forever to get out here, and you think you can immediately start ordering me around?”

Jiraiya crosses his arms, unimpressed with Naruto’s attitude. “As your teacher, yes. Absolutely. Now show me your progress.”

Naruto rolls his eyes, but he refocuses. Jiraiya had followed the signature of his chakra past the hill and through the thin stretch of woods to the other side. Here, they are harder to get to, unless someone passes their cabin directly, or feels like climbing up the dirt cliff that drops off behind Jiraiya’s back.

It was one of the features of this remote location that appealed to Jiraiya when he was first looking for a place he and Naruto could make camp. They weren’t far from the borders of the Land of Fire, which had a variety of terrain even if it was mostly covered in trees, but this cliff… it is a deep cut in the earth, nearly seventy feet tall by the judge of his eyes, and a sheer drop to narrow, grassy paths below. Almost as if Gamabunta had razed the land with his katana, and the ground was only partially healed. The paths below all lead directly to the bridge, which is the only way in and out of town. Their cabin is on the south side of residences, further back and positioned on a hill rather than in the valley or directly in town.

If they were anyone other than ninja, they’d have been cornered prey to enemies. As it stood, they have perfect access to supplies, a solid, difficult to follow escape route, and ample privacy for Naruto’s more destructive training. Judging by the smattering of craters within nearby tree-trunks, Naruto really has been practicing his Rasengan techniques. Some craters are larger than others. Deeper.

As Naruto draws chakra into his palm, Jiraiya’s gaze locks onto his hand, the swirl of energy that forms, grows, then wobbles and fizzles out. Naruto frowns, tries again without saying anything.

The speed at which his Rasengan forms has certainly increased, which is good. Naruto draws upon his power confidently, and it grows to a perfect circle of energy, blue as the sky, encouraging a sweep of wind to surround them. All those months ago, he’d practiced with the shape of a rubber ball, about the size of a large orange. Naruto’s chakra coalesces to that size, and then, his brows drawn together in fierce concentration, the Rasengan begins to grow.

It reaches the size of a grapefruit and remains steady, but this clearly isn’t enough for him. He keeps going, the clone at his side directing energy with his fingertips, his palms, drawing the energy out further until it nears a size resembling a beach ball, and then he loses control. Shards of energy seem to fragment and disperse, like a breath blowing over a house of cards.

Frustrated, Naruto growls and tries again, but the same thing happens. Energy steadies, attempts to grow, then fizzles out.

“You’re doing the same thing over and over,” Jiraiya comments. “It’s clearly not working.”

“Dammit.” Another attempt, the same result.

And honestly, it isn’t like Jiraiya can berate him for not working hard enough. Naruto has been out here since the afternoon, and his efforts are clear on his face. His new black T-shirt is sticking to his arms, his stomach. Obvious sweat is beading on his forehead, betraying the subtle strain on his body it takes to harness that kind of energy. Naruto drags the collar of his shirt up to his forehead, pressing it into his skin. Then, with another sound of frustration, he yanks it over his head, balls it up, and tosses it away.

“Careful now,” Jiraiya teases. “I just bought that.”

“Can you be helpful, or something?”

“I thought you didn’t want my help.”

“I don’t,” Naruto seethes, and then he sticks his hands on his hips and looks away, lip caught between his teeth. “Maybe a little hint?”

Jiraiya rolls his eyes. “Walk me through your thought process. What are you doing exactly when you make the Rasengan bigger?”

A frown etches its way onto Naruto’s face. Eyebrows pinched, he huffs out a breath. “I mean, it’s just holding bigger energy. More of it, right? So that’s what I’m thinking about when it expands.”

“You remember the original theory?”

“Focus my chakra, gather it in my palm, and make it spin,” Naruto answers.

He’s stripped it down to the most basic parts, but he’s not incorrect, Jiraiya thinks, then clarifies out loud. “Make it spin in multiple directions. That way, when your energy collides with something else—an enemy, a tree—” he gestures to the craters surrounding them, “it releases explosively.”

“I know. So, I should be able to do the same thing on a larger scale.”

“You should, but that’s not working.”

“Clearly.”

Naruto is close enough to reach out and smack, so Jiraiya does. It’s only a little swat to the back of his head, but it makes Naruto stumble forward with a scowl.

“Ease up with the attitude,” Jiraiya says. “That wasn’t an insult, it was an observation.”

Naruto rubs at the back of his head. “If you would let me—”

“No,” Jiraiya cuts in firmly.

“But there’s so much—”

“I said no, Naruto.”

“But it’s mine. I should get to use it!”

“It’s not yours,” Jiraiya corrects. “It belongs to the fox-spirit, of which you are merely a vessel. You need to do this with your own power.”

“I’ve used the chakra before, and it’s been really helpful.” Naruto’s eyes are narrowed, his tone scathing.

Jiraiya refuses to budge. “And how many times have you lost control of it? How many times has it overtaken you and you’ve hurt someone? One of your friends? An innocent?”

Naruto flushes and looks away.

“The better control you have over your own chakra, the better you will be able to control the nine-tail’s chakra if you ever decide to use it. Master this first.”

“Alright, you’ve made your point,” Naruto mutters, eyes downcast. “I should be able to do this,” he huffs, frustration bleeding from his words, “but I don’t know what I’m doing.” He looks at his hand, pink with the slight burn from holding his chakra repeatedly, like it was a stranger. A limb belonging to someone else. “I don’t know why it’s not the same.”

“No one does,” Jiraiya says with a gentility reserved for the rarest of moments in Naruto’s training. Naruto puts an indescribable amount of pressure on himself. It’s important, and necessary, to remind him occasionally that he is attempting something most ninja don’t do until well into their mature years.

“When the Fourth Hokage created this, he used a combination of shape transformation and spinning chakra manipulation. No one had tried such a thing before. You’re expanding upon that unknown technique. No one has done this before, Naruto. You are the first.” He gives his charge a smile. “I would not have expected results within days of creating a new technique. There’s a lot of trial and error involved in things like this. A lot of failure before success.”

“But I can do this.” Naruto looks up at him, and though his tone does not convey a question, a desire for verbal encouragement and belief, the need for it is in his eyes. Right behind that dogged determination Jiraiya likes to see.

“Yes. You can. And you can do it without the Kyuubi’s help.”

Naruto exhales. “Okay,” he says, and then again, “okay,” as if he were steeling himself. He holds his chin in his hand, brows pinched once more as he concentrates. “Give me a second,” he mutters to Jiraiya, and the man backs off, letting Naruto work through the problem.

In truth, he probably could have spared a little more encouragement—told Naruto that he is sporadically, curiously brilliant, and that Jiraiya has every confidence Naruto will succeed in creating and holding his Giant Rasengan. He could even see Naruto developing it further, bigger energies taking different shapes to maximize damage. It could be a devastating signature move for the boy, but in the end, it just isn’t Jiraiya’s way to sing praises. Naruto doesn’t seem to need or want it.

He is self-motivated at the best and worst of times, which made training him years ago nearly unbearable, but they have a rhythm now. A hint of praise here and there, and insults to fuel his fire the rest of the time.

Jiraiya continues to let Naruto think his way out. He can tell Naruto isn’t ready for Jiraiya to leave him entirely to his own devices, so he wanders a little further away, giving him space.

The cratered trees really are evidence that Naruto is growing stronger. Naruto could have stopped expanding the Rasengan at the size of a grapefruit and it technically could be considered a new jutsu, but that isn’t enough for Naruto. Certainly not big enough to warrant the modifier ‘Giant,’ but then again, that was Naruto. His skill in naming jutsu is… below average.

He’s fifteen, Jiraiya reminds himself, as he so often needs to. It’s easy to forget what Naruto has gone through already and what he has in front of him. I can’t expect too much of him.

He glances back towards Naruto again to see him talking with his clone, looking like they are arguing with wild hand gestures. How handy, he thinks, that ninjas are able to summon another one of themselves and make tangible their inner conflicts. He turns away again. Naruto will grab his attention when he’s ready.

Jiraiya casts his gaze out over the outcropping, mapping the grooves of cliffsides with his eyes and transposing it into a birds’ eye view, wondering what could have possibly made such deep scratches in the earth. It can’t be natural; there is a jaggedness to it that speaks of sudden cruelty, but who is he to say, really? Perhaps some natural disaster had befallen this town. A tornado, a series of mudslides, an earthquake.

A bird drifts overhead, flapping lazily as it rides the warm evening air, swooping and banking away, playing with the thermals. Enjoying the sight, Jiraiya follows the bird’s trajectory until something catches his eye below.

Down in the valley, on the path that leads into town and thus, is more attractive than other forks in the road, two people walk side by side. From this distance, Jiraiya can only see that it is two women, that they carry something bulbous with them, and that they have different coloring, but all other details are lost to him. Luckily, Jiraiya goes nowhere without his trusty binoculars, and he digs them out of his belt pouch to get a better look.

Through the lenses, he can see they are pretty. One of them is red-headed and large-chested, her dark shorts complimenting the roundness of her thighs and hips. Her hair comes down in two thick braids on either side of her face, and she walks with a slight sway that keeps her constantly brushing shoulders with her companion. The other woman is slender as a willow with long, black hair and darker skin. It isn’t common to see in these parts, but it provides her with an exotic look that Jiraiya appreciates very much.

He appreciates pretty much any female form, but that is beside the point.

Jiraiya keeps his vision on the two women, the way they walk past trees that are painstakingly cared for by the townsfolk, discarding several places until deciding upon one. They withdraw a light blue blanket from the basket the red head holds and settle beneath a tree with lush leaves as the evening light crawls down the path towards them, illuminating them in gold. He isn’t the best at reading lips, but their expressions speak of joy, raucous laughter, and they continuously reach out to touch a shoulder, a hand, as women often do with each other.

They look comfortable and close as they sip on bottles of water and eat strawberries.

His first thought is to steal one, or both of their likenesses for a future edition of Make Out Paradise. His previous female lead had sported a strong, feisty personality. The soft femininity he observes below would be appealing, and a nice change of pace for his readers. But then, as he watches, the touches they give to each other shift to the thigh, playing with the thin strap of a dress, undoing and redoing the braids as an excuse for more intimate connection.

Oh? Jiraiya thinks. This is unexpected. This is flirtatious. There are bitten lips involved, sultry glances at each other. Oh, indeed.

Of all the novels he’s published, not once has he delved into the realm of same-sex relations, and shame on him because the viewing alone, the anticipation of something more occurring between the women below him zaps up his spine like an electric current.

Jiraiya wiggles in place from excitement, mind already starting to race with ideas. This would be an entire, untapped market of erotica. Typically, his work caters to women with the occasional man enjoying the raunchy stories, but this… two women aching for each other in adoring looks and cautious touches? Women of such a mind would flock to these tales, and so would a larger demographic of men. He needs to speak to his publisher. She’ll go insane for such an idea! If Naruto thinks Jiraiya is a pervert now, he won’t know what to do with—

A poof of air from behind him has him jerking the binoculars away from his face. A body presses up against his back, slender, smooth arms wrapping around his front. Jiraiya flinches at the unexpected touch. His mind tears away from the flimsy imagining of two women locked in a heated embrace.

“Pay attention to me,” the voice behind him whines attractively. It is high pitched, feminine, familiar.

Jiraiya twists hard to free himself from Naruto’s hold. When he turns around, impenetrable mist is swirling around Naruto’s body, artfully placed to cover the most interesting bits of his female form. He hasn’t resorted to this transformation-jutsu in years; it’s almost shocking to see it. He still knows just how to pose, how to distribute the shape of this body in a long, sinuous line. Naruto has one hand raised, the tip of a finger stuck between teeth in the tease of a bite. The other slides low on the flat stomach, reaching into the mist, and not for the first time, Jiraiya thinks that Naruto is incredibly attractive in this form. The bright blue eyes, delicate expression, the slope of the shoulders and all that skin.

Delicious, he thinks still taken aback by the sudden nudity before him, and then realizes that the heel of his sandal is sliding back with the poor distribution of his weight on the hill. He can feel his body begin to tilt, and sees the recognition that he is shifting backwards pass over Naruto’s feminine face as well, but he knows how to correct it. He isn’t going to fall.

Naruto, it seems, either doesn’t realize or doesn’t care. Jiraiya is already adjusting, pushing one arm behind him and thrusting the other forward, and it collides with a slender, smooth arm. Without thinking, he grips it tighter than intended, and a soft gasp falls from Naruto’s lips, the shell-pink of them parting around the sound. With his focus divided, the mist begins to dissipate, revealing more of Naruto’s shape than Jiraiya has ever seen. And then, another poof of air, and Naruto is himself once more. The arm that Jiraiya has hold of is strong and corded, the hand clasped around his skin calloused on the other side of his clothes, he knows, and there is still an alarming amount of skin on display.

Steady on his feet once more, it takes a second for Jiraiya to remember that Naruto had shed his shirt in the efforts of his training, and the body before him is golden with a tan, flat and honed with fresh muscle. His young shoulders are broad but still sloped down, curving gently into the rounded muscle of his bicep, a thick vein straining at his inner elbow down to where it is hidden, pressed up against Jiraiya’s own arm.

He’s yanked forward a few stumbling steps, away from the edge. Just before Naruto lets go, Jiraiya’s gaze catches his student’s, that open-sky blue, jaw squared off. The years they spent together had Naruto’s appearance racing for masculine, adult. His hair falls across his forehead without his headband, like the sunlight shining on the ocean, a burn of brightness behind your retinas. And Jiraiya has another thought: Naruto is also incredibly attractive like this. Broad and slender, an unusual blend of feminine and masculine, body and mind galloping towards maturity with a speed that transcends Jiraiya’s powers of observations.

Which, he understands abruptly, is a very not good thought.

Naruto’s expression sours, mouth pinching into a deep frown. “Are you an idiot?” He demands. “You could have broken your neck, and then I’d be without a teacher! And for what?” Naruto steps forward, snatching the binoculars from Jiraiya’s other hand. He cranes his neck around Jiraiya’s shoulder to see what had captivated his attention, and Jiraiya holds out an arm to block his path. Naruto smacks it away with ease, lifting the binoculars to his eyes. “What could be so important that you—”

He freezes, says oh. And then he repeats himself in a sort of strangled tone. It makes Jiraiya endlessly curious, as Naruto almost immediately shoves the binoculars back into Jiraiya’s grip, and turns around to collect his clothes, throwing a wave and a strained see you at home! behind him.

Bewildered, both by his own train of thought, and Naruto’s uncharacteristic retreat from an impending insulting match, Jiraiya turns around again to see that the women on the picnic blanket are no longer innocently flirting with each other.

No.

He scrambles, pressing the binoculars a little too hard into his eyes in his haste. The slender one, the one with dark hair, is straddling the other’s hips, leaning down over her as if they are wrestling. Black hair hangs in a curtain hiding their faces, but it is obvious even without the help of his lenses what they are doing. One body on top of another? The shadowy coalescing of them as the sun sinks? Unmistakable. Jiraiya watches the red head below lift one hand from her companion’s thigh and thread her fingers through the black hair, pushing it back and away from their faces.

They are in the hills. They think they have privacy. They aren’t expecting anyone to observe them, and so there are no compunctions regarding the placement of the redhead’s other hand. Through the lens of his binoculars, Jiraiya sees her wrist where it disappears beneath the hem of her companion’s dress. Her arm moves, thrusts, until the woman with dark hair breaks from their wet kiss, eyes shut tight as she extends her throat in an ecstatic moan, expression euphoric.

His little exchange with Naruto made him miss the transition from innocently flirtatious to public sex—a transition he bemoans having missed—but Naruto clearly hadn’t. Jiraiya takes the binoculars away from his eyes. Even he has his limits. Besides. He has a wild enough imagination to supplement what will come next between the two women sequestered in between the hills while the sun sets. It’s a romantic setting. He might steal that, too.

His publisher is going to love the new idea.

Jiraiya straightens his scroll across his back, and takes off in the direction Naruto fled, mind half on story ideas for his new characters, half on Naruto.

They’d planned to be out longer than they were with training. Or perhaps, it is more honest to say that Jiraiya was prepared for Naruto to beg him to stay out one more attempt, one more hour. He was always pushing himself, always striving to get it right. Jiraiya recalls his first round of training with Naruto, the boy so exhausted that he fell asleep outside by the stream he’d trained at long into the night. And he recalls the boy going right back out the next morning.

When he was serious, when Naruto was determined enough, when he had a goal in mind, that goal would galvanize him above all else. Even now, there are times when Naruto trains so hard that when he returns to the cabin sweaty and exhausted, unable to unzip his jacket because he’d nearly blown out his arms and fingers, Jiraiya must help Naruto out of his clothes. It is Jiraiya that forces revitalizing food into his belly. It is Jiraiya who deposits him in bed when he falls asleep at the table.

The fact that Naruto left training so early is unlike him, though he supposes Naruto could have simply been embarrassed. He’s never been that way before, only severely huffy that Jiraiya’s attention was on something other than Naruto’s training, but he’d been thirteen back then. Fourteen, maybe. Perhaps he is the type to get embarrassed by intimacy now, but that doesn’t seem right either. He hasn’t had any reservations about ribbing Jiraiya on his more perverted habits, and it’s not like Naruto hasn’t read or—on one unfortunate occasion—written something vaguely resembling the coupling of two people.

Naruto’s abrupt departure is an interesting development, but any consideration Jiraiya might give it is derailed more by the flashing memory of Naruto’s transformation jutsu, the sudden way he’d shifted to be himself while Jiraiya’s mind was still on the fast track of naked naked woman skin blue eyes. It can’t be helped that his brain couldn’t keep up with the change and his thoughts barreled right into naked Naruto skin young blue eyes mouth lovely.

Jiraiya squashes the messy thoughts as best as possible, the helpless, familiar stirring he feels in his body as he pushes open the door to the cabin.

It’s quiet inside, dark with the fading sunset. The sky has bled more purple than orange, and there is no fire lit in the stove like they often keep.

He scoffs when he sees the lump of Naruto in his bedroll. Not even his hair peeks out the top; he’s entirely cocooned.  “You left training early.”

“Not like you were training me.” Naruto’s reply is snappish, muffled by his covers and the fact that he has his back to Jiraiya.

“You can’t expect me to believe you were actually upset by that.”

Naruto scrambles into a sitting position, and with the bedroll bunched around his waist, it gives the illusion that he’s naked. A lot of skin, rumpled hair, hot outrage burning behind his blue eyes. He looks like a spurned lover. Jiraiya forces his eyes to remain on Naruto’s rather than wandering, keeping his wayward thought in as straight of a line as he can presently manage.

“What are we doing here, then?” Naruto demands. “You brought me all the way out here for training, right? So that I could practice my techniques in private, without hurting anyone or scaring anyone in Konoha? Because I needed more than they could give me, right?”

“Stop,” Jiraiya cuts in firmly. “You’re being childish. You know why we are here, and I am training you. You’ve made incredible progress in the past year.” He thinks complimenting the boy will soothe him, but no. Naruto seems to be hitting his stride, and Jiraiya doesn’t have the patience for it this night.

“Well, it’s not enough.” Naruto’s eyes are blazing, his hands making fists in the bedding at his knees.

“I leave you to your own devices in training most days,” Jiraiya argues, crossing his arms. It’s odd how bright Naruto’s hair is in the darkness of their cabin. He can’t believe he never noticed before. “Don’t tell me you got all bothered by a kiss.”

Naruto’s blush is obvious, even in the poor light.

“Is that what it was?” he asks, incredulously. “Seeing a little kiss made you feel things? Does your growing body confuse you, Na-ru-to?” Jiraiya draws out his student’s name, mocking, and Naruto throws his pillow at Jiraiya with force, making him laugh.

“Shut up,” Naruto hisses. “That was not a ‘little kiss.’”

No, it wasn’t, Jiraiya thinks. He’d only caught the beginning of what that tryst had become, but he wonders vaguely if they were still out there, fucking under the stars. He makes a little note in the back of his mind for the imagery.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” Jiraiya says, knowing that Naruto is.

“I’m not,” he replies stubbornly, “and I’m not confused! I know what kissing is.”

He looks so cross, Jiraiya has to bite back more laughter. “I bet you haven’t even had your first kiss.”

“I have,” Naruto insists, then his frown deepens. “But I don’t think it counted.”

“What, was it with one of the toads? That’s abusing your contract, Naruto.”

He sputters, indignant once again. “NO, it WASN’T.” And then he mumbles something so unintelligible it feels like Jiraiya’s eyes are crossing with the strain to hear him.

“The hell did you say?”

Naruto glances at him, glances away. “I said it was with a boy.”

Unfazed, Jiraiya says, “still counts.”

“It was an accident!”

“Did your lips fall onto his or something?”

“YES,” Naruto cries out despairingly, and for a moment, the wounded look on his face is so real, so visceral, that all levity leaves Jiraiya in a rush.

No longer joking, he asks, “Did you enjoy it?”

“Why are you asking, pervert?” Naruto spits, but Jiraiya does not take offense. He can see that this is a sensitive topic.

“Genuine question, Naruto.”

He takes a long moment to answer, and when he does, it is accompanied by a half-hearted shrug. “I dunno. It wasn’t what I expected.” Naruto draws his knees up and circles his arms around them in an embrace, like he’s trying to hide himself from view.

“D’ya do it more than once?”

“Yeah, but. Those were accidents too.”

Jiraiya’s brow wrinkles. “The same boy?” Naruto nods. “How many times did you kiss this boy ‘on accident’?” He gets a snippy look for the question, but Naruto speaks his answer to his knees.

“Three.”

“Definitely counts, then.”

“I don’t think it does.”

“Who was it?”

Naruto pauses, like divulging this information would be paramount to the secrets of their village, before he whispers, “Sasuke.”

Well, Jiraiya thinks. That makes all sorts of sense. But it doesn’t explain this evening.

“I thought you were interested in Sakura,” he says.

“I was! I am,” Naruto insists, though he sounds less sure.

“Why do you like her?”

At first, Naruto seems confused by the question, and then he chews at his lip, pondering. “Well, she’s pretty. I like her hair, and how far she’s willing to go to protect her friends. Plus, she’s really strong.” Naruto gets this dreamy look on his face. “With all that training from Granny-Tsunade, I bet she could put me through a wall now, you know?”

Jiraiya can’t help but laugh, leaning over to rest his elbows on his knees before he pushes up to stand. “That’s all? That’s your criteria? Nice hair, loyalty, and can beat you up? You must be in love with half of Konoha at this point.”

“Am not,” Naruto grumbles, but he seems to have lost the strange awkwardness clinging to his tight shoulders a few minutes ago.

“No wonder you were kissing Sasuke.” The tease has Naruto’s blush climbing right back up his cheeks, staining his throat with pink in the moonlight. Jiraiya meanders over to his bedroll and begins removing his layers, keeping half an eye on Naruto’s embarrassed slouch. “Pretty hair, strong… How many times has he beat you?”

“That’s not—” Naruto sounds outraged, but he cuts himself off, turns away quickly when Jiraiya lets his vest fall to his elbows. He folds it and removes his red, long-sleeved shirt. With how hot the midday is growing, he may decide to go without it for a while and live in his simple mesh undershirt. He peels out of that too, and folds it before donning his robe, rolling his eyes at the messy pile of Naruto’s mismatch of new and old clothes. When he climbs into his bedroll, Naruto speaks again, softer, like he had when he’d revealed who his first kiss was.

“That’s not what that is. Boys don’t do that.”

Jiraiya drags his long hair out from behind his shoulders, and pillows his hands beneath his head, staring at the wooden slats of the ceiling. “Girls do that. As you clearly saw earlier.”

The sound that comes from Naruto is a little strangled, like he wanted to say something and was swallowing it back down before it could come out. Jiraiya tilts his head to look at Naruto, who is still sitting, arms wrapped around his knees. The moonlight is spreading over his back like a pale blanket, highlighting the shadows of his shoulders, and Jiraiya trains his eyes on the ceiling once more. He sighs.

Since Naruto began his training as a ninja, so much has happened to him, to the village, to his friends. So many distractions. Not nearly enough time to learn who he was outside of being a ninja, outside of battle, of life and death. It’s not like it was for him as a young genin, then chunin, then jounin, figuring out who he wanted to be and what he liked alongside each other. He remembers sticky summer nights fooling around with Orochimaru, trailing after Tsunade hoping for a glance at her unclothed and suffering the consequences. Her retribution was never enough to smother his desire, and he’d beg for a kiss, a touch, just once, it doesn’t have to mean anything, knowing even then he was playing the long game.

In retrospect, he can see that her annoyance with him was highlighted by her desire, but Tsunade was nothing if not strong willed, and every kunoichi or woman in the village combined couldn’t hold a candle to his longing for Tsunade. Orochimaru didn’t seem to mind being a secondary option as long as it ended in mutual orgasms; he’d always been self-serving like that.

It wasn’t like they’d engaged in much pillow talk, but really, it shouldn’t have been a surprise when everything crumbled after the war.

Jiraiya sucks his cheek in between his teeth and bites down hard, dispelling the memories and focusing on Naruto.

“It’s okay, you know,” he says, in a rare moment of obvious affection. “Girls do that all the time. Boys do too. Kiss whoever you want—boy, girl, toad.”

Naruto turns his face toward Jiraiya, and behind the curve of his bicep, one intense blue eye and the corner of his smile is visible. In that moment, he looks painfully beautiful, and Jiraiya feels a snap in his chest like a bow strung taut and released. He purposefully turns over, tucking a folded elbow beneath his head, his breath a controlled exhale.

“Get some sleep,” he orders, gruff once more. “You’re back at it again tomorrow.”

He hears Naruto shuffle back down into his bedding, but the boy says nothing further, and Jiraiya mercilessly squashes every rapidly sprouting desire to turn and look at him one more time.

#

Naruto is strangely quiet following their conversation. Suspiciously respectful. He spends all day outside training, splitting his time between meditating on the hill or retreating further into the copse of trees for his more destructive work. He seems to be focusing on the latter, but Jiraiya knows that Naruto is frustrated by his lack of true progress.

He'd seemed to grasp well their conversation about the shape and flow of energy. He’s already experienced how necessary it was to manipulate the flow to form the Rasengan. Still, he was nothing if not determined, and Jiraiya admires the time and effort he put into his new techniques. He’s still neglecting the toads, but Jiraiya supposes he can forgive the transgression.

Naruto’s silence and focus transcends a single day, and several pass in his quiet fortitude without much conversation, or banter, or input from Jiraiya on his training. Jiraiya doesn’t think he’s still sore about his distractions with the couple from the other day, but who knows where Naruto’s mind is on that? He’s a teenager, and thus prone to unexplainable, unfounded thoughts and actions.

All this to say that it isn’t unusual for him to awaken one morning on his side, facing Naruto’s empty bedroll. What is unusual is for Jiraiya to hear the shuffling of paper on the other side of the room where there should be total silence.

He sits up straight, withdrawing a kunai from under his pillow in the same movement, and his fingers are primed to throw when he recognizes Naruto at the table.

Naruto looks at him, unconcerned with the threat to his person. “Jumpy?”

Jiraiya twirls the kunai around a relaxed fingertip. “You nearly died this morning.”

Naruto scoffs in reply, flips a page. Jiraiya’s brain catches onto Naruto’s movements, the subtle shifting of his eyes as he reads. He’s got a leg propped up on the bench he’s sitting on, toes curling around the edge of the wood. Fine-boned, Jiraiya thinks, then ruthlessly turns his mind elsewhere. Back to the pages that Naruto is flipping through—his latest rendition of the new Icha Icha Makeout Paradise manuscript.

“Find something interesting?”

“Hardly.” Naruto looks over at Jiraiya, brows drawn together in a delicate furrow. “People read this?”

“We’ve been over this Naruto: Yes, they do. I’m extremely popular.”

Naruto sticks his tongue out at Jiraiya. “But it’s boring.”

Jiraiya makes an offended noise and crawls out of his bedding. “It is not boring!”

Naruto flutters the pages in his hands. “I’ve read this, like, ten times and nothing interesting is happening yet.”

Jiraiya waves a hand at him, dismissive, and shakes out his pants from the floor. He slips into them and drops his robe before he joins Naruto at the table. He snatches the pages from Naruto’s hands and skims them to see which part he’s reading. Then, he tosses the pages back down upon the table. “That’s because you’re reading the beginning, idiot. I have to give build-up—get the readers excited for what happens next.”

Naruto swipes a finger across the tops of the pages, fanning them out. “Can’t be that exciting.”

“Read chapter seven,” Jiraiya says, and Naruto’s eyes catch on his. He winks, keeps his eyes hooded after. “You might find it enlightening.”

Naruto’s face is still tipped down towards the table, but he looks up at Jiraiya at an angle. It’s no different than any other time he’s given Jiraiya an intentionally obtuse glance to rile him up—one of their many games—but it’s the first time that Jiraiya wants to drag him across the surface of the table and right into his lap.

He feels the temptation like a slap to the face, sharp and startling. To remove it from the realm of possibility, Jiraiya stands, and Naruto follows the movement with his eyes. The boy’s gaze travels up his naked chest and right back to his face, lingering on his cheeks before locking on his eyes once more, and Jiraiya feels every scrutiny like a nail scratching on his skin.

“Okay,” Naruto says. Jiraiya has momentarily forgotten what he’s agreeing to.

“But if it’s not any good, I’ll just have to rewrite it for you.” His smile thins, has a sassy little twist at the corner. “That worked out pretty well last time.”

“That was a mistake,” Jiraiya hisses. “You’re lucky my actual publisher didn’t see your incredibly rough draft.”

Naruto laughs and slinks out from his seat at the table. “Today’s the day, right?”

The abrupt change of topic has Jiraiya blinking, tilting his head in confusion.

“My clothes. They’re ready today. Can we go get them?”

Jiraiya runs his hand through his hair. “In a bit. They don’t open until midday, remember?”

Naruto sighs. “Fine. I’ll go meditate or something.”

“No training this morning?”

Naruto rotates his shoulder. “Not this morning. I think I overdid it last night. My arm is a little sore.” He bends, tries to shimmy out of his sleep shirt, and makes an annoyed sound when he finds no progress. “Help me?” He points his gaze in Jiraiya’s direction, and this is not good. But he’s assisted Naruto so many times with similar situations it would be weird for him to deny the request now. So, Jiraiya steps forward unwisely, and snags the hem of Naruto’s shirt under his fingers.

He slides it up the boy’s back, and sunlight pours over his skin in increments, drenching him in gold. Jiraiya aches to taste it with such ferocity that his mouth waters. Shirt off, Naruto reaches for one of his new mesh undershirts, offers it to Jiraiya without a secondary request for assistance. He turns his face to the floor, still in his bent position with his arms extended as much as they can without straining his sore shoulder, so he misses Jiraiya’s pained grimace. Every knob of his spine is an invitation, but dressing Naruto is far less enticing than undressing him, and the deed is done quickly.

Naruto breathes his thanks, and Jiraiya turns away with a grunt, pulls on his own shirt, his vest, his outer-robe. He takes his time, distracting his mind from the boy on the other side of the room. He’s a Sage, dammit. He has control of himself. He’s fine. He’s also severely grateful when Naruto exits the house without another word, and leaves Jiraiya alone with his lies.

Jiraiya settles himself as much as he can, focusing every particle of thought on each mundane task as he finishes his morning routine. He doesn’t think he’s ruminated so hard on brushing his teeth in his entire life, but at this point, he’ll take what he can get. It’s absurd how fast he got to this point of grasping at straws for sanity around Naruto. His appetite was whet with nothing but imagination and a childish jutsu, and already he acts as a starving man. Every third thought is wondering if Naruto is still meditating, if the heat has gotten to him yet.

Has he removed his shirt already? Will Jiraiya catch him in the act if he peeks out the window? He’s seen Naruto take off his clothes a hundred times, but now it would be viewed through a lens of desire. How might his movements translate, his body be presented, with this new change? Would he struggle through the movements alone, or would he call upon Jiraiya to help again? Removing Naruto’s clothes in the light of day would be incredibly illicit, even for such an innocent reason as “I got a little too hot,” but there’s nothing for it. All kinds of tasty doors are opening, and Jiraiya cannot help the way his mouth salivates. The flood of moisture is involuntary, and Jiraiya slams himself down at the table in harsh rejection of his trail of thought.

Naruto is his pupil, he tells himself viciously, and he tries to follow that good example by meditating right there. Anything, to calm his racing heart or the desire that pools low and insistent in his groin. The meditation may be as paltry as resting his head upon the cool wood with closed eyes and counting his breaths, but it counts. He’s giving himself that allowance.

However, the slow breathing only serves to distract him for half an hour. Unwilling to go outside or check on Naruto in the slightest fashion until he must, Jiraiya focuses his attention on his manuscript.

As much as it pains him to say, the beginning is boring and difficult to get through. The dialogue drags. Nothing seems to happen until it does all at once, and the secondary characters are somehow more intriguing than his main couple, which just won’t do.

Jiraiya scowls, separates the first ten pages from the rest of the manuscript, and pulls ten fresh sheets from the satchel he keeps propped against the leg of the bench. Several hours pass as he rewrites, replots, tightens character dialogue and makes notes on his main characters, trying to find ways to make them more engaging while keeping them sexy. The inspiration from a few nights back helps, and he’s feeling much happier about his latest draft when a shadow falls over his work.

He’d been so absorbed he hadn’t even heard Naruto come in. Unthinking, Jiraiya jerks back, inhaling deeply, and gets a strong whiff of boy, outside, sweat, sunshine. It’s a heady combination for his unfortunately fragile state.

“Are you ready?” Naruto asks, impatient. His neck is glistening with perspiration, and Jiraiya wants to lick it all up.

He shoves himself back from the table, heading for his shoes, and leaves the action as his answer.

Blessedly, Naruto fills the walk into town with idle chatter that requires little more than hmms and appropriate nodding when the boy pauses to take a breath. Alas, with Jiraiya so disengaged from the conversation, it is inevitable that his own mind wanders. And so do his treacherous eyes. Naruto has a particular skip in his step that puts him a little in front of Jiraiya, and as the sage can’t actually walk blindly into town, it leaves him watching Naruto.

Jiraiya has always prided himself on his observational skills. It has saved his life and the lives of others on many occasions, but it also comes in handy with his writing. He catches the tiny details, the trivial things that make a person human, and transposes them onto a page for the reading pleasure of others. That those details are usually sensual in nature is unimportant, but it is presenting a problem when he’s looking at Naruto and cataloging every movement as something erotic.

The way his hipbones move as he bounces down the dusty road; the forced bit of pudge at his waistband as his pants cut into him, something soft looking that Jiraiya wants to bite; Naruto’s shoulders veiled by the mesh shirt. The material fits him properly now, but the breadth of him has been revealed, and now it’s all that Jiraiya can see. He imagines his hands curling over Naruto’s shoulder in friendly encouragement, fingers threaded through the bright hair in shared joy of an accomplishment. Or perhaps, he is remembering. It’s not as though he’s never touched Naruto in that way, but his mind is playing tricks on him. Every bit of innocence now seems stained with eroticism. Ever since that evening on the hill, Jiraiya cannot imagine his closeness with Naruto in any way that does not now involve teeth, and tongue, sweat and desperation and saliva, the sweet taste of Naruto’s virginity being stripped away from him along with the ill-fitting clothes he wears.

What a fucking thought. Guilt curdles in Jiraiya’s stomach, but the walk into town is short, and now that they are coming to the shop, he’s glad he can be properly distracted from such unsavory things.

A bell tinkles above them as they enter, and the tailor—a man whose name Jiraiya is struggling to remember at present—looks up from where he’d been standing at his desk.

“Ah, yes,” he says, and comes around the other side to greet them. “I have your order in the back. Please come with me,” he gestures to Naruto. “I’ll have you try the items on, and we can adjust where necessary.”

“I thought we did all this last time,” Naruto grumbles. Jiraiya nudges him lightly, pushing him forward into following the tailor. Naruto looks back at him over his shoulder with a tiny pout.

“Be a good boy,” Jiraiya chides, and Naruto’s eyes widen like saucers before he whips his head back around and disappears behind a curtained-off section with the tailor.

That…might have been the wrong thing to say, Jiraiya admits to himself. He’s plagued by the thought of that phrase, and no amount of pinching the tender inside of his wrist can untangle him from the thought of calling Naruto a good boy under entirely different circumstances.

The tailor returns alone and silently goes behind his desk, fitting his wrist with an elastic that held a thick, round ball of fabric stuck with several pins. It takes very little time for Naruto to return through the parted curtains. The tailor leads him back to the dreaded platform and has him perform a series of movements: Squats, stretches of his arms, twisting around. To Jiraiya’s eye, nothing looks like it needs to be adjusted, and the tailor seems to agree, nodding with satisfaction as Naruto performs as requested.

“Put these on,” the tailor orders, handing Naruto a box. Inside are his new sandals, and Naruto’s face lights up as he uses the nearby chair to slip them on.

“Comfortable?” Jiraiya asks as he watches Naruto wiggle his toes.

“They’re not hanging off!” He grins. “Little stiff, though.”

“The fabric will soften as you break them in,” the tailor reminds him, and goes back behind the curtain with a rushed one moment please as he leaves them alone.

Jiraiya approaches Naruto on the platform as he stands again, hops a little in his new footwear. “Looks good,” he says, low and approving. Naruto aims his grin at Jiraiya, and he stamps down hard on the desire to tuck Naruto under his arm like the mail and book it back to their cabin. His self-control is hanging by a thread, which he tells himself is the only reason he crowds himself against Naruto’s back as the boy examines himself in the mirror.

“You changed the colors,” Naruto accuses softly.

Helplessly, stupidly, Jiraiya lifts his hand to run a fingertip from the cinched neck of Naruto’s jacket, down his shoulder and across the spiral taken from his old outfit. He follows the stitching, black fabric ending abruptly and giving way to the orange Naruto seems to favor.

Beneath his hand, Naruto is statue-still, but when Jiraiya meets his gaze in the mirror, the boy is blushing. Jiraiya takes his hand away, not lost enough to touch lower where Naruto’s tactical pants hug his thighs, bisected in black and orange.

“No one will know who you are without the orange,” Jiraiya explains himself. When selecting it, he’d opted for a deeper shade, more pumpkin than citrus. “Besides,” he leans down slightly to murmur into Naruto’s ear, “it suits the fox in you.”

It’s almost as if he can feel the heat radiating from Naruto’s cheeks without having to see the blush has worsened. Jiraiya has a brief fantasy of pressing their faces together, cheek to whisker-scarred cheek to feel it for himself, but he hears the tailor returning. For such a small fellow, he’s incredibly loud.

Small mercies, Jiraiya thinks as he steps back, putting a more reasonable distance between himself and Naruto once more before the tailor emerges from the back with a final package.

“The final item from your order, sirs.” The box he presents is long and narrow, and when he lifts the lid, the inside is shimmering with a creamy, silken fabric. On top of it sits a black strip with a thin, silver block of metal with the hidden leaf symbol stamped in the middle. “Blade resistant, as requested.”

Naruto withdraws the fabric excitedly, lets the long tails slide through the v of his fingers.

“They can be trimmed if you prefer a shorter band,” the tailor offers, but Naruto is already sliding off his old blue headband and passing it to Jiraiya. He ties the new hitai-ate around his forehead, adjusting the metal plate with a grin.

“No, I kind of like it long.”

Ensemble complete, Naruto does a quick little spin, arms stretched out. “Well?”

Jiraiya looks him up and down, dragging his gaze from the black sandals to the strip of skin between them and the hem of his fitted, cropped pants, all the way up to the jacket slouching slightly on his shoulders. It isn’t zipped all the way, and the mesh shirt is a good look underneath, especially with the bright blue crystal of Tsunade’s necklace sitting on Naruto’s chest. The long tails of his village headband tie it all together, but what Jiraiya finds most striking are Naruto’s blue eyes. They are alight with pleasure, a happy gleam to them that suits his flush at being so intensely observed. And then the flush deepens, the look in his eye shifting to something else as that observation is turned back on Jiraiya.

He watches Naruto’s gaze flicker from eye to eye, dropping a little and then darting right back up.

Was he looking at my mouth?

From the way Naruto bites at his lip and abruptly turns around to view himself in the mirror, Jiraiya thinks he was right. Naruto looks back up at Jiraiya’s reflection and then tears his gaze away immediately.

Belatedly, stuck on the growing realization of what is unfurling in Naruto’s embarrassed glances, Jiraiya answers Naruto’s question. “You look all grown up,” he says. Then, to the tailor, “lovely work.”

“Yes sir,” The tailor nods, without an ounce of ego.

“What do I do with my old clothes?” Naruto asks with a hint of shyness in his voice. He’s looking pointedly at the floor.

“You can leave them here. I will dispose of them properly.” The tailor heads behind his desk and withdraws a card. The text on it is tiny and cramped. “I’m sure you’re aware of all this already, but here is a care sheet for the fabric to ensure its longevity. Blood, grass, dirt, other unsavory stains.”

He probably means nothing by it—ninjas have hard, sometimes disgusting work in store for them, but they are the wrong words to say to Jiraiya when his mind is in such a fragile state, and it’s obviously the wrong thing to say in earshot of Naruto. A strangled noise comes from behind him, and Jiraiya doesn’t dare turn around as he takes the little card and thanks the tailor.

“I’m headed home,” Naruto says in a rush, grabbing the things he’d removed from his pockets before he tried on his new clothes. “Gotta train.”

“Meet you there,” Jiraiya says a little absently, hoping that the exchange feels sounds normal to an outsider.

There’s a little tinkling of kunai as Naruto tucks his weapons away, and Jiraiya only turns to look at him when he hears a thud, and then a squawk of annoyance.

Naruto is holding onto the wooden frame of the open door, scowling at it as if it personally offended him by colliding with his shoulder, rather than the other way round. Halfway out the door and the sun on his back, Naruto glances at Jiraiya as if hoping to see the man hasn’t turned towards him. No such luck, unfortunately.

The blush on Naruto’s face is wild, red all the way down his neck like a sunburn. It disappears beneath the collar of his mesh shirt, and Jiraiya wants to rip Naruto’s new clothes apart just to see how far down it goes. Naruto’s gaze drops again, falling back to Jiraiya’s mouth, and then lower. Low enough that his chin dips.

Fuck, Jiraiya thinks, electric current zipping up his spine, and it hits him again all at once. Naruto is… interested in me?

Naruto’s gaze snaps right back up, staring at Jiraiya with a complicated expression he has a difficult time unraveling. Leaning up against the counter with a single elbow, body tilted towards Naruto and his ankles crossed as he holds the little card, Jiraiya holds the boy’s stare until Naruto breaks, bolting out of the doorway and taking off down the dusty road at a sprint.

It was damningly like his abrupt departure after seeing those women kiss the other day. Same heavy flush, same instant retreat, and shit—it’s no longer a question. Naruto is interested in him.

Jiraiya turns back to the tailor, waiting with imminent patience for Jiraiya to say something or leave. Jiraiya taps the edge of the thick cardstock upon the counter, gives his thanks once again, and strides out with the utmost of casualty.

Jiraiya isn’t beyond admitting his faults. He knows he’s not perfect. He’s not the smartest, he doesn’t always think things through, and his impulsiveness has gotten him in more than one less-than-delightful confrontation. He knows he could be more attentive and be a better sensei—a mentor that Naruto deserves. He’s not so egotistical that, when it matters, he can’t say when he’s fucked up.

And he knows he’s fucked up.

Jiraiya tries to rationalize it in his mind, provide context for his own skipping thoughts as he makes his way down that same dusty path towards the bridge, hands in his pockets and feet dragging with thoughtful reluctance.

Naruto sees two women kissing passionately. It reminds him of his own paltry experience with kissing, and those circumstances occurred with a boy. A boy with whom he shares a complicated and intense emotional history. Following a meager conversation about what is okay and natural, he spends several days examining his own sexuality, unusually quiet and reserved as he contemplates what this means for himself, without a result that Jiraiya can see for certain. A result has certainly been reached, though, as Naruto recently returned to himself, full of sass and impertinence, but with a peculiar twist.

He's reading erotic literature—not for the first time, but perhaps the first time really absorbing what it means. He’s a little more tactile, a little less inclined to respect personal space. There’s a fresh look in his eyes, a new flush to his skin, and all of it is directed at the only viable option: His older, stronger mentor, the writer of said erotic literature.

They’ve been together for nearly two years, living out of each other’s back pockets, training, eating, working, sleeping not five feet away from one another. It makes sense that Naruto would latch onto Jiraiya as an object for his newly awakened desires, and it can be corrected. This won’t be entertained. Naruto will get over his little crush eventually.

What Jiraiya should do is properly give the boy his space to figure this out. Encourage Naruto to experiment, if he wants to, with some of the village girls. Or boys. Learn what he likes, what he wants, so that when they inevitably return to Konoha, and all this business with the Akatsuki is swept under the rug and Naruto is safe once more, he can get involved in something more serious. With someone his own age. To Jiraiya’s mind, this is a most important modifier.

What Jiraiya should not do is nurture Naruto’s fumbling flirtations with play in return, like he had that morning in the cabin. He should not indulge in thoughts of following Naruto’s full-body blush with his mouth, like he did at the tailor’s, nor should he imagine what Naruto would do if Jiraiya took the zipper of his brand-new jacket and slowly brought it down. Separated the teeth until it could be pushed from Naruto’s shoulders. He should not consider what kind of noise would leave Naruto, at what volume and pitch.

Would it sound anything like what came out of him when the threat of Jiraiya falling down the cliff was upon them, and he’d gripped Naruto’s female arm? That involuntary, shocked breath? What other kinds of noises live in Naruto’s throat, and how easily would they be coaxed free?

He can’t seem to stop the racing train of his thoughts, and his body reacts, as it always does when he dwells on anything in the periphery of sex. An almost clinical realization smacks him in the face that he’s blatantly thinking about sex with his young student, and where shame should be born instead rises a murky thrill. He really is what Naruto accuses him of, Jiraiya contemplates. He’s a nasty, perverted, old man, and he’s lusting after the student in his charge, the son of his own pupil—a pseudo grand-child if you wanted to get particular about it.

Even if Jiraiya didn’t mind admitting to the familial nature of his and Naruto’s relationship, which he did, Naruto was still a literal child, though no ninja is really ever much of one. They don’t have the luxury of childhood, and Naruto and his peers aren’t omitted from that. In fact, their circumstances of growing up with the shadow of the Akatsuki falling over the Land of Fire might make them even more susceptible to rapid maturation in the name of self-preservation.

Naruto has faced worse than others by nature of being a jinchūriki. And despite holding tightly to facets of immaturity like a middle finger snubbed at the whole of society, Jiraiya knows that little about Naruto is still child-like.

He catches himself like a fish on a hook, realizing with an abruptness that has him stopping in the middle of the path that he is trying to justify to himself it wouldn’t be so bad to give in to what Naruto seems to want. What is becoming increasingly clear Jiraiya, himself, wants. Maybe it wouldn’t ruin Naruto for him to indulge in the lovely, lithe body of his young student. Maybe he could push the threadbare line of his morality back just a little bit.

But what kind of person would that make him, if he were to do so? What kind of ninja would he be? And would any of that really matter if Naruto was the one pursuing? Without prompting, without grooming, nothing but his own curiosity fueling the fever-dreams of his teenage mind. Where would the responsibility lie?

It is far too philosophical a question for him, especially for this early in the afternoon. He hasn’t even had lunch yet, and he’s contemplating the moralistic quandary of fucking or not fucking his student. Jiraiya sighs, tired already, and takes up walking again.

Resolved not to think of this anymore, he occupies his mind with the mundane, audibly calling out strange rocks he notices, wildlife, inappropriate shapes of the clouds above. That one hits a little too close to home when he’s sure that he sees a dick in the cumulus formations, and his thoughts barrel right back to Naruto and skin and under him, and Jiraiya firmly points his gaze ahead where the cabin is a slowly growing pinprick of wood.

By the time he pushes open the front door, his erection has mostly died, and he hopes to be brained by the next perfectly lopsided rock he sees. Naruto is seated at the table once more, and a quick scan of the room identifies the delicious smell that meets his nose. It draws him over to the stove, heat waves rising as he investigates the lovely aroma.

“Got lunch cooking,” Naruto mumbles absently, and Jiraiya voices his thanks. “It’s just fish and rice.”

It was nice of him to get it started since he was the first one back, but it does leave Jiraiya without anything to do with his hands, which is unfortunate, because he wants to put them right onto Naruto. Deep in his hair, tugging it back to look up at him from below. Dig fingers into the give of Naruto’s muscles, listen to his surprised moan as he gets the kinks out.

He might be the weakest ninja he knows. He can’t seem to take his mind of Naruto for three fucking seconds.

With nothing to do, and no real reason to head back outside, he forces himself to cross around the table and sit opposite Naruto, but the boy doesn’t even look up. Naruto is, once again, entirely engrossed in Jiraiya’s manuscript. And judging by the sheets neatly stacked to his right, Naruto is reading about halfway through the manuscript. Jiraiya’s teasing suggestion from that morning catches up to him, and he realizes that Naruto is probably right in the middle of chapter seven.

Shit, Jiraiya thinks. He wonders how he can get the book out of Naruto’s hands without looking like an absolute fool. The last thing he needs is Naruto getting any ideas from the sex scene in that chapter. He was an idiot to have even suggested it that morning. Jiraiya knows exactly what he wrote, and exactly how explicit he got, and he knew that it would be no stretch—for even the paltriest of imaginations—for Naruto’s thoughts to go running wild.

Naruto slides his gaze to his teacher, expression calm and steady with a blush spotting his cheeks.

Definitely chapter seven, Jiraiya thinks. Uncomfortable with the knowledge, the only course of action he can think of is unwise at best. He sneers a little, winks in Naruto’s direction, and watches the way his tan fingers flex on the loose pages.

Naruto drops his gaze back to the manuscript. “You know,” he says thoughtfully, “enlightening is not the word I would use here.”

Change the subject, Jiraiya commands himself. Do not engage. And promptly ignores his conscience. “And what word would you use?”

“Unrealistic.”

Jiraiya scoffs. Naruto peers up at him critically.

“You expect your readers to believe she can fit—” he falters, heat pinking his cheeks, but soldiers on bravely in light of his embarrassment, “—that in her mouth without choking?”

“Spoken like someone who’s never given a blowjob.” Close. Mouth. NOW.

Naruto’s fingers flex on the pages again, then he shrugs. “I don’t think I need to give one to know this is not,” he waves a free hand in the air, as if dispelling the idea itself, “sexy.”

“It is.” Jiraiya’s chest is going to burst right open, he’s sure of it. “Take it from me.”

Naruto stares at the pages like he’s reconsidering. It doesn’t even seem like Naruto is aware there are gestures accompanying his thoughts, but the way he gently touches his own jaw, opens and rotates the joint, makes it clear that he is imagining the effort. The discomfort. Picturing himself on the giving end, which shoots uncomfortable, delicious tingles through Jiraiya’s body. He can picture it too, with hardly any effort at all. The image is conjured up with the bleached edges of a memory he hasn’t had yet.

“What if it hurts?” Naruto asks, a damning question.

How is he even supposed to respond to that? He’s in the thick of it now—no opportunity to gracefully bow out, admit defeat, retreat to town without dinner or his bedroll or any damn sense left in his head.

One foot in hell, Jiraiya answers. “Sometimes pain is sexy.”

Naruto’s gaze flicks to his, blush deepening from pink to red before he lowers his eyes again. Bites his own lip again.

Fuck. Diving headfirst, am I?

Abruptly, Naruto stands from the table. “I think I’m gonna go. Train. Or meditate. Clear my head.”

“You don’t want food?” Unusual, for Naruto, but perhaps not so much considering their conversation.

Naruto shakes his head. “I’ll eat later. Maybe grab something from the fruit trees outside.”

Relief fills Jiraiya at the safe topic of training. “Keep thinking about your Rasengan. You know the solution; it’ll be up to you whether you work it out or not.”

“It’s up to me, huh?”

Jiraiya keeps his eyes on the table, fanning out the manuscript Naruto abandoned and glancing at the pages. “If you want it bad enough, you’ll find a way.”

Naruto says nothing more. Jiraiya watches him leave from his periphery, listens to the door close softly behind him, and Jiraiya all but collapses onto the bench. It feels like he’s gone six rounds with Sarutobi. His head is pounding, his blood is running wild through his veins, heartbeat felt in his throat, vision pulsing.

“Get it together,” he mutters to himself, running his fingers through his hair. He forces his breathing to slow, putting himself through the paces of the meditative techniques he’s been trying to teach Naruto, increasing the length of his inhales and exhales, and pausing in between. It makes him steadier, eases the tingling in his hands, the throbbing behind his eyes.

When he’s evened out to a solid 8-count inhale, 10-count exhale, the smell of the fish makes itself known once more, and Jiraiya hurries to the stove.

He withdraws the fish from the coals and rests the foil-wrapped package on a steel plate, slicing it open to cool. Steam emerges with the scent of whitefish, garlicky potatoes, and softened vegetables. When it stops looking like a volcano of smoke, Jiraiya transfers one of the fish inside with a portion of the potatoes and veggies and eats them as he continues to work on his manuscript. The fish is a little dry—his fault—but it still flakes nicely, and the evening passes.

He saves the other portion of food, but Naruto doesn’t return to the cabin, so Jiraiya packs it up for leftovers. He cleans the kitchen, returns to his manuscript. Talks with the toads, returns to his manuscript. Abandons, and then returns to the manuscript again.

Separating Naruto from his writing is getting harder. All he can think about is chapter seven, and the way Naruto touched his jaw thoughtfully. The small question of what if it hurts? As if Naruto was afraid of pain. As if Jiraiya didn’t see him push his body to its limits and revel in the exhaustive state it left him in. As if Naruto isn’t the first one to take a kunai for his friends in battle.

Afraid of pain? Never. Not Naruto.

But ‘not afraid of’ is not the same thing as actively liking it. And part of Jiraiya, a small, dark, slithering part of him, wants Naruto to like it very much.

“Stop,” he tells himself aloud, like it will be more effective than his silent, mental judgements. It isn’t.

Jiraiya’s imagination hops from image to conjured image, a flicker of wonderings in the negative like a roll of camera film, burned behind his retina in positive colors. Gold and blue and blush-pink, the purple indentation of teeth in wheat skin, the oxidized yellow of a healing bruise. A split lip cracked open again on a cherry-red laugh. Orange and black discards, the green sound of his eagerness, tender as the first shoots of spring. That impatient hunger with which he approaches his training—show me, teach me, give me everything you’ve got—the malleable gray of a pupil molded beneath the potter’s hands.

Jiraiya breathes through his nose, exhaling like a bull. It’s hopeless. He knows himself. It’s like Tsunade all over again. He wants, and he will not allow himself to act, and so he’ll chase, and hound, and throb with his wanting, and he won’t extend a fucking finger towards Naruto in anything other than mentorship, and they will be completely fine.

His head thunks down on the table, then abruptly comes back up at the cry from outside.

“Sensei!” Loud, frantic, repeated. “Sensei!”

Jiraiya pushes at the bench, vaults himself over the table, and races outside. He whips his head around, searching for Naruto. The boy breaks through the trees, waving his arms wildly, and Jiraiya runs towards him.

“What is it?” he demands, thinking the worst. Thinking the Akatsuki has come, descending upon them silent as an owl hunting its prey.

“I figured it out,” Naruto pants, hands on his knees. He turns his sweaty face up, grinning madly. “I did it. The Giant Rasengan—I did it!”

Adrenaline floods out of Jiraiya in a rush, only for his senses to dial back up in excitement. “Show me.”

Naruto takes off again, further into the trees with Jiraiya hot on his heels. When he finds a thick trunk unmarred by his previous training attempts, he stops and summons two Clones. He doesn’t explain the method, doesn’t bother with the details of how, just starts working at gathering his chakra into the palm of his hand while the Clones manipulate the energy.

It grows fast, power swelling from the size of an orange to a grapefruit, bigger and bigger, all the way up to something resembling the size of a beach ball, before one Clone poofs out of existence. Naruto bites his lip hard, sweating as he and the remaining Clone hold the heft of it, unlikely heavy—seeing as there is nothing in his hand—but weighed down all the same. And then, with a determined scrunch on their faces, together they shove the Giant Rasengan into the tree.

Jiraiya hadn’t known what to expect. The craters were a powerful display of his normal Rasengan, and he hadn’t forgotten the incident with the water tower, either, but somehow, Naruto obliterating the tree trunk was not on his list of expectations. A flurry of birds launches themselves from the falling tree, screeching their displeasure. The ground trembles as what remains of the trunk collapses gracelessly, and Naruto whips his head back around to Jiraiya, nearly bouncing on his feet with pleasure as his Clone disappears.

Throat tight, Jiraiya says, “Again. Do it one more time, so I know it’s not a fluke.”

Naruto scoffs. “It’s not a fluke.” But he summons another two Clones all the same. Another tree goes down, and Jiraiya sends a silent apology to the disturbed wildlife.

“See?” Naruto all but crows.

“How’d you fix the stability?”

“I was thinking about what you said, about the fox-spirit’s chakra. I really wanted to cheat and use it—” he hurries on at Jiraiya’s narrowed gaze— “but I didn’t! And then I started thinking about home and everybody, and how I don’t want to let them down, and I remembered Neji and Hinata. They block chakra, right? That’s what their clan does.”

Jiraiya nods.

“So I tried to picture that, chakra flooding out of me at all these different places,” Naruto touches his fingertips to his arms and chest, like playing some misshapen piano across his skin, “and wondered if I could decrease the amount of chakra leaking out of me here—” he indicated the point by pressing into his arm with a finger—“and increase it here.” He fanned out his hands, revealing pale palms.

“Redirecting the output of your energy,” Jiraiya reiterates, and Naruto bobs his head enthusiastically.

“Yeah, that. Which, I was already kind of doing by gathering my chakra into my palm, but this was a little more purposeful.”

“What next?”

“That’s where the second Clone came in. With my regular Rasengan, I need help shaping the flow of energy but I don’t need help to wield it; one Clone is good enough for that. But the bigger it gets, the harder it is to hold the shape together with just one, and the faster it collapses when I release him. I’ve been releasing them too early. So, I use two clones to help me shape it, and one to help me wield it.”

Jiraiya is, frankly, stunned.

“And in the future,” Naruto continues, “when I’m ready, I can use the fox-spirit’s chakra to make it even bigger. More powerful. And I won’t have to sacrifice the output of my own chakra to do it, because I’ll have better control. Right?”

Jiraiya still doesn’t like the idea of Naruto using the kyuubi’s energy to supplement his own, but there is little point in crippling Naruto in a fight by refusing him a weapon at his disposal. If he gets strong enough to control it, then he should be able to use it. “Right,” Jiraiya says. After a moment under Naruto’s expectant, fidgety gaze, Jiraiya gives him a huge grin, and a thumbs up right in his face.

“Nice work, Naruto.”

The boy grins, a joyful half laugh escaping him.

“This calls for celebration,” Jiraiya announces.

“Yeah?”

“Absolutely,” Jiraiya nods. “What do you want?” It’s not too late in the evening, and Jiraiya has a little bit of funds leftover from Naruto’s clothes. They could leave the fish for lunch tomorrow and treat themselves tonight.

“What can I have?”

“Anything.” Maybe Jiraiya can convince the onsen manager that last month was a misunderstanding. Naruto deserves a good, hot soak, and Jiraiya can be on his best behavior for one night. He can do that. And they can pick up ice-cream while they’re out—hit the trifecta of dinner, dessert, and relaxation. He muses through the idea out loud, thinking Naruto will jump at the chance, even promises to foot the bill, just like the clothes. No subterfuge, no peeking at the ladies on the other side of the onsen wall, he swears.

Naruto hums in consideration. He’s got a calculating, wild look in his eye that Jiraiya attributes mostly to the adrenaline of completing his modified technique, and then all of Jiraiya’s pitiful assumptions about their current interaction go up in flames when Naruto shakes his head. “No, not this time.”

He launches himself at Jiraiya.

Jiraiya slides a foot back slightly to brace for the impact and, instinctively, his arms come up to catch his pupil. Naruto curls his way around Jiraiya, presses their mouths together in an artless smash, and, instinctively, Jiraiya kisses back.

He moans, clutches Naruto tight to his chest, and spins them. He presses Naruto up against the closest tree with so much force that the tree groans in protest alongside the boy, though the noise Naruto makes is less aggrieved and more electrified. Jiraiya feels it sparking between them.

It’s all very wet, and sloppy, and painfully unpracticed, and it might be the most enticing kiss Jiraiya has had in years. Some rational part of Jiraiya rears up at the thought, and he rips himself away from Naruto’s soft, eager mouth.

“No, no, no,” Naruto mumbles, eyes still half closed in pleasure. “You said anything.”

“Not this,” Jiraiya grinds out through his teeth, desperately holding himself back. One taste. He could live with the one taste he had. He’d drown the flavor in as much sake as he could get his hands on, but he could survive on that one, frantic kiss.

“Anything,” Naruto says firmly, opening his eyes. Bright blue, devastating as a cloudless sky after a monsoon rain. “You said if I wanted it bad enough, I could have it.”

“I wasn’t talking about—” Jiraiya swallows— “I didn’t mean this.”

“Didn’t you?” Naruto’s gaze hardens in his irritation. “What has this entire week been, then?”

“A severe exercise in restraint,” Jiraiya responds dryly.

“You want me.” He says it quietly. It isn’t a question, and Jiraiya shakes his head. He lies, out loud, and Naruto only glares at him. He repeats himself, firm in his convictions. “You want me. And I want you, too.”

Naruto releases the death-grip on Jiraiya’s robe, unwilling to budge with his other hand, and he brings the free appendage to his own chest. Slowly, deliberately, he unzips the jacket. Jiraiya’s eyes track the movement like a hawk watching the subtle shift of grass, a meal disguised as the wind. Naruto shimmies against the tree, pushing up the mesh shirt with one hand and trapping it out of the way with his forearm.

No more pudge with pants that fit, Jiraiya notices. Naruto’s belly is flat, strong, appealing, flawless and young, and something in Jiraiya cracks. Delicate pottery shatters in the edges of his mind, and he feels himself desperately trying to sweep them back into his arms, keep the pieces in the place, but the shards are sharp and cutting, and Jiraiya cannot look away from Naruto’s hand as he flicks open the button of his pants. Unzips them.

“Stop,” Jiraiya asks. Begs? Is he above that, right now, with Naruto looking at him like this? He can’t look away as Naruto shifts his clothes. His boxers are dark green with little frog faces on them.

Someone needs to kill Jiraiya where he stands.

Naruto dips his hand down, inside, where all things are hidden. His boldness is disturbing, yet charming in a way that only Naruto could induce, and Jiraiya watches with a mouth full of sand as he sees Naruto make a fist, sees the flex of muscles above his wrist as he thrusts into his own grip.

Mercy, Jiraiya’s mind pleads. Touch him. Grant us mercy.

Jiraiya resists.

“Can’t you let me have this?” Naruto asks. His face is flushed in the moonlight. Jiraiya couldn’t have been able to pinpoint exactly when it got that late—there were his endless distractions in the cabin, Naruto’s panic-tinged excitement, and now this. It’s hard to discern time between the rapid events, but Naruto looks like a dream out here in the dark, in the pale light of the moon. It makes the blush stark on his skin.

“Can’t you give this to me? It’s what I want.” The more he speaks, the thinner his voice becomes, unspooling as he touches himself.

“As your reward?” Jiraiya asks, a little breathless himself, gaze locked on Naruto’s micro expressions, the way his lips part with a breath and his eyelashes flutter shut with pleasure.

“Don’t I—ah—deserve it?”

Jiraiya could have undergone torture and never broken, and this would have been worse. This is too much. He looks back down, the obvious movement of Naruto’s fist somehow safer than his unguarded face, but this too is a mistake. In his steady movement, Naruto’s boxers have caught beneath his knuckles, and Jiraiya sees the slick-shiny head of Naruto’s cock peek out from the curl of his fingers.

Like the tree Naruto had obliterated, the shards of Jiraiya’s good sense, the last threshold of his restraint, burst apart into a fine powder. He presses himself forward up against Naruto, restricting the movement of his hand.

“Hey—” Naruto complains but cuts himself off and shudders when Jiraiya’s hand joins his. “Oh, fuck.”

“Yes, you do,” Jiraiya pants. “You do deserve it.”

Naruto shifts his hand to push down his underwear, making space for Jiraiya’s larger fist. “Please,” he says, and Jiraiya shushes him. Strokes him steady and fast until Naruto is whimpering. It’s barely a few tugs, and the boy is so responsive under his hands.

He tilts his head up like he wants a kiss, and Jiraiya brushes their noses together, delighting in the hot breath expelled over his face. Naruto squirms against the tree, against Jiraiya’s unyielding body, trying to jerk his hips up and increase the pace or urgency of Jiraiya’s fist, and Jiraiya denies him. With the way Naruto is panting, it isn’t going to be much longer until he spills in his palm. Like a premonition, another pearl of pre blurts out to slick the way, and Naruto whines.

Jiraiya noses his jaw aside, finds the scent that lingers behind Naruto’s ear where his hair is still damp with sweat. “Do you ever shut up?” he mumbles, and Naruto shakes his head violently.

“Shut me up,” he says, a bundle of trembling excitement, and Jiraiya gives in.

He kisses Naruto, guiding him away from the frantic into something smoother, something resembling a real kiss. He has so much to learn, Jiraiya thinks, and it’s a terrible, wonderful thought. When he wants to be, Naruto is an excellent student, and he clearly wants this. He would be so eager.

Jiraiya prods at the seam of Naruto’s lips with his tongue, and the boy opens for him immediately, easy as you please. Jiraiya groans at the permissions being given him, and moves his hand faster, corkscrews his grip at the damp head of Naruto’s cock. Immediately, Naruto breaks away from the kiss with the sharp turning of his head.

“That’s—” he pants but doesn’t continue his thought.

“Too much?” Jiraiya croons, doing the same motion again. Naruto scrabbles at Jiraiya’s chest, ineffectively pushing him away.

“Yes, I’ll—I’ll come—”

“Good,” Jiraiya murmurs, and he sinks to his knees. “I want you to.”

Without preamble, without preparing Naruto for the idea in more than his downward motion, Jiraiya slides his fist down and envelops Naruto’s cock with his mouth.

Naruto shouts, bends over, his belly pressed against Jiraiya’s head while he sucks mercilessly at the hot flesh. Naruto’s fingers are a vice on his shoulders, squeezing, releasing, squeezing. It would have hurt anyone else. Any normal person, anyone who wasn’t a ninja, wouldn’t have been able to endure his strength. Jiraiya had been mistaken earlier, when he thought he knew what Naruto needed. This was what he needed: The tutelage and care of his master, in all things.

Jiraiya shifts his hands to Naruto’s hips, holding him still, and swallows the boy down until his cock touches the back of his throat, and then he keeps pressing forward, bearing down on the pressure. When he swallows, Naruto screams and begins to come.

He pulls back, swallowing what went down his throat, and holding the rest upon his tongue.

Naruto is whimpering above him, visibly overwhelmed with the suddenness of his orgasm, cursing every third word and shaking like a blade of grass in the wind. He looks delightful. Jiraiya stands with an embarrassing crack of his knees, pushes Naruto’s shoulders until he’s postured at full height against the tree once more.

“What—?” Naruto questions, eyes glazed over and unfocused with the remnants of his pleasure. Jiraiya takes him by the jaw and kisses his mouth open again, feeding the boy his own come.

He jerks, startled by the texture, the flavor, but Jiraiya holds him fast and kisses him patiently, all but painting the liquid around Naruto’s mouth with the stroking of his tongue. After a moment more, Naruto melts into the rigid hand on his jaw, sucks what remains off Jiraiya’s tongue and then swallows. His eyes, having shut, blink back open as Jiraiya ends the kiss.

They are still pressed together, and Jiraiya softens his grip, slides his hand down from Naruto’s jaw to pet his throat, down his chest to his pants where he draws them up and tucks Naruto away. Zips and buttons him, then zips his jacket closed. He looks pristine, untouched except for the blush on his cheeks and the wild scattering of his hair. The swollen pink of his mouth.

The quiet between them feels strange. Bugs sing in the distance. The trees themselves seem to have forgotten their grievance at being felled, and leaves rustle peacefully above them. Naruto’s breath calms as they watch each other. It all feels new, raw, like the universe itself has been scrubbed with a wire brush.

“We should get back to the cabin,” Jiraiya says.

“Don’t think about it,” Naruto begs. “If you think about it, you’ll regret it.”

“Oh, we are well past that,” Jiraiya admits. He lets himself reach for Naruto, the fine damp hair behind his ear, and Naruto leans into the gentle touch.

“Promise me anyway.”

Jiraiya kisses him once more, soft, fleeting, barely a press of their lips together. “I promise.”

#

They walk in silence, Naruto trailing behind Jiraiya like a second shadow. The taste of him is still in Jiraiya’s mouth. His gums feel tacky, and he swallows repeatedly to dispel the texture.

He should not have done that, but it was too late now. As always, he’d have to live with his innumerable sins, this, chief among them.

It will never happen again, Jiraiya tells himself. Once, and that’s it. That’s all I get. He could endure that, surely. It was a little more than a kiss, a little more than that first, desperate connection between them, but it wasn’t something he couldn’t come back from. Something they couldn’t come back from. To keep the sanctity of their friendship, Jiraiya will hold himself back. To preserve Naruto as much as possible, keep him safe as much as he can, Jiraiya will bury the parts of himself that long to reach out again. He will squash the wanting, strangle the desire, hold silent vigil to keep the dreams at bay. It’s doable. Maybe not for someone less than a legendary Sanin, but it’s doable for him.

He repeats it in his mind over and over as they approach the cabin. One time, that’s it. We can survive this. It’s doable.

Inside, they remove their shoes, and Naruto closes the door behind him. Jiraiya goes to the kettle, turns on the stove and starts to heat the water. He does not look at his pupil, knowing that if he does, all he will see is Naruto pressed up against the tree, hand in his underwear and a plea on his lips.

“You’re thinking about it,” Naruto accuses softly from behind him. “You promised.”

“You can’t want this,” Jiraiya says to the kettle.

“Well, I do.”

“Why? Because you read a chapter in a book? Because we flirted a little and I got you off?” He raises his eyes to the ceiling, warm light from the stove flickering across the wood. “That’s nothing. No reason at all.”

“I don’t care.”

“I have a world of experience, and you have none. You don’t understand what this means.”

“Why does it have to mean anything?”

Jiraiya huffs. “Were you born stubborn?”

“Yes. I don’t let things go when they’re important to me.”

“This isn’t important to you. This is a passing interest, and it will pass.”

“Maybe,” Naruto allows. “But I still want it. You do too.”

“What I want doesn’t matter,” Jiraiya mutters. The kettle whistles, and he removes it from the stove, turns off the flame, but he doesn’t reach for cups or tea. The kettle sits hot and waiting on the table.

“Even if this was all your fault?”

Oh yes, Jiraiya thinks, resigned to the burden. Lay the blame at my feet. He’s strong enough for it. “Even then.”

“You and your stupid book,” Naruto says. His voice sounds closer, but Jiraiya dares not turn around. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“Poor you. Think of something else.” Jiraiya wants it to come out as an order, something firm and unyielding, but it holds the cadence of a prayer instead.

“I can’t stop thinking about what it would be like,” Naruto admits, and now, Jiraiya can sense his closeness. He radiates heat against Jiraiya’s back without even touching him. Jiraiya has nothing to hold on to. No tea to pour for, no table or chair to dig his fingers into. His arms hang stiff at his sides. There’s nothing he can do but wait for Naruto to touch him so he can throw the boy off, throw him halfway across the room if that is what it takes.

But when Naruto touches him, it is only to lean his forehead against the broad expanse of Jiraiya’s back. So innocent, and soft, like a child requesting a hug, but not knowing the words to ask for such a thing. An ache for connection in human form. It shreds every single one of Jiraiya’s remaining defenses to feel Naruto sigh against him like that.

Jiraiya’s not strong after all. He’s weak. There’s nothing he can do but turn around slowly, so slowly, trying not to disturb the gentle bend of Naruto’s neck as he keeps his head bowed in supplication.

“I have to know,” Naruto mumbles quietly.

When Jiraiya lifts his head with the crook of a finger, Naruto’s eyes struggle to settle on Jiraiya’s, darting down to his mouth and back up again. Jiraiya’s skin prickles.

“I thought you like Sakura,” Jiraiya repeats, an argument that seems eons old rather than days, a last-ditch effort to dissuade Naruto from the path he seems determined to walk.

“I have simple criteria, remember?” Naruto smiles. “Loyalty… someone who can hand my ass to me.” He reaches out tentatively, and Jiraiya instinctively snakes out his free hand to stop the touch, but once he grabs hold of Naruto’s wrist, he seems unable to do so and is only brought along for the ride. Naruto’s hand threads through his hair and Jiraiya’s grip softens, skating down Naruto’s arm with a gentle brush of his fingertips. “Your hair is so soft,” Naruto whispers, sounding wounded.

“Naruto,” Jiraiya breathes out. A final warning, perhaps, though his tone misses the mark by a fucking league, dipping dangerously into his own territory of longing.

“C’mon, Sensei,” Naruto teases, shuffling closer, met with no further resistance from his teacher. Jiraiya is frozen, poisoned into paralysis from the tension filling the cabin. “Isn’t it your job to teach me?”

Jiraiya clenches down on whatever part of Naruto his hand is on—his upper arm—and his fingers dig unforgivingly into the muscle there beneath his jacket.

“That hurts,” Naruto gasps, a glimmer of fear making his eyes shine in the dim light.

“Sometimes pain is sexy,” Jiraiya retorts, studying the fear, the excitement, the jumping pulse at Naruto’s neck. Enticed by it all. Drawn by it all. “Is that what you want to learn? Chapter Seven?”

“I want to do what you did,” Naruto responds breathlessly.

He can’t even say it, Jiraiya realizes, and he voices the thought just to be thrilled by Naruto’s embarrassment. “You can’t even say it.”

“So what?”

“So, I want to hear it.” Jiraiya leans in, grips Naruto’s chin to tilt him to the side so Jiraiya can whisper it in his ear. “Say it. Say you want my cock in your mouth.”

Naruto’s body jerks. His eyes clench shut. Jiraiya can feel the heat of shame against his own cheek, and it makes him rub against the boy’s scorching face like a cat. Cheek to whisker-scarred cheek, like he’d imagined in the tailor’s establishment. He slides the hand holding Naruto’s arm down, tangling their fingers together and guiding Naruto’s hand to Jiraiya’s pants. He’s hard beneath them, and he wants Naruto to feel the girth of him before he makes a verbal decision.

It's clear Naruto doesn’t know what to do. He gasps at the feel of Jiraiya’s arousal and does nothing for a moment but curl tentative fingers around him, use the pad of his thumb to map the length. Naruto swallows, an audible gulp so close to Jiraiya’s ears. He thinks, maybe, this will be enough. That the idea of Jiraiya in his mouth will seem monumental with the touch of him beneath Naruto’s hand. That it will deter him.

“I want your cock in my mouth,” Naruto whispers. His voice trembles not from nerves, Jiraiya can see, but from the strength of his desire. His eyes are nearly black with it, cerulean rings thin and twinkling around his pupils. “Please?”

This boy will be the death of me.

“Take me out,” Jiraiya says, a low rumble.

It’s nice, the way Naruto fumbles at his clothes, tugging at draw strings and sifting through layers. The blush on his cheeks, the determined set of his jaw, is also appealing. He pauses when the fabric has loosened, like he has to prepare himself to draw them down. Undoing is not the same as undressing.

A second more, and Jiraiya would have taken over the movements, or maybe stepped away out of Naruto’s reach, but Naruto exhales bravely and hooks his fingers on Jiraiya’s pants, his underclothes, pulls them down to let Jiraiya’s heavy cock free.

“Oh,” Naruto whispers, gazing at it with wide eyes.

Jiraiya presses on Naruto’s shoulders, encouraging him down with a soft, “go on.”

Naruto swallows, and he goes. He sinks to the floor of their cabin in a single, fluid movement, expression morphing into something Jiraiya often sees on Naruto’s face before he attempts to tackle a new jutsu technique.

He leans in, inhaling the musk of Jiraiya’s sweat and arousal, an action so blatantly erotic that Jiraiya clenches his hands into fists. He’s sure that Naruto doesn’t realize what he’s doing, moving on auto-pilot.

Naruto reaches up, takes Jiraiya in hand and arches his neck to press his lips to the side of Jiraiya’s cock where his fingers nearly touch.

Jiraiya exhales like a bull, letting Naruto explore slowly, carefully. The boy drags his lips to the leaking crown and opens his mouth to lick flat-tongued against the slit.

He thinks Naruto might want some direction, some instruction, but like in all else, he just goes for it. Naruto opens his mouth and takes Jiraiya into that wet heat. Jiraiya clenches his teeth so hard they grind together audibly.

Naruto flexes his tongue beneath the fat head, sucks lightly, pulls off, goes right back in to try and take more. As much as he can.

“Easy,” Jiraiya grunts. “Watch your teeth.”

Naruto nods a little, opens his mouth wider. His eyes are already watering at the strain, and Jiraiya hasn’t even touched the back of his throat yet. Carefully, Jiraiya curls his hands over Naruto’s ears, cradling his skull, enjoying the sensation of Naruto moving back and forth on his cock. It’s wet and loud as Naruto sucks, pulls off, licks at what he can’t get.

“You want it?” Jiraiya asks, struggling to keep his eyes on Naruto, the debauched vision of him on his knees, face red and eyes damp with tears.

“Want what?” Naruto asks, voice hoarse. He takes a break, rotating his jaw before tonguing at the underside of Jiraiya’s cock, slicking the way for his hand.

“Chapter seven.”

“Ah, fuck.” Naruto releases him fully, presses both palms to his own groin and holds them there ruthlessly as he clenches his eyes shut. “I don’t think I can.”

“You can,” Jiraiya assures him. “You just need a little help.”

Naruto swallows, opens his eyes to look up at Jiraiya briefly. Cautiously, he relaxes the pressure on himself and starts to stroke Jiraiya again, slowly, his eyes newly focused on the pull of Jiraiya’s flesh, the way he beads up at the eroticism of being watched. He licks the tip, suckles at it. Kisses it. “Yeah, okay,” he murmurs against the flesh.

“Open your mouth,” Jiraiya commands, pressing fingers into the back of Naruto’s skull, urging him forward. Forward, forward, until he struggles, until his tongue stiffens with reflexive panic. Naruto coughs, throat convulsing, and Jiraiya pulls back. He coughs again, and Jiraiya fucks back in slow and steady, taking it a little further, a little more forceful.

He coughs again, chokes at the feel of Jiraiya’s cockhead against his throat, and retreats into the cup of Jiraiya’s hands.

“Sorry,” Naruto pants, swallows, wipes his chin. Saliva has leaked from the corners of his mouth, leaving him messy.

“Again?” Jiraiya asks.

Naruto sniffs. “Yeah,” he says, and puts his hands on Jiraiya’s hips to hold on.

The slow going is torturous, but that’s part of the pleasure. Seeing Naruto on his knees like this, helpless and skewered and wanting so badly to succeed at some new challenge—every cough and choking sound boils in Jiraiya’s blood. The reactive nature of Naruto’s tear ducts leaking, his nose running, slick saliva pushed from the corners of his mouth… it should be gross. Objectively, it is, but Jiraiya doesn’t care about that. He cares about the determination in Naruto’s eyes, the thready way he says please when Jiraiya backs off so he can catch his breath, the way the boy shudders, stiffens, then goes absolutely pliant under Jiraiya’s hands when he touches the last barrier of Naruto’s closed throat, and he doesn’t cough.

Jiraiya groans, fingers tightening on Naruto’s hair. Holding himself in check takes enough mental faculties to keep an orgasm at bay. He imagines breaking this little boundary of trust, shoving past that barrier with abandon and really fucking Naruto’s tight throat. He thinks Naruto would desperately try to breathe through his nose and stay still enough to please his master, but Jiraiya knows that Naruto would squirm. His face would redden with panic; his eyes would glaze. He would thrash in place, pushing at Jiraiya’s thighs, or maybe yanking at him to get closer, get all the way inside him and stay there.

It's so fucking tempting.

Of course, Jiraiya’s not going to do that, but the imagery and the possibility of asking Naruto to give in to him, the likelihood that his student would say yes, is a present reality. He could train this into Naruto, another lesson for him to learn and eventually excel at.

Jiraiya slides free and Naruto gasps, swallows. He keeps one hand on Jiraiya’s cock, pumping softly, as he wipes his face with his arm and clears his throat several times. He’s still crying a little, and his voice is brittle when he presses his lips to the side of Jiraiya’s cock.

“More,” he requests, a soft little vibration against Jiraiya’s sensitive skin.

Dumbly, Jiraiya repeats him. “You want more?”

Naruto nods, blinking slow and heavy, as if he’s been drugged. Jiraiya is fairly certain Naruto doesn’t know what more would mean for the two of them, but he wants it all the same. He’s not sure why he expected anything else; Naruto has always been this way.

He always wants more. He wants everything, all at once.

Jiraiya shifts his hands, hooks them under Naruto’s arms, and helps him stand.

Wordlessly, he takes the zipper of Naruto’s jacket in hand and looks at him, waiting. When Naruto nods, Jiraiya brings the zipper down. He pushes the article off Naruto’s shoulders without ceremony, and it’s as if the action were a portent for the rest to be removed. Naruto wiggles his way out of his mesh shirt, and he shucks his pants easily, but he hesitates at his underwear. It’s a little amusing to literally see the boy steel himself, shake his head slightly, then shove those down his thighs too. He kicks all the clothing away and removes his headband—the only article which he affords care when he sets it aside.

He shivers a little from exposure to the air, but doesn’t seem embarrassed by his nakedness, or his arousal, or the sudden quiet between them. Odd, for how much he’s blushed this evening, but Jiraiya supposes the boy does have a penchant for being brave in the strangest of situations.

With the same methodical speed, Jiraiya removes his own clothes. Naruto watches intently as he sheds layer after layer, and when he too is naked and unashamed, he beckons Naruto towards his bedroll.

Briefly, he wishes for a actual bed or something softer, but the boy comes willingly into Jiraiya’s space, attentive and primed for the nebulous more he requested. He goes down willingly when Jiraiya pulls him, and the blush returns when Jiraiya situates Naruto to straddle him, sitting in his lap. In this position, he realizes quickly how easy it is to get his hands in Jiraiya’s hair, and takes no further time to bury them, leaning forward for a kiss.

Jiraiya complies, smiling a little into it. It’s cute that Naruto wants this simple intimacy after having Jiraiya’s cock in his mouth, and so distracted is the boy by Jiraiya’s teeth nibbling at his lip that Naruto doesn’t notice how Jiraiya stretches out a hand to blindly search for a small bottle of oil.

It had been a weakness to buy such a thing amidst their groceries, and Jiraiya had fortified himself once more upon returning to the cabin, resolving not to use it at all, but still, he’d kept it under his pillow. It whispered to him in his dreams, vile little secrets that tortured Jiraiya well into his waking hours, but he’d resisted.

He was grateful for that initial weakness, now.

Naruto doesn’t hear the glass roll across the wood flooring as Jiraiya curls his fingers over it. He doesn’t hear the dull pop of the cork pushed free. He only seems aware of Jiraiya’s arms wrapping around him once more as he shifts in Jiraiya’s lap, rolling his hips forward in minute movements that rub their cocks together softly.

He does, however, feel it when Jiraiya’s newly slick fingers slide between the crack of his ass and touch his entrance.

“What—” Naruto blurts, breaking from the kiss and jolting forward, away from the touch and hard into Jiraiya’s chest.

“That’s ‘more.’” He chases Naruto’s body, which can’t be pressed any tighter against him. Naruto has nowhere to go, so it’s easy for Jiraiya to put his hand back in position to pet the clenched, furled skin while he kisses Naruto’s sternum. “Relax. Let me inside you.”

Naruto shivers but stays still as Jiraiya continues to pet him. “Don’t say it like that.”

Jiraiya grins against Naruto’s chest. “How should I say it, then?” He works the tip of one finger inside.

“I don’t know,” Naruto squirms. “Just different.”

“Should I beg you? Say I need it?” He strokes slowly, pressing in and withdrawing the finger as gently as he can, mapping out the feel of Naruto’s body. “I do need it,” Jiraiya confesses. “I need to be inside you.”

“That’s worse,” Naruto says. He’s panting now, moving almost unconsciously to meet Jiraiya’s small thrusts with his finger. He falters a little when Jiraiya presses a second finger against his entrance, clutches at Jiraiya’s shoulders and squeezes hard when the two slip inside together.

Jiraiya closes his eyes, breathes in the scent of Naruto’s sweat, his nerves and desire thickening the air like the worst kind of humidity. When he opens his mouth, he can almost taste it. “You’re so tight,” he breathes, and thrusts his fingers a little more purposely, getting Naruto ready for the idea of being fucked.

It’s no question for him whether they stop at this stage or not, if this was the more Naruto asked for and nothing beyond his hole sucking at Jiraiya’s fingers. He knows he’s going to fuck Naruto tonight, and Naruto—at least some part of him—seems aware of it too. The steadier Jiraiya curls his fingers inside, the more Naruto rides them, using his hands to lever himself up into Jiraiya’s chest then back down against his straining wrist.

He likes it, Jiraiya thinks, pleased and excited, and then he says it because it will make Naruto blush.

“You like this.”

Naruto reddens and shuts his eyes, chews on his bottom lip. “Yeah,” he breathes. “’S good.”

“More,” Jiraiya says. It isn’t a question. Three fingers aren’t as easy as two, so Jiraiya withdraws his hand and pours more oil upon it, then returns. The excess slides down his palm, his wrist, rubs against the thin skin of Naruto’s inner thigh. But he gets them in, and Naruto moans with it.

“Too much?” Jiraiya asks, pulling back to look at Naruto’s face.

“No,” Naruto says. “I mean, yes, but no.”

Jiraiya nods. “Go on. Ride my fingers.”

“Do you ever shut up?” Naruto asks desperately, a strange echo of Jiraiya’s query when he had Naruto pressed up against a tree. Jiraiya answers in kind.

“Shut me up.”

Naruto gives a laugh that is more exhale than anything else, and he descends upon Jiraiya’s mouth. His kisses are less soft, now, less shy. There’s a demand in them, like he’s discontent when they aren’t connected at every point, hips, chest, mouths. The press of Jiraiya inside him. Emboldened, Naruto rides Jiraiya’s fingers in earnest, twisting his hips and pressing down hard enough that their cockheads brush up against each other. It’s an intoxicating blend, the mishmash of wet, sloppy kisses, and wet, sloppy fingering, and it doesn’t take much longer for little whines to start filtering in through the gap of their lips.

“I’m ready,” he whispers into Jiraiya’s mouth, nipping at his lip, his jaw, kissing at Jiraiya’s throat without any sense of direction besides ‘all over.’

“You’re not,” Jiraiya insists, and on Naruto’s push backwards, he presses his pinky alongside the other three.

“No,” Naruto pleads, “just gimme it. I don’t need—” a gasp, as Jiraiya bullies the finger inside.

“Don’t need what?”

“Oh, fuck,” he whimpers.

“You want this so badly,” Jiraiya croons sympathetically, “but your body can’t take it. You can’t even handle four fingers. Look at my cock.” He waits for Naruto to obey. “I’ll never fit inside you like this.”

“You will, you will.” Naruto swallows, speaks open-mouthed and damp against his teacher’s face. “Please, I want it.”

“You don’t know what you want. I’d have to shove my whole fist inside you to prepare you.”

Naruto’s fingers flinch, and he moans unexpectedly loud, which only turns Jiraiya on more. Four fingers are not the easiest to maneuver inside Naruto, but he flexes his hand and strokes where he can, hunting, hunting, until a fine tremor begins in Naruto’s thighs, and Jiraiya stays right there.

“Would you like that?” he asks, panting. “You want me to get my thumb in there too, fuck you with my wrist?”

“Please,” Naruto begs. Jiraiya doubts he’s begging for that, exactly, but he adds it to the mental tally of things he’d like to do with Naruto in the future, and lets it be. For now, he focuses on the heat of Naruto’s insides, the slick flesh he presses against, the wild heartbeat in front of him.

Naruto snakes a hand between them and attempts to curl his fingers around both their cocks, but Jiraiya doesn’t let him. He keeps ruthlessly petting Naruto’s prostate until the boy is weak against him, thighs quaking now. He jerks his hips up to rut against Jiraiya’s belly, desperate for some sort of contact on his cock, and Jiraiya leans down to get one of Naruto’s nipples in his mouth, chews at it like a punishment.

Naruto thrashes. “Oh fuck, oh fuck – what was that?”

“You like that?” Jiraiya asks. “Girls like that too, when a man plays with their tits. I bet you’d react the same if you were girl.”

“Do you want me to be a girl?” Naruto pauses when he asks the question, and it’s a serious enough tone that Jiraiya pulls back to study the boy in his lap.

He’s flushed all down his neck, nipples rosy and hard with arousal and stimulation, cock red and leaking.

Jiraiya won’t deny that the idea intrigues him. It is, after all, how this really began. The planted seed which grew into something unexpected. “We can play with that idea later,” he says. “Right now, I want you just as you are.” He leans forward again, licks softly at Naruto’s nipple, then the other, suckling at the tight nubs because Naruto seems to enjoy it.

“Are you ready?” he asks, because he’s not sure how much longer he can draw this out without losing his own mind.

“Yes, fuck,” Naruto says, half pleasure, half impatience. “How many times do I have to say it?”

Jiraiya removes his fingers abruptly. Naruto makes a shocked noise at the suddenness, then another at being tipped onto his back.

“Keep acting like a brat, and I won’t give you anything.” Jiraiya lifts one of Naruto’s legs by the ditch of his knee and drapes it over his elbow, holding Naruto open and exposed. With his other hand, he pours oil on his cock, positions himself at Naruto’s entrance, and bites the inside of his cheek at the way the stretched ring of fluttering muscle kisses him. With gentle pressure, he pushes slightly, just to let Naruto know he’s there. And then he goes no further, making the threat real.

Naruto’s eyes widen, like everything up to that moment was conjecture, and the reality of their positions has only now hit him.

“I’ll stay right here,” Jiraiya warns. “I won’t fuck you at all. I’ll fuck my own hand and fill you with my come, but I won’t give you my cock. What’s it going to be, Naruto?”

Naruto swallows heavily. His gaze drops from Jiraiya’s eyes to his pelvis, hanging slightly suspended with the hook of his knee over Jiraiya’s arm. He scrubs his hands down his face, then down his body, fingers moving like a river across his abdomen where his muscles convulse with holding the position.

“I want it,” he says. “I won’t mouth off anymore, I’ll be—” he flushes again, bites his lip. But Jiraiya knows what he was going to say.

“You’ll be a good boy?” He remembers how the words made Naruto jolt back at the tailor’s. The surprise of it, the inherently naughty implication.

Naruto nods, pink down to his chest.

Jiraiya presses forward, steady and sure, and the head of his cock fits neatly inside Naruto’s body.

He flinches, mouth falling open at the stretch, and Jiraiya pets at his thigh with the arm holding Naruto’s leg, shushing him like a spooked animal.

“Good boy,” Jiraiya murmurs, feeding another inch of his cock into Naruto. When he no longer needs his hand to guide the way, he grabs Naruto’s waist and holds on with his own eyes shut as he keeps pressing forward. He can’t keep watching Naruto take his cock—it’s too much. The wide look of his blue eyes, the impossible stretch of his asshole, fucking inches and miles of resilience and determination, and sheer stubbornness. And then, even worse as he works his way inside with short thrusts, the sound of Naruto gasping.

“Oh, wow,” he says. “Oh fuck, that’s—mm, yeah, I’ll be so good. I’ll be – wait, wait, please.”

Jiraiya holds himself still, aware that he’s not fully in, aware of the sweat prickling upon his back and starting to gather at his temple, making his hair stick to his face, the back of his neck. He huffs out a rough exhale and opens his eyes to see Naruto taking in thick gulps of air with an arm slung over his eyes, one hand clutching tight to his cock until it looks bruise-purple in his fist.

Cutting off an orgasm, Jiraiya deduces, and can’t help the way his hips jerk forward slightly, shoving him further inside Naruto.

“Just like this,” he breathes. “Take me like this.” And then he’s all the way in, his hips nestled against Naruto’s ass like some strange amalgamation of creature, some unholy thing.

Even after all that stretching, Naruto’s tightness is indescribable. It’s like his body is choking Jiraiya’s cock, squeezing him, nearly vibrating with the shudder of every breath and trembling of Naruto’s legs. He’s a fucking furnace, this boy, made entirely of golden skin and golden heat.

Jiraiya fights against the impulse, the instinct, to fuck as hard has he wants. Naruto has proven repeatedly that his tolerance for pain is astronomical, but there’s a difference between feeling a little pain, and outright hurting him. Jiraiya doesn’t want to hurt Naruto, not when he looks so lovely and vulnerable beneath him, cock suffocating in his own fist like he’s afraid he’ll shoot off at the first thrust.

“Breathe,” Jiraiya instructs, taking his own advice alongside Naruto. He flexes his cock but doesn’t move further, waiting for Naruto to adjust. “Breathe through it.”

“I’m fine,” Naruto wheezes believably.

“Still want this?” Jiraiya asks, feeling marginally like he’s dooming himself with the question. It would be quite the thing to withdraw from Naruto’s body and never return to it, but he would if it was what Naruto really wanted.

Naruto shakes his head slightly and very carefully releases his blushing prick. “I still want it,” he says quietly, peering at Jiraiya from under the dark safety of his arm. “Still want you.”

He moves, a small shifting of his hips as he tests out his range of motion while impaled, and his jaw drops open further at the slide. Jiraiya had used so much oil that, from the tightness of Naruto’s body, much of it had been forced out to pool messily beneath them. And it’s still enough to ease the way. An inch, and nothing more, but that inch is ruinous.

Jiraiya locks his elbow in place as he shifts from holding Naruto’s hip into clutching his bedroll in his fist, unsteady from the strain of holding Naruto’s leg and keeping the rest of himself still. He says Naruto’s name in warning, and Naruto ignores it in favor of more exploration. The boy groans softly as he works his pelvis a little more, pulling it up towards his sternum and letting it fall back into the cradle of Jiraiya’s hips.

“Fuck, you’re huge,” Naruto whispers, as if that hadn’t been evident enough when Jiraiya was fucking his mouth. “What’s it feel like? For you?”

“Naruto,” Jiraiya hisses, scandalized at the brazen question. Shocked by the white-hot bolt of arousal that courses through him.

Naruto’s breath hitches as he continues to ride Jiraiya’s cock from beneath him.

“Good,” he finally bites out.

“Does it hurt?” Naruto asks. They keep circling back, mirroring each other, the two of them stuck in an echo chamber.

Of course, the answer is yes. Naruto’s ass is like a vice around Jiraiya’s cock, his body a clamp that pinches off pleasure, keeps it from cresting. Jiraiya has always prided himself on stamina, on his ability to please a woman when he got further with her than lascivious looks, but this is worse. Worse, because it’s a boy. Worse because it’s his student, worse because it’s Naruto, someone he already admires and loves in some protective, familial fashion.

It's worse, because Naruto trusts him, and wants him, and his body is the epitome of perfect vigor and enthusiasm, and Jiraiya hungers for him like the imprisoned hunger for freedom. Does it hurt? Does it hurt?

“Sometimes pain is sexy,” Jiraiya answers, and begins to move with Naruto, taking control of the thrusting, setting a rhythm that Naruto attempts to match with the feeble lifting of his own hips. Quickly, it becomes apparent that Naruto is too overwhelmed by it all, and he falters in his movements. With sweaty hands, Jiraiya takes him by hip and thigh, and pulls Naruto towards his body with a fierce, snapping motion.

Naruto cries out. The knee that isn’t hooked over Jiraiya’s arm presses sharply into his ribs, calloused heel of his foot resting at the top of Jiraiya’s ass. It digs in, pushing Jiraiya further as he thrusts. “Harder,” Naruto demands.

As if Jiraiya could do anything but obey. He adjusts his knees, props Naruto’s ass on them, and frees Naruto’s suspended leg, encouraging it to wrap around him like the other while his hands go to his student’s shoulders, bringing him in to meet each powerful thrust. Naruto’s mouth falls open, his eyes wide and surprised, like he hadn’t expected—despite the request—that Jiraiya could actually give him that.

Oh, the boy knows nothing. His naivety is darkly enticing.

“Is this what you wanted?” Jiraiya grunts. His breath comes hard and fast, matching the rhythm of his body, and Naruto’s hands wrap around Jiraiya’s straining wrists to hold on. His legs squeeze against Jiraiya’s sides. “You wanted your Master’s cock?”

“Please,” Naruto pants, eyes closing, scrunching hard, his mouth open in a half grimace, half moan. He says it again, stretching the petition with his need.

“Touch yourself,” Jiraiya demands, and Naruto shakes his head frantically, eyes still screwed shut.

“I’ll come,” he admits.

“Let me see.”

“Ah—” Naruto’s head falls back as his shoulders arch up, exposing the long line of his throat, the sharp angle of his jaw. He unwraps a hand from Jiraiya’s wrist, and Jiraiya watches him grip himself tightly, like he’s instinctively trying to stave off the orgasm once again.

“Touch yourself, Naruto.” The command comes out a low growl, and the boy starts working his fist like he was trained into obedience.

He can’t control his sounds, nor the way his body tenses, gripping Jiraiya so tightly that it becomes hard for him to move. He bites his lip, whining pitifully, and then he shudders out “oh, oh fuck, yeah – I’m—”

“That’s it,” Jiraiya encourages. “That’s it, come for me.”

It only takes a few more tugs before Naruto’s held breath shatters apart into a series of gritty uhn, uhn, uhns, and his strokes immediately change from their snug hold at the head of his cock to something long and slow and corkscrewing, literally wringing himself dry.

“Sensei,” he says, so breathless and carnal that Jiraiya’s eyes nearly cross, but he forces their focus on watching Naruto come down from that lovely, sharp peak, and realize that Jiraiya isn’t stopping. It didn’t end with his gratification; he’s still speared open on Jiraiya’s cock even as the rest of him goes boneless with exhaustion.

It’s too difficult to keep Naruto’s legs wrapped around him, limp as they are, so Jiraiya pulls out, wrenching a soft moan from Naruto’s mouth. He orders Naruto to turn around.

The boy fumbles the movement, body weak a faun and largely unresponsive in his haze of lingering pleasure, but Jiraiya grabs his leg and shoves, scoops an arm underneath him to yank his opposite hip into the position he wants.

Propped up on his knees, Naruto pillows his head on his arms and cuts a look at Jiraiya over his shoulder. “Bossy,” he murmurs, but his expression is amused more than annoyed, and he arches his back a little more.

“Shuddup,” Jiraiya says, impatient only in his need to be back inside Naruto’s tight, wet heat. He knocks Naruto’s knees aside with his own and uses his wide hands to pry Naruto’s cheeks apart. The gape of his hole, empty and flexing, beckoning, is irresistible.

“Come on,” Naruto cajoles, and then moans again when Jiraiya slides inside with absolutely zero resistance.

“Too much?” Jiraiya grunts as he resumes his needy pace.

“Ye-es,” Naruto chokes out. “Keep going, fuck.”

Jiraiya hadn’t intended on stopping, no matter what Naruto said, but the allowance really does make his eyes cross this time. What a fucking dream, he thinks, extending his large hands over the swell of Naruto’s cheeks and keeping them spread. They’d look good with a handprint. Red, and hot to touch, and sensitive enough the drag of his fingertips would feel like nails dug in. He’s hairless here, ass pale compared to the tan skin everywhere else. No freckles, no moles, no unfortunately placed teenage acne, just pure skin, pure innocence broken by the flushed red of Jiraiya’s thick cock.

He needs some sun, Jiraiya thinks nonsensically, imagining next time when he convinces Naruto to have sex outside, fucked in the middle of the day beneath the sun, in view of anyone who might be passing. He’d be so embarrassed, might even beg Jiraiya to stop, but then again, he might beg his teacher to keep going. To fuck him anyway, right into the ground until he comes with a vulgar rush of humiliation.

Next time, Jiraiya realizes, is quite the damning thing. He also realizes how fucking true it is. Now that he’s had a taste for Naruto, he doesn’t plan to let him go. It’s convenient, and it feels good, and Naruto wants it—wants it even when he doesn’t, judging by the weak moans and curses coming from him as he digs fingers into his own arms.

Nothing is stopping them but themselves, and now, Jiraiya knows that having Naruto any which way he fucking pleases is not just a wild fantasy. It’s not just a possibility; it’s a near guarantee.

It’s profane, is what it is, this long leash he’s wrapped around them both, tying them together.

Unmitigated access, he thinks as he pounds into Naruto’s body, inching him up and up the bedroll. Whenever we want – no one to tell us we shouldn’t or can’t—

Jiraiya wants to close his eyes to savor this—sit with the feeling of every nerve within him crackling to life with pure excitement and releasing in a burst of pleasure powerful as the boy beneath him—but he’s unable to look away from how he fucks into Naruto’s body. He wants with a revelatory kind of hysteria, vision graying out with the intensity of his orgasm, and he feeds every wave of release into Naruto’s welcoming hole.

When it’s done, when it’s over and his chest heaves with his breath, he waits for his vision to level.

His young student has his forehead pressed to his arms, bracing himself. Jiraiya releases his death-grip on Naruto’s ass and drags a soothing hand down his back from the jut of his shoulder along his spine, petting at his sweaty skin, the gooseflesh that has begun to pebble up. The boy’s shoulders shake, and for a split second, Jiraiya thinks that it really was too much after all, and despite Naruto’s urgings to keep going, he should have stopped. Ended it. Thrust into his hand to add to the mess on Naruto’s stomach, perhaps, because Naruto is crying and—

No, he’s not. He’s laughing. He’s laughing silently, body trembling with mirth.

Jiraiya sighs and pinches Naruto’s side. He withdraws almost entirely solely to slide back in with leisure. His cock isn’t fully soft yet, and he angles his hips to prod against Naruto’s prostate. Naruto squeals a little, choking on his laugh.

“Okay, okay,” he concedes, and Jiraiya retreats from his warm body.

“Brat,” he says softly, affectionately.

Naruto looks back at him again, smiling. “You came fast, old man.”

“ExCUSE you,” Jiraiya starts to protest.

“I thought you were the Pervy Sage! ‘A world of experience where I have none,’” Naruto quotes back at him mockingly.

“I do have a world of experience, and you don’t.”

“Do now,” Naruto responds proudly.

Jiraiya only hums and stretches out to lay beside Naruto. Propped up on his elbow, he watches the way Naruto shifts, extends his legs, and Jiraiya studies the micro expressions of foreign discomfort that flicker across Naruto’s face.

“I’m all gross,” Naruto says, sucking in his stomach to keep his sticky chest from touching the bedroll. Then, he seems to remember it isn’t his bedroll they are spread upon, and he flattens himself against the covers like a pancake.

Jiraiya tweaks his ear, and Naruto grins at him, head pillowed upon his arms. The hand on top reaches gently for Jiraiya’s shoulder. He shuffles closer, so Naruto can touch him with his fingertips.

“Yes, you are,” Jiraiya agrees. “And how does it feel?”

“Good,” Naruto says definitively, as if there were any question. “Hurts, but it’s good.” They’re silent for a moment, then Naruto adds, almost so quietly Jiraiya doesn’t hear it, “thanks for teaching me.”

Despite his tired body, arousal spikes through Jiraiya, both memory and fantasy of the future, and it’s muddy with guilt. He can live with that, though. Guilt is something he knows well. Jiraiya heaves out a dramatic, affected sigh. “It’s my burden to bear as your Master.”

“Oh, a burden, was it?”

Jiraiya hums. “Your most difficult training yet.”

Naruto rolls his eyes but props himself up to wriggle closer to Jiraiya, chest to chest, and stretch his arm around his middle.

They’re cuddling. Jiraiya closes his eyes and bites the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing and disturbing the sweetness of it. Naruto deserves a little sweetness after his first time.

“Betcha I can wield my Giant Rasengan without help inside of a month,” Naruto grins, fingers skating over Jiraiya’s ticklish ribcage. Typical of him, to return his thoughts to actual training. A one-track mind, Naruto has.

He catches Naruto’s exploring hand and shoots back, “Betcha can’t do it in two weeks.”

“What do I get if I do?”

“A reward.” Jiraiya slides their joined hands down Naruto’s chest to touch his oversensitive cock.

It’s only to tease, to make Naruto squirm—which he does—but he doesn’t shy away from the touch. “And if I don’t?”

“A punishment.”

“What—” Naruto gasps as Jiraiya makes his movements more purposeful— “what kind of punishment?”

Despite two previous orgasms, Naruto’s body grows interested again beneath their linked hands. Ah, youth, Jiraiya thinks. “Oh, I think you’ll like it. I might even let you choose which one you get.”

Naruto’s eyes gleam, cheeky and playful and full of that determination that Jiraiya so admires. He descends upon Naruto’s smiling mouth, half open on a helpless moan, and for a while, the bet is forgotten in favor of other things.

In eight days, Naruto successfully wields the Giant Rasengan for Jiraiya without a second Shadow Clone. Inches and miles, Jiraiya thinks, full of pride as he lays out the options for punishment and reward.

Naruto chooses the punishment.