Back during February 2018, tumblr user quantumghosts prompted 'KAKASHI IS GIFTED A VERY COZY SWEATER :O' for Valentine's Day. The following is silly and perhaps a little out of character, but I dislike it less now than when I first wrote it so I'm going to post it. It's been edited for typos but there're probably still a few. That's all the notes, I think.

"I had not expected a hyouton user to pose such a great challenge in the snow," Gai admits, which Kakashi regards as roughly equivalent to another, lesser shinobi swearing and spitting this is fucking ridiculous. Gai's shoulders are heaving with every breath, and his face is slick with sweat – which is rapidly icing up in this weather.

It turns out that saying 'Konoha gets cold in winter' is nothing like saying 'Northern Iwa Country gets cold in winter'. Actually, Kakashi has been to Snow Country, and even that isn't this cold.

The condensation of his breath is freezing in Kakashi's mask and chafing his face. It's icy and it burns in his mouth and in his lungs and he's pretty sure there are tiny, ugly cuts on his jaw from the ice, except it's too cold to feel anything but a dull relentless ache.

The air is thick and oddly damp and the wind is steadily picking up. It's midday, but the sky is steadily darkening. Kakashi can smell the storm encroaching.

"Aa," he says, feeling bone tired with the weight of chakra exhaustion. He's trying to conserve it, but after an hour in the open, his chakra is the only thing that will let him move his fingers.

It's been three hours.

He doesn't say aloud that their intel was bad. They both know their intel was bad.

Kakashi's fought hyouton users before. It's not that uncommon a bloodline limit, and there are at least three or four clans floating around with a common ancestor capable of manipulating ice. Konoha gave the execution order, and Kakashi and Gai came out here expecting this bunch to be pretty much identical to the bloodline out in Mist.

They're not. Whatever they might have had in common, living out in this frozen wasteland has changed them over only a few generations. They've… adapted.

Kakashi's not convinced these people can even feel the cold, which would have been good to know before they engaged one of them.

Konoha's intel underestimated the numbers of the clan with this bloodline, and they underestimated the Hidden Village's interest in the area. They underestimated how much more powerful an ice chakra user can be in a place where it snows naturally.

"Fortify yourself, my rival," says Gai solemnly. "Only one remains."

Finally, Kakashi doesn't say, although he can almost hear it hanging in the air between them. They'd thought they were coming out here to wipe out six adult ninja – that's what their reports said. This one makes it nine.

He is the last one, but his chakra is at least jounin level to Kakashi's whirling sharingan eye - again, not in the reports - and they know he can see right through the glare of the snow. He can also walk on top of the snow without a flicker of chakra. And he can change the shape and form and density of all the ice and snow around them without even twitching. They know he can wait them out for hours in this cold. And Kakashi and Gai have killed eight ninja of varying levels of proficiency between them today. Kakashi's chakra reserves are dwindling and the cold is making them both sloppy.

Gai's face is as grim as it gets, which is to say – he looks focused, eyebrows drawn, heavy lines of his face narrowed and steady. He is breathing heavily.

Kakashi digs deep for the embers of his chakra. It's there, burning low, smouldering in the depths of his belly. He takes a deep breath and the icy air feels like a crushing weight in his chest, like breathing cold iron: in and out, sharp, cutting.

It's not going to get any better. They've been out here too long.

So they'll need to finish this as fast as possible – which means committing to it, going hard, and ending it immediately.

Kakashi nods sharply and makes the hand signs for 'me' and 'flank'. He doesn't need to be more explicit. This is the last one, so it's fine to go all out – and they're tiring fast, so they need to go all out and get it done.

"An all or nothing approach!" Gai's answering smile is beatific and so bright it nearly outshines the glare off the snow. "As you say."

There's no more talking. Gai disappears in a small explosion of snow and icy air, kicking up a path with the sheer force of his momentum.

Kakashi takes another icy, cutting breath and jolts his stiff, cold muscles into movement with a stab of hot chakra. He takes off like a snow cat, soft-footed and quiet but fast.

Gai is fast enough, and hits hard enough, that a frontal assault is risky but not strictly suicidal for him. Even against an enemy with such advanced control over the environment, there's some chance of success. He is simply that fast. It's not a clever tactic, but it plays right into the image Gai presents: a taijutsu powerhouse with no real interest in strategy. Gai is fierce enough to commit to a frontal assault, charge right in, snow spraying and muscles bulging, and really sell it.

The target turns on his toes and just barely dodges Gai's initial blow. His expression is slightly wild around the eyes, but Gai's face is an effortful frown. There is a tremendous thump when his fist hits the ground instead of the ninja, and snow flies up around the pair of them.

A second later the target recovers. His mouth twists, his pale hair flutters with sudden movement, and he blocks the next blow with a distinctly grim face.

Kakashi, approaching quietly but surely from behind, can already see the ice twisting into a dangerous shape around Gai's ankles. He is not worried. There are only so many paths out of this situation for their target, and they are closing off by the second. Kakashi looks through his sharingan and he knows he will make the kill, and that their enemy won't notice him until it's too late.

That's the thing about this tactic in specific: any ninja who gets a face full of Gai doesn't have the time to be thinking about a second attacker – right up until they hear the scream of a thousand birds.

As an assault team, Kakashi and Gai work very well together.

Kakashi doesn't like killing people, exactly - he hates what it represents, doesn't enjoy death - but he likes the challenge. And there is some small, professional satisfaction when he sees that expression of dismay and shock, stark in the crackling light of his chidori.

He feels the impact all the way down his tight, frozen arm, into his shoulder and down his spine. The body drops, dead, burned right through the icy coating on his skin. There is blood on his mouth and on his neck and seeping into his clothing, dyeing his hair, smearing into the snow.

Chidori is a quick death, in the scheme of ways a ninja might die.

…Which is lucky, because this is the third time Kakashi has used it today. Whatever else happens, he's done.

It's a technique that requires the use of Obito's sharingan eye, which is at least equally draining over time. And even then Kakashi might be fine – fine to drag himself home, at least – but Kakashi's been cycling chakra to keep his extremities from freezing for hours now. That slow small trickle, that's a drain he's really feeling now.

He pulls away, straightens up, tugs his hitae-ate over his eye – but his hand's gone shaky and his head feels strange and light.

"Excellent work, my rival! Your performance is an inspiration," Gai says brightly, boomingly, and he claps Kakashi on the shoulder.

Kakashi has half a moment to think, bewildered: He's so warm, and to wonder how he can feel the heat of Gai's hand radiating as far as his neck, his ear – it even seems to seep into the icy chill of his mask and cause something to throb painfully, felt for the first time in hours. Then while Gai is just beginning to expand upon how inspiring he finds their partnership, everything sort of slides sideways a bit.

Kakashi's vision goes sparkly and fuzzy, staticky with darkness.

Oh, he thinks, that's why he's so warm. Gai isn't warm, of course: Kakashi is just cold. Complete chakra exhaustion always makes a body colder, and under these circumstances -

He crumples, and is only dimly aware that Gai catches him in his swoon like the leading hero of an Icha Icha novel. His arms are very warm.

Kakashi remembers shivering and darkness and the way-too-familiar discomfort of chakra exhaustion.

He doesn't usually let people touch him casually, but they're not usually on a mission in a frozen wasteland. Kakashi is a shivering ball of exhausted misery.

On the one hand, he can sort of feel himself being manhandled and he resents it. On the other...

On the other hand, limbs are so much heavier than he remembers. For some reason. He lets it happen.

When Kakashi becomes properly aware again he's moving, snow laden-boughs and bare trunks flying past in his vision without any input from his feet. It takes him a solid four seconds to realise that this is not, in fact, normal, and that he is slumped over Gai's back and being carried. When he does realise it it's mostly only because his front is warm.

Actually, his entire top half is pretty warm. Something soft is smooshed against the sliver of his neck between his shirt and his mask. He squints down and spots a hideous yellow colour.

The first sound he makes is a tired, slightly confused grunt, and it is followed by a second, clearer sound: "I can walk."

It comes out sounding like he's been gargling with broken glass. Chakra exhaustion is a bad look on everyone.

Gai does try putting him down, and while Kakashi has no trouble standing with the help of a friendly tree trunk, he fails the whole 'walk in a straight line' test with abysmal marks. Two steps under his own power make his stomach heave and his head spin.

"I am glad to see your youthful spirits remain so high," Gai declares, wrapping one arm around his middle to balance him. "But sometimes a ninja must rely on his teammates."

When he's steady, Gai lowers his body and gestures, indicating that Kakashi should climb back upon his back. "I will get you back to Konoha before sunset tomorrow, or I will run six hundred laps around the village using only my hands," he informs him gravely.

Kakashi glances at the sky. They're at least two days away, he thinks, and that time limit is unreasonable, but –

But he's cold, and his chakra coils are bruised and aching, and he feels wretched.

"…Is that so," he says tiredly, looking anywhere but at Gai where he's crouching pointedly for the moment. Then, finally, the vile fluffy thing catches his eye again and he decides he can't ignore it anymore, no, and also it's a great change of topic from the possibility that Gai will wind up carrying him again: "Gai, This sweater…"

"Ah," Gai says brightly. "You noticed!"

"It's hard not to notice," says Kakashi mildly, in what feels like a gross understatement. The sweater is a bright mustard yellow, in a particular shade that makes him look faintly jaundiced. Late stage liver disease doesn't flatter him. Who'd have thought? He can't imagine it looks any better on Gai. It is one of the ugliest items of clothing Kakashi has ever encountered.

"I had it packed in a sealing scroll, of course."

Yes, Kakashi had gathered that. And yet. "…Why?"

"It's a favourite of mine! It is warm, but its natural fibres are breathable, and its softness remains unsurpassed!" He tilts his head enough to give Kakashi a sideways look. "You were shivering, my rival."

"It's…" Kakashi tries not to look at it, even peripherally, but it is now on his person, and there is no capacity for failure to notice. He wants to say 'it's ugly', but he hesitates. "…warm?" he tries instead.

Gai beams, so brightly it's almost painful. "You may wear it for as long as you need it," he says.

Kakashi kind of hopes that's never, but the sweater is warm. It's warm and it's so soft it's like nosing into a cloud. And Kakashi is freezing, so he keeps it on even though every vestige of good taste left in him – which, let us be clear, isn't much – is crying for rescue.

It's…

It's very soft.

And there's no one else around to see him wear it.

Kakashi's change of subject distracts Gai, or at least Gai lets him pretend. He walks half a mile, using a big stick to prop himself up. Gai paces him patiently, making encouraging noises and just – waiting, Kakashi assumes, for Kakashi to drop. It is a little bit like being stalked by a big, persistent, overly enthusiastic predator.

Chakra exhaustion takes its inevitable toll, and Kakashi shivers and glowers and in the end he isn't quite stubborn enough to go until he literally drops – not so far out, and not when the bulk of their mission is already complete. Certainly not when they're so close to Iwa, who have never really become any friendlier.

Gai commends him very seriously on his effort, in a way so sincere it's hard to even feel as though he's being condescended to - which just makes Kakashi feel even sillier - and then he scoops him up and takes off like a shot toward Konoha.

Kakashi can feel the big muscles surging beneath Gai's winter weight but upsettingly tight suit. He only pauses for about three seconds' contemplation before he pulls out a battered, damp-edged copy of Icha Icha Violence.

They arrive at the gates three minutes before sunset the following day.

Gai yells "SAFE!" with a grand gesture of triumph that nearly sends Kakashi sprawling.

"…That's true," says Kakashi, remembering Gai's ridiculous bet with himself.

He slithers off his back, puts his copy of Icha Icha away back in his pocket, and he makes to head in past the chuunin on gate shift.

Gai catches him by the collar and, beaming blithely at the increasingly wary chuunin, tugs Kakashi toward the hospital instead of his own apartment. He is wise to Kakashi's habits. Unfortunate.

Kakashi contemplates resisting, but he has almost enough chakra to jutsu up a sneeze. His chances of getting away from Gai are fifty-fifty on a good day. Today they are roughly zero.

The staff at the hospital complain about him, the way they always do, and there's the same argument about his mask as there always is - especially once they discover the chafe and the cuts under it, and then it's 'vector for disease' this and 'compromised immune system, Kakashi-san,' that.

He distinctly recalls being bullied out of his mission gear and into a bed before the weariness really hits him, and then he sleeps like the dead even though the hospital room smells like hospital cleaner and metals and the bed is less comfortable than the floor of his apartment. But when he wakes up the sweater is still there – clean and folded on a chair.

It's just as ugly as he thought it was when he was hazy with chakra exhaustion. Time and distance have not made it a nicer sweater.

...He keeps it.

That's it, happy Valentine's Day from... last year... lol. You are of course by no means obligated to comment, but if there was something you especially liked them I would as always like to hear what it was. Otherwise have a good night.