Chapter Text
The night brings a cold with it you hadn’t anticipated, the air crisp, your breath a white fog every time you exhale.
The mission itself has been a success, the adrenaline bleeding out of you now that the fight lies behind you, but there’s still quite a distance you need to travel home, quite a few things that can go wrong.
“Are you cold?”
Kakashi’s watching you over the small fire you managed to bring to life.
You’re not sure why he’s so distant today, but you’ve learned to roll with the punches.
If it would be anyone but him you’d call it dating, the thing that you’re doing.
You’re over at his place more often than you’re staying at your own, mostly because he finds you and drags you over when you try to give him some space.
You know the shape of his mouth by touch alone, can recognize him by the sound of his heartbeat.
You’re well versed with the darkness of his mind, too, the reason you’ve not made official what you consider your longest - and somewhat healthiest - relationship to date.
“I am,” you agree, waiting for his reaction. You stretch your hands out toward the flames, focus on their flickering movement.
Kakashi gets up and walks around it, settles on the ground next to you.
He’s never asked if you wanted to cuddle him. Sometimes you think he’s unable to word his own needs. But you’ve picked up on it nonetheless, sink into him now like you’re boneless.
Kakashi chuckles, drops his head to press a kiss to the crown of your head.
He’s got dirt on his nose, you notice, when you move back to pull his mask down. It makes him look at least ten years younger and you brush it off with your thumb before kissing him more deeply, getting lost in the feeling of it.
-
When you wake hours later, curled up in a sleeping bag, you find him sitting at the fire. Everything in you wants to stay there, where it’s at least somewhat warm, but you can tell by the curve of his back that he’s thinking, that he’s getting lost in the ever-gray wash of his memories.
“Hey,” your hand slides down his spine, feels it settles underneath your touch. “You’re up?”
“Couldn’t sleep,” he’s avoiding your eyes but you let him, settle into his lap with none of the grace a Shinobi of your caliber should have. Kakashi groans under your weight, slips his arms around you when you tuck your head underneath his chin.
“Did you notice the bracelets everyone was wearing?” You ask, try to pull him back into the present. “They had no clasp.”
“They’re wedding bands.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” he hums low in his throat. “I asked someone while you were out collecting Data. Apparently, it’s welded on the day you decide to get married, a promise to stay together way before actually exchanging vows.”
“That’s lovely,” you fight against the urge to look down at your wrist, at their bareness. “To take the promise itself so seriously.”
Kakashi scoffs. “You can cut it off easily. It’s just a piece of metal.”
“Yeah,” you sway your head from left to right as you let his bitterness float away, “but it’s the thought that counts, right?”
Your next words slip out of you without your own doing, a reminder for him but also for you.
“I’ve never broken a promise before.”
Kakashi tenses. “I’ve broken plenty of them.”
He’s hardly ever that honest. His eyes are directed at the horizon, though unfocused. You let him.
“Did you want to break them?”
“No, I-” He hesitates. “I just couldn’t-” A deep breath, his shoulder tense.
You press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Mr. Not-Perfect,” you call him softly. “Out here not being perfect. What will the people think?”
He smiles, rubs his eyes with the back of his hands. “I want to promise… I want to promise myself to you. But I don’t- I can’t- I haven’t-”
He breaks off and you nod, take a hold of his hands, and squeeze them tight.
“I’ve seen you live, Kakashi. No one fights harder to keep their promises. And I love you, the way you are, perfectly not perfect.”
It’s rare that you call it the way it is, use the word “love” around him when he’s conscious. It spooks him, you know.
Tonight, though, he doesn’t run. He just closes his eyes and nods.
“Let’s get back to bed,” you urge him. “Sleep until it gets a little warmer, huh?”
-
You can feel it even before you open your eyes, the little chain that’s winding around your wrist.
There’s no clasp that you can feel and when you blink your eyes open and look down, you can tell Kakashi’s done a good job at it.
“Where did you get the heat?” You ask, astonished.
A blush sits high on his cheek as he shows off and you pull down his mask to see it better, to kiss him and all the perfect imperfections he carries.
“I’m a little mad you didn’t wait for me to wake up before you practically proposed to me,” you tease him, letting the delicate chain glitter in the rising sun. “But I hope you brought another one.”
Kakashi smiles before pulling another delicate chain out of his pocket, offering it to you.
You look at it, let it glide through your hands for a bit, before taking his hand.
“I promise to love you for as long as I’m alive,” you slide the chain around his wrist, “just the way you are. Quiet. Always late. Heavy with memories. Not at all perfect.”
“I promise to love you even when I’m dead,” Kakashi adds, his voice low as he watches you. “And to stay alive for as long as I possibly can.”
“What more could I want?”
“Maybe a little fire?” He asks, with a teasing glint in his eyes, as he welds the chain around his wrist together.
There are going to be questions when you return.
But you will deal with them another time.