Laughter echoed around the tall surrounding buildings as they slipped and skidded across the snow-covered ice. Enormous snowflakes fell all around them.

You re drunk. Kakashi chuckled as he leaned heavily on Iruka s shoulder, trying desperately to keep his footing.

Not as drunk as you.

Kakashi glared upwards at Iruka before looking pensive and nodding.

Iruka wasn t entirely sure when or even how the friendship had started, but in the end it didn t really matter. He saw Kakashi on almost a daily basis, when the jounin wasn t deployed on missions, and, though he was loathe to admit it, he actually looked forward to each meeting.

He looked forward to it more than he knew he should.

The night after Kakashi d returned with Naruto, and not Sasuke, Iruka d woken to find the jounin sitting on the floor by his window, face buried in his arms and shoulders shaking in silent, tearless sobs.

Iruka d held him all night.

And in the morning, Iruka realized that the tightness in his chest wasn t caused by exhaustion or worry for his friend. It was caused by a horribly different emotion that he could not would not admit to. He didn t want to risk the strange, but important relationship he d developed with the other man so far.

Oh SHIT! The wind had blown a small section of the sidewalk free of snow exposing the 2 inches of ice that had built up over the past couple of days. Unfortunately for the two hapless shinobi, neither of them was really paying attention, and neither of them was completely coordinated at the moment, either. Kakashi s feet went out from under him, and he landed hard, almost taking Iruka down with him.

They looked at each other for a long moment before bursting out in laughter again.

When he d finally caught his breath, Iruka looped his arm under the other man s armpit, You want to try and get up?

Kakashi tried to get his legs under him with little success and sank back to the ground, No I think I better not. At this rate, I m probably gonna break my ass.

Iruka dissolved into helpless giggles, dropping his head onto Kakashi s shoulder only managing to get himself under control when Kakashi fell silent. Kakashi? He raised his head and started at how close they were.

A pale hand wrapped around the back of his neck, God I love you.

Iruka s eyes widened. He must have heard wrong; there was no way no way

But Kakashi was pulling him in closer as his free hand dragged the mask away from his face, and even through the slight alcohol buzz, Iruka could tell what was going to happen.

The evil voice in the deep recesses of his brain chimed in right before he tried to wrench himself away. You re both drunk you know. If this all turns out to be just the alcohol for him in the morning, then

And before the good, intelligent, rational voice could make a point, Iruka allowed himself to be pulled in.

Kakashi pressed his lips gently against Iruka s, before nipping at his lower lip and deepening the kiss.

And Iruka crouched down in the midst of all the snow while Kakashi simply sat on the ice that had to be melting through the butt of his pants and let it happen. When the other man pulled back, they both huffed cloudy breaths into the frozen air, and Iruka realized that this might be his one and only chance.

I love you too. The words were whispered, barely audible, and out of his mouth before he sat back onto his heels, putting some more distance between himself and this dangerous situation.

They stared at each other until Kakashi chuckled and raised his hand to dust snowflakes out of Iruka s hair. So, what now? Even though he tried to hide it, Iruka could hear the dark desire lacing his words.