Prompt: Decorations

"Follow me in merry measure,
While I tell of Yule tide treasure"

I really appreciate the reviews So glad all of you are enjoying it. Thank you K4te for your inspiring praise. This chapter is for you.

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"Kakashi, are those teddy bears?"

Kakashi nodded as he walked around the, seemingly shrinking, room, arms full of teddy bears. He deposited them randomly.

"Why are you decorating with teddy bears?" Iruka asked in a reasonably calm and rational tone. He'd found he was rarely surprised or shocked anymore by Kakashi's sometimes bizarre behaviour, but that didn't stop the occasional brain freeze here and there.

"They're wearing Christmas sweaters," replied Kakashi absently.

Iruka looked around the room. Aside from the sofa there were two chairs. Both were presently occupied by bears. One chair was wrapped in bows. Huge, garish, red and green plaid bows. Edged in gold.

There were cherubim holding council over the fireplace—

"Kakashi! I don't have a fireplace! Where did that come from?" Iruka jumped over to the fireplace and held his hands out toward the flickering flames.

"I got it at… nevermind. You have to have a place for stockings, Iruka." Kakashi shook his head as if in disbelief that Iruka didn't understand this.

"Well where are the stockings?" I can go along with this. I'm supposed to get gifts, I can entertain the bizarre. This can't be worse than Easter Bunny disaster.

"In a box. Number twelve, I think." Kakashi said as he leaned in box number six and pulled out a wad of wires. "Can you help me hang the lights?" He held the wad of wires out. Iruka took one end and followed Kakashi toward the door.

As they untangled the wires, Iruka realised the bulbs were shaped like shuriken. And the glowed and twinkled in an array of most un-ninjalike colours.

Kakashi hummed as he began twisting the lights around nails lining the doors. Iruka wanted to ask how and when they'd got there, but sighed quietly instead, waiting as Kakashi finished.

Kakashi smiled as he finished the last light and snaked the wire through the door to plug it in. Iruka blinked in the glow.

Kakashi stopped moving for a moment and looked through the door.

Iruka followed his gaze, hoping he was satisfied. There wasn't one foot of the room that wasn't touched in some way by Christmas cheer. A family of snowmen sat on the coffee table, top-hats obscuring view of the television.

Pillows littered the sofa with holiday sayings. Iruka narrowed his eyes at one, embroidered in vivid red against dark green: You're the Snowflake on my Tongue.

It was one of a matched set, too. The other one, currently covered by a star-shaped pillow read: Lick My Candy Cane!

"Isn't it beautiful?" Kakashi asked, his voice quiet and dreamy.

"No. It's grotesque. And a little scary. The bears are watching me."

Undeterred by Iruka's critique, Kakashi wandered back to the kitchen to rifle through another box. Number sixteen, Iruka noticed as he followed Kakashi.

"Didn't you have outside decorations last year?"

"Oh, they're up," he said casually, voice echoing from the box he was currently shoulder-deep in.

Iruka frowned. Kakashi's attention was focused entirely on his decorating mission. For three days now, he'd been dedicated to his decorating; even passing up dinner with Iruka at the nice Inn they kept talking about visiting.

Iruka left Kakashi to his boxes and wandered outside. Two waist high candy canes—how'd he missed those when they did the lights?—stood like guards beside the door. Blinking leaf symbols offset the shuriken lights on the door.

He heard a weird noise coming from the roof and craned his head up to look. That sound, it couldn't be, no way, he wouldn't—

Iruka leapt up on the roof.

"Ho Ho Ho." He was greeted by a waving, neon-red glowing Santa and eight tiny reindeer.

Iruka couldn't help but smile. It's insane, but insufferably cute. He shook his head and hopped back down.

When he got in, he noticed the Christmas drapes on the window, the glowing candles in both windows, and the bright red and green runner sliding across the table, nearly hid by their dinner served in red and green plaid bowls.

Kakashi was grinning. "Dinnertime!"

"Why all the decorating, Kakashi?"

Kakashi shrugged. "Well, I can't really decorate you. Or can I?" Kakashi leered as he leaned close to Iruka.

"Let's just eat." Iruka sat down to eat, refusing to answer. He recognised that gleam in Kakashi's eye. He didn't trust it.

Not one bit.

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