Title: Aspenglow
Fandom/ Pairing: Naruto/ KakaIru
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Slash, AU
Challenge: Written for the KakaIru Christmas song challenge; "Aspenglow"

The wolf came to him exactly ten days before Christmas, while the mountain slumbered under the weight of its own frozen mass. It was a time of year Iruka Umino did not so much anticipate as quietly cherish; though his sun-tanned flesh could hardly withstand winter's icy breath, he felt nothing but love for the stillness the season brought to his home. The Umino house—a cabin in almost every respect—had sat alone on Mt. Aspenglow for over three generations prior to Iruka's birth, but the sense of responsibility towards its upkeep was strong within him yet, especially given that the cabin held the last traces of his parents' memory. While most people who claimed residence on Aspenglow scattered with the first snow flurries, Iruka remained with the small sum he'd accumulated over the past year. It was enough to keep him and the house through the harsh winter. No time brought him less surprise or more peace—until the wolf appeared.

Iruka first saw it while on one of his daily treks to and from the wood shed. The cabin's sole source of heat came from a large hearth in his den, which required near-constant feeding in order to maintain a bearable temperature. Heaps of snow blazed in the pale winter sunlight; he shuffled through them, an armful of wood slowing his normally brisk pace. It was only a spare glance toward a path leading up the mountain that brought him into eye contact with the creature. It stood perfectly still, all sinew and teeth, dull-knife coat matted with traces of dirt and ice. Though there appeared to be some distance between them, Iruka's heart stopped when he realized he could see the wolf's sharply intelligent right eye was without a matching partner—thick scar tissue overlapped where the other should have been.

His parents had mentioned wolves, but they were the stuff of legend, of fairytales. None had been spotted since his grandfather's time, Iruka's mother had explained once; besides, the recent real estate boom on Aspenglow had likely driven away any elusive stragglers. And yet here in front of him stood a wolf, as fine and mighty as they came in spite of the desperation that hung about its emaciated form. The ability to move, to think, to breathe left Iruka completely, and his world shrank to accommodate nothing but the wolf and him. The creature was trembling, hackles raised as a hungry growl started up in its breast.

Poor thing, Iruka couldn't help but think despite his own danger. You must be starving. You wouldn't spare me a glance otherwise.

As if to confirm his theory, the wolf's lips pulled back in a predatory grimace. It had made its decision. In an instant it leapt like quicksilver across the snow, pelting towards Iruka with the speed of a winter storm. All the young man registered was the force of the wolf's paws as they pinned him to the snow-shrouded earth, the flash of teeth a hair-length from his throat—and then silence.

Iruka had fully expected death, pain even more so, but little save a tense silence greeted him in the heartbeats following the assault. Eyes opening hesitantly, he was met with a direct gaze that, for all its awareness and depth, should have been human. Time seemed as frozen as the landscape under the wolf's bright and weary eye. Iruka was immobile, but not unaware of the red smeared across its underbelly. Blood, he realized; it's injured. Shouldn't that make it more desperate for food?

Slowly, slowly, the dark-skinned man reached his hand up to brush the wolf's coarse fur, but the contact seemed to jerk the creature back into itself. Snarling, it leapt away from him, muscular body propelling it across the winter snow. Iruka scrambled to his feet. "Wait!" he called, but it had already vanished over a hill.

As he walked back to the cabin, he found that whenever he tried to pinpoint the reason for his crying out, the wolf's single eye glittered vibrantly, intelligently, in his mind. What are you doing here? thought Iruka. Who are you?

Sleep eluded him that night, though the cabin was warm and comfortable. Wired, turbulent, his mind jumped from one moment of the encounter to the next, always circling back to the blood on the wolf's chest and stomach and the strange, intelligent glint in its eye. Nothing of this magnitude, nothing so strange and near-mystical in nature, had ever crossed his path in all the years he'd lived; nor had death come so close since his parents' premature departure. He found himself worrying for the creature in place of himself. Nothing could survive an Aspenglow winter with an injury like that…not even a wolf. After rotating for the eightieth time in his bed, Iruka dragged himself from under the grip of his flannel sheets to layer himself in coat after coat. Luckily, his boots had long since dried on the fireplace; he slipped them on mechanically, wondering what madness could possibly justify his venturing into a night this frigid. But whatever it was, it demanded he bring a first-aid kit with him.

The winter air almost stripped Iruka of his unconscious resolve. It was cold enough to make his eyes water and freeze in the same moment, the sting of which made him squint and suck in an ice-laced breath. Wrapping his arms about himself, Iruka nevertheless forged ahead, footfalls melting into pools of light blue shadow as he made his way across the snow towards the forest. As he reached the timberline, however, he realized that he had no idea where to begin searching. Aspenglow, a large and dangerous mountain, could only swell in both respects under the veneer of night; to what kind of danger would wandering blindly in the woods lead? In spite of the apparently hopeless predicament, Iruka tried to inject a dose of logic into his racing mind. If I were an injured wolf, he asked himself, where would I go? Someplace warm, someplace quiet; most likely near food…

At that, the young man paused. He was moving in the wrong direction.

Broken glass shards and drops of blood dotting the ground around his wood shed confirmed Iruka's suspicions. The creature, lacking strength enough to flee an adequate distance, had likely circled back after bolting from him earlier that morning and climbed the snowdrift heaping near his shed in order to gain entry to the structure's quiet and relatively warm interior. Heart pounding, Iruka clutched the doorknob and pushed, knowing what he would see before he did so. The wolf— i his /i wolf, he couldn't help but think—was sprawled on the bark-spattered shed floor. Gory wound appearing even darker under the contrast of moonlight, its chest rose and fell only slightly, attesting to the severity of its condition. It was far too weak to snap at Iruka as the young man knelt by its side. First-aid kit in grasp, Iruka gritted his teeth and set to work.

His hands were numb and caked with dry blood by the time the sun peaked over the horizon, and the wolf was still unconscious, though its breathing seemed more regulated than before. Iruka found himself using his coat as a method for dragging the creature across the snowy expanse that lead to his house. Though half-starved, it was far heavier than it looked, and he nearly collapsed after managing to carry it up the steps and lay it in front of the hearth's dying embers.

"I hope," murmured Iruka, "you don't try to kill me for this." He sank onto the couch across from the wolf's resting spot and drifted easily into slumber as, outside, Aspenglow awoke. His departure brought dreams of his parents, and of a beast's glinting eye.

Said eye watched him intently as he slept.

His name was Kakashi, though those on Aspenglow knew him by Sakumo, his sire's moniker. More of a title than anything, it annoyed him in most ways, but the wolf had never truly cared enough to correct the ignorant creatures who used it. He was not so weak that he needed them to define his identity. He did, however, need them for food, and it seemed almost predictable that they did not provide him with such. Kakashi did not think of himself as cruel—though most of the beings he hunted were self-aware, they were also stupid; he simply had little patience for stupid things.

Humans were a people of which he knew little and cared for less. So far as he could tell, they were all arrogant in their blindness to the world around them; intelligence made them tricky, fear made them cruel, but by nature, they were merely weak. He only needed avoid them until recently. He, like all predators, was driven by the ever-present need for a food source, and the lack of such had led him to desperation. Any fool would attack a human in such a situation, but it took a special fool to fail in procuring a meal for the trouble. Kakashi had done both, and he hated himself for it despite the fact that his particular circumstances made such inaction justifiable. The wound, however, was the result of simple carelessness. During a confrontation with a stray German Shepherd, the dog had taken advantage of a moment's distraction to sink its teeth into Kakashi's lower neck. Though it had taken little effort to retaliate and drive it off, the gash it left him had proved a large factor in his decision to jump the human. He could only go injured and without food for so long, after all. However, somehow, by the strangeness that was his life, said decision led him to wake in a dwelling that veritably oozed humanity through its clean but sheltered pores. Almost more troublesome was the realization that the very human he had attacked was responsible for the change in scenery as well as the bandages about his middle. Damn them all and their meddling, he seethed in spite of the fire's pleasurable heat. I should have torn his throat out when I had the chance.

Still, all things considered, the human had saved him considerable trouble. He'd little desire to take on his true form for something so petty as pilfering medical supplies. To his kind, pride was nearly as important as health, and the last thing the wolf needed were snotty little mice whispering of how Sakumo's heir had shed his wolf-skin just to lick his wounds. Being helped by a human, however, was almost as shameful, and it left him at an impasse. He could theoretically kill the young man now, but such a measure would prove fundamentally unjust in addition to difficult—despite his own nonchalance, Kakashi was all too aware of the weakness blood loss had thrust on him. It ruled out fleeing the scene as well. For now, the wolf decided, he could only wait.

A day passed, during which time Kakashi grudgingly allowed the human to change the bandages winding about his slowly-healing cut twice. The man spoke few words during those long, slightly invasive sessions, which suited the wolf just fine. He would much rather observe the human in silence.

However, on the second night, his rescuer told him, "My name is Iruka."

Kakashi didn't care. He did care, however, that the human moved gracefully, assured in spite of his weakness; that his hands were long and skilled; that his skin was dark and warm as the flank of a stag; and that his eyes were large and sweet, hiding nothing from his. It was better that his potential captor proved unable to fight back or lie; in the event that Kakashi would have to kill him, he preferred it be a relatively struggle-free affair.

After all, the warmth of a house—and of some human's gaze—was nothing in comparison to the freedom offered by his wilderness. Above all else, he wanted to return. Wolves, no matter how unique, knew where they belonged. By the end of the week, he would be gone, and the human would be left alone once more.

Or so he told himself.