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Nothing really starts, nothing really ends.
The war is aflame. The war is won.
People die. Some come back; others don’t.
Kakashi loses his eye. The thing he is named after. The one thing that he’s been known for for years and years. He is no more.
He is whole, and he is broken.
He’s set to put on the heavy robes and the even heavier responsibilities that come with.
In years his body is still young. But it is battle-worn, torn apart and put together too many times. It has lived many lives, too many of which he’d rather forget.
He feels like one hundred and fifty and then some more, like he’s seen the mountains rising from the ocean and the sun exploding. But it’s just a blink of an eye really – still, he feels old in his skin, in his broken mind and he just really, really needs to rest.
His mind wanders and he thinks, had he really lived a thousand years, would he have been able to stop it, to change the course of the world as he knew it?
What if Minato had lived? What if Sasuke had stayed? What if Rin, what if Obito, what if...?
What if they had stayed together?
The thought stings him hard, the painful longing, and he’s not sure if he’s allowed to ask for it, to hope for it.
What if all those years ago, just those couple of years ago, they had stayed together?
What if he’d had the courage to stay, to take everything he was offered, to take that hand, to never let go?
Kakashi is back in the village.
Iruka sees him in the town, far away, walking down the street.
He sees him in the administration building, talking to Tsunade, talking to daimyos, talking to everyone important.
He sees the dark circles around his eyes, his two eyes, the old and familiar and the young and new. He sees the slumped shoulders, the defeat. The permanent frown that never leaves his face, the constant worry swirling in him.
He sees he’s shattering, sees he’s barely holding it together, sees the facade slowly crumbling.
He sees it, because he knows it. Knows him and every ache that comes with knowing him.
Old lovers turned distant friends. That’s what they are now.
So is it okay to worry about him?
For some, having your life saved by someone so familiar might ignite the flame again. For some, that would mean remembering what it was like, to dream that it could be once more.
For Iruka it didn’t. It didn’t, because for him it never ended. He never stopped loving. He never stopped regretting.
He believes he will always love Kakashi on some level. That didn’t change when Kakashi left him, or when Kakashi saved him.
He knows they were impossible, had been from the very first moment they ever laid eyes on each other, so it didn’t surprise him that it all ended. They ended.
Despite that knowledge, it made him sad, the ending. It still makes him sad. The sadness is like waves, sometimes bellowing around him and taking him under, sometimes just a shallow water moving lightly around his ankles, almost tenderly.
He is sad because they lost each other.
Then there was war, and Kakashi saved him, and he lost so much and so many.
Now they are among the other ghosts who wander the streets, because no living thing came back from those battlefields. They all laugh and talk and eat and sleep, but Konoha is full of ghosts.
Is it wrong that among all the lifeless immaterial beings he longs for something that makes him feel alive?
Iruka talks to him. Smiles to him. Touches his arm gently.
Kakashi can feel the gravitational pull of Iruka and he tries to resist it. Week after week he tries to resist, tries not to be reminded of the past.
Not to be reminded of them.
They attend the same meetings. A new time, a new city, a new staff. New everything.
Kakashi regrets everything. Every single thing in his sorry life, except Iruka.
Yet he can’t regret everything, because it all led to him. It’s hard to comprehend how all that shit led to something so beautiful.
Something so devastating.
How it led him away.
That Kakashi does regret. He regrets he didn’t stay, regrets he didn’t take the offer. Regrets his cowardice. No war medal and honor for courage can ever fix that.
He regrets leaving Iruka.
Kakashi is in meetings, hurrying to meetings, sleeping between meetings. He aches for rest, but there isn’t any.
They say Konoha needs him. He doesn’t have the energy to say no.
“Kakashi.”
He lifts his head.
Iruka looks at him, frowning.
He glances at the clock. It’s late. He stayed behind after one meeting, not finding the strength to get up and leave just yet. He wanted to breathe for a while, and be alone. He still sits on the same spot.
And now Iruka stands there, staring at him. Asks if he’s okay and why he’s still here. Asks if he’s hungry.
Kakashi can’t even answer. Can’t say he’s drifting away in the current with nothing to hold on, not anymore.
Can't say how much he regrets, how he wants to fix things.
How he wants to go back in time, how he would live the war again if it meant he could relive the moments they once had.
Iruka sits down opposite of him.
He still looks good. Like the years and the war and all the worst things never happened. Like he was still 25 and laughing and living and happy.
Like he wasn’t the ghost Kakashi was.
“Are you hungry?” Iruka asks again and Kakashi shakes his head slowly.
He can’t eat. He eats enough to survive, but he avoids it if he can. Everything tastes like ash, like fight and fire and death.
Everything smells like it too.
He never came home. He’s still out there, standing alone in the battlefield, losing everyone, failing to protect everyone.
He did protect Iruka. He’s glad of that. He did something right.
“Kakashi. Come home with me.”
He lifts his gaze and looks at Iruka. He can’t. He turns his head away. He’s not the same he used to be, and they can never go back to what they once had.
Iruka reaches over the table and takes his hand. Squeezes it. The motion forces Kakashi to look at him again. Iruka lets go and leans back on his chair.
And then he sees it. The same tiredness, the same million lives lived in Iruka’s eyes. And he knows he understands, he knows from the look and the gentle touch, that this is it.
”Let’s go home,” Iruka says again, his voice breaking. He gets up and comes around the table, holds his hand out, offering it to Kakashi.
It’s his if he takes it, he knows.
Kakashi breathes his lungs full for the first time since forever. He feels light.
He takes Iruka’s hand.
Iruka leads Kakashi home. It’s familiar, and it’s new.
He feels as exhausted as Kakashi looks. He goes through motions, but Kakashi isn’t anyone, isn’t unknown. Kakashi knows his way around the apartment, and he knows Iruka.
He doesn’t need to pretend.
Iruka sighs as he gets rid of his clothes and buries himself into the soft bed where, for once, he doesn’t have to sleep alone.
Kakashi breaks down as soon as he lays down. Iruka thinks it's a wonder he made it this far. The look on his face has been pure agony for weeks, months even.
It's a purifying moment in all of its horribleness.
He has never seen Kakashi cry before.
Iruka holds him through the tears and sobs and shaking. He runs his fingers through Kakashi’s hair, caresses his bare skin gently and lets him cling to his back. It’s painful, but he doesn’t care.
He, too, cries thinking about all the lost ones, all the lost moments, everything they left behind. He cries thinking about the could have’s and should have’s.
They hold onto each other as the sadness washes over them. It’s a storm, its force takes them with it without asking.
But like every storm, it passes. Eventually the rage calms down, the waves get smaller and the tide turns.
The first rays of sunlight pierce through the window. Kakashi breathes steadily in his arms, asleep at last. Iruka takes his hand and watches him sleep.
The frown is gone for now, and Kakashi looks young. Like he was 27 and happy.
Kakashi wakes up. He cracks his eyes open slowly.
The light in the room is getting dim, like a setting sun. It probably is. Orange hue colors everything.
The changing day feels like a goodbye. Warmth embraces him: soft pillow, warm blanket, arm around his waist.
He looks at Iruka, who holds his hand and smiles softly.
He takes one step, two steps. Away from the battle, away from the war.
He’s coming home, and Iruka is there to welcome him, and this time, Kakashi intends to stay.
He sighs, and Iruka’s fingers run through his hair gently.
He’s finally coming home.