Title: Coda
Warnings: Major Character Death, stream of consciousness, non-linear narrative, tense/pov switching, angst.
AN: This fic might make you cry, so keep a box of tissues handy! Also, I love reviews, so feel free to review! All formalistic decisions were made very intentionally. This piece is highly literary with switching point of views, tenses, and experimental sentence forms. It may be inaccessible to some readers who do not have familiarity in high modernism or postmodernist writing conventions or forms. It is not for everyone. I also might add that this was written before chapter 599, so this fic should be considered "alternate canon," diverging from the reveal in 599.

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

- T.S. Eliot

I envy them their public love. I myself have only known it in secret, shared it in secret, and longed, aw longed to show it - to be able to say it out loud what they have no need to say at all: That I have loved only you, surrendered my whole self reckless to you and nobody else. That I want you to love me back and show it to me. That I love the way you hold me, how close you let me be to you. I like your fingers on and on, lifting, turning. I have watched your face for a long time now, and missed your eyes when you went away from me. Talking to you and hearing you answer - that's the kick.

But I can't say that aloud; I can't tell anyone that I have been waiting for this all my life and that being chosen to wait is the reason I can. If I were able I'd say it. Say make me, remake me. You are free to do it and I am free to let you because look, look. Look where your hands are. Now.

- Toni Morrison

I. We die with the dying

It's been a month since you've been gone.

The house is too quiet, too still. The surfaces are all covered in dust - you'd be disappointed. I try to do my best to keep the place the way you left it, but it's difficult to polish surfaces until I can see my reflection in them. I'd rather not see my reflection at all, because seeing myself reminds me of you. But then again, everything does.

So I let the dust settle.

It's easier this way.

The mornings are the hardest.

Waking up and realizing that he's not there.

It's hard to come out of a dream, where Iruka's smile is all Kakashi can see, and reach for him in bed, only for his hand to curl around air. Harder to open his eyes and instinctively look for Iruka and listen for him, before remembering that he will never again hear Iruka humming in the kitchen as he prepared them breakfast. Never feel the warmth of his body, how he used to snuggle right up against Kakashi at dawn. And when the sun stretched above the horizon, he used to press his head right into the curve of Kakashi's neck and inhale, drag his fingertips over scars he knew well, then reach up and press a soft kiss to Kakashi's chin, before smiling sleepily and whispering, "Good morning."

This was how Kakashi greeted almost every morning in Konoha for the past fifteen years.

Now all he has is an empty space beside him. A pillow that still holds strands of Iruka's hair, that still smells like Iruka when Kakashi closes his eyes and presses his face to the worn cotton and inhales. Oranges and tea and cinnamon and warmth and god, Iruka, Iruka is never coming back and all Kakashi has left to hold is a pillow with his fading scent in a house that feels much too large without Iruka to fill it up with his laughter.

There was a morning two months ago, when Iruka was still feeling strong enough to walk.

They took a small stroll outside their fish pond and fed the koi together. Iruka laughed when the fish nibbled at his fingers and Kakashi brought him tea and oranges - his favorite - to enjoy while they sat under the sycamore tree and watched the sunset.

Iruka took a sip of his tea and looked at Kakashi with soft, sad eyes, and Kakashi pretended he didn't see it, because he knew what those eyes meant. What was coming. He focused on the sunset instead, and on the solid warmth of Iruka's body alongside his own. Iruka had grown so frail. So weak.

"Kakashi..." Iruka murmured, nuzzling Kakashi a little to get his attention.

"Hmmm?" Kakashi looked down, and felt a stab go right through him. In the waning light of day, shadows cut harshly across Iruka's features, drawing out the gauntness in his face, the prominence of sharp cheekbones. And there was nothing Kakashi could do, but watch the love of his life wither away.

"When I'm gone-" Iruka started to say, but Kakashi didn't want to hear it. He shook his head no and whispered a soft shhhh as he tried to stop the words from coming, because he couldn't bear them. Couldn't bear to think of a time when Iruka would be gone, and would no longer be here. But Iruka frowned and swallowed thickly, moisture glittering in his eyes as he reached for Kakashi's hands with his own. They were trembling. "You have to listen to me, Kakashi... Please. I need you to listen."

Kakashi just looked at him then, quietly. He didn't want to listen because there was a crazy, irrational part of him that thought if he didn't, he could still believe, in a way, that this wasn't happening. That if neither of them fully accepted it, that somehow it wouldn't be real - even if he knew that no amount of wishing, of pretending, was going to change the facts. Iruka was dying, his body crumbling in on itself, and all Kakashi could do was hold him and be strong.

Iruka's fingers grasped Kakashi's tightly then, as his eyes searched Kakashi's, imploringly. "When I'm gone... I want you to try your best and go on living your life. It'll be hard at first, but you're so strong, Kakashi. I know you can do this."

Kakashi managed a semblance of a smile and nodded, then pressed a kiss against Iruka's temple, which made Iruka smile.

He didn't have it in him to tell Iruka what he's known since they fell in love fifteen years ago and Iruka became his world.

There is no life without you.

Kakashi started living for the first time when he met Iruka, slowly figuring out what it means to live for himself. Sometimes he forgot, but Iruka reminded him again, what it meant to be alive, and the feeling of it. Life. How good it could be. Filled with happiness Kakashi never thought possible when it's the stuff made up of fairy tales - a love worth living for.

It's living that's most difficult.

Living, when there is nothing left to live for, or when you've forgotten why you do in a world where boys are never really boys. They spend their childhoods running through mud that is made up of blood from the throats of grown men they cut down in the quiet of night, with only the wind and the trees to bear witness and keep their secrets (the secret is that there is never a choice. they want you to believe there is but in the end you are standing in mud that fills up your shoes and runs between your toes and a rock too large for you to move because you are too small), so no one ever really knows the truth or how they all go mad living a life that is not a life because it doesn't belong to them.

This is what they are all told when they are young: it is an honor to die for your village and have your name carved into the stone of heroes and legends. It is an honor to die, so it's the living part that's harder, the living part that remembers what your best friend was like when he was alive, that can't forget the face attached to the name or the truth that is never told because no one knows it (they think they know it, but they never do; no one could know the feeling of that mud filling up your shoes). So the truth is the accusation swimming in a hundred pinwheel eyes that demand justice; justice for the empty coffin they bury with a picture inside, justice for the picture and a pair of goggles that he'll never wear again, and justice for the only thing left of him implanted in Kakashi's head.

"I'm going to become your eye and see the future for you."

( The weight of those words, they're as heavy as rock. And sometimes I can't hear anything but them, when they fill up my ears and weigh me down. I was buried with you all those years ago. The rocks came down and took me with it when it took you away, and I had to live for us both. More for you, than for myself. My life stopped belonging to me the moment those rocks fell. The moment you looked at me and said you'd see the future for me. And I guess you always were looking forward when I was only ever looking back.

It's harder to look forward when there's so much there, in the past.

You're smiling and I'm not sure why, when there's a rock on you and how can you even breathe when it's crushing your chest? This grave of stone and dirt. This mausoleum of broken promises and hope. I am here but not here anymore, and I don't know how to tell you that your words are still heavy even if I can't hear them in my ears. They've grown into my spine and I can't separate them, splice them out. They are a part of me the way you've grown into me, too. And sometimes I'm not sure what parts of me are still me and what have become you. I can live with that, even if I can't live with myself. I can live for you. For her. For us. )

Life becomes this: living to remember, living in memory or for it, to keep him and her and all of the lost ones alive. You were so busy living for them that you stopped living for yourself, because you were not really alive anyway, except to memorialize the silence of all that was unspoken, all the truth that got buried with a pair of goggles and the whispers of legends of heroes that fell so sweetly from the tongues of mothers and filled up the ears of anyone who would listen. The truth got left behind, except for the sound of his voice in your head that went on for all the years after. His voice that said your name in a way no one else did.

Sometimes it was all you ever heard, in the silence after missions when the mud filled up your shoes (but it wasn't that mud, no, not the mud made up of blood that belonged to him, which you never could wash off because that blood was his, and it was all you had left of him) and the feeling reminded you of the rock you couldn't move. And maybe it was his voice saying your name the way he always did in your head that kept you alive, that gave you a reason to keep on living even when you sometimes forgot why you did in a world where boys are never really boys.

His voice, and your name, and a hundred pinwheel eyes, and the memory of his ghost sitting by your side when you laid feverish at the edge of death, telling you that it was time to stop living for them and to start living for yourself. What kind of a man does not know that he is a man and what it means to be one? To own himself, his body, his heart, and the life that beats from it? This life is not a life and will never be, if you never start living, or remember what it was like when you did live. What it means to love and to take chances, god dammit, Kakashi.

At some point, Kakashi convinced himself that it would be alright to make it so life could be good one day, and living didn't have to be difficult. No, living could be damn fine indeed, even when the missions went on forever. Especially the kill at the end. That always took longest, every second yawning so wide he felt it pass like hours instead - the feeling of his hand passing lightning through a man's chest and the life that left the heart a moment later.

Nights like that stretched on for an eternity, and sometimes he thought morning would never come.

Daylight was for the living, for the people who looked in the mirror and saw their own reflection, which Kakashi never saw back then. He'd look in the mirror and see the reflection of someone else. Someone with a red and white face and holes cut out for his eyes, which were not completely his own, because one of them belonged to Obito. He would look in the mirror and there would be someone else standing there, someone who was not really alive and not quite dead, but was trying to be alive or figure out what alive meant, and in the middle of all this being and not being alive, he was busy ending lives. Putting them out with his hands. He never asked why he did it or what they did to deserve it because the answers belonged to the rich man who lived in his castle far away, and the elders who wafted above the ground in fine silk robes that smelled of camphor and jasmine and not at all like the blood and dirt and the stink of death that was the smell of men who were boys and boys who were men like himself with no faces.

Only hands. Hands to kill, hands to put out the lives they were commanded to take without knowing why they should, and hands to bury the dead or the empty boxes that signified them.

Those hands, the feeling of a man dying by them, they remembered the moment because they could not forget the flesh and blood feel of life disappearing because they were told it must. And he was not really sure if it was because it was his own hands that were doing it that dragged out the moments as long as they did or if it was because he was living for someone else. For Obito who wanted to see the future, for Rin who made him promise to live on, and for a teacher who gave up his life to save his and the rest of the people in the village. Living for three people who were not himself made life slower and longer and made death even more so. The memories of him and him and her and everyone else who he lost along the way, every breath he took without them or for them crawled so slowly, he must have lived a thousand lifetimes by the time he died by Pain's hand.

But death was not ready for him then.

It spat him back out to continue being what he was the moment the rocks fell: a living memorial.

He had forgotten the truth. Had let himself believe the words Obito said when he told him that he needed to start living for himself. He was so caught up by the living, by being alive and feeling life for the very first time since Obito died, by every day he woke up and saw Iruka smiling back at him, he forgot there was a world outside of the one they created with each other. They had no need for things like the entertainment that everyone else in the world seemed fill their days with because they had each other, and they were always losing time, losing themselves, by giving more and more of themselves to the other. Kakashi thought he could be alive this way, if he could finally put his hands around someone and feel like this person belonged to him as he belonged to them. That there was something beautiful and wondrous about life that he could call his own. Something that was far away from the blood and the long nights and the feeling of flesh and blood dying in his hands.

The flesh and blood under his hands when he touched Iruka was more alive than life itself, and when he reached out for it, when he put his hands on it and felt it warm and supple under his fingers and saw the smile that touch elicited, he knew. He knew then that life could be good, and he could have this good life for himself. And for fifteen years, he lived and loved and on the really good days, sometimes he even remembered how to dream. Remembered a time in his life before the killing began when he was quite young that he sometimes smiled without something pressing upon the curve. Just smiled and laughed, openly and honestly without abandon, the way all children do when they are young, or when he was with Iruka. And though the days were not always good, and at times were quite hard, Kakashi was happy.

They lived a quiet life, the two of them. Watching sunsets paint across the sky and counting the stars. Making meals together and eating them, taking walks together through the village where Iruka would sometimes wistfully look at children holding their parents' hands and squeeze Kakashi's. Iruka loved children, and Kakashi knew there was a part of him that always wanted his own, and always thought that maybe one day - just maybe - if Iruka really wanted, they could adopt a child, start a family. Kakashi was already forty-one, after all, and Iruka was brushing thirty-eight. Though Kakashi wasn't particularly excited about the idea of raising a child, he saw the longing in Iruka's eyes and wanted to fill it. Especially because the life they lived together was shared. And Kakashi wanted to share everything with Iruka.

He had forgotten.

He had forgotten that this life was not entirely his to choose. That all fairy tales have endings. Just like lives.

And Iruka.

Watching Iruka waste away was excruciating. But Kakashi gathered himself up and stayed by his side. Watching him, holding him, pressing kisses to his temple. Counting the hours. Knowing that their time was short and the days would not go on forever even though Iruka once promised him that he'd never leave. That they'd be together forever. And even though Kakashi always knew that kind of promise wasn't possible, that forever didn't exist in the lives of men who spent most of their days running towards death, there was a part of him that wished for forever. That wanted to believe in it, the way he wanted to believe in the hope for a cure, even long after they said it was too late. That Iruka's body couldn't even handle a cure now, because the disease had progressed too far. Death was just a matter of time, ticking away. The hours soon became minutes and Kakashi barely even slept, terrified that if he did, Iruka might slip away from him during the night.

He slipped soldier pills into his diet in secret, ate more to make up for the side-effects, and watched and waited, but never stopped hoping that maybe, just maybe, some miracle might happen - even though Kakashi never believed in miracles his entire life. He needed to believe in it now. For himself. For Iruka.

At some point, Iruka stopped being able to see that well, so Kakashi described everything to him, the colors of the sky, and the children that played outside in the street, the new coat Naruto designed in preparation for his upcoming ascension to Hokage. He held him and read to him - letters from friends, poems, books. When Iruka lost the ability to take care of himself and had accidents in bed, Kakashi steeled himself and cleaned him up, wiped away his tears, and held him in a warm bath, telling him that it would be okay. That it wasn't Iruka's fault and Kakashi loved him just the same. There was nothing to be embarrassed of or to be ashamed, because this was all a part of Iruka, and Iruka was a part of Kakashi. So this part, too, belonged to Kakashi. Even the most difficult parts that made Iruka weep while Kakashi swallowed down his own tears.

He almost never cried in front of Iruka. Never showed Iruka anything other than the strong, loving man Iruka shared a life with, a home. This was the self he wanted Iruka to have until the end - the Kakashi that could handle anything, even his entire world dying in his arms. He could do this, had to survive, had to be strong for the both of them because Iruka no longer had any strength left, and all Kakashi could do was watch and count the rise and falls of his chest when he slept. He put his head on Iruka's chest sometimes and just listened, oh listened, to the beat of that heart and wished it would go on beating forever.

The irony didn't escape him. He spent his entire life chasing death, and now that it was chasing Iruka, all he wanted to do was take Iruka and run as far away from it as he could. Keep on running, to the ends of the earth, if that was even possible. If it meant they could escape this, that Iruka would survive and they could get old and grey together the way Iruka always used to joke about, Kakashi would do it. Would do whatever it took to make that happen. He consulted Tsunade, sent Sakura off on missions to the farthest lands to meet with other healers. At one point, he briefly considered using Chiyo-obaasama's lifegiving jutsu, to trade his own life for Iruka's, but the look Iruka gave him when he told him that he copied her technique when she saved Gaara so many years ago put that idea to bed far too quickly. During the most difficult hours, Kakashi wanted to just do it because he knew he could, because it was the only thing he had to save Iruka, and he would rather die than watch Iruka suffer. But he knew it wouldn't be fair to Iruka, and he had no right to take away the most important choice Iruka had. Even if every part of him wanted to do just that.

When Iruka wasn't strong enough to let Kakashi make love to him anymore, but still wanted Kakashi, still needed to touch him and feel him and taste him because it was one of the few things that reminded him that he was still alive, Kakashi made love to him in other ways - with his hands and his mouth and his body. He took Iruka into himself and rode him slowly, their bodies rocking together like trees fighting against the wind until Iruka was exhausted but happy and smiling and holding Kakashi against himself, whispering sweet things into his hair as the sweat dried on their skin. Then he whispers I want to see the ocean again. So Kakashi takes him one last time.

Under the sycamore tree behind their house, Iruka watched the setting sun, and Kakashi watched Iruka, holding him in his arms with his lips pressed against Iruka's temple. Iruka had been so weak the past few days, and could barely see anymore. Just one more day , Kakashi wished. He'd never been a particularly religious man, never held much faith in the idea of gods when the lives they lived were so damn hard, but there never went a day that went past since Iruka told him the truth that Kakashi didn't pray. Just one more day. One more. One more day to hold him, to love him, to feel his warmth. To touch him and feel that he's alive, still here, still breathing, still Kakashi's beautiful, gentle, sweet Iruka.

But then Iruka whispered, "You are the best thing that has happened in my life, Kakashi."

And at that moment, Kakashi knew that there wouldn't be another day.

Iruka died with the sun.

Kakashi held him long after the stars cut through night, tears quietly soaking Iruka's hair.

"I'm sorry," Kakashi whispered as he pressed his forehead against Iruka's temple, eyes squeezed shut. "I didn't get to tell you how much I love you before you left. But if you just open your eyes and come back to me, I'll tell you as much as you want..."

Iruka never did come back.

Neither did the sun.

At least, not for Kakashi.

Sometimes, I think I hear you.

Humming from the kitchen like you used to every morning, or laughing in the garden, where you once raised an entire family of rabbits. Remember that? I told you they would destroy your garden - and they did - but you just got all angry and red and told me to mind my own business and they were your rabbits now, and I wasn't to get rid of them. Well. That is, until they all decided to get X-rated and reproduced so much that there almost was no garden left. Though it was entirely your fault, you still blamed it on me for not keeping a better eye on them. Because what belonged to you belonged to me too. They weren't just your rabbits. They were ours.

The other day, I visited them for you at the sanctuary. I brought them some of the vegetables from the garden. I'm not sure why you grew so much - I can't eat it all on my own. I'm trying my best to take care of the garden, but I don't have your touch.

Everything keeps dying.

I'm not sure what to do.

Eventually, the garden dies.

Kakashi lets it go, weeds growing over and running rampant, taking over Iruka's hard work. Every evening, he sits next to the dead garden under the sycamore tree alone and watches the sunset, remembering the last one they had together. And the first time they made love under its wide branches. How alive Iruka was back then, demanding and needy and breathless and wanting, always wanting more. Give me more, he whispered, and Kakashi did, their bodies pounding against each other. Afterwards, Kakashi kissed the new bruises and Iruka's fingers languidly brushed through his hair. Do you think we'll still be doing this when we're old and grey? Iruka asked, playing with Kakashi's ear. That depends on how bad the arthritis is, Kakashi murmured, and Iruka laughed. It's okay, if you can't get it up, Iruka said fondly, nuzzling Kakashi. I'll just count your wrinkles until you do.

Kakashi doesn't sleep much anymore, if only because every time he closes his eyes he sees Iruka - and all he wants to do is stay with him. To see that smile once more, and hear the way Iruka used to whisper his name when they made love.

Sometimes it's all he can hear, Iruka's voice ringing in his head, louder than the one he's carried inside himself since the rock fell. His name, and Iruka's voice, and the memory of his entire world dying in his arms. Kakashi never even gave him a proper goodbye. Just tried to silence him, because the finality in his voice, the knowledge of what was coming, was too much. And he thought if he just put it off, if he could stop the words before they came, he could somehow stop what was coming.

Until it was too late.

So he visits Iruka's grave every day and tells him what he couldn't say before.

"I don't know how to live without you, anymore."

The only thing that responds is a rustle of wind, dancing through Kakashi's hair like Iruka's fingers. He closes his eyes and pretends, imagines Iruka standing there behind him with his lips pressed to the curve of his neck and one hand carving through his hair. If he imagines hard enough, maybe he can somehow make believe Iruka back into existence. Back into life. But he knows that would be far too easy.

Life isn't that merciful.

If it were, it never would've taken Iruka from him.

Sometimes, I think it was all just a bad dream. That somehow, I made it all up. That I'll wake up and you'll be right there to wrap your arms around me and kiss me and tell me it wasn't real. Then maybe after that, we'll make love and you'll smile and say my name and hold me close so I can hear the beat of your heart.

But when I wake up, you're not there.

But I still see you, everywhere. Standing in the doorway, or just in the garden at night. Walking down the street with a bag of groceries, or playing with the children in front of the Academy. Reading scrolls in the living room or standing in front of the stove. Then I blink, and you're gone.

I don't know how much longer I can keep on doing this.

One day, a knock sounds at the door, and when Kakashi opens it, Tenzou is standing there with his arms filled with groceries. It seems that everyone has decided to take turns to make sure Kakashi is still breathing. Gai had spent nearly every waking hour checking in on Kakashi the first two weeks, until Kakashi went stir-crazy with his presence and sent him away. Naruto and Sakura come by like clockwork to bring him tea and sit and talk to him, update him on the going-ons in the village. Naruto is excited about the prospect of becoming Hokage, but sad that Iruka wouldn't be there to see it happen.

"He gave me his hitai-ate, y'know," Naruto told Kakashi one day over a bowl of ramen. Naruto hand-delivered the ramen and insisted that they eat it together. He even brought a bowl to place in front of the shrine that held a picture of Iruka, next to the tea and oranges Iruka liked so much. So Iruka-sensei doesn't get hungry, he said.

"I know," Kakashi said quietly, and something in his voice made Naruto stop and look at him before shutting up. They ate in silence after that.

With the runup to the inauguration, Naruto and Sakura visit less and less. So it isn't all that surprising that Tenzou is here now with groceries. Kakashi simply lets him in because he's too tired to tell Tenzou that he doesn't need to be taken care of, even if the cupboards are almost empty, and there's nothing edible left in the fridge.

"You look like shit, Senpai," Tenzou says, and Kakashi doesn't argue. Tenzou makes himself busy in the kitchen, throwing away food that's begun to decay and mold, putting everything away in its rightful place as Kakashi watches from the kitchen table and drinks cup after cup of Iruka's favorite tea.

Afterwards, Tenzou sits down in front of him and pours himself a cup and looks Kakashi squarely in the eye. "I know it's hard, but you need to take care of yourself."

"I'm fine, Tenzou."

"No, you're not. The only time you ever seem to leave the house is to visit the memorial or Iruka. If the bags underneath your eyes are any indication, you barely sleep. It's clear that you've lost a lot of weight, too, so you aren't eating. At this rate, you're going to kill yourself with malnutrition."

"You seem to have difficulty understanding what 'fine' means." Kakashi's words come out sharp, but Tenzou just frowns and folds his arms across his chest.

"He wouldn't want you to do this to yourself. He wouldn't want to see you like this."

" Don't-"

"-you know he wouldn't want this for you, Senpai, you know- "

Tenzou doesn't get to finish what he's saying because faster than he can blink, his throat is suddenly crushed by Kakashi's hand and jagged lines split through the kitchen wall where his back met the wood with a sharp crack. The table is flipped over from Kakashi coming right over it, and tea has spilt all over the kitchen floor. Kakashi's breath comes out of him heavily, labored, and for a moment Tenzou almost thinks Kakashi might just kill him, with the way his chakra feels - like it wants blood.

"I said, don't . " Kakashi grinds the words out between his teeth, then lets Tenzou go, watching impassively as his kouhai coughs and chokes for air, one hand angrily shoving Kakashi away.

"Fuck, Senpai, you need help." Tenzou is angry, but more worried for Kakashi, as he feels around his neck, rubbing at it sorely.

"I don't need anything, except for you to leave."

"Senpai-"

" Leave." From the look Kakashi gives him, Tenzou knows he's not going to get very far with him, so he leaves Kakashi standing there in a room with a flipped-over table, broken teacups, and Iruka's memory that Kakashi can't let go of or move on from. He's so stuck on it that he's forgotten how to even properly live. But then, Kakashi never did know how to really live before Iruka. And going back to that not-life, that state of mere existence, after fifteen years of living, is worse than death.

Death is easy, after all. You simply close your eyes and let go.

It's living that's most difficult.

Living, when there is nothing left to live for in a world where all you see is him. But every time you reach out to touch him, he disappears, leaving you holding nothing but an empty red yukata that no longer smells of him when you press your face into it and slowly inhale.

A/N: Reviewers may want to bear in mind that the writer is a professional academic who teaches and studies literature at an Ivy League university and is working on her Ph.D in literature. I appreciate feedback, but bear in mind that I know what I'm doing and do this professionally. I would appreciate if you hold off on any "feedback" that targets form, narrative structure, or "punctuation" decisions.