your request for the ficathon comes from kiterie

Festival: An Spring or early Summer festival
Pairing: Kakashi x Iruka
Rating: teen-ish
Genre/Type: ANGST but with a happy ending

Summary: Iruka gets left behind, but Kakashi always comes back for him.

Sorry its late. --" like…really late. TTTT I sent it to her, I really did! And then i..just didn't post it. Sorry its so short.

Iruka started through he crowd, head down, and bangs safely hiding his features. Usually, he would enjoy the summer festival, but this year, everything seemed subdued, the colors not as bright, laughter not quite so genuine. He held back the tears that threatened to slip down his cheeks.

He watched the children at the game booths, trying to gain some happiness from their joy, but the smiles and shouts of joy sounded hollow and empty in his ears. Everything had lost its meaning for him, nothing was worth his time anymore, he had no reason to go on as he had for twenty-four years.

His eyes lost their final glow of hope, and his body went numb. Silver and sunshine had left his life; leaving him only with the burden of existing. An empty shell of a shinobi, that's what he had become. If the sunshine and silver where there with him, he might have been able to come back and laugh, to smiled once more. But they were dead, their cold bodies and glassy eyes buried in the ground along with this love for them.

Kakashi…Naruto, they had both promised him that they would come back, that they would stay by his side so that he would never be lonely again. Iruka whimpered as pain seared through his chest. He would continue to live for them; and he would wait for them to come for him. His lover and little brother.

Iruka left the festival, with its bright colors and fake laughter, even as his heart gave a final painful throb and turned to ice.

It had been exactly two years since that day, and Iruka now sat in a hospital bed, the annual festivities going on below his window. He didn't long to be there, he was happy here, sitting in the quite gloom and listening to the constant beeping that told him that his heart was still beating.

He was happiest here because he knew that even that would stop soon. It was a strange thing, knowing that you were about to die, but he didn't mind at all, because Kakashi and Naruto were standing at his bedside, smiling at him, and beckoning him to go with them, to be a family again.

Iruka took one last look out the window before turning back and taking his lovers hand.

"Welcome home love."

Iruka smiled for the first time since they had left him. "Yes, I am home, aren't I?"

AN-well that's it. I think I did pretty well for not being able to write angst all that well. I'm not as talented as some people. I hope you all enjoyed that though. )