Title: Waiting

Claimer/Author: This story is written by and belongs to Emmy Kay.

Pairing: Iruka, Kakashi

Summary: Angst. How long is a ninja allowed to mourn?

Warnings: Death. Hospital stay. Some medical descriptions.

Disclaimer: Naruto and all affiliated characters belong to Kishimoto Masashi. This story is written without permission and for personal/fan/nonprofit entertainment purposes only.

Notes: Written for a prompt on the kakairu kink meme.

Prompt: These feelings won't go away.

Is it Kakashi dealing with these strange feelings Iruka evokes within him whenever they're close?
Is it Iruka longing for Kakashi and believing it'll never happen?
Is it one of them dealing with the fallout of heartbreak?
I leave it to you, anon.
It can be angsty or fluffy, sappy or sad.

How long is a ninja allowed to mourn?

I've been mourning someone for as long as I can remember - friends, parents, teammates, teachers, leaders, students. I don't know how to stop. Don't know if I can. I just wait until the pain goes away. But this time, I don't know if it will.

It's very quiet in this wing of the hospital. They allow little televisions, but the sound is largely muted. Something about the building just absorbs the sound. You could hear the squeak of gurneys all the way down the hall, the clack of people's shoes on floors, but the happy sounds of game shows and soap operas coming from your very own speakers, no way. Unless those are too loud. Maybe grief affects the hearing.

The one thing you can't hear are the clocks. You'd think there would be a tick, or a tock, or even a click as their arms move in that stuttering sweep around their faces, but there's nothing. I like that sound. It tells me where I am, when I am. I miss it.

They put him in a hospital mask and put a tube down his throat - the better for him to breathe, they say. It pumps in oxygen at a steady rate, so the indicator says. He probably would think it's funny, the care with which people had masked him. Ironic, he would say, people wanting to put him in a mask. It covers the terrible burns.

Tubing and needles sprout out of one arm and side. That's where they insert the drugs. He's been deeply sedated - otherwise, he'd be screaming in pain. They did this because there weren't other places to insert the needles. They had already removed a leg and part of the other arm. They weren't able to save those. They have his eyes taped shut. They don't know about his eyes.

It smells terrible in here. No matter how many times I come here, I'll never get used to that weird, almost sour, antiseptic smell. That's timeless.

We sit on uncomfortable, hard-backed chairs and watch the monitors for his life signs. The sitting around would bother him. He is an active person, despite appearances.

Sakura says, "It's amazing how strong his heart is, after all of this." Like she's proving a point.

She says that he's a hero. He was there at the right time, the right place. He saved people by jumping into a fight against a rogue nin with a grudge against Konoha. He should have beaten that missing-nin. And he did. Except for one thing - that missing-nin was a fire specialist. As he lay dying, he cast a jutsu - a sticky, engulfing white flame. The missing-nin died, kunai neatly opening a major artery in his neck. And the hero - well, he's lying here in front of me, attached to several machines ticking out his life's needs.

He wasn't supposed to be there. He was to supposed to be meeting somebody. But one of them got it wrong - wrong time, wrong place. She is very careful not to tell me who he was supposed to be meeting. I can tell by the way she bites back on the places where a name should be.

"Can I hold his hand?"

Sakura looks at me with great pity. "Of course, Sensei," she replies.

The bandages are in the way. They're dry, cold, rough. It feels terrible to touch.

She says, "It's okay to let go. He won't be able to feel it. The heat destroyed a lot of nerve endings."

I hold on, the chill dispelled by the warmth underneath.

I hate all of us in that room. Sakura, being so used to this, for knowing how I would react. Him, for being a hero, for being here. And me. But hating myself is nothing new.

They kick me outside for a minute. It's sunny, bright. A beautiful day, smelling of newly-cut grass and sunshine. He would love it.

I wish it were raining and cold and windy and miserable. What's the phrase? Pathetic fallacy. I want some of that right now. Jiraiya's books always have plenty of it - we would laughingly argue about it, trying to determine whether Icha Icha had any literary merit. I don't think there was any. It's just porn. He always held out hope, amused, that maybe Jiraiya's writing would get better with the next volume. And the next, and the next. Until we knew there wouldn't be any more.

My eyes hurt.

Where's the rain when you need it?

"Can I help you, Sensei?" That's what I remember being asked.

"Oh, no, Sensei, what can I do for you?" I had said, smiling.

Those had been the first words I can remember exchanging with him over the mission desk, back when Naruto and Sakura and Sasuke were the only things we had in common. Or so we thought.

In time, we became friends. We shared meals, traded quips and ideas. Then we became lovers. We shared our bodies, a home. We became lifemates. We shared everything.

At some point, I found, much to my horror, the power that rascal shinobi had over my thoughts, how he somehow controlled my actions. What he wanted, I would give him. And I guided my actions through his steady beat. He became my whole world. I would leave sometimes, but like the second hand of a clock, I always swept around again, returning back home. And always, he said, "What can I do for you?" A twinkle in his eye. As if what he had done to me, for me, wasn't enough already.

He is so beautiful. His hands, his body, his smile. His eyes. Amazing eyes. His voice. He laughs.

I wake up with a jerk, my neck cricked from falling asleep in the straight-backed chair. I see his body in the bed in front of me, the monitors at work. I can't remember when I fell asleep. I don't know why I check the time. Nothing has changed.

I've never really minded paperwork. Unlike some people. Yet somehow, in the hours and days I've been sitting here, the amount I've had to fill out seems crazy, unreasonable, unbearable. The repetitions of name, address, rank, ninja ID number, sign here, initial there. It's ridiculous. I have filled out enough during our lifetime together to denude an entire forest. Surely the office has all of this already?

Death has a really simple form. I know - I've seen it.

I'm grateful they haven't given me that form. Then I look at his body. The burns, the taped-over eyes, the dry white bandages covering him. He lost most of his hair in the fire. I see the tubes, the monitors indicating the fluctuating levels of the oxygen in his blood, the temperature of his body, the steady beating of his heart.

I'm sorry I don't have that form. He deserves a better death than this.

I don't know what this feeling is.

"He's a fighter," a nurse comments, checking the fluid levels. She looks at the clock, notes the time on her clipboard.

"Yes, he is," I say.

The nurse sighs. "It sometimes makes it worse. All that holding on."

I want to punch her face. But she's right.

I don't think I could hurt anymore. I am numb, stoic, truly unfeeling. I believe it.

Then they bring the final piece of paper. It's a very simple form. Consent to Stop Treatment.

I feel the break, brittle, painful, above my stomach, behind my sternum. I scream. I throw the clipboard down. I make a scene, make a racket, make a fool of myself. I punch the wall. I sob, snivelling, tears and snot rolling down my face.

They call Sakura. "It's okay, Sensei. I'm sorry. It's just, he's not going to get any better. Also, we need to think about rationing our supplies now - with the war and everything."

I know, all right? I also know that he has spent his whole life as a soldier/citizen of Konoha, his last few missions were to secure the safe passage of those supplies and that he deserves everything they've got. And more. He's a hero. A comrade. You don't just throw them away, like broken tools.

They don't waste a lot of time. They call Naruto.

"Sensei..." he says. He looks at the bed, and then looks away. This is hard for him. His eyes are damp. Good. Someone else should hurt too.

Naruto sits with me. We look at the monitors. He doesn't say anything for a long time.

Finally, he says, "I can't make this decision for you. But think about what you can do for him."

It's too much. Naruto - where did you learn that gods-be-damned Talking Jutsu? From him, I'll bet.

I resist, but ultimately, I sign. Because Naruto's right. Gods-be-damned. Gods damn me.

Then they move quickly. They add something extra to the fluids going into his side.

I hold my broken, beautiful boy. This is my lovely man, my center, my whole world. My ear against his chest, I listen for his heartbeat. This is the sound that keeps my world running on schedule, the beat by which I keep time.

They ask me to move. They disconnect the oxygen and pull the breathing tube.

Iruka's body twitches and jerks. I return to him, pulling him close.

The pulse in his throat flutters with every contraction of his heart.

I can't imagine when I will stop crying. I bend over to kiss his dry, unknowing lips goodbye. I hold on tightly, the clots of phlegm in my throat keeping my voice from coming out right. "Please, please, Iruka. Please let go. For me."

I hear a beat. And then a skip. Then another beat. And yet another skip. The sound is fading, like a clock winding down.

Someone sighs, long and tiredly.

I listen and wait for the world to end.

"pathetic fallacy or anthropomorphic fallacy is the treatment of inanimate objects as if they had human feelings, thought, or sensations. The pathetic fallacy is a special case of the fallacy of reification. The word 'pathetic' in this use is related to 'pathos' or 'empathy' (capability of feeling), and is not pejorative." (wikipedia)

Thinking about John Donne's "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" just a little bit.