Disclaimer: Kishimoto-sensei rocks the house, yo. And he owns Naruto, too.
Kakashi sleepwalks some nights, when the wind tears at the faces of the buildings, pushing clouds across the moon. It's these nights that haunt Iruka when his mind wanders broken paths during daylight hours. Memories of ghosted shadows, shifting, growing, then disappearing altogether, only to be replaced by one hundred more. Memories of Kakashi stumbling like a zombie from some ancient horror film, clawing at apartment walls, scrambling to escape some unseen enemy, building Maginot Lines in his nightmares. Iruka never tells Kakashi why his nails are splintered, fingers bleeding and raw; the color of a scaled fish, eyes popping out and mouth agape. Gills swollen and dead.
Iruka feels like that most days, when the memories resurface in horrific, vivid detail. Like he can't breathe, like he's dying. Like the moon and the shadows and the wind have stolen his soul. It's these days that he realizes that the one person he has allowed himself to get close to, honest-to-God close, is completely, utterly, irreversibly insane. It's these days that he knows why, in moments of black, pestilent introspection. When he sits at his desk, shaking hands holding split-end hair back from his face, that he knows what loneliness does to people; what it has done. To Kakashi, to Naruto, Sasuke. Him. Loneliness is all that keeps them together. Loneliness, and secrets, and shadows. It is his everything.
It's these times that he sees what he truly is. A void filled by a void, watching his reflection scale the walls with bleeding fingers, night after night under the sick-pale moon against the tearing wind and chameleon shadows.
Kakashi sleepwalks some nights, when the wind tears at the faces of the buildings, pushing clouds across the moon. It's these nights that haunt Iruka when his mind wanders broken paths during daylight hours. Memories of ghosted shadows, shifting, growing, then disappearing altogether, only to be replaced by one hundred more. Memories of Kakashi stumbling like a zombie from some ancient horror film, clawing at apartment walls, scrambling to escape some unseen enemy, building Maginot Lines in his nightmares. Iruka never tells Kakashi why his nails are splintered, fingers bleeding and raw; the color of a scaled fish, eyes popping out and mouth agape. Gills swollen and dead.
Iruka feels like that most days, when the memories resurface in horrific, vivid detail. Like he can't breathe, like he's dying. Like the moon and the shadows and the wind have stolen his soul. It's these days that he realizes that the one person he has allowed himself to get close to, honest-to-God close, is completely, utterly, irreversibly insane. It's these days that he knows why, in moments of black, pestilent introspection. When he sits at his desk, shaking hands holding split-end hair back from his face, that he knows what loneliness does to people; what it has done. To Kakashi, to Naruto, Sasuke. Him. Loneliness is all that keeps them together. Loneliness, and secrets, and shadows. It is his everything.
It's these times that he sees what he truly is. A void filled by a void, watching his reflection scale the walls with bleeding fingers, night after night under the sick-pale moon against the tearing wind and chameleon shadows.