Work Text:
Iruka waits patiently as Kakashi unlocks the front gate leading to the Hatake compound.
The lawn is overloaded with weeds and wildflowers, the air dry and cold with dots of little flickering lights of fireflies floating around, the sun low and just about to dip below the horizon.
“This way,” Kakashi leads them down a path known only to him, the stepping stones covered by grass and weeds. Already, Iruka can feel it pressing down on his own aura--the sadness, the pain, the lingering sense of despair that permeates the home. He rubs the crystals in his pocket almost compulsively, calling upon their raised vibrations to keep himself grounded.
The front steps creak under their weight as they step up the porch. Before Kakashi even touches the door, there is the tell-tale sound of footsteps from inside, even though the house is empty of all life forms. Kakashi pauses before opening the door and walking in. Iruka takes a deep breath in and out before entering.
The house inside is empty and cold, a thick layer of dust layering the floors, shelves, and sparse furniture, most of which are covered in bed sheets and lines. Kakashi leads him to the kitchen, where Iruka sets his bag down and begins to take out his supplies. “Do you need me to do anything?” Kakashi asks him, shifting from foot to foot beside him.
Iruka stops what he’s doing and turns his entire body to face his boyfriend of three years. He runs his hands up and down Kakashi’s arms before settling them around his neck, rubbing circles with his thumbs. “You can do as much or as little as you want, whether that’s following me around, staying here or outside, or even leaving completely. It’s whatever is most comfortable for you.”
Kakashi seems to consider his words, his own hands looped around Iruka’s waist. “Ok, but...isn’t it better if I stay? So I can help him...move on?”
Iruka scratches at the nape of Kakashi’s neck. “It’s up to you. I can do my part either way. It’s probably not...it’s more likely it is just an imprint--your father’s fingerprint left behind, so to speak.”
“Can you tell the difference?”
Iruka thinks back to when his grandmother was alive, how she’d take Iruka with her across their small village to people who felt like death still hung in their huts, their homes. One time, when Iruka was about seven, they visited his cousin’s house, where her father had passed from a brutal attack from a neighboring clan. Even though months had passed, the family had still been feeling the grief as if it had just happened days ago. That day, when his grandmother had walked inside, Iruka saw it for the first time: an apparition in the far corner of the room, a shadow that sent deep shivers down Iruka’s spine with a cold that lasted for days.
Iruka looks to Kakashi and knows the man is haunted by the ghost of his father in more ways than just one. He’d spent his entire life living underneath the White Fang’s shadow, fighting and fighting and fighting until it was decided that he would be the next Hokage: the Rokudaime.
But before he could fully take his place, Kakashi wanted to make peace with his past. Fully. He was partly able to during the war with Obito, and now it was his turn to fully make peace with his father, but years and years of mourning are a heavy, wicked thing, and Iruka could feel it the moment he stepped onto the property.
The heavy presence of the energy is why Iruka had wanted to wait until the winter solstice, hoping the changing of the seasons would aid them in clearing the home of Sakumo Hatake’s ghost.
Iruka considers Kakashi’s question. His boyfriend is already a wry, vulnerable thing standing here in his family home, and knowing it was his father’s actual spirit residing in the empty halls would probably add the guilt he already holds, the guilt of forgetting and avoiding, the guilt of thinking that for years his father really was the coward the village claimed him to be.
“Yes,” Iruka tells him with a sad smile. “I can tell...but don’t worry about that--leave it to me. What do you want to do?”
Kakashi looks over at Iruka’s supplies, rubbing the incense-cone holder with a fingertip. “I’ll go with you.”
“Okay,” Iruka reaches up and presses a kiss to Kakashi’s masked cheek before returning to the counter, lighting up the charcoal disk and placing a white candle by the open front door. The disk he places in a small, iron bowl that he hands to Kakashi to hold, knowing the act of participating and feeling useful would calm the man down, give him some sense of purpose to ride on as he brings himself closure.
The salt bag he holds in his hand, tied around his wrist. He pours out some olive oil, saying a prayer as he marks his and Kakashi’s foreheads with it. He walks to the front door and looks to Kakashi. “Ready?”
Kakashi closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and nods.
Iruka lights the incense cone with a small lighter and gets started, whispering under his breath the same chant his grandmother had taught him. He drops a pinch of the herbs he had prepared beforehand to aid the cleansing. They walk around the corners of the house, making sure the smoke enters all crooks and crannies, all the dark shadows, the faint overhead lights and lamps cannot reach.
Iruka lets himself fall into a trance, his movements and feet guided by something outside of chakra, his entire body feeling flushed and warm. His fingers tremble, but he is not weak. His breath catches, but he does not stumble. It’s...heavier than he expected, even as he had imagined it to be strong in the house: the negative energy left behind, stained into the walls.
Iruka’s instincts pull him down a hallway and in front of a sliding shoji screen.
Kakashi had not told him any details about the night he’d found his father dead, but standing here now, Iruka knows without a doubt that this is where he had passed away.
Before Iruka can touch the screen to open, something inside the room falls to the ground and shatters. Iruka keeps going.
It’s dark in the room, and even mustier than the rest of the house, the windows boarded up as they were. Iruka feels a cold wind waft over him, sending goosebumps across his skin.
“Iruka,” Kakashi whispers from behind him, and Iruka turns to him. “You’re crying...”
“I’m fine,” he chokes out, the teals falling languidly down his face. “I’m fine...” his voice trails off as he steps inside. He pours out salt in every corner and window, breaking a piece of plankwood on each one to create a passageway to the outside. His chest is tight and heavy, his stomach low and twisted.
Something brushes against his ear.
He turns but Kakashi is at the doorway still, unable to come inside. He is overwhelmed with a deep, heavy sadness and regret, forcing him to close his eyes and breathe as deeply as he could. “Kakashi,” he calls out to him softly. “Kakashi, if you have anything to say...”
Kakashi looks as scared as he’s ever seen him, staring down at the tatami mats, no doubt seeing his father’s body in his mind’s eye. Iruka carefully steps over the broken glass on the floor to pick up the picture frame that had fallen and flips it over. His tears rush out again as he caresses the photo of a young Kakashi and his father, their cheeks round from laughter.
“He’s okay,” Iruka whispers to the air. “You can go now. It’s alright...”
His voice spurs Kakashi into action, who inhales quickly and deeply. “Dad,” he says, tentative. “I...I am sorry. For a long time I refused to believe in you, in what you sacrificed your mission for. I paid for it dearly, over and over again, but now...now, I’ve made some very special bonds with very special people,” Kakashi looks straight at Iruka, and even through the heavy sadness around him, Iruka feels his heart swell with unadulterated love for the man. “And...I understand better now. They’re making me Hokage,” he whispers out the last bit.
Kakashi stares down at the floor for a long moment before steeling himself and staring back up again, at the image Iruka still holds in his hand. “I am going to protect the village that you once saw fit to sacrifice everything for. I’m sorry for how they treated you after. I’m sorry for not helping you...I’m sorry for being ashamed.”
Iruka walks over to Kakashi then and cups his face. “You’re holding on too much, little pup. Let it go.”
Kakashi’s eyes widen as salt water blurs his vision, small tears falling softly and absorbing into his mask.
Iruka feels his throat constrict as he brings Kakashi into his arms, holding him tightly, careful of his incense burner. They stand there for some time, holding on to each other’s comfort, Iruka willing for the pain to lift from his boyfriend’s shoulder to make room for more love, more ease, more happiness.
When they finally pull apart to walk to the front of the house, the wick of the candle burns impossibly high, the herbs Iruka had handpicked all burnt to crisps on the charcoal burner. “We have to wait until the candle goes out, then it’ll be finished. Ok?”
Kakashi sighs and slides down the wall next to the door, motioning for Iruka to join him. Iruka lays his back against Kakashi’s chest, feeling empty and sad and exhausted already. They wait for about another fifteen minutes, holding onto each other, exchanging little words between them.
“He used to call me that, you know,” Kakashi murmurs after some time.
Iruka blinks from where he’d been dozing off against Kakashi’s arm, picking up his head to peer up at him. “Call you what?”
“You called me ‘little pup’ earlier, in the room. He was the only one to ever call me that.”
“Oh,” Iruka lays his head back down, thinking about it. “It’s cute...I’m sure you hated it.”
Kakashi chuckles, more out of pain than actual humor. “I thought it was very unbecoming of a ninja...but I remember how much I liked it. Especially when I got sick, and he’d have me sleep in bed with him. ‘You look like a real Hatake pup,’ he’d tell me, snuggled up in the blankets...”
Iruka smiles, running his fingers along the back of Kakashi’s hand. Kakashi turns it around and entwines their fingers together. “You still are--the biggest blanket hog I’ve ever known, too. Worse than Naruto.”
“Hey! At least I don’t stab people with my ice dagger feet--.”
“Oh my god, it was one time and I wear socks now!”
Next to them, the candle flickers before a small gust of wind blows from inside the house, extinguishing the small flame in the echoes of their small shared laughter, the house cleansed.