Of course Iruka would go and say out loud what no one ever dares to say at all. Iruka's just that kind of man, isn't he. The kind that opens his mouth and says regrettable things without thinking about it before he does. Speaking it aloud makes it hard to deny what everyone thinks but no one ever talks about. What everyone knows but tries not to think about when you see them smiling together and your sensei is alive and you want so badly to hold onto what you shouldn't be able to hold in your hands when it's been seventeen years dead and buried underground. When you've spent more than half your life trying to keep a part of him alive, and failing miserably because you could never hope to be a fraction the sensei that he was. It's easier to pretend this travesty of a reality they're trapped in is somehow not as bad as it really is if you cover it up in a coat of bright paint over its broken surface.
(Don't look beyond the cracks, because what you see will likely break you.)
It's all sunshine above and laughter below, stealing these hidden moments like honey from a bee's nest. Hope you don't get stung in the process, and even if you do, those little bites don't seem so terrible when the reward is so sweet.
Maybe that's how they manage to control you in the end, choking on a mouthful of honey.
(Somehow it doesn't seem so bad, when Kakashi's not even sure if he's even still alive back home. Maybe he's just another ghost amongst ghosts, trying to steal more time from the living.)
Kakashi stares down at Iruka for a moment with one hand tightly wound around the other's bicep, holding him half-hauled up. Then he just yanks him up to a full stand, sliding one arm around Iruka's waist and turning them to face the stairs up. ]
Aa, you're right. It isn't fair.
[ Kakashi says flatly, and then starts to ascend the stairs with Iruka in tow. ]
But life never is, is it.
[ He doesn't actually expect a real answer from a rhetorical like that, but he knows Iruka is raw and emotional and drunk, and will probably say more shit Kakashi probably doesn't exactly want to hear, if only because he doesn't need to be reminded of the truth when it smacks him in the face on a daily basis:
That none of this is really, truly real.
That none of it really matters, in the sense of it affecting their real world. Their real lives.
That they are living in this surreal fantasy, and at any time, it might end, and none of them will remember it having happened at all, and all they fight to keep sacred and meaningful here in this world ultimately means nothing at all. ]
no subject
Of course Iruka would go and say out loud what no one ever dares to say at all. Iruka's just that kind of man, isn't he. The kind that opens his mouth and says regrettable things without thinking about it before he does. Speaking it aloud makes it hard to deny what everyone thinks but no one ever talks about. What everyone knows but tries not to think about when you see them smiling together and your sensei is alive and you want so badly to hold onto what you shouldn't be able to hold in your hands when it's been seventeen years dead and buried underground. When you've spent more than half your life trying to keep a part of him alive, and failing miserably because you could never hope to be a fraction the sensei that he was. It's easier to pretend this travesty of a reality they're trapped in is somehow not as bad as it really is if you cover it up in a coat of bright paint over its broken surface.
(Don't look beyond the cracks, because what you see will likely break you.)
It's all sunshine above and laughter below, stealing these hidden moments like honey from a bee's nest. Hope you don't get stung in the process, and even if you do, those little bites don't seem so terrible when the reward is so sweet.
Maybe that's how they manage to control you in the end, choking on a mouthful of honey.
(Somehow it doesn't seem so bad, when Kakashi's not even sure if he's even still alive back home. Maybe he's just another ghost amongst ghosts, trying to steal more time from the living.)
Kakashi stares down at Iruka for a moment with one hand tightly wound around the other's bicep, holding him half-hauled up. Then he just yanks him up to a full stand, sliding one arm around Iruka's waist and turning them to face the stairs up. ]
Aa, you're right. It isn't fair.
[ Kakashi says flatly, and then starts to ascend the stairs with Iruka in tow. ]
But life never is, is it.
[ He doesn't actually expect a real answer from a rhetorical like that, but he knows Iruka is raw and emotional and drunk, and will probably say more shit Kakashi probably doesn't exactly want to hear, if only because he doesn't need to be reminded of the truth when it smacks him in the face on a daily basis:
That none of this is really, truly real.
That none of it really matters, in the sense of it affecting their real world. Their real lives.
That they are living in this surreal fantasy, and at any time, it might end, and none of them will remember it having happened at all, and all they fight to keep sacred and meaningful here in this world ultimately means nothing at all. ]