Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The blood lies in pools and runs in rivers, black in the moonlight. Obito grips Rin’s corpse just a little tighter, bows his head with a vain wish that he’ll wake up.

In a dream you can do anything you want, Madara’s voice whispers in his memory, and nothing on this earth has ever, ever been more tempting. Even bring the dead back to life.

He considers it, just for a moment. A world of peace and happiness with no death and only joy. It sounds perfect, ideal, but Obito has been an orphan for as long as he can remember, the outcast Uchiha who can barely do jutsus and is forever late to everything, too cheerful and too loud and too bright, pariah even in the midst of family. He knows by now that anything that sounds so good is most certainly not so straightforward.

And…

There's one other body in the clearing that’s still whole, and Obito raises his head, looks over at it. Kakashi is pale and his breathing is unsteady. He just killed Rin, but—

But Obito remembers Kakashi's back in front of him, lean body and a shock of white hair, blood splattering and one eye lost forever in defending a teammate. And the Kiri nin around them—there's certainly more going on here than there seems, and Obito can't force himself to lose hope, to believe that Kakashi would do this without reason.

He came back for them, after all, that day. He came back and saved Obito at cost to himself, and Obito can't bear to think that he put his trust in someone who would kill a teammate—his last teammate—without a reason.

The Uchiha have always loved too strongly, to the point of insanity—and past it. It’s one of the reasons emotion is discouraged, that they looked down on Obito when he wore his heart on his sleeve. But Obito has always been a poor Uchiha, in everything. Rin is everything to him, all of the world’s kindness given human form, but…

But she’s not the only one he’s been living for.

Minato and Kakashi are a part of his heart, too. Minato is also kind, and when he looks at Obito his eyes don’t look through him like everyone else’s. He’s taught Obito everything, helped wherever he can, and he’s the brilliant, blinding, innately good jounin that Obito wants nothing more than to emulate. And Kakashi…Kakashi is a rival, a goal, a friend when Obito's never had one before. Kakashi claims not to care, to only be with them because of rules, but Obito thinks of him as he last saw him, that last brief glimpse before Rin removed his eye. Kakashi hadn’t been crying, not quite, but the devastation on his face was more poignant than any tears could be.

Obito chose to give his life for Kakashi. That he’s still alive doesn’t make the gesture worthless. Indeed, what would cheapen it would be Obito's refusal to live at all.

Closing his eye, Obito leans down and whispers to Rin what he never managed to say while she was alive. It’s a blessing, a prayer more than anything else, a brief thought and half a hope that wherever she’s gone, it’s to a better world. One where children don’t have to fight wars started by greedy old men without care for the future.

Maybe she’ll never hear him, but maybe she will. Maybe it will be a comfort to her, wherever she is.

There will be reinforcements coming from Konoha soon, Obito is sure. They’ll take care of Rin’s body. Right now, he has to focus on the living.

Kakashi is still breathing, thankfully, and Obito kneels down next to him, weary to the bone. He rests his fingers over the fluttering pulse in Kakashi's throat and says softly, “Sorry, Zetsu. I think we’ll have to say goodbye here.”

There's a long pause, and then with a whirl of white and black, the android separates from him. Instantly, all of Obito's muscles seem to turn to water, and he only just manages to catch himself before he collapses over Kakashi's supine form. As he levers himself back upright with all the strength he can muster, a hand scrubs through his unruly hair. “Thought that might be your choice,” Zetsu says, and there's a note in his voice that Obito can't quite translate. “I’ll leave you here, then. Nice knowing you, kid.”

It was, even if Obito never really had a choice in getting to know the android. But he keeps his eyes on Kakashi and doesn’t watch Zetsu walk away. The Mangekyo in his right eye is warm-hot, like tears, and he can feel the barest bit of resonance from Kakashi's.

He killed Rin, a part of his mind whispers, deathly quiet and subversive. Obito grits his teeth and forces it down. He’s not the type to abandon a comrade, nor is he too stupid to see that there are other factors at work here.

(Maybe, maybe, in another world he’d be so blinded by grief that he would take Madara at his word, but Obito knows Rin, knows how she felt about Kakashi, knows how he feels about his team. They're his family, the only one he’s ever known, and he’s not about to let that slip through his fingers. Not now. Not ever.)

And for all Rin’s devotion to Kakashi, Kakashi always looked at Obito. He gave up his eye for Obito, came back for Obito. Obito isn't the type of person who can ignore such loyalty, and certainly not in a friend.

That’s the reason he reaches out and wraps a hand around Kakashi's shoulder with the last remnants of his strength. That other dimension opens again, swallows them back up, and it’s pure instinct to use it, to step in through one side of the dimension and out through the other, dragging Kakashi along with him.

Home, he thinks, and it’s a cry, a lament for a world of dreams that will never, can never be. For a dying old man who’s lived as a nuke-nin trapped by an idea of paradise that will destroy the world rather than save it. Home, he thinks, and it’s a relief, because home is where Minato-sensei and Kakashi are, where they’ll mourn Rin and celebrate her life, miss her every day of their lives but become strong shinobi that she can be proud of. Home, and that’s where everything will never be the same again, but where it won't matter because it’s home.

Konoha, he thinks, Minato-sensei, help, and the dimension whirls away and he falls, Kakashi at his side, to land on the hard floor in front of the Hokage's desk. He cries out, body jarred by the impact and entire right side becoming one huge, throbbing ache, and then clamps his teeth on the sound and wills away the tears of pain as his ears ring with it.

When the world resettles, there are hands on him, big and gentle, supporting him even as a sharp, familiar voice calls orders. Obito opens his eye, vision blurry with exhaustion and tears, and can just make out a shock of sunshine-yellow hair.

“Minato…sensei?” he manages.

“Obito.” The name is a whisper, but the hands, so careful and gentle, clutch him just a little bit closer. “Obito, Obito. You're alive.”

That brings the tears back, and Obito's breath catches in his throat. “Rin,” he tells his teacher. “Rin—she—Kakashi stabbed her, don’t know why, just saw the—” He breaks off when his throat grows too tight for words, but there's a hand in his hair and the feel of Minato's chakra all around him, and that’s a little bit better, no matter how dark the world is right now.

“Shh,” Minato murmurs, fingers ghosting over the deep scars on his right cheek. “We’ll figure out what happened, Obito, don’t worry. Let’s get you to the hospital, all right?”

Obito doesn’t want to go to the hospital; he wants to know what happened to Rin, wants to make sure Kakashi is still alive, wants to tell Minato about Uchiha Madara living under a mountain somewhere near the border. But he’s tired—Mokuton and then Mangekyo, all in one day, is apparently too much for a body that’s still healing.

Despite his wants, his eye closes as exhaustion washes over him, too dark for even dreams.

That’s a blessing, probably. Obito doesn’t want to think of dreams right now.

It’s a surprise to wake up back in Konoha's hospital, because a very large part of Kakashi wasn’t expecting to wake up at all. His chidori took far too much chakra, and his own shock likely contributed to his passing out as well.

Rin, he thinks, and can't bear to open his eyes. Because what he’ll see when he does is a world where he’s alone except for Minato-sensei, where Rin is dead and he failed to honor Obito's last request. Rin is gone, killed by his own hand, and Obito—

“You’re awake. That’s good,” Minato says, off to the side. Kakashi hesitates a moment longer, but finally opens his eyes and looks over at his teacher, who’s sitting backwards in a chair beside his bed. Minato's eyes are serious, regardless of the faint smile on his face as he looks at Kakashi, and there's no humor in his voice when he asks, “What happened?”

Kakashi tells him, flat facts without an ounce of inflection. He doesn’t try to soften the blow of each sentence, keeps it short and simple, and hates himself more as each syllable drips from his tongue.

Obito, he wants to say. Obito, I'm so sorry. You gave everything for me and I couldn’t even keep the girl you loved so much alive.

Minato listens without moving, eyes faintly narrowed. When Kakashi's voice finally subsides to a weary murmur, he nods just once and sits back. “I see,” he says with a sigh, dragging his fingers through his blond hair, and then is silent.

Kakashi takes a moment to look around the room, and is surprised to see another bed on his left. It’s shrouded with curtains, but Kakashi can just make out the dark shadow of another body, and he frowns. Usually jounin get rooms to themselves—a side effect of generally being ‘unique’ and ‘quirky’ enough to drive everyone else insane. He hadn’t thought there were so many casualties that they’d started doubling up rooms.

“Ah,” Minato murmurs, noticing the direction of Kakashi's gaze. Kakashi looks back just in time to see what looks startlingly like a smile cross the man’s tired features, and his brain  but stutters to a halt, wondering how Minato can bear to make such an expression when their four-man cell has been reduced to a mere two. Then the older man rises to his feet and says, “That’s the one who brought you back. He exhausted himself doing it, though.” The tone is fond, familiar, and—

And then Minato pulls back the curtain, throws it open and Kakashi is left staring at an achingly, horrifyingly familiar face, scarred and strained and deeply unconscious but still utterly, undeniably Obito.

He finds that he can't even begin to recall how to breathe.

Minato retakes his seat with that smile still on his face, and now Kakashi understands, wants to echo it, grin madly and shout and weep—would, if he weren’t entirely frozen with shock. “He hasn’t woken up yet,” Minato says. “I don’t know what happened to him, but the doctors say half his body’s been replaced with something that’s halfway between plant matter and the Shodaime Hokage. Whoever did it was a genius, but they can't identify who it was. Not someone Konoha is familiar with, at least.”

Kakashi understands maybe one word out of seven, a bare handful of syllables, because he can't tear his senses away from that still body long enough for anything. Obito smells of earth and stone, of green and growing things, when before he always carried the scent of candy and overly bright, fizzy cheer. The scars Kakashi can see are deep and dangerously severe, twisting Obito's face, but that’s easy enough to overlook.

Anything is easy enough to overlook, with Obito alive and breathing next to him.

Kakashi glances at Minato, sees the relief shining in blue eyes, and then turns back to his…friend? They could be friends now, he supposes. They’ve sacrificed for each other, worked together. It’s been mostly sacrifices on Obito's end, but Kakashi's hardly about to let it stay that way.

The team of two is back to being a team of three, and even if they’ve lost one, even if Rin is never coming back—even if she died, forced Kakashi to kill her with his own hand—three is still a good number.

They can build from there.

Obito wakes to light and bright and a slim, strong hand tucked around his, a weight dipping the mattress beneath him. He blinks his eye open to see the whiteness of Konoha's hospital, and turns his head to see a shock of equally white hair spread out on the bedspread beside him. Kakashi is slumped over the side of the bed, hand more clutching than holding Obito's, but his grip is…warm.

Closing his eye again, Obito thinks of blood and bodies and a fallen friend, the girl he loved almost to the point of insanity dead by that same friend’s hand. He thinks of the heat of Kakashi's touch, the expression of bone-deep relief he wears even in sleep, and knows that whatever happened, whatever reason Kakashi had for his actions, it will be ironclad.

They’ve all been served harsh fates, but here and now…

Perhaps that’s easing, if only just a bit.

Obito turns his hand over, lets his fingers grip Kakashi's in return, and for once doesn’t try to excuse or hide the wet-hot tears that slide down his cheek.

Home.

Chapter Text

It’s been months. Kakashi's grown a handful of inches—he’s taller than Obito now, which is a little strange when he’s always been the short and slender type. Like a weed, Minato-sensei jokes, eyes bright with relief and good humor. He’ll keep growing until he runs out of room.

Obito himself is the shorter one now, doesn’t seem to be growing all that much, especially for a boy of just-about-fourteen. The doctors say it’s from the trauma his body, getting partially crushed and then replaced with something entirely foreign. He’ll likely never grow much more, but Obito's fairly certain he can live with it—mostly because that he’s even alive to live it is a strange and wonderful thing.

The doctors come and go, whispering behind hands and clipboards as they poke and prod and study, but Obito can't fault them for it. He looks at himself, the skin of his chest, and sees the sharp division as it changes shades, a patchwork body pieced together by a madman. There's no understanding it, really—the nearest he can guess is that Madara thought he’d take up the banner, though it is…suspicious that Rin’s death came so shortly after their conversation about that dreamland utopia.

(But he can't think of that, won't—he’s already told Minato-sensei the details, watched his face turn dark and grim, and he can't bear to think beyond that, because she’s dead and he can't help but wonder—)

Kakashi stays, which is perhaps the most surprising thing about the whole situation. He’s there when Obito drifts to sleep at night, and he’s there when Obito wakes in the morning. If he ever leaves at all, Obito never witnesses it, though surely he must. Still, it’s a pleasant comfort, friendship where before there was only a race, Kakashi in the lead and Obito behind, trying to catch up desperately, desperately. It’s been that way for as long as they’ve known each other, Kakashi the genius and Obito the failure, but that’s all changing now, and Obito relishes it even as it twists him up in knots of confusion.

This isn't how it’s supposed to be. This isn't how it’s always been, and the change is enough to throw him off entirely.

He wakes one night from dreams of blood and corpses and branches like impaling fingers, like his fingers, stabbing straight through bone and muscle and delicate skin. Of death and murder and the moon hanging bloated and heavy and sullen above him, merciless with its pale light. He comes to shaking and gasping, tears running down his cheek, and hatred has never been something that Obito was good at—loyalty is better, trust and faith and blind devotion but never outright abhorrence—but he can see how it would have happened, if his eyes hadn’t fallen on Kakashi's weak-pale body at that moment. Rage and revulsion at a cruel and careless world had filled him then, underneath the cold moon, and even an ounce less devotion to his team would have hurled him headlong into the Curse of Hatred.

Obito is terrified to think that he could hate like that, that there was even the faintest possibility that he could have turned to Madara and followed him, given the old and dying man his devotion instead of Minato-sensei and Kakashi. It scares him all the more because it’s so very possible, and he shakes harder at the though.

But there are hands on his, in his, fingers around his wrist gripping to the point of a grounding pain. Obito raises his eyes—eye, eye, there's only one now—to meet the dark grey gaze fixed almost desperately on his face.

“Obito,” Kakashi says, the rough edge of hastily shed sleep in his voice. “Obito, stop, you're fine.”

He’s not—he’s a patchwork monster, bastardized form of a Senju body and half of an Uchiha's eyes, pieced together haphazardly and only maintained by Obito's own stubborn will. Obito rakes his hands through his hair—long, too long, longer than it’s ever been because he usually chops it all off himself with a knife and a mirror, since there's never been anyone to do it for him—and laughs, the sound strained and wild.

“Fuck,” he says, and the curse sounds good, feels good, a heartbeat of release before the tension comes crashing back down again. “What the hell am I? Kakashi, what am I?”

There's a feeling under his skin, branches rising up and breaking through, a vast forest inside of him that’s tossed by some fierce wind, rebelling and creeping past the boundaries of his control. It’s control he’s never had to have, before, because then he was just an Uchiha, and a poor one at that, not even the Sharingan to his name.

Now he’s got one half of a Mangekyo, one half of Senju Hashirama’s cells, and no idea what to do with either.

There's a hand around the back of his neck, pulling hi forward. Obito goes with it, lets Kakashi press his face into black cloth and wrap an awkward arm around his shoulders and twist his fingers in Obito's hair. The touch of someone else’s hand is very nearly overwhelming, because Obito is entirely unused to such things—he’s never known his parents, not even who they were, and the Uchiha clan is more military base than family home, at least in regards to him. Minato-sensei’s infrequent hair-ruffles are the closest he’s come to this, and this is…entirely different, though he can't exactly say why.

But Kakashi is warm, almost to the point of hot, and it eats away at the coldness growing in Obito's heart like some kind of beneficial acid, sharp and painful but good.

“You're Obito,” Kakashi answers, arm and hand unmoving even though Obito's mostly stopped shaking now. “You're a loser who can't get anywhere on time and almost choked to death on a piece of candy in the chuunin exams and you're my teammate. You're Obito.”

It’s harder than it should be, but Obito draws a heavy, shuddering breath and closes his eye, pretends that he can't feel the tear leaking down his cheek because he’s supposed to be a shinobi, supposed to be strong. But no one can see them here, and he knows instinctively that Kakashi won't say anything to anyone.

He trusts Kakashi, trusts him with his eye and his sanity and his life and everything else, and it’s not a new thing. Without Kakashi, without this…

Well. Obito knows himself, knows his depth of devotion, and can only think that he’d be firmly in Madara’s grasp if not for his rival and first—best—friend.

“I heard,” he says carefully, hesitant in this as he isn't in anything else, “I heard that one Sharingan alone is strong, but two together are a hundred times better.”

Kakashi's always been good at reading between the lines, see through masks. His grip on Obito tightens just a little bit, finders winding deeper in his messy hair, and he pauses. Then, carefully careless, he offers, “Guess we’ll have to stick together then. Because I'm going to be the best, even if I have to drag you along with me.”

“Idiot Kakashi,” Obito mutters, and if he’s grinning, well—Kakashi can't see it, so who cares? “Who said anything about dragging me? I’ll become the best first, and you’ll have to catch up with me!”

Chapter Text

Genma picks his way through the ANBU training grounds, Raidou at his side as he maneuvers around sparring teams and pairs, circumventing deep craters and jutting rocks, scorched patches and spontaneous rivers. They’ve been assigned a new team, or rather Raidou has as team captain, and the Yondaime was particularly unforthcoming in regards to the details.

“Careful,” Raidou murmurs, a hand on his elbow tugging him out of the way of a stray fireball.

Genma flashes him a quick smile. “I saw it, no worries.” He very carefully doesn’t say, Are you sure about this? They're kids.

Raidou looks back at him, and in the arch of his brows Genma reads, So were we, when we started.

To be fair, though, Genma remembers Uchiha Obito from the chuunin exams. The kid had almost died on a piece of candy, and that’s a first impression that’s going to be hard to overcome, much as Genma prides himself on being a fairly open-minded individual. Hatake Kakashi is a genius, but that’s not exactly comforting, either. Teams have to be able to work together flawlessly, and Genma knows, at least peripherally, Kakashi's standoffish attitude. Optimistically it won't be a problem, but Genma remembers the rule-bound, kind of bratty kid Kakashi used to be too well to have much hope.

“Fuck,” he mutters, pausing to let a Futon jutsu gouge a deep trench in the ground in front of him.

The look Raidou shoots him manages to be longsuffering, resigned, and amused all at once, but the older man says nothing. They sidestep the trench, and from there it’s only a few more meters to Training Ground Twelve.

To Genma's surprise, Yamashiro Aoba is there, lounging against the trunk of a tree. The other jounin raises a hand in greeting as they near. “Yo,” he says brightly. “Back from Kumo already?”

Genma arches one blond brow at the man. “Classified,” he drawls in return, as soon as they're close enough not to shout. “As you should already know, gossip hound.”

Aoba just grins. “Well, you got back just in time for the new assignments. Got stuck with the wunderkind pair, too, huh?”

“They're supposed to be good,” Raidou offers after a second. His eyes flick over the training ground, settling here and there, and then he shrugs. Genma snorts softly, because Raidou is of the opinion that no one really knows the worth of a team until the end of the first mission. Of course, Genma can't say he disagrees.

Apparently reading the same thing Genma does, Aoba rolls his eyes. “So they are,” he agrees dryly.

“You think so, too?” Genma asks, curious as to the interrogator’s opinion. He and Raidou have been on deep undercover assignment in Kumo for four months now, which isn't usually long enough for any new ANBU members to earn a reputation, good or bad.

Aoba nods towards the other side of the grassy clearing, and Genma and Raidou follow his gaze. “Guess you’ll find out shortly. Looks like the gang’s all here.”

It’s hard to be a Konoha shinobi and not at least know of Hatake Kakashi, the genius who finished the Academy in one year. Genma surveys the lanky boy emerging from the trees, white hair like a beacon in the shadows. The hitai-ate tilted down across his left eye is new, but beyond the handful of inches he’s gained vertically—and the fact that he’s wearing an ANBU uniform with a dog-mask strapped to his belt—not much seems to have changed. Therefore, it’s a complete surprise to see the Uchiha boy walking beside him say something and Hatake actually turn his head and respond. Genma's encountered him enough times, even if at a distance, to know that the genius is usually standoffish and aloof, rarely deigning to say so much as a word. To see him answer so easily is…surprising.

“He’s friends with the Uchiha?” Raidou murmurs, eyes narrowing faintly. “Most of them—”

“Go into the police force, yeah,” Aoba finishes for him. “This one’s different. He and Hatake have been attached at the hip since day one, too, and I didn’t think the Uchiha did friendship.”

That, at least, is one of Aoba’s expected exaggerations, so Genma tunes it out and turns to study the boy in question—no longer quite the boy he was during the chuunin exams, admittedly, and Genma should probably stop thinking of him like that. He’s Kakashi's age, standard Uchiha looks with dark hair and pale skin, slim and fairly short, with deep scars twisting the right side of his face. There's a simple black patch over his left eye, which is surprising—transplants are common enough, these days, and to make it into ANBU with such an obvious handicap the kid must be good. But there's something about the way he holds himself, about the way both boys seem to gravitate towards each other, that makes it obvious that Uchiha restraint or not, this friendship is real. Also new, if Genma's memory of the rather divided team he, Gai, and Ebisu faced in the exams serves him correctly.

“That bad?” Genma asks, still taking careful note of body language. It’s only after a second that he completely understands what he’s seeing, watching the two survey the clearing: they're covering each other’s blind spots. Uchiha's missing eye and Hatake’s covered one—they're accounting for those and canceling out the vulnerability. They trust each other enough to separate responsibility and watch each other’s back.

That’s the kind of thing Genma and Raidou do, and they’ve been partners for almost two years now.

Aoba doesn’t answer, because the two boys are approaching, a tight two-man formation that looks natural rather than planned. Kakashi looks them over and offers a lazy nod—also new. Obito is all but vibrating with tightly wound tension, but is surprisingly contained given the loudmouth he used to be.

“Captain Namiashi, Shiranui-san,” the Uchiha offers with a bright smile. It’s surprisingly…kind, actually—especially so for an Uchiha.

Raidou doesn’t hesitate as he nods back. “Hatake, Uchiha. It’s good to have you on the team. I thought we could spar, get to know each other’s styles a bit. Ready?”

Kakashi and Obito exchange glances, eyes meeting, and there's a thousand words in every minute twitch of a lip, an eyebrow. They're motionless for a moment, and then Obito snorts and nods, stepping back. “Limits?” he asks. Kakashi shifts slightly, and if Genma were on ounce less observant he’d miss the way the white-haired boy shifts his entire body towards Obito. It’s subtle, but definitely there.

From the sudden sharpening of Raidou's gaze, he sees it, too. He glances at Genma, who nods back and drops a hand to his senbon pouch. “Right,” Genma says cheerfully. “Limits, Captain? Am I going with nasty incapacitating venom, slightly less nasty all-around poison, or harmless but embarrassing paralytic?”

Obito chuckles, and Raidou rolls his eyes faintly. “Genma,” he sighs.

Genma grins at him, tossing a wink at the Uchiha. “Paralytic it is,” he agrees easily, pulling out the correct bundle, wrapped with a green ribbon. “Non-lethal attacks only, right?”

“Agreed,” Kakashi says, shifting his weight again even as his gaze flicks over towards his partner. Obito meets it with an aggrieved look, but tips his head like they’ve just come to some kind of agreement and drops into a crouch. “I take it we’re in teams?”

Raidou nods and turns to Aoba. “Since you're just killing time, mind doing the honors?”

“I'm spectating,” Aoba protests. “Where would you be without my witty commentary and sharp insight?” Apparently recognizing the long look Raidou shoots him as one that promises passive-aggressive retribution at its finest, the tokujo sighs in wounded surrender and lifts his hands. “Fine, fine. Places, please. And…begin!”

With the ease of long familiarity, Genma moves at the same moment as Raidou, lunging forward at Kakashi even as the captain goes for Obito. He flicks three senbon out, feels the whirling burn of a fire technique off to the side, and thinks that maybe this match will be over quickly.

Then the air in front of him blurs with speed, a flicker of chakra, and instead of Kakashi he’s bearing down on Obito, who’s wearing a grin. The Uchiha's eye is spinning, a black and crimson pinwheel, and Genma knows better than to look into it. So he focuses on his senbon, letting another handful fly, and looks up slightly to make sure they find their target—not that he’s worried, because he’s been training with senbon since he could walk, became a tokubetsu jounin on that skill alone, and—

Obito doesn’t even attempt to dodge. The senbon fly true, striking him square in the chest, the neck, and then just…pass straight through. Like he’s a ghost. Genma hears them thud into the ground behind the Uchiha, curses, and brings his hands up, already starting the signs for a Katon jutsu.

But it’s too late. Obito's already got his hands up, fingers twisting into the snake seal, and he cries, “Mokuton: Underground Roots Technique!”

Genma's eyes go very, very wide. “What the fuck—” he manages, half a heartbeat before he’s swallowed by a writhing, twisting mass of roots and entirely immobilized.

From outside the cage of wood, he hears Raidou swear, and then two overlapping voices—one of them Raidou's, the other possibly Kakashi's—cry out the same attack. There's a rush of footsteps, a cacophony of fluttering wings and shrieking crows, the dull thud of striking limbs, and then silence.

Well, Genma thinks to himself, entirely resigned to his fate as he tries not to breathe in too much dirt. That’s probably the fastest two new recruits have ever taken down a captain and a senior squad member. I wonder if Yondaime-sama was trying to tell us something. Like maybe that our heads were getting too big.

That, at least, is a sort of comforting thought, since it means other teams with swelled heads will be getting this same treatment, too.

With a rustle, the roots recede, and Genma gratefully accepts the hand that Obito holds out to him, allowing the Uchiha to pull him to his feet. “Nice,” he says with complete honesty. “But really, what the fuck? Mokuton?”

Obito laughs a little sheepishly and scuffs a hand through his shaggy black hair. “Ah. Well—”

Before Genma can even blink, Kakashi is right there, all but wedged in between the two of them, and while it isn't quite a glare he levels at Genma, it’s not all that far off, either. “Your partner could use some help,” the boy says coolly, tipping his head to the left.

Genma follows his gaze to where Raidou is sprawled out on the ground, dazed and groaning. It only takes his a second to recognize the aftermath of Raidou's combination Scattering Thousand Crows Technique and his knockout taijutsu attack, though Genma's never seen Raidou on the receiving end before. He looks back at the young genius, brow rising, and barely keeps from faltering when he finds two eyes staring flatly back at him. One is the familiar dark grey, but the other…

Genma looks between his two new teammates, taking in the identical markings in their twin Sharingan eyes, and begins to understand just why they're so very codependent. It’s just…something on that level is truly hard to fathom.

“Never should have taught you that technique,” Aoba mourns, meandering up to Raidou's side and bending over him with a sad shake of his head. “One hit, Raidou. I'm unspeakably ashamed of you. Really. I'm never going to talk to you again.”

“Oh, good,” Raidou says, sitting up with a groan, and geez, even after two years Genma still can't tell it that’s a real, honest response or if Raidou didn’t actually hear what was said and is just pretending to have listened. The captain shakes the fogginess from his eyes and pushes himself to his feet, staggering a step before he steadies as he makes his way over.

“Good job,” he tells Kakashi and Obito. “That was…enlightening, definitely.”

“What the fuck,” Genma repeats, because he really feels that can't be overstated.

Aoba laughs at both of them, clapping them on the shoulders. “Good job lasting all of twenty seconds against Copy-Nin Kakashi and the Shodaime’s Ghost,” he says blithely. “No, really, you guys suck.”

Raidou blinks for a moment. “Shodaime’s Ghost?” he echoes a touch weakly.

Obito grins at them both, dropping to the ground and stretching one leg out in a low runner’s lunge. “People aren’t that creative,” he says cheerfully. “My Sharingan lets me go intangible for a handful of seconds at a time, and with the Mokuton…I guess they just went with the most obvious thing.”

“Doesn’t fit as well as my idea,” Kakashi says dismissively, stepping back and reaching into his kunai pouch. He pulls out a book with a bright, almost lurid orange over, flips it open, and starts to read.

Icha Icha Paradise.

Fuck. Genma has somehow ended up in an alternate dimension and he’s only realizing it now. What the hell.

“Oh, fuck you too,” Obito retorts, though he keeps stretching and doesn’t even look up at his partner. “As if any respectable shinobi lets someone get away with calling them ‘The Crybaby Ninja’.”

“Ma, if the shoe fits…”

“So then I guess you're going to be ‘The Bastard Ninja’ for the rest of your life? Actually, wait, hold on, I think I like the sound of that—”

“Obito, if you don’t shut up you’ll be homeless within the next five minutes.”

“So we’re pretending that you actually know how to cook and survive on your own now, without Minato-sensei and Kushina-san looking over your shoulder every few hours? That’s cute, Kakashi.”

“Shut up, Obito. I can cook—”

“Ramen. You can cook ramen and heat up take-out. How is it I wasthe hopeless one when you don’t even know essential life skills beyond campfire cooking?”

“Because I'm actually a ninja—”

“Who can't even do the laundry—”

Raidou meets Genma's eyes, laughter just barely contained. Genma doesn’t even bother trying to hide his grin as he drawls, “All right, I give up. How long have you guys been married now?”

The twin looks of affronted outrage he gets are absolutely priceless.

Chapter Text

The day Obito is released from the hospital is the day that the winter monsoons first break over Konoha. Obito's been careful to keep any word of his liberation from Minato-sensei and Kakashi—for reasons starting with Uchiha and ending with either clan elders or Fugaku—so he’s alone as he stands at the doors of the hospital, staring out at the lashing sheets of rain that have turned the whole world to wet-green dimness. His chest is tight and painful, and it’s not from overuse of mokuton or chakra this time. He’s remembering Uchiha Fugaku’s visit, his cold face.

They want Obito to make Kakashi give back that eye that Obito shared, because the mere thought of a non-Uchiha having the Sharingan is enough to send the vast majority of the clan into fits. Stuck up, arrogant, conceited assholes. Obito never wanted to be an Uchiha, really, and it always seemed very much like they would have preferred he wasn’t one, either. Only now, when Obito's finally manifested the Sharingan, finally become something that can be of value to the clan, do they deign to include him.

And even then, it comes with the caveat that to be a full member of the clan, he’s going to have to take his eye back from Kakashi.

Well, Obito thinks, fuck that. It’s my eye and I’ll do what I damn well please with it. He wraps his arms around himself as the damp seeps into his bones, closing his remaining eye. It hurts, this situation, though he’ll never admit it out loud. He’s been through so much, done so much in an attempt to get his clan’s recognition, only to be told that he still hasn’t paid a sufficient price, that he won't have until he betrays his best friend, his only remaining teammate, and dishonors the memory of the third.

An eye for an eye, isn't that how the saying goes? It was a gift, a repayment for the loss of Kakashi's left eye, destroyed in saving Obito's life. Repayment for finally, finally becoming a friend, someone whom Obito can respect rather than simply envy. Repayment for the depth of commitment to teamwork that has had Kakashi perched on the foot of Obito's bed every night for the last two weeks as they both recovered from chakra exhaustion and the trauma of seeing their third teammate die, commit an especially cruel form of suicide right in front of them.

This whole thing is the setup for a choice between his teammate and his clan, but at least Obito already knows in which direction his loyalties lie.

There's a quick and half-seen glimpse of rooftops behind his empty left eyelid, and Obito huffs out a breath that attempts to be aggrieved, even though he’s honestly mostly grateful. He takes two steps to the side and turns neatly to face Kakashi as the white-haired boy drops from above to land, panting and clearly unhappy, in front of him.

“Obito,” the jounin growls warningly, rising to his feet.

Obito pastes his brightest, most obnoxious smile to his face. “Kakashi! I thought you were on a mission, Minato-sensei told me you had a mission, why are you back already?” There's more babbling that wants to come out, but Obito snaps his teeth shut on it and refuses to let it out. He’s got a bad habit of letting things slip when he’s nervous, and Kakashi catching him here, in the rain, without any apartment to return to until he ‘fulfills his duties as a member of the proud Uchiha clan’—that’s pretty much the worst case scenario.

Kakashi gives him the flat, longsuffering look he’s so clearly perfected, with an added layer of you-bore-me-to-tears-but-I’m-too-manly-to-actually-cry slathered on for effect. “I finished,” he says, visible eye narrowing faintly. “And why isn't Minato-sensei here, if you're out?”

That’s Obito's cue to look away guiltily, but really, Minato's in the running to be Yondaime—most people think he’s the only real contender, actually—and he doesn’t need to get in the middle of this mess with the Uchiha clan, no matter how he’d want to help if he knew. This is between Obito and the clan, and he’s not about to drag anyone else into it.

When he chances a look back, Kakashi is still watching him suspiciously, but whatever he apparently sees on Obito's face must be enough to convince him to drop it, at least temporarily. With a why-do-you-make-my-life-needlessly-harder sigh—there are roughly seventy-five sigh variations that Obito's counted with Kakashi, and he knows all of them by heart—Kakashi turns away, heading out into the downpour. “You were declared missing in action,” he says over his shoulder. “I saved your stuff and brought it to my place. Hurry up.”

For a long moment, Obito grasps vainly to understand those three simple sentences. Short and to the point they might be, but what they imply—that’s something else entirely.

Kakashi thought he’d come home?

But no, they were all sure he was dead.

Kakashi…wanted to remember him?

That seems like the only reasonable explanation, but Obito just can't comprehend it. Because sitting up with him in the hospital or not, that implies…

That implies that Obito means something to Kakashi, which—

“Obito! Move,” Kakashi calls, clearly out of patience with slow teammates and seasonal weather, and Obito breaks into a jog, firmly pinning that train of thought in place for later.

“Yeah, yeah, I'm coming,” he complains. “And anyway, why the hell do you get to order me around, idiot Kakashi? We’re not on a mission, so you're not the boss of me!”

“Actually,” Kakashi sounds unbearably smug, “according to section twenty-four, subsection three of the Shinobi Rules and Regulations, jounin have the authority to command chuunin—”

Obito's not an idiot; he read that rulebook in the Academy, too. He even managed to remember most of it. “In emergency situations, bastard, don’t you think you're leaving out the most important parts—”

“Be that as it may,” Kakashi cuts in loftily. “It just goes to prove I am the boss of you. Besides, Kushina-san stopped cooking for me last week because she disagrees with my choice of reading material. I need a house slave. You need a place to stay, since I assume you're not going back to the Uchiha compound. Logically: chop, chop, new slave.”

A distant part of Obito's brain is wondering what Uzumaki Kushina, the Red Hot-Blooded Habanero, could have disagreed with in regards to books, and objected to so forcibly that she’d leave Kakashi to more or less starve rather than put up with it.

The rest of him is too busy screeching and flailing at his new lord and master to pay attention to the ominous chill that races down his spine.

As he follows Kakashi up the wall of the apartment building, ranting about ungrateful bastards and abusive, ungrateful, freeloading friends every step of the way, Obito thinks, No.

The Uchiha clan can go to hell.

Those who break the rules are trash, but those who abandon their friends are worse than trash.

Even if that friend is Kakashi the Jerk-Ass Ninja, Obito's got standards.

And, just maybe, possibly just a very, very, infinitesimally tiny amount, Obito is kind of perhaps sort of conceivably a little bit grateful to Kakashi for leading him out of the rain.

Chapter Text

Obito is not beautiful now, if he ever was to begin with.

The scars are deep and severe, the kind that will never lighten or disappear. They pull at his skin, twist his smiles into something warped and crooked, spiral out across the right side of his face like Kamui does in the air. Obito doesn’t hate them, is mostly ambivalent—he’s a shinobi, shinobi have scars, at least he’s alive to feel indecisive about them in the first place. But sometimes…sometimes he can't help but wonder what people think when they look at him, and the very first thing their eyes settle on is the twisted mass of scars across his face.

Konoha is a shinobi village. Perhaps it’s not the largest, but it is the oldest, the very first, and that gives it a certain gravity which even the civilians are aware of. Smaller villages still hold a certain fearsome sort of awe in regards to shinobi, while Konoha's villagers are able to accept everything short of outright war with equanimity—and sometimes even war isn't enough to stir them.

Nevertheless, they're still civilians. They still stare when they see a shinobi without a leg, or an arm, or some sort of scarring. Obito's grown used to the lingering looks, to the way people’s eyes dart to his face and then either linger or flick away as they slip past, giving him careful berth, as though his misfortune is catching. It’s always the same, and Obito is adjusted enough that he hardly notices anymore.

Kakashi is the one it bothers. He’s the one who tenses when their eyes linger, who tries to walk on all sides of Obito at once when they're in crowded areas. If people stare for too long, he’ll glare, sharp and speaking, while Obito just rolls his eyes in the background. Truthfully, he doesn’t mind. These scars—he got them for Kakashi, earned them in saving the life of the one person who’s become absolutely everything to him. He can't regret that.

Sometimes, during the quiet days when they're both off duty—and they have leave together more often than not, since all of their missions are together, even when it’s not necessary, even when it might be better to spend time apart—sometimes, during those easy, lazy days, Kakashi will sit down on the couch next to Obito. He’s tactile, for all that he’s generally standoffish, and Obito's adjusted to becoming a convenient cushion or blanket at random intervals. So when Kakashi ignores the fact that he’s reading and drapes himself over Obito, or pulls Obito into his lap—because the bastard is still taller, and it irks—and tucks him under his chin, Obito just rolls his eyes and does his best to keep reading.

But then, just when he’s managed to forget the ninja-shaped leech wrapped around him, fingers will glance over thick ropes of scar tissue. The feeling is muted, but still undeniably there, and the first time it happened Obito lost his grip on the mokuton lurking under his skin and blasted Kakashi straight through the wide, picturesque window overlooking their living room.

(Entirely Kakashi's fault, and Obito maintains that the Copy-Nin simply got what was coming to him. No, he doesn’t feel guilty in the slightest that Kakashi had to go to the hospital for glass cuts. No, no guilt, even if he did rub that healing cream into Kakashi's skin for a month afterwards. That’s just—well, any chance to touch Kakashi is worth taking, right?)

Kakashi touches his scars—not like they're a spectacle, or something to stare at, but as though he likes them, and ambiguity to the marks or no, Obito can't manage to understand that. (There's always something about Kakashi he doesn’t understand, though, so that’s at least par for the course.) His fingers are careful and gentle, even though the nerves in that area are mostly deadened, always light enough to mistake for a caress.

They’ve gone far past that point already, the two of them—partners in every sense of the word—but, in those moments, everything feels shockingly new and fresh and real.

Obito watches Kakashi watching him, looking at his scars and the twisted, piecemeal mess that is his patchwork body, and wonders what he sees.

It depends on the day, whether he wants to know or not.

“Escort mission,” Kakashi says, dropping the mission scroll on the table between them as he sinks into the other seat. Obito takes it and unrolls it, absently pushing his plate of sushi across the table to his partner. It’s a B-rank, easy enough for two jounin—practically a milk run for the two of them, honestly. Usually, it’s the kind of thing that would go to the more adventurous chuunin looking for experience, but reports of missing nin gathering in bands near the border have made most mid-rank shinobi wary of accepting.

Obito can't help but hope that they’ll meet those bandits, either during the escort or on their way back. He and Kakashi have been getting nothing but diplomatic and courier missions for the past month, thanks to Kakashi being an idiot asshole who reads porn in public and Minato-sensei being really fucking good at passive-aggressive. “Pay?” he asks, because while they’ve both been living on their own since childhood, Kakashi at least never had to worry about finds, and as such can't manage money worth a damn. It generally falls to Obito to make sure they’ve actually got savings, and that his partner hasn’t blown it all on the newest signed set of Icha Icha Whatever-the-hell-they're-up-to-now.

Kakashi hums, mouth stuffed with seared salmon futomaki behind his mask, and Obito rolls his eyes. If anyone had told him as a child that he’d be tempted to lecture Hatake Kakashi, Genius Ninja, about table manners, he would have laughed himself sick. But Kakashi changed while Obito was MIA, eased a little into something that Obito suspects was modeled after his own personality more than anything natural to Kakashi. Kakashi's kept it up, though, for reasons Obito can't pry out of him.

“Chew, swallow, breathe—in that order,” he directs flatly, and fucking hell, when did he become Kakashi's mother?

Oh. Wait. Ew. That’s…that’s really a very, very bad thought to be having, considering where Kakashi's tongue was last night.

Obediently—and isn't that another mind trip the Obito at twelve would never believe—Kakashi swallows his mouthful and answers, “Standard for a week-long, plus traveling expenses paid. And there's hazard pay if we encounter enemies on the road.”

Obito does the mental calculations. He and Kakashi have been jounin for a few years now, and one thing that the Academy never mentioned when talking about the different pay grades is just how much of a jounin’s salary goes to replacing and updating equipment. Obito's actually been eyeing one of the new chakra blades at the weapons shop ever since his old one fell victim to an unexpectedly strong missing-nin and a bout of mid-fight improvisation. With another B-rank and a bonus, there should be enough for the rent, their food, some meals out, Kakashi's stupid porn habit, and a decent new katana.

(The porn habit really freaking gets to Obito. He feels his eye threatening to twitch at the mere thought of it. Damn that Jiraiya to the very deepest pits of hell for all eternity as punishment for apparently melting Kakashi's genius brain right out of his skull.)

(Sometimes, though, Obito has to wonder what it says about him as a red-blooded male that he doesn’t find the stupid things even the least bit arousing. Only Kakashi has that effect now, and Obito knows the Uchiha are absolute collective morons when it comes to the depths of their love—one of the reasons they're encouraged not to love at all beyond the most obligatory sense of the word—but sometimes, this sort of willing blindness to everything but Kakashi terrifies him. It makes him ache, gives him wings, lets him do impossible things just to keep this incredible, aggravating, amazing man breathing and at his side, but it’s sometimes still…horrifying, to consider the depths to which he could conceivably sink.)

Kakashi watches Obito twitch and mutter to himself, and can easily guess the direction of his thoughts. He’s never realized just what a work of art the Icha Icha series is, and after the application of several strategically placed Katon jutsus and being relegated to the couch for a week, Kakashi has mostly stopped trying to convince him.

He steals another piece of sushi while Obito's in the process of recovering his equanimity, eating quickly. The pre-mission meeting with the Hokage was scheduled to begin seven minutes ago, and any moment now, Obito will check the scroll and—

There's a squawk, a flurry of limbs, and Kakashi is suddenly on the rooftop, choking on the half-bite of futomaki that’s lodged itself in his windpipe.

“Kakashi!” Obito snarls, even as a warping vortex snatches them both up and deposits them in a dark world full of squared-off pillars. There's only enough of a pause for them to touch down and then Obito is dragging him onward, through another warp and into the familiar airy openness of the Hokage's office.

“Sorry, sorry, Minato-sensei!” Obito cries, even as the rough landing thankfully jars the sushi from Kakashi's throat and he hacks up a chunk of rice. “Not my fault this time, I swear!”

Minato, seated behind his desk, stares at them for a beat, one brow faintly arched. Then, with a soft snort, he sets down his pen and sits back in his chair. “Don’t worry,” he says dryly. “Between the two of you, I've gotten into the habit of expecting tardiness. Kakashi, I know it was you picking up the scroll today. What do you have to say for yourself?”

Kakashi blinks, riffles through his memory for a few shards of excuses, and strings them together to offer blithely, “Sorry, Minato-sensei. There was a parade on the main street, you see, and a contortionist had gotten stuck in a tree, so I had to stop and help— Ow!”

Obito kicks him in the shin once more for good measure, and then smiles brightly at their teacher. The scars pull at his cheek, not so much dark as shadowed, and they catch Kakashi's attention in a not-entirely-healthy way. He can't help but look, can't resist the sight those strange lines carved into the pale skin of Obito's cheek, dangerous and oddly beautiful.

“Sorry, sensei, I didn’t check the time when he handed me the scroll,” Obito says, clapping his hands together and bowing. “Can we please still do the mission? If we have to go on another courier run to Taki I'm going to kill Kakashi and leave his body in the Kamui dimension to rot.”

Minato looks like he’s about to point out that they don’t need to do the courier runs together—one jounin is generally more than sufficient—but Kakashi's stuck to Obito, and Obito to him, since that rainy autumn day when Obito was released from the hospital. Minato's had this argument with them before, and the outcome is always the same—will always be the same, because Kakashi knows in his gut that things would have gone a lot differently at Kannabi Bridge had he swallowed his pride and gone with Obito right away to rescue Rin.

Kakashi's not going to make the same mistake ever again.

“You can do the mission,” the Yondaime allows, looking between the two of them with no little amusement. “The client is a merchant wanting protection for his daughter. He’s responsible for moving a good percentage of Konoha's exports, so I told him I'm assigning two of my best.” He winces slightly. “Please, just…be sensible.”

It’s a little offensive how his eyes linger on the two of them at that. Kakashi is almost hurt. Their sensei doesn’t have faith in them?

Apparently sensing that he’s about to interject something, Obito steps on his foot. “Yes, sensei,” he says formally, and really, Obito is uptight about the weirdest things, given his usually carefree and fairly rambunctious personality. He’s always had a huge amount of respect for the position of Hokage, though, so maybe that’s the reason for it.

There's a quick knock on the door, and a heartbeat later the Hokage's secretary strides in, followed by a man who would be imposing if he didn’t carry himself like a civilian. Behind him, wrapped in pale pink and lavender silk, is a girl probably a little older than Kakashi's sixteen, pretty in a rather overdone way.

“Hokage-sama,” the merchant says, inclining his head.

“Suoh-san,” Minato replies politely, returning the nod. “These are the shinobi who will be accompanying you, Hatake Kakashi and Uchiha Obito.”

“Suoh-san,” Obito echoes, turning and bowing just enough to be polite. Kakashi can't be bothered to offer more than a lazy salute, even if it earns him another kick in the ankle. He winces, because Obito kicks hard, damn it.

“Uchiha?” the man begins, one brow rising, but he’s cut off mid-syllable by a sudden horrified cry. Kakashi and Obito both jerk around with their hands already on their weapons, searching for the source of the sound. Their eyes land on the merchant’s daughter, who has her hand clasped over her mouth as she stares, wide-eyed, at Obito.

At Obito's face.

At his scars.

Kakashi feels a growl building in his throat, and he takes a step forward and half a step to the side, blocking his partner from her view. For once, he can't bring himself to care that he’s being entirely blatant about it. He knows how Obito gets when people stare for too long, even if he tries to hide it; knows his insecurities, faint as they are, about being so clearly marked. But Obito is used to living in a shinobi village where, while noticeable, scars are still just a part of life. To have someone scream at the sight of silly, kind Obito, always ready with a smile and a bright laugh, so strong and skilled—

It makes Kakashi want to give her something to scream about.

Minato rises from his seat, pulling all attention to him with his figure of understated power. Kakashi feels a bit better about his own reaction seeing that their teacher’s mouth has gone tight as well. “Kakashi, Obito,” he says firmly, “you have mission specifics already. Meet at the western gates tomorrow at nine, understood?”

Kakashi doesn’t think he’s ever been more grateful to the man. “Understood, Hokage-sama,” he says, dipping his head, and then grips Obito's elbow and drags him right out the window. If he could use Kamui without ending up in the hospital from chakra exhaustion, he would, just for the satisfaction of a quicker exit.

But the run over the rooftops back to their apartment seems to do Obito some good. The first few meters he was touching his scar, until Kakashi grabbed his other hand as well. Now he’s simply blank-face, his eye darker than even the usual coal-black—shadowed with memories, rather than simple darkness. Kakashi doesn’t bother trying to talk him down—they're both ridiculously pigheaded at the worst times—but simply throws himself at the other boy and topples them both onto the couch, pinning Obito to the cushions and devouring his mouth without even pausing for breath.

Obito gasps under him, even as Kakashi steals the sound right from his throat, and hooks his arms over Kakashi's shoulders in the cautious kind of grasp he only uses when he’s at his most tentative.

Kakashi hates it, loathes that touch and that stupid girl and anything ever that makes Obito shy away or bow his head in shame. Fighting the urge to growl, he breaks the kiss and slides his lips across Obito's cheek, kissing scarred skin almost desperately.

“Do you know?” he murmurs into Obito's ear, getting a shiver in return. “Why I like these so much, I mean?”

There's no answer but a few shaky breaths, and Obito's one remaining eye, the twin of the one set into Kakashi's body, forever carried with him, flutters closed. Kakashi wastes no time kissing that, too, and then the black patch over the empty left socket.

“Because they're mine,” he whispers, and Obito goes very, very still beneath him. With a faint smile, Kakashi rests their foreheads together and says softly, “You got them saving my life, Obito. Because you cared about me enough to push me out of the way, even though there was almost no chance you could survive that rock fall, either. You saved me, and it gave you these scars. Maybe it’s cruel of me, but I like them. Every time I want to doubt what you feel, what I feel, I look at these and know. They show how brave you are, how determined, and if that inane, pampered girl can't see that, she’s the biggest fool in the world.”

Obito gasps out a sound that might be a laugh, might be a sob. There are tears on his cheeks but he’s smiling, even if it’s watery and crooked. He winds his long, strong, deft fingers in Kakashi's hair and pulls him that one inch closer, until their lips are just barely touching and all Kakashi can see is a warm black eye, messy black hair, and pale, scarred, shadowed skin.

It’s easily the most beautiful face in the entire world, and no one will ever convince him differently. 

Chapter Text

Minato remembers very well—can't make himself, can't bring himself to forget—the devastation that his team faced during the Kannabi bridge mission. It had been a success, but only in name, that day Obito died. He’ll never forget coming on his team one body short, Kakashi all but dead of chakra exhaustion with the Sharingan spinning lazily in his left eye.

Obito, Minato had thought, and the emotion that tore through him was nothing so complicated as grief, nothing so simple as pride—far more complex than both together, choking him and making him stumble as he came up beside them. Obito, he had thought. You did it. And then, Oh, Obito, but what have you done?

Because Obito was the fulcrum on which their team balanced, and Minato had always known it. An outsider might have looked that them and said it was Rin, but that was blindness. Without the Uchiha, Kakashi was too cold and distant, Rin too eager to please the boy she loved. Minato himself was too focused, too detached. All three of them needed Obito to keep themselves in check, in equilibrium, and with Obito gone—

They drifted.

They drifted and they fell apart.

Minato smiles a little to himself, seated at the Hokage's desk with his chin propped thoughtfully on one fist. It’s been years now, since that unbelievable, incredible day when space itself tore open and spat out a bloody, muddied, shaking figure, clutching to him a boy with shockingly white hair. They had landed on the floor with a jarring thud, and Minato had known, known in that one instant what had happened. Not Rin and the Sanbi, perhaps, but he’d recognized that lanky and too-thin body, that shock of untamable black hair. He’d seen the scars, the single eye, the utter, unspeakable exhaustion and determination worn into the boy’s face, and he hadn’t needed that wavering, thready whisper of “Minato-sensei?” to realize what he was seeing.

Obito had returned, risen from the dead even as Rin fell, and Minato still cannot be anything but thankful for the boy’s return, regardless of the headaches that have followed ever since.

“Minato-sensei!”

And speaking of headaches…

With a sigh, Minato sits up in his hair and resists the urge to drag his hands through his hair. “Yes, Kakashi?” he asks a touch wearily. “What is it now?”

His former student, the genius child prodigy, renowned and feared across the shinobi world, skids to a halt in front of his desk. He’s tangled in at least three different lengths of cloth, what looks suspiciously like an obi dangling from one ear, and there's a look of quiet panic on his face.

Minato just looks at him for a second. Sometimes he wonders if he should mourn the loss of the sensible, clever, aloof Kakashi that vanished about three days after Kakashi woke from his chakra exhaustion to a world where Uchiha Obito no longer existed. It was certainly more peaceful back then.

“Minato-sensei,” Kakashi repeats almost desperately. “Minato-sensei, help me. I don’t know what to wear.”

It takes so very, very much willpower to keep from dropping his forehead to the desk and just whacking it against the wood a few times. He’s the Hokage, not a babysitter, and this is his office, not a therapy session.

“Kakashi,” he manages after a moment, “I really don’t think it’s—”

Kakashi, perhaps predictably, cuts him off. “It’s important, Minato-sensei. What if I embarrass him and he never wants to be seen in public with me again?”

Idly wondering when Obito and Kakashi swapped bodies, Minato blows out a light sigh, marshals his patience, and suggests, “Well, where are you taking him?”

That earns him a deer-in-the-headlights look that would be amusing under other circumstances—namely, circumstances where Minato wasn’t directly involved and could point and laugh without care. As it is, he pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs more audibly this time. “You haven’t decided yet,” he translates. “Kakashi, don’t you think that might be a good thing to pick before you ask him out?”

There's no answer but a fairly sheepish shuffle. The desk and its promise of unconsciousness with a few good whacks has never looked more tempting.

Minato surveys his former student closely, taking in the way he looks like he simply snatched the fanciest outfits from his closet without looking and tried to cram them all on at once. “Tanabata,” he suggests at length, wondering vaguely if he’s going to regret this. “Take him to Tanabata tonight, Kakashi. I think you’ll both be able to enjoy a festival, and you can dress traditionally to cut down on your clothing choices.” He gets to his feet and comes around the desk, carefully selecting a deep blue kimono with a subtle pattern of rippling water around the bottom and sleeves from the mess strewn over Kakashi's shoulders. “This,” he orders. “Put everything else away and then stop worrying. Everything will be fine.”

The look Kakashi gives him says more plainly than words ever could that this is not fine and waltzing around an occupied battlefield would likely be easier, but he takes the kimono nevertheless and slinks from the room. Minato follows him to the door, sticks his head out, and smiles at his secretary. “I'm going to lunch,” he tells her brightly, and makes use of a strategically placed Hiraishin kunai to transport back home before she can protest.

After fielding Kakashi's last four visits, all in varying stages of panic, he feels he’s more or less earned it.

The smell of Kushina’s cooking greets him as he ducks into the kitchen, and his gorgeous wife looks up with an equally gorgeous smile from where she’s just settling Naruto in his chair. “Minato, you actually made it. I thought I was going to have to drag you back by your hair.”

Minato smiles sheepishly—and a little worriedly, because when Kushina says such things he’s learned to assume that she’s not joking. Scuffing a hand through his hair, he offers up his most adoring grin. “I'm home?”

Her expression softens, and she leans forward to kiss him on the cheek. “Welcome back,” she murmurs, drawing away before he can steal a real kiss. “Well, come on, it’s ready. Food!”

Somehow, it’s no surprise at all to see Obito slip through the door that leads to the library. Minato offers him a smile, and Obito grins in return.

“Hey, sensei,” he says cheerfully. “Kakashi's been harassing you? I’d have tried to stop him, but I think if I get closer than five yards from him right now he’s going to spontaneously implode. Sorry.”

Kushina snorts, setting out bowls of her homemade ramen. “Hah! You mean the brat’s finally worked up the nerve to do something more than just eye-fu…” Her gaze falls on little Naruto, chortling happily to himself as he smears his mashed plums around, and she pulls a face. “Ah, eye-stalk you. That’s what I was totally going to say.”

It’s a nice save, spur of the moment as it is, and Minato hides his grin as he picks up his chopsticks. He studies Obito for a moment, noting the relaxed set of his shoulders, the easing of the lines that seem permanently etched around his mouth. “You're not nervous,” he says, like it’s a revelation. That’s a surprise, because he’d thought that if Kakashi, who redefines coolheaded, was on the verge of panicking, Obito would have fretted himself somewhere into the stratosphere by now.

But Obito just smiles, sweet and fond, and Minato really wonders how in the world this boy is an Uchiha. “No,” he says easily enough. “I'm actually not. I think it’s part of being an Uchiha—I already can tell that Kakashi's it for me. And if he’s worried, that means he wants this whole thing to be serious, too. There's really nothing to stress about.”

This isn't the same boy who followed behind Rin like a lovesick puppy; Obito's grown into his shoulders now, still lean but bulkier than Kakashi the shinobi scarecrow, and there's a certain sort of ease with himself that’s easy to read. He’s still self-conscious about the scars, still cheerful and quick to laugh or crack a joke, but he’s not a little kid any more. To see him like this, sitting straight and proud and speaking of love, Minato feels his heart swell with pride. He reaches out, ruffles Obito's shaggy hair, and says warmly, “Good. That’s good, Obito.”

Obito's grin is blinding in its brilliance.

Somehow, Minato suspects that this is one first date that will go very well indeed.

Chapter Text

"Minato-sensei?" Obito calls, all but tumbling into the house as he hops out of his shoes and attempts to keep the bandage around his arm in place. "Kushina-san? Hello?"

Silence is all that greets him, though, and Obito frowns faintly as he steps into the house proper. It's a weekend afternoon, warm and lazy, which makes the chilly stillness of the house all the more surprising.

And then he hears the faintest trace of a sniffle.

Heart sinking, Obito pads around the corner and steps into the kitchen. There's a blond head at the table, bowed over and unnervingly motionless, given the bright ball of energy that Naruto usually is. His eyes are downcast, his mouth a tight, unhappy slash, and though he's not crying—something Obito has never, ever known the incarnation of sunshine he usually is to do—there's a feel to him like he wants to.

"Naru-chan?" Obito asks carefully, putting a hand on Naruto's head and ruffling his thick hair. "What's wrong? Where are your parents?"

That simply makes the line of Naruto's shoulders tighter, and he ducks his head further. "Kaa-san has a mission," he mumbles at length, reluctantly. "And Tou-san…promised to train with me today."

Oh.

Shit.

His heart is more than sinking now, and Obito spares half a thought to curse Minato as he hops up to sit on the table at Naruto's elbow. For all that Kakashi calls him a child, Obito's never been all that good with kids. For the most part, he can't relate to them at all unless they've had a crap childhood, which is, well. But Naruto's always been so cheerful and easygoing, and Obito's never had a problem with him before. This…

This is a bit beyond his scope of understanding.

"Hey," he says gently. "Naru-chan, you know your dad gets upset whenever your mom goes on missions, right?"

(That's putting it lightly. The first time Kushina decided that she was ready for shinobi work again, Minato tried to deny her on the grounds that she was the Hokage's wife and too valuable to go into the field. It had turned into their biggest, loudest fight to date, and when the smoke cleared, Kushina had stormed his and Kakashi's apartment in a snit and claimed their couch. Two weeks and five days it had taken for them to reconcile, and Kushina had spent the entire time growling and hissing and attacking anything she even vaguely considered a display of intimacy. Obito has never, ever, ever seen Kakashi as frustrated as he was those almost-three-weeks.)

Naruto looks up, eyes terrifyingly watery. "But—but he promised!" he cries. "Kaa-san told me to always keep my promises if I want to be a good shinobi."

Obito smiles at him as best he can, hand firm around the small curve of his shoulder. "I know, Naru-chan, and it's not an excuse. Minato-sensei shouldn't have forgotten a promise. It was wrong of him to. But he's also really worried about your mom, which makes it hard for him to think of anything right now. Like how Kakashi or I get when one of us is on a separate mission."

With a wrinkle of his nose, Naruto sticks his tongue out and makes a face. "Tou-san always locks himself in his office with the sake for a few hours whenever he gives you guys separate missions," he complains. "He ways that it's so he can withstand the moping."

"Your father's an idiot," Obito answers promptly, scowling. So that's why Minato's never available when one of them has entirely understandable and completely justified concerns regarding assignments. Bastard.

Unhappiness flickering over his features, Naruto looks down again. "But he's a really good shinobi," he mumbles, nearly despondent. "I'm still really bad at bunshin and chakra control and jutsus, and Tou-san said he'd help me get at least as good as Sasuke, but then he forgot, and whenever wie do train together he can't understand why I don't get it when it's so easy, and…" He trails off, wiping at his eyes.

Damn it, Minato-sensei, Obito thinks again. He sighs and pulls Naruto out of his chair and into his lap, sliding down to sit on the floor with the boy sprawled over his legs. "Yeah, well, your father's also a genius," he says with a fair amount of resignation. "I've noticed that most geniuses are idiots, too." He hesitates, and then continues, "But it's all right that you're not a genius. You know that, right, Naruto?"

"But…"

"No buts," Obito interrupts firmly, meeting blue eyes squarely. "Your dad is a genius, and Kakashi is a genius. Itachi definitely is, and Sasuke too to a degree. They're some of the best and smartest shinobi to come out of Konoha, and we're lucky to have them. But just because we're surrounded by geniuses doesn't mean we're any less valuable." He looks down at the paler skin of his right side, the grafted half of his body, and smiles wryly. "I'm definitely not a genius."

There's a long moment of suspicious silence, and then Naruto cranes his head around to eye Obito doubtfully. "But you're Kakashi-nii's partner," he objects. "And Shisui-san has said you're one of the best shinobi to ever come out of the Uchiha clan, even if they don't acknowledge you."

Shisui actually said that? Obito allows himself half a second to feel a warm, pleased glow before he drags his attention back to the blond in his lap. "I'm not," he assures the boy, tweaking his nose gently at the look of patented disbelief he receives. "Really. When I was a kid I sucked at everything. But you know what? I wanted to be able to stay as Kakashi's partner without ever holding him back, so I decided to get better. I trained a lot, Naru-chan. I still do. I'm not a genius, and I'll never be as good without trying as Kakashi is, but I'm good at working hard."

"Doesn't it make you mad that Kakashi-nii is always so good at stuff?" Naruto demands. "Sasuke's always telling me what jutsus he can do and how much Itachi-san taught him, and I get mad at him."

Sasuke's an arrogant little jerk-wad who'll get the shit kicked out of him on a regular basis as soon as he's on a genin team, and very much for the better, Obito thinks wryly. The kid's sweet, but he's also an Uchiha, full-stop. The arrogance will fade when he faces opponents besides his Academy classmates and his older brother. Hopefully, at least.

"If you're unhappy about being bad at something, get better," Obito says bluntly. "I was bad at strategy and intrigue and chakra control, so I found people who could teach me and bugged them until they did. Yeah, your jounin sensei is supposed to be the one to teach you, but that only goes so far. At some point, Naruto, you've got to make a choice about what kind of shinobi you're going to be. I was a bad one, so I made myself improve. When I couldn't find a teacher, I practiced. I'd have done anything, anything, so that Kakashi didn't leave me behind. And yes, he's a genius, and sometimes it does make me mad, but there's a name for people like you and me, Naruto. We're geniuses of hard work. Whatever Kakashi and Sasuke find easy, we have to work for, and it'll make us stronger in the end. We'll always have to fight to get to the top, but it means we'll never lose that. And that's an edge even over the geniuses."

With a faint groan—because his arm is still bleeding, and the bandage has soaked through now—Obito levers himself back to his feet, settling Naruto carefully on the ground. "There you go," he says with a smile, ruffling the boy's hair. "How about this: I'll get cleaned up from my mission and then we'll go train together. And after that we can go out for ramen."

Naruto's eyes light up, and he whoops for joy. "Yeah!" he says with a fiercely determined cheer. "I'm gonna be the best genius of hard work that there ever was, and then they'll have to make me Hokage. Just you wait and see, Obito-nii!"

"I'm sure you will," Obito agrees amusedly. Faint footsteps make him look up, and he turns his smile on Kakashi as the other jounin rounds the corner, a tired-looking Minato one step behind. "Afternoon, Minato-sensei. Hey, Kakashi," he offers with a soft smile.

Kakashi's grey eye takes him in with careful deliberation, lingering on the tattered length of red-stained cloth wrapped around his left arm. "Yo," is all he says, though. "Your mission went well?"

Obito nods, warmth suffusing him at the sight of his partner. It's just about all he can do not to fling himself at the man. "Yeah, nothing major. Just a bit of trouble near the border—some missing-nins were getting uppity, so I had to put them in their places."

Before he can add anything else, a small hand wraps around his, and an equally small body attaches itself to his side. "I've decided!" Naruto declares, making all three of them blink down at him. "When I'm grown up I'm gonna marry Obito-nii!"

Minato chokes. Kakashi's jaw drops and he splutters.

Obito blinks down at his teacher's son and then says bemusedly, "Naruto?"

The nine-year-old beams at him. "You're the best, Obito-nii," he says cheerily. "I think you're the most awesome person ever, and I love you."

Before Obito can respond, an arm winds itself around his waist and he's dragged away to be tucked safely behind Kakashi. The white-haired man is wearing a dark glare as he looks at the younger blond. "Brat," he growls. "Get your own Uchiha. Obito is mine."

Naruto bristles, sticking his tongue out at his other surrogate brother figure. "No way! When I'm Hokage I'm gonna make a law that says Obito-nii has to be my wife!"

There's a traitorous flush rising in Obito's cheeks, and he presses his hand over his eyes in a vain attempt to hide it. "Naru-chan, I think there's something slightly wrong with your terminology…" he starts.

"No way in hell, brat," Kakashi verbally bulldozes right over him. "Make Sasuke your wife or something. I got here before you were even born."

"Then Obito-nii is probably tired of you by now!"

"Why would he want a little snot-nose shrimp like you?"

"Well, why would he want a perverted old geezer like you?"

"I'm sorry, Obito," Minato says with a faint roll of his eyes, stepping up beside him as the pair before them dissolve into a flurry of bickering. "Thanks for being here; my meeting with Inoichi about appointing his successor ran late."

"No problem, sensei," Obito says easily, offering him a bright smile. Then he spins and swoops in, grabbing Naruto around the waist and tossing him up onto his back. "All right, I think I promised you training and ramen. Ready to go, Naru-chan?"

"Yeah!" Naruto cheers, raising his fists in the air in victory and completely disregarding his argument with Kakashi.

"But…don't you want to train with me, Naruto?" Minato asks, suddenly plaintive, stepping forward with wide eyes.

Naruto beams at him. "Nope," he says, entirely oblivious to the sound of his father's heart breaking. "Me an' Obito are geniuses of hard work, so we have to stick together. And he said we could go for ramen!"

"Brat, get back here," Kakashi growls, lunging forward. Obito grins and evades him easily, springing out the kitchen window and then up into the treetops, an irate jounin on his heels.

"Damn it, Obito, tell the kid you're not interested!"

"Oh, I don't know, I don't see any other offers coming my way. And besides, if I can't be Hokage, Hokage's wife is the next best thing, right?"

"Yeah! Obito-nii's gonna be my wife!"

"Narutooooo! I thought you wanted to train with meeee!"

Chapter Text

Obito waits on the steps of the library, seated on the sun-warmed stone that still holds the heat of the day. Night is falling, and further into the village the Tanabata festival is starting. Music rises like heat waves, carried on the laughter, and there are already stars showing through the dusky violets and blues of descending twilight. He’s alone, dressed in his best kimono, deep green with golden stalks of bamboo reaching up one side and trailing down a sleeve, over a golden brown under-robe. Minato suggested dressing formally, and this is the nicest outfit Obito has.

He’s not worried about this date, not really, because this is Kakashi, and even if Obito does something stupid they can laugh it off and move on without hesitating. Really, it’s Kakashi, and Obito can still pinpoint the exact moment when he looked at his best friend and felt the entire world shift and resettle. Not tremble, not rearrange itself, but firm up and steady. He had looked over at Kakashi as they left Minato's office, content with another mission completed perfectly, and knew in the space between heartbeats that he loved the other boy, bastardly tendencies and all. Knew that he’d die for him and live for him and do absolutely anything for him if he even so much as hinted that he wanted it.

Love is like that, for the Uchiha clan. Obito isn't grateful for it, but he doesn’t hate it, either. It’s simply the way he is, the way they all are, one step different from everyone else and capable of falling into the world’s most destructive, devouring, all-encompassing, incredible love as easily as others blink an eye.

So this date isn't so much a chance as it is simply a moment. Whether something comes of this or not, Obito loves Kakashi so much that it steals his breath away. Kakashi returning or rejecting that won't change it. Oh, Obito would like for it to be returned—he’s not some sort of masochist—but he doesn’t need for it to be. Kakashi asked him out, after all, and that’s already as good an indication as any that Kakashi at least feels something. Being as he is, even if Kakashi eventually loses interest, Obito will still love him.

Regardless of broken hearts or hurts or deaths or anything, Obito will still love him.

Obito doesn’t sigh, and he doesn’t check the time, though some of the couples walking by keep giving him pitying looks. They clearly think that he’s been stood up, and Obito wants to laugh at them. He’s waited on Kakashi for hours before; a measly thirty minutes isn't going to do anything. Of course, he’ll still give the jerk a hard time when he finally makes it, will hold this over his head forever—but that’s a given, as is the fact that Obito won't even begin to lose hope until the sun comes up again. And possibly not even then.

Kakashi brings him flowers, deep crimson and twilight blue and soft, gentle peach. They're beautiful, and smell incredibly sweet. Obito lifts them to his face to breathe them in, and to hide the way he’s laughing at his best friend. Kakashi catches it anyway, because he’s Kakashi, but there's no offense in his deep grey eyes as he grins, too, sheepishly rubbing the back of his head.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” he says abashedly.

Obito smiles at him, lowering the small bouquet, and says honestly, “I love them. Thank you.” Grateful that he’s let his hair grow a bit, he pulls out the tie out and then rebinds the loose tail with the flowers wound through it. A small touch of mokuton ensures they’ll last the night, and he can put them in water when they get home. Because that’s what you do with flowers, right?

(Truthfully, Obito has no clue; no one’s ever given him flowers before, and he hasn’t really given them to anyone else, either. Maybe, if it were anyone other than Kakashi giving them to him, he’d be dismayed at being treated like a girl, but Kakashi never thinks about those kinds of things. To him a shinobi is a shinobi, and gender doesn’t factor in beyond deciding who to send for a seduction mission.)

There's a faintly awkward moment where they both hesitate, Kakashi hovering and Obito not certain which direction they're headed, and then a loud cheer in the distance breaks the spell. Kakashi relaxes like a wire’s been cut, and before Obito can so much as blink he’s got Obito's arm tucked through his own and is guiding them down the crowded street.

“The festival?” Obito asks, letting himself be steered.

Kakashi hums noncommittally. For once his porn is nowhere to be seen, and even though he’s still wearing his mask, he’s actually out of uniform. Obito remembers Minato's aggrieved expression earlier and has to fight back a grin. There's little doubt in his mind who gave Kakashi the advice to plan this date, and that’s just vastly amusing.

“Do you…like fireworks?” Kakashi asks out of the blue, sounding nervous in the way missions and shinobi stuff never makes him, and Obito wonders how he can be. He stops, pulling his best friend to a halt in the middle of the street, and turns him around so that they're facing each other. That grey eye is wide and uncertain, and suddenly it hits Obito all over again that no matter what love is like for the Uchiha, it’s not like that for everyone else.

“Kakashi,” he says seriously, and confusion bordering on panic slips into Kakashi's expression. Before the taller boy can even start speaking, though, Obito reaches out and places a finger over his lips. “Kakashi,” he repeats, “it’s you. That’s the whole point of this, isn't it? I don’t care what we do, I don’t care what you wear, as long as it’s with you. I don’t know any way to make that more obvious.”

For an endless, suspended moment, Kakashi stares at Obito and Obito gazes back. And then something softens and eases in Kakashi's face, settles into lines of humor and hope. He gently wraps his fingers around Obito's and pulls his hand away, then kisses the back of it. “I…hoped,” he admits, almost shyly. “But Kushina kept ragging me about how it had to be perfect, and…”

Obito rolls his eye and uses his captured hand to tug Kakashi a step closer. “It’s Kushina,” he points out. “I'm surprised she didn’t tell you to take me snowshoeing in your bathing suit.”

Kakashi laughs at that, like it’s been surprised out of him, and Obito grins back, even as he reaches forward, grips Kakashi's ear, and pulls him down.

As far as first kisses go, Obito's pretty sure this one tops the charts.