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Obito has come a long way from the crybaby optimist who first joined Kakashi’s team. Kakashi ducks under a blade swung with ruthless accuracy, swiping where his neck was a mere breath prior.
With a kunai clutched in a reverse grip, the dark features and tall stature afforded by his clan’s ancestry, and no goggles in sight, Obito has grown into a formidable enemy.
He’s also fast, as befitting anyone trained by the Yondaime Hokage. Kakashi has always been fast; before he was strong enough to contend with shinobi twice his age, his best advantage had been speed.
It’s irritating but strangely gratifying that Obito has almost caught up with him. Kakashi’s not small anymore. But he still has to look up at Obito. That, too, is frustrating.
They exchange a flurry of blows on the banks of the Nakano, mostly kicks and narrowly-dodged knife strikes that would gut or guillotine an enemy. It’s nothing they haven’t done hundreds of times before, but Kakashi’s blood still rises with heat and exertion.
He’s rarely pushed to this level, anymore.
And Obito has only gotten better.
It’s strange, though-- usually the idiot won’t shut up. He trash talks, yells loudly, or blithely declares things at the top of his lungs. This Obito is almost a stranger; concentration drawing his mouth down, expression blank and ruthless.
He isn’t hesitating or telegraphing his moves. It’s obvious this level of combat isn’t easy for him, no matter his ongoing, meteoric rise to Kakashi’s caliber. To jonin calibre. He still has to work for it, each movement calculated and deliberate.
None of the instinctive skill Kakashi has, the muscle memory and practiced skill affording plenty of room for thought. It’s still blindingly impressive. He’s making leaps that take other ninja decades. Kakashi scowls behind his mask.
Sweat beads at Obito’s temple, wetting the hair there. Exertion flows through both of them. Kakashi is being pushed. His body thrills in it, adrenaline urging him to move faster and faster.
His blood pumping, his sweat rising, Kakashi feels more alive than he has in years. Almost feverish with it.
The closest he regularly comes is with Gai, who’s going to be an absolute monster if he keeps up the pace of his training-- but isn’t yet.
Black eyes bleed red with nary another tell, Obito failing to smirk or grin or otherwise bluster; it happens between one blow and the next and Kakashi’s throat tightens; Obito’s expression is still cold with concentration, unnaturally serious.
Kakashi catches a cut to the bicep and curses himself for paying more attention to his teammate’s face than his torso. Obito doesn’t make any production out of the minor victory. He doesn’t gloat. He doesn’t crow.
He presses the advantage harder.
Kakashi’s temperature is steadily rising. It’s too early for any of his wounds to fester with infection, but entirely possible Obito’s laced his blades with something.
Non-lethal within the walls of Konoha, probably, but enough to edge a spar into his favor.
Kakashi shakes off the distraction, refusing to be impressed by the improvements he sees-- the culmination of his teammate’s tenacity. He snarls and throws himself back into the fight.
-
Obito doesn’t change overnight. Relief sweeps through Kakashi in a wave. He’s still boldly annoying during training, during conversations. He helps old women cross the street. He’s late to everything.
He’s vibrantly enthusiastic talking to Sensei, and he snickers with Rin in the midday sun.
The next time they spar between missions, Obito doesn’t bother with a warm up. His grin falls away, his eyes spin red, and he jerks into a burst of speed that ends with Kakashi’s kunai blocking his, deflecting the blow away from his neck. Steel clashes overhead and Obito disengages without a flicker of disappointment, with no emotional response at all.
His eyes narrow and he redoubles his efforts, starting with a furious whirlwind of blows that leaves Kakashi breathing hard and wide-eyed. A snarl of frustration is the first flicker of emotion to steal across Obito’s face, and Kakashi finds himself retreating underground before he can even form the seals.
He takes a second to calm his furiously racing pulse, breathe deep, and yank his teammate underground into an Earth Decapitation.
It doesn’t last long, of course, but it makes him feel a little better.
-
He finds himself watching Obito more closely, after that. It’s not that the determination hasn’t been there all along. It’s that the fire driving him has slowly and surely reached a level Kakashi can’t ignore, rewards reaped for the ceaseless training Obito has always put in--long hours of work since the beginning, even when Kakashi was sure he’d never amount to much of anything.
He struggles to ignore Obito at all, these days.
Kakashi is returning from the fish market when a familiar laugh catches his attention, so bright compared to the razor sharp killing edge he’s faced lately. In the market square, Obito is unashamed in his joy, smiling as he helps out a vendor. It’s only a few bags of flour, not enough to merit a proper D-rank-- the kind of menial chore Obito picks up without thinking twice.
The vendor-- an elderly person of indeterminate gender-- pats Obito’s cheek in gratitude. His laughter dies down but his face is still flushed red with it. He has to lean down to accommodate them, and Kakashi is struck once more by how tall his teammate has become.
He’s so busy staring-- observing-- that he walks right into an alley wall, nearly losing his purchases in the shadows. He curses and catches the fish, and puts the thought of Obito forcibly out of his mind; he deals with the man enough at the river!
-
Kakashi ignores Obito ardently on their next mission. He expects to smother his guilt for Obito's brief flash of hurt, but Obito merely shrugs it off. He grins at Kakashi, and doesn't spend half the mission trying to break his silence. He still invites Kakashi in on his jokes, still huffs under his breath and makes comments he shouldn’t.
He seems entirely unbothered-- unhurt-- by Kakashi’s stoicism. Once, he would have been as annoying as possible, taking the taciturn expression as the ultimate challenge; as if not being the center of attention would kill him, shouting that Kakashi wasn’t better.
The chip on his shoulder was large enough to use as a shuriken.
Now, it seems to have vanished entirely, leaving Obito surefooted and confident in his role on the team, and Kakashi the one who’s wrongfooted.
-
The sun sparkles on the water of the river, rippling underfoot. They’re too good for the water to make sound under them, none of the splashing of their youth-- well, Obito’s youth. Kakashi hasn’t been so clumsy with water walking since he was an actual toddler, if his fuzziest memories are to be believed.
They clash and the sharp retort of metal on metal rings out, echoing off the waves. The sun glints on their weapons, too.
Kakashi is less trying to win, at this point, and more determined to break the composed, dispassionate expression on his teammate’s face. He doesn’t examine this new goal too closely.
By all rights, it’s a good thing that Obito is taking training so seriously. That he’s finally shutting up and putting everything into the fight. It’ll keep him alive longer. It’s already sharpened his skills to a dangerous, startling degree.
Kakashi still wants to ruin the perfect mask of concentration. It’s offensive in a way he can’t pin down, squirming down with all the other squishy feelings he’s shoved away for as long as he can remember.
He finds himself choosing tactics less for their efficiency than their annoyingness. It’s petty; pettier than he’s been in years, since when he first lashed out at Guy for wanting to be his friend, back when neither of them were orphans.
Kakashi keeps it up until he earns a narrow-eyed glare from his teammate, sharingan-red sending his heart hammering. Obito’s not-- quite-- frowning. Nor is he affecting any of his trademark scowls.
His mouth is soft and relaxed, fully leaning into the animal reflexes of his body. Over the last few weeks alone, he’s hit a stride of sorts; less deliberation and more instinct, a fluidness and smoothness coming to his fighting that Kakashi’s seen on precious few others.
(It has become clear to him, against his mind’s every protest, that Obito is going to become one of the handful-a-generation legends. Like the brothers who founded the village; like Sandaime’s retinue; like the Sanin, now.
Like Kushina and Minato.
Like Kakashi.)
Obito inhales through his nose and any hints of annoyance slide of his face, leaving it perfectly blank once more. His skin is unmarred, unwrinkled except for the smallest crow’s feet at his eyes and mouth from smiling and laughing so often.
He disengages casually, throwing Kakashi for yet another loop. He’s never been able to predict Obito, so he shouldn’t be surprised by it now. It somehow feels different, though, than when he was a kid frustrated by Obito’s entire, nonsensical existence.
He knows Obito, now. They’ve been teammates for years. It shouldn’t be like fighting a stranger-- and in all the other ways, it’s not; still the same techniques, the same style and motivations, the same shinobi underneath-- and yet.
Kakashi is oddly startled by the new facets in Obito. The new reactions he’s having to him.
Obito flows out of the fight with the slightest gesture. Once he’d allowed his composure to break, Kakashi had expected him to double-down-- for frustration to guide him into a clumsier assault, reckless determination not allowing him to back down until he proves himself.
Who is this man who disengages instead? He... acknowledged the minor victory of Kakashi, and let it go? He’s regrouping?
Obito stops to stretch, reaching for his water skein. He tilts his face to the sun and closes his eyes, drinking deeply. Rivulets of water overflow and slide down his chin, wetting his shirt.
He breaks away from the lip of the skein and wipes his mouth, grimacing. Then, Obito shrugs casually out of his wet shirt.
Kakashi’s soles slip a millimeter into the water, and shock at his own lapse sends his pulse into a sprint. He jerks his gaze away.
When the fight resumes, Kakashi drops his guerrilla irritation tactics. He’s rewarded with the brief flash of surprise over Obito’s expression, and offers up his own gift in turn.
Kakashi takes all the confusion roiling in his gut, all the frustration at how weird things have gotten, takes every bit of nonsense heat brewing under his skin-- and lets it burn through him.
It’s not that he’s not challenged by Obito, by Guy. It’s that he’s been beyond the level of his peers for so long that it’s honestly laughable. Sparring with them keeps him sharp, keeps him entertained, but it doesn’t push him most of the time. When it does, it’s a burn of the muscles, a matter of speed and endurance.
The thing is: Kakashi has been at a jonin level since he was eight years old, and going through the chunin exams with a team of genin didn’t change the porcelain mask in his closet, the ANBU red inked into his skin.
He has, however, allowed himself to stagnate. He realizes that as he presses the offensive against Obito, as satisfaction and then frustration alight on his teammate’s face. At some point, Kakashi had become content to wait for his peers to catch up to his level, and stopped improving somewhere along the way. He collected jutsu idly, went through A-rank missions without much more than vague interest.
He didn’t try.
He’s trying, now.
It’s immediately worth it, seeing the surprise in Obito’s movements, the way his form turns jerky and unpracticed as he’s pushed to even higher speeds. His breathing turns rough and uneven; he can barely keep up, but he does.
Kakashi can see him improving by leaps and bounds, his eyes adapting to the lightning-fast strikes. Soon, he’s able to do more than dodge. He counters; starts contributing to the momentum of where they land, where their feet strike against the water.
He can’t-- quite-- find the openings to hit back, but he isn’t completely passive in the exchange. Kakashi breaks through his guard on three separate occasions; each time, Obito compensates for it on the fly, adjusting his stance and closing the openings.
It’s thrilling. It’s maddening.
He yelps, startled, when Kakashi throws him to the shore. He catches himself on the ground and a moment later Kakashi’s on him, holding him down into the dirt.
For a moment, Obito fights like they used to, when they first became a team; when Kakashi experienced childishness for the first time, wrestling and pulling hair.
Kakashi gets a palm into his face, pushing his cheek away in a more childish sort of play, and Obito laughs. Kakashi loses all momentum, staring. They’d shifted all along the bank, briefly dipping into the water as they rolled; Kakashi’s hair is soaking wet, silver burnished into a dull gray, dripping between them. Obito blinks up at him, arm falling limply to his side.
His eyes are still sharingan-red, lashes still dark as his hair, his brows, the three tomoe and his pupils, that are steadily widening as they watch each other.
Kakashi’s pulse is loud in his ears, all thoughts gone. He watches the red fade from Obito’s eyes, and the same color rise up his cheeks, down his neck-- and it doesn’t stop, because Obito never put his shirt back on.
River water drips down the rising pink, drops of it sliding slowly over his cheeks, following the flushed skin. His collar, his chest--
Kakashi dunks Obito’s head in the river and executes a tactical retreat, disappearing into the trees. Yelling follows him, a more familiar outrage than he’s heard from Obito in over a month.
He doesn’t look back.
-
Kakashi doesn’t go to the Namikaze residence that’s become his second home. Minato wouldn’t notice anything amiss, but Kushina would zero in on the turmoil he’s feeling, somehow identify the emotions before he can, and tease him until he’s ready to take a six-month mission to the other side of the world.
He doesn’t know that what he’s going through is ridicule-worthy, but it probably is. It leaves him awkward and frustrated, and he’ll avoid that kind of exposure until he better understands it. Or, he could ignore it and hope it goes away. That’s a better idea.
Rin had the right idea of it; she’s been following the Tsunade of the Sanin around outside of the village. Sadly, Orochimaru is still in the village and Kakashi doesn’t think Jiraiya would be any more merciful than Kushina.
Thinking of Jiraiya’s reaction to his circumstances makes Kakashi scowl at his own apartment ceiling. He’d probably imply--
Actually, for that matter, Kushina would think...
A nice static takes over his mind, ending that train of thought before it can begin. He relaxes into the couch, willing the blank sound to stay. It’s calming. Peaceful. Safe.
A knock on the door.
Well, beating on the door. Kakashi looks longingly at the window. He hasn’t used the door in... Kakashi doesn’t ever think he’s used the door to his apartment. It might not even work.
But everyone he knows would break it to get in, and that would leave all of his stuff visible to the hallway, unsafe and exposed, so he hastily goes to open it.
For a moment his hand feels weird on the doorknob-- he can’t remember the last time he used any door, come to think of it-- but then it’s open and Obito’s face is staring back at him, hair sticking up--
Exactly as if it’d been dunked in a body of water and then half-ass dried by the wind as he leapt through the air--
-- and no amount of give to his expression.
Kakashi has recently become accustomed to the various forms of ‘stubborn’ Uchiha Obito can bring to bear. This one, with the set jaw and wild eyes, is almost new.
“What the hell, Bakashi?” He snaps, bristling. “You--”
He’s still lightly flushed, though he’s thrown his shirt back on. Kakashi can remember vividly what he looks like without it; how far that pink travels down.
He cannot fucking handle this.
Kakashi’s hands are on Obito’s collar before he can even decide, and Obito’s back hits the wall. Violence-- movement-- is the only option; he can’t sit still with this, he’ll burn alive.
“What is wrong with you!?” Obito demands, as Kakashi crowds him up against the wall, hands bunched at his shoulders, fistful of fabric. It’s stretching his shirt but Kakashi doesn’t care; the wire in the mesh digs into his hands.
Kakashi doesn’t care. He relishes in the bite of it.
“I don’t know.” Kakashi snarls back, because Obito pissed and yelling at him is making it-- whatever this is-- so much worse. It’s almost worse than him laughing, smiling, playing.
Obito looks like he’s going to fight back, make him hurt, hold him down and the thought is distressingly beguiling. Is he under a genjutsu? Fucking hell.
“Well, figure it out! You’re being so fucking weird.” Obito looks at him, mullish, and his lips are-- red. Not quite Sharingan-red, of course, but.
Obito makes a sound, lips parting around it. It’s half surprised, half assessing. A realization. He lifts one hand to Kakashi’s face, fingers stroking down the side of his mask. When he hooks one finger over the top of the fabric, Kakashi doesn’t stop him. He only shudders.
“Huh.” He says, fucking wonderingly, and then he yanks Kakashi down into a press of mouths, finger pulling the mask down and out of the way.
Kakashi thinks they’re fighting again, at first. It feels like a fight; the click of teeth, gentled immediately into physically softer but still fierce, and then Obito bites down on Kakashi’s lip and something flips in his brain.
Kakashi snarls into it, crowding him back against the wall. Obito laughs against his mouth, hands encouraging-- on his chest, touching-- and Kakashi pants. His hands shake on Obito’s collar.
He’s seen people kiss. He knows what this is. The knowledge is almost completely divorced from the physical reality of it, though. It is-- encompassing.
Kakashi can’t think.
The fever in him rises. Obito kisses him, but not down from the ledge; he makes it worse, staying aggressive and playful in equal measure. He nips as much as he kisses, tugging on Kakashi’s lip in a way that sends heat sliding down Kakashi’s spine.
“Yeah--yes-- fuck.” Obito breathes into it, encouraging. He sucks briefly on Kakashi’s lip and he feels dizzy with it. He pushes Obito further into the wall, wanting to climb into his skin, wanting to set him on fire too. They could burn together.
“This doesn’t-- make any sense.” Kakashi insists, pulling away to bury his face in Obito’s shoulder. He feels like he’ll pass out; like he’ll combust.
Obito laughs at him, the bastard, and it does the same thing to Kakashi’s chest that it did at the river; that it did at the market. He does what he wanted to then, to make it stop. To do something about the riot of feelings in his ribcage.
“Fuck!” Obito tips his head back, breathless and laughing without air, as Kakashi bites his neck. He tastes like sweat and the clean water of the Nakano.
Biting immediately makes him feel better, like he can take the edge of this crazy and do something about it. He shoves closer, gnawing on Obito’s neck. The crazy bastard lets him, gasping and making soft noises in his throat. One hand is possessive on Kakashi’s waist, pulling him closer like he wants this fire to consume them both; the other slides around and back into Kakashi’s hair, firm on his neck.
He pulls Kakashi closer, pulls his teeth into his throat, and something in Kakashi just-- crumbles into dust. His self control? His reasoning? The ability to think thoughts?
White static returns, as deadly as the blast of an explosive tag. He digs his teeth into Obito’s neck, soft skin bruising red and purple under them, and Obito moans loudly.
“What is wrong with you?” Kakashi tries to ask, except it comes out as a whine, pure sound with no words attached, and the hand at his nape gentles to pet.
“Shit, hang-- hang on.” Obito says, still breathless, still eager. When he pulls Kakashi back, his eyes are all black-- pupil and iris indistinguishable. The hand on his waist pulls, maneuvering, and Kakashi goes with it.
“Like this.” Obito says into his mouth, murmuring, and guides his hand along Kakashi’s cock.
He hadn’t realized he was hard, but of course he is. The touch to the outside of his fatigues leaves him panting, breathing too hard to return the kiss. Obito shifts to kissing the corner of his mouth, then his jaw. He bites, shifting along Kakashi’s jawline.
The rocking-- stroking?-- motion of his hand turns the hot little drag of teeth into something molten, pouring through Kakashi like lava. Their breath has made the air between them hot, charged, like the summer air during a thunderstorm.
It’s exactly what he needed and he never wants it to stop. He needs more, immediately.
Obito sucks a bruise into the side of his throat and Kakashi thrusts into his hand with a shocked cry.
“Just like that.” Obito slurs, approving, into his neck. “Fuck, just like that.”
Kakashi fucks into his hand. They don’t even get their pants off. Obito is still half crushed against the wall by his waist. Kakashi’s front door is still ajar.
He doesn’t care. About any of it. Obito is hot like burning, hot against him, all the things Kakashi wants; all the things he’s pissed about wanting, and here he can finally do something about it.
His head drops forward onto Obito’s shoulder, Obito’s hand working between them. They’re both gasping, filling the air with the soft rough sound of not enough air and not enough pleasure, chasing the rush of it.
Kakashi gasps, teeth sinking into the clothed shoulder in front of him, and comes into Obito’s hot hand cupping him. His cock spasms, grinding through it. It should be gross-- he’s still wearing all of his clothes-- but instead it’s the hottest thing that’s ever happened to him. He leans into it, biting harder as orgasm punches through him, and Obito makes a strangled sound, rubbing him through it.
The air around him seems to cool as his pulse slows, breathing slowly coming under control. Obito pets the back of his head, slowly stroking the hair there, damp with sweat. It’s oddly soothing as he comes down from the high of coming so hard.
“You could have just said.” Obito murmurs, the asshole. “You absolute goddamn weirdo.”
He sounds fond.
“Shut the fuck up.” Kakashi-- rasps, leaning away. His voice is absolutely a rasp right now. He tugs his mask up and Obito’s eyes follow the motion. Something tense enters his frame, unsure for the first time in-- years. Kakashi can’t remember.
“Don’t be fucking stupid.” He huffs, curling a hand possessively around Obito’s neck, drawing him closer. Obito stumbles forward a few steps and-- absolutely does not fight him. Hmm.
Kakashi pushes him further into the room, so that Obito stumbles backwards and onto the couch, and kicks the door shut behind him. He tugs the mask down again, slowly, and his teammate can’t. Look. Away.
Obito’s face is flushed. He’s fucking handsome. That’s what has been sticking in Kakashi’s craw, all this time. The dark hair, darker eyes; the sharp cut of his jaw.
Kakashi swings a leg over and onto his lap, pushing him down into the couch.
“Going to return the favor?” Obito asks, with all the confidence he’s earned as he improved, became the best and most lethal version of himself-- and also, somehow, the kindest, still helping people at the street-market and fetching cats out of trees. Still late to everywhere they’ve ever been called to be.
“Going to eat you alive.” Kakashi promises, leaning in-- leaning down, from this position, with Obito looking up at him like he’s just as affected, just as hot, a burnt flush spreading down his neck again.
He finally has an outlet for the feeling eating him alive, and he’ll be damned if he stops before its sated.
Fortunately, stamina is another thing Obito’s improved on, by leaps and bounds. He can keep up with Kakashi, and then some.
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