A/N: A bit of a test-drive for an idea Chasing and I were discussing the other day while on a walk to and from the park. It's a males-of-team-7 go back in time story, and Kakashi inevitably went back to the day before Obito's death to try and save him. But what if he 'fessed up and people merely thought he was loony?
W h i t e W a l l I r o n y
Shafts of light slipped through the cracked drapes, dust floated in the yellow like small bits of snow.
"How are you feeling Kakashi?"
Obito stepped across the slick floor lightly, this place had always had the air of a graveyard, or a hospital. But it was a hospital, in a way, wasn't it?
The grey-haired man cracked his eyes but didn't raise from where he was splayed out on the white sheets. His bare face had an odd, tired look to it, but he smiled at the sight of him. "I've always wondered why the walls in these places are white. I think it would drive people more crazy, not help them. I know I'm slowly losing it, I'd campaign for something like blue or orange even but somehow I don't think they'd ever listen to me."
Obito forced a small smile at Kakashi's antics, but didn't miss the way the man still referred to himself as though he was an outsider, as though he had no reason for being in such a place. It may take years, was what the medics always said whenever he asked, it could take less, it could take more.
It was disconcerting, how well the silver-haired man seemed to know him, while they had been nothing but bitter rivals for a couple years time. Obito could still remember that first morning, the morning he advanced to jounin, when the boy had wrapped his arms around him and squeezed him tightly and, when asked, only replied that now things were 'perfect, perfect, perfect'.
"Sensei come to his senses yet?" Kakashi asked half-heartedly, and Obito didn't respond negatively or positively, because what do you say to a madman? "Come over here for a second, will you?"
Obito nodded, walking over to the bed as Kakashi pushed himself up into a sitting position. His arms were thin from disuse, his shirt fell loosely over them like over a skeleton's.
Kakashi's right fingers touched the skin right below Obito's left eye, as the man brought up his left hand to touch his own.
"Will it prove it to you if I tell you what the sharingan feels like?"
"Kakashi, please."
Kakashi shook his head. "He saw into my mind, I've explained it a dozen times. How else would I have known the Kyuubi was going to attack the village?"
"Many people thought-"
"On what day?"
"You didn't specify any day Kakashi. How long are you going to drag this drivel out?"
"Obito, would I lie to you?"
Obito paused, pulled back, and turned to go. He didn't answer.
"Obito, please! I've lost you once before, not again! Can't you tell Minato, I know you believe me!"
"I do believe one thing," Obito pulled the door handle towards him, forming a small half-inch crack, before looking back into weary, desperate eyes, "I believe that genjutsu ruined you."
"Obito-"
The door shut before his sentence could finish, and Obito found himself having to gasp for breath he didn't know he'd been holding.
He could still remember the look of pure horror on the man's face when he'd first heard of Rin's death, he'd gripped the clinical white sheets in his hands and whispered, over and over like a mantra, 'Not again, I failed, failed again, no, no'.
He could still remember the look of terror on the boy's face when he'd bared his soul and Minato had locked him away, had told him 'you're sick, you're sick, I'm sorry'.
He could still remember the feeling of the boy's salty tears on his shoulder that first night, he'd collapsed in his arms and asked, pleaded for forgiveness, said things like 'not this time' and 'second chance' and 'maybe now'.
Obito walked down the white hospital corridor and out the double doors, and as they swung shut behind him with a click he couldn't help but clench his fists.
It was a frightening thought, that a boy such as Kakashi could fall so far.
And a frightening thought, that somewhere in the man's twisted mind, he really did love him.
Kakashi leaned back in bed as the door slammed, it always slammed, Obito was so different now and even as a genin he'd never been gentle.
He should have known better than to tell them, but what should he have said? They wouldn't have believed he'd suddenly 'come to terms' with his father's suicide, they wouldn't have believed anything.
But if Obito was still alive, and living, and came to see him every couple of days, even if for no more than a moment, it was all worth it.
Every last white wall second.