Rating: T

Warnings: Bad language.

Word Count: ~1400

Pairings: Kakashi/Obito

Chapter summary: Obito stands in the rain. Kakashi drags him out of it. And that's not entirely a metaphor, either.

Disclaimer: I don't hold the copyrights, I didn't create them, and I make no profit from this.

Notes: I apologize for jumping around so much in time, but this is a good way to keep my muses productive and happy. If enough people would like, I'll post a sort of chapter timeline on my profile, so if you want a chronological story you'll have an order to read them in.

(Also, a question: why are the vast majority of Kakashi/Obito fics posted under the character filters for Kakashi and Torune? Just…an inquiring and fairly bemused mind would like to know.)

(Title again from Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas.)

4. And once below a time

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.