Safety Wasn't First
Beta: For anyone wondering how Obito got Cholera and Kakashi didn't in Chapter 114 of Catch Your Breath. (This was supposed to be like four lines tops, ended up being ~600 and I have no idea what the fuck kind of tone I was going for.)
Parched to the point Kei would have probably made a comment about a skeleton in the desert, Obito lifts his canteen up. A single drop beads at the lip before it falls down, catching the light in a suitably dramatic fashion. Alas though, it is not enough.
Six hours is far too long to go without water, in the same sense that one hour feels like seven. Even on a briskly chilled day with an overcast sky.
"Man, I'm so thirsty," Obito says, giving up on getting any more water from the canteen.
He'll refill it when he gets the chance, but Kakashi keeps steering them away from the villages they pass. Come on, there wasn't even anyone in that village. The result: the canteen remains empty and Obito remains thirsty.
Kakashi, prepared for everything and possessing the right combination of planning, foresight, and impulse-control, is not. He has plenty of water. He also has more pressing things to worry about, like paying attention to the mission objective. Rather than listen to Obito whine about being thirsty, Kakashi tosses the plastic over and crouches down to observe.
Shinjitsu.
After what probably only amounts to ten minutes, Obito is bored and messing with something in a wrapper that is making way too much noise.
Crackle crackle crackle crackle CRACKLE
"Go find Bisuke, Obito," he says. "It's time for a shift change."
They can't have all the dogs running around at once, and they can't stick around long enough to the members of Shinjitsu to start recognizing them. The ninken are supposed to be strays on this mission, not easily picked out by their blue vests.
Thankfully, Obito troops off with his candy wrapper in hand, and Kakashi can return to spying uninterrupted for a little longer.
Entirely too long.
"They should be back by now," Kakashi mutters to himself as the two men he's been watching walk away. Obito and Bisuke are nowhere in sight.
His dogs are not that hard to find, not when he's told them to stay close. Obito has undoubtedly found Bisuke, so Kakashi stretches, cracks a few joints, and heads off after Obito.
For someone with the nickname "Phantom Obito" he's terrible at covering his tracks. At least it makes it easy for Kakashi to find where he ran off to.
Turns out it's a well, and it smells off, just like the other places. Suppressing the urge to rub at his nose, Kakashi settles for scrunching it up beneath his mask and breathing through his mouth. "Don't tell me you filled it up from that."
Obito shrugs and takes a long drink from his bottle before he screws the cap back on. "Look, do you really think a little stomach bug will be that bad? I've been hurt worse than that and I'm fine."
That would be a yes. Because of course he did. If he hadn't been smelling something sick in nearly all the villages they passed today, Kakashi might have just rolled his eyes and let Obito deal with it. Whatever it was, it had affected most of the nearby population.
"Did you at least boil it first?"
"Lighten up, Kakashi," Obito says instead of answering. "It's from a well people drink out of. It's not like there was a dead body in it."
Kakashi files that answer under "no" as Obito returns the water bottle to his pack.
It's not like boiling it would have even required Obito to start a campfire. He's a walking matchbox and a small fire jutsu could get the job done.
"Kei's gonna kill me if I get sick for drinking water without boiling it!" Obito says, right after Kakashi can see the gears of cause and effect click in Obito's facial expression. "Rin, too, but she'll at least take pity on me."
Kakashi sighs. "Let's just go."