(kakashi and obito see eye to eye.
this is not a metaphor.)
they are young and alone when it first happens.
obito is rushing through miles of dirt and piles of trees as fast as his feet could possibly carry his feeble body; this body that was not his but on loan from someone greater and powerful than him. his heels dig into the soaked soil as they leave prints everywhere but he could care less.
he feels the sand beneath his feet shift with his every movement until he gains some familiarity with this shell of a body and by then he wasn't running, he was leaping . the dirt wasn't changing because he wasn't touching the ground so much as he was soaring above it.
soaring through the forest because with every step he takes he feels something rise up in the bile of his stomach. there is an itch that's meant to be scratched only he only has one arm left and the other one didn't feel like his.
he thinks something profoundly sinister and well beyond his control lurks within him. but because obito was rushing he couldn't afford even a moment of distraction.
then a flash of light - was that rin? - nearly blinds him midway and it takes everything in him to keep going.
try as he might he still feels himself shaken with horror at the viscerality of what he's just seen as he looks down at his hands where the blood is supposed to be but finds none because that wasn't his hand on her heart and—
another flash.
this time it lingered, seeped beneath the bones that weren't his and imprinted on the eye that wasn't his to see. the vision was strong enough to put a temporary brake on his speeding momentum because what the hell was that followed by the no, no that couldn't possibly be—
if obito was rushing then, he was racing now.
(he finds out later that kakashi was notalone. because he killed her along with every spirit he had left fighting for the cause he led himself to believe was worth fighting for.)
they are twenty-six when it happens again.
obito feels a twitch where his other eye is supposed to be and touches it out of reflex. that's when he hears it: a barely audible but omnipresent whisper of an obito, did you see that?
kakashi was doing it again.
more than once he found himself waking up to an environment that wasn't the one he slept on; no, this one was green and warm and alive. this was konoha.
because the idiot who had the other half of his eye was also a neurotic sleepwalker. it was an annoying habit he was unfortunate enough to be an audience to, all because what, they have the same eye?
only the other one wandered off too long in places he shouldn't wander and spoke to people who weren't there and maybe he was grieving or whatever the fuck it was he did but see – obito was too.
so when kakashi kept opening his eye and telling him to look at pretty things in his pretty life like cute genin or pakkun's waggy tail or another icha icha special edition or anything at all – obito regrets ever giving it to him.
because he didn't want to know what goes on in the life he lived that should have been for someone else. he couldn't care less about sensei's son or his nukenin or any of his shrewd hobbies. he especially couldn't care when his other eye is alone on the memorial stone again and he sees him leaving a flower on both their graves, muttering his usual apologies and kneeling beside it like he actually missed them.
obito would rather go blind than see him mourn the loss of the ones gave away.
(it happens several times after that – kakashi's eye pulses when obito has nightmares and obito's sharingan bleeds when kakashi overuses his. they have it closed when they think of its other half.)
the last time it happens, they are both looking at each other.
kakashi sees a man broken down by the world he passionately believed in. he blinks and there are pieces of himself he tried sealing away but still leaked out. but more than that – he sees obito for the man he could still be.
obito sees an old friend he could have changed the world together with. another glance and he glimpses a body bag disposed of too many times he was barely human as he was. but beneath the mask there was a human – he saw kakashi for the man he could have become.
(kakashi and obito share more than just an eye.)