Kakashi had finally made it back home. He was empty-handed of course, which put off his plans to talk with the curator once again about financing his work. He'd be heading in on Monday morning and already it was late Sunday night. After settling himself in for the night, Kakashi fed his dogs and let them take care of their business before promptly heading to bed. His body was weary from the hike and from the thoughts of Obito running through his mind, plaguing him, yet... intriguing him.

Ever since he had seen Obito disappear from existence, he couldn't stop thinking about it. He'd been as real as anything else, but all of a sudden, he just vanished as though he had never existed at all. Maybe it was just a dream? When Kakashi's father was alive, they'd come across some evidence of the Uchiha being what the natives of the time period called 'dreamwalkers' and it hadn't made sense then, but it was beginning to. There were still too many pieces to this puzzle missing to know for certain what had happened.

So Kakashi flipped back his covers and slid into his bed, falling fast asleep within moments while surrounded by his furry companions.

He had drifted off into a peaceful sleep when he felt the huff of warm breath against his face and a cold nose against his face. Kakashi, in his sleepy state, considered that it was likely one of the dogs and yanked at the immovable covers before huffing in irritation. Of course, he couldn't move it; one of the dogs was on him. Instead, Kakashi began to turn in his sleep to avoid the coldness of the touch but found himself stuck. A dog wouldn't be heavy enough to pin 'him' place.

"Ka-ka-shi..." came a sing-song voice.

That voice... he knew that voice. That's when it finally dawned on him that it wasn't one of the dogs seated on top of him.

Kakashi bolted upright, hitting his head on the headboard, making him hold his head and hiss in pain. "Obito? What are you-?" He winced and focused on the humanoid creature bracing his hips on either side. "What are you doing in my house? How'd you find me?" He corrected himself in Rinne.

"I hunted you to your home," Obito purred proudly, the appendages on his shoulders and back bristling pleasurably. "Won't you welcome me?"

"Of course I'll welcome you, but how did you... how did you get inside my home?"

Obito leaned down, covering Kakashi with his body - his naked body - and brushed his cool nose in Kakashi's sleep-tussled hair before whispering, "It's a secret."

Kakashi frowned despite himself. He was still overwhelmingly confused as to what was going on or how Obito managed to show up and escape without any trace of his being there. "Obito," he asked softly, his tongue becoming clumsy with the words as he struggled to swallow with the knot in his throat as he considered that he could be hallucinating as his father had. "Are you... really here?"

With a fluid, inhuman motion, Obito sat back up on Kakashi's hips to get a better look at him, his expression mirroring Kakashi's own. "Do you wish for me to be?"

"Yes." Of course he did! He'd wished to find the Uchiha since he was a boy and as an adult, he simply wished that Obito was real as to dispel his fears that he wasn't just a sad, lonely, washed-up archaeologist with no future that could barely afford to eat. And wasn't that just depressing?

"Then I'm yours," Obito whispered, caressing a surprisingly cold hand over Kakashi's cheek.

But Kakashi still wasn't convinced. He couldn't be satisfied with just words from a cryptid, regardless of how beautiful he was.

"Your body is so warm, Kakashi," Obito murmured softly.

Kakashi untucked his hand from the blankets and pressed it over Obito's. It was freezing and for the first time that evening, Kakashi realized that Obito was shivering. It was minuscule and barely noticeable but he couldn't ignore it now that he knew. Did Obito really travel out in this weather? He was naked; it had to have been a miserable expedition.

"Obito, it's snowing out. Did you really come in this?" Kakashi asked, concerned.

"I'd brave it again if asked of me," Obito answered, a grin on his face as though preening like a large, white cat.

"Get up and come into the bed. I'll warm you," Kakashi offered immediately, pushing down the blankets, rumpling them around their hips before struggling to move to his left and give Obito space in the bed. Obito however, didn't budge an inch. "Obito, get up so you can come inside."

Obito hesitated for a moment longer but obediently did as he was told, slipping off of Kakashi to stand beside the bed, making the floorboard creak underfoot. His scales caught the glow of moonlight that filtered between the old, floral curtains that Kakashi had never replaced, making his body shine and glitter like its own source of light. It was enough to get Kakashi going - just a bit anyhow - but he knew Obito was freezing and any type of sex or intimacy would have to be cast to the back of his mind.

The bed dipped down and groaned with the weight of its other occupant as Obito curled up in the bedding, staring intently at Kakashi. He was still shivering but managed to send him a smile, his teeth chattering as he watched him. Obito must have been colder than Kakashi thought.

"Come closer. I'll hold you," Kakashi whispered, and Obito did just that, pressing his icy body against Kakashi's. "Damn you're cold!" Almost immediately Kakashi made the exclamation, startling Obito with a jolt before he managed to utter an apology in the humanoid's native tongue.

Obito sent him an apprehensive look but seemed to forgive him all the same before he pressed himself as close as he could to Kakashi, nuzzling his face and cheek into Kakashi's chest as he sunk further and further into the blankets. "So warm...," he crooned, his voice muffled by the fabric of Kakashi's wool sweatshirt.

Snuggling up beside Obito was like being cuddled by a giant starfish - all hands and legs wrapped around him and adhering to his body - but Kakashi didn't complain after the chill in the Uchiha's body began to dissipate. He was still exhausted and had to drive about an hour to head into town for work in the morning. He'd deal with Obito when he awoke, and hopefully, he would still be here.

"Are you going to fall asleep?" Obito murmured softly, one of his horns rubbing against Kakashi's chin as he tried to crane his head back to get a glimpse of Kakashi's face while simultaneously grappling him tightly, unwilling to let up.

"Yes, Obito. I have things to do in the daylight." Kakashi didn't have to look at Obito to know he was brooding as he felt the humanoid shift and sink further down in the bedding. He felt bad for Obito since he'd traveled in a snowstorm just to see him, but he couldn't help it. If he didn't get any sleep, he'd fall asleep at work and get yelled at by his boss. Again, mind you.

Kakashi nestled his chin on the top of Obito's head and yawned before muttering quietly, "I'll see you at daylight." Obito hummed in understanding and Kakashi remembered nothing more as he drifted back to sleep.

Kakashi awoke to the sound of his alarm clock going off. Remarkably, none of his dogs began to sniffle at his face or whine to demand food. He clapped his hand down on the snooze button before stretching beneath the covers and sitting up in preparation for his day. For some reason, this morning his cabin felt remarkably cold. He absently brushed his hands over his bare arms to warm them. Maybe he should have adjusted the thermostat, but then again, he usually got pretty warm in the middle of the night.

Oh well. It wasn't something that would matter much since he was getting ready to leave for work, but he felt like he was forgetting something. That didn't make much sense to him, but it'd probably come to mind eventually, so he slid his feet out of bed and onto the cool, carpeted floor.

"Ouch!"

Immediately, he flinched back and tended to his poor foot, pulling it into his lap. One of the dogs must have torn something up because stuck to his foot was a shard of pale, creamy white. It wasn't a bone, as it was far too thin, and when he turned it over in his hand, it seemed to glisten with an iridescent rainbow of colors. He couldn't imagine what exactly it could be, but it mesmerized him to such a degree that he decided on a whim to keep it with him as he went about his morning routine.

All the dogs were sitting patiently outside of the bedroom for Kakashi to prepare their breakfast and the bone-chilling frost seemed even more bitter in the hallway than in his bedroom. In total, he had eight dogs all of them either huskies, husky-mixes, or something with fur thick enough to survive in the chilling Alaskan weather. It was unusual for the dogs to be this calm in the morning, however, and Kakashi's suspicion was immediately sparked. Each of them looked away from his gaze, their tails wagging nervously.

"What did you do?" Kakashi murmured, knowing that the dogs would say nothing in return.

His slipper-clad feet creaked over the wood flooring and to the front door which was ajar by the push of a snowdrift, kept at bay only by the mountain of couch cushions set in behind it. At least they tried, he supposed.

The dogs all followed behind slowly, Shiba on his belly, seemingly the most guilty of all. Kakashi met the husky's eyes and pointed to the door, "Did you do this?" As if in more guilt than before, Shiba's tail stopped wagging and the dog ruminated a kind of growling-whine, a sound only huskies appeared to manage.

"You did this?" More of the whining followed. "That was bad, Shiba." The dog huffed sadly and looked away, covering its face with a paw. Kakashi could only sigh bodily and close the door would a resounding 'click'. Shiba was too smart for his own good sometimes; he'd have to get a lock to put up high on the door to keep the mutts inside.

It didn't take him very long to start brewing a mug of coffee and get the dogs' meals ready. He swept the snow outside and dealt with the cushions along the hall floor, carrying them back to the couch and dragging the dog beds back into the bedroom where he kept them. When he considered it further, it seemed strange that they'd work together like this and not close the door. It would have only taken one of them to do it, as they had in the past, but he didn't really have the time to think about it to in-depth. He let the dogs out into the backyard and put his coat on, grabbing his coffee to head out the door.

As he headed out the door, his hand briefly traversed into his pocket, fidgeting with and running his thumb over the shard in his pocket. It was almost like… like a scale, which served to remind him of his vague dream last night of his imagined, ivory being crawling into bed beside him, his bare body pressed against him for warmth as he purred pleasantly into his chest like an abnormally large housecat. He craved the closeness of that moment and the kisses they had shared, but those thoughts would have to go.

Kakashi turned on his heel to lock the front door and call 'goodbye' to his dogs which came to the fence to see him off. He scratched their pelts and chuckled at their playfulness before sending them away to go play in the yard, Bull having scrounged up a large stick that several of them were completely enthralled over. Kakashi truly adored his dogs, but he steadily made his way over to his SUV to head to work. That's when he saw something that changed his life completely.

He dropped his mug of coffee on the ground in surprise, taking no heed of how the warm liquid sprayed across his boots and pants. His attention was set on something else, far more important because now he knew. He knew that there was no way Obito had been a figment of a lonely man's imagination now; not when there was a perfect trail of bare, human-shaped footprints leading from the woods to the front door and back.

His steely gaze followed the set of footprints into the woods, now assured that both his quest and his late father's had not been fruitless. He'd finally be able to redeem himself and his father in the eyes of the academic community and all he had to do was wait and all of the pieces would come together on their own.