"Kakashi, are you listening to us?"

No. He wasn't listening at all. The sensation of burning that has been filling every vein in his body was gone thank god, but in turn there was a constant fog in his head. Voices were coming from far away, they mixed with each other, words were slurred, he knew he was awake and even sitting in a bed, people he knew and people he didn't know staring at him, but their faces and their mouths meant nothing.

"Rin are you sure he's not on some after effect of the anesthetic?"

"It was just some simple lorazepam Tsunade-sensei."

"I don't wanna discredit your work but everything we've done regarding Kakashi until now might've been wrong."

Wrong.

Yeah. Things were wrong.

Just... wrong.

It didn't get better later. After eating, after sleeping, after waking up again, after seeing Rin, after going back home, after going back to the hospital again, after going back home again. He felt like he was walking around on a dream, and he knew it was a dream so it didn't matter what happened and he was gonna wake up either way, but when he tried to make himself wake up, it didn't work. There was a constant presence of Rin by his side, that made him certain that everything would be alright, even if he didn't recognize other people, didn't recognize most places, didn't recognize the words coming out of his mouth as he answered obtrusive questions.

He had only one glimpse of rightness during this strange fog surrounding all his senses. For a brief moment he thought he smelled Obito. The outlines of the world were sharper, the light brighter, as if somebody had adjusted the contrast and saturation on his eyes, and Obito was there, and it was all right with the world, and for some seconds, he understood what was happening. But in the next moment it was gone, like a train of thought that got out of hand too fast and you didn't know how you got there or where you started. That amazing scent of his cleared his head but then it was gone brief glimpse of rightness was so fast, he couldn't be sure it wasn't his own imagination playing pranks on him.

On Sunday woke up feeling like a train had run him over, like he had the worst hungover in his life, and like he died and came back wrong, all at the same time. But at least he felt like himself. It was the first day in many that he could hold a conversation with Rin, remember her words and consciously make actions and decisions. There wasn't any symptom of rut, and he thanked whatever god was upstairs for their mercy after twelve days of carnal punishment.

Rin was so relieved, she told him she scheduled an appointment with Tsunade for him on Monday morning, she'd drop by to get him and accompany him, but then she was out of the door in less than a second after him waking up. He later got a message that her cactus had died from lack of water and it was Kakashi's fault since she hasn't slept at home for a week. Kakashi called bullshit, but Rin must have put up with a lot of crap from him this last week, so he would show his gratitude by not telling her that her cactus was probably already dying for a long time now. He should know, he owned a plant too that Naruto gave him a couple of years ago, and Mr. Ukki was still alive and healthy, thank you very much. He should buy her dinner sometime too. Yeah, it was only fair. Maybe for Kurenai too, she must have had a tough week holding everything together at work. And now he had to go to the hospital no matter what, he tried to argue with Rin but she wouldn't budge, she said he needed to see Tsunade and there was no way around it.

Shit, he hated his body. Fuck.

First things first, he sent a message to his boss telling him he'd be able to go back to work tomorrow afternoon, to which he was promptly replied with relief. Things must have been hard at work without him.

Second things second, he needed to kill himself in embarrassment from what happened on Friday. Why was Obito at his place? All his memories from the last days were hazy and blurry, and Obito's appearance was so fast he guessed it was just one of the many fever dreams he had in the last week. He texted Rin asking if anyone had dropped by and she confirmed that some Obito person had been there on Friday, and confirmed that, even worse, they both did act very strange around each other. Great. Amazing. Awesome. Just when he was making friends with Obito, even if it was half friendship half unattainable crush.

He spent the rest of Sunday mulling over what the fuck. Just. What the fuck. What a fucking roller coaster this rut was. What's wrong with him? What's wrong with his body? What's wrong with his mind? What was he gonna do next? Hopefully Tsunade had something up her sleeve tomorrow, maybe something he could tell Obito as an excuse for him obviously masturbating on the tub to his scent. Maybe she would commit him to the psychiatric ward for some grippy socks vacations, that would make everyone happy. Yeah, that was the best solution.

"So, in short, there's nothing wrong with you."

Well, fuck.

"Tsunade-san, you do realize I had to go to the hospital?"

"I know that stupid brat! I was there!" She threw her pen at him which he was able to dodge last second fortunately, or he might need to be hospitalized again, with a stab wound this time.

Despite Rin's crudeness the day before, today she was back to her usual sunshine self when she dropped by Kakashi's place at the agreed time to accompany him to the hospital for his appointment with Tsunade. She just needed a good night's rest it seemed. She mentioned that she felt comfortable leaving him at home but was still a bit worried about him walking around alone. He was glad that she was going with him. He hated hospitals, if Rin's there, it would be less horrible. Rin probably knew about this, but it would be mortifying to tell her that, so he remained grateful in silence.

On their way to the hospital, she was filling in the gaps for him for the last week. They spent the train trip talking about what Kakashi had missed, and if he already thought about buying her dinner sometime, now he was certain he needed to buy her ten dinners.

They stopped at the coffee shop outside the hospital to get some black coffee, which for him and Rin translated to four shots of espresso on a cup. They've always had the worst sleeping habits, and with her taking up medicine for a career and him shamelessly refusing to sleep before two in the morning, they have always had the same taste in coffee.

"But why do I need another appointment with Tsunade? Couldn't she just give me the highlights over the phone?" He asked Rin again as they crossed the front door to the hospital and he winced at the antiseptics smell he hated so much and that he could feel even through the mask.

"Trust me, you're gonna wanna be here for this." She sighed cryptically and he just had to roll his eyes at her. He had already been to the hospital two times last week, and that was two time too many. It was two more times than the last ten years. He held his breath as a nurse crossed their path with a patient on a wheelchair, and he had to wonder what was so fundamentally wrong with Rin's personality for her to like to work in such a morbid place.

When they got to Tsunade's office, she greeted them with an energetic smile as if she hasn't been awake for hours already on her feet running this whole place 24/7. She was the head of the hospital, on top of being the head of ob-gyn and intrauterine surgery department and her scheduled regular patients, which included Kakashi as a favor to his father. It was a lot for only one person, even if Tsunade had Shizune's help and they were both machines that never seemed to get tired. Plus, Jiraya and Orochimaru didn't look half as good as her, despite they all being the same age, so surely she had some secret for staying on top of everything and still look youthful. Kakashi sometimes suspected she was doing cocaine or meth somehow, besides her well known problems with money, but Rin always laughed at him and dismissed his ideas.

He sat down nursing his much-needed coffee while Tsunade covered some of the events of last week that Rin had already given him a quick summary about. She got into some technicalities that he couldn't care less about, regarding some of the exams they ran on him and stuff, which brought them to the conclusion that there was nothing wrong with him.

"Tsunade-san, something must be wrong with me." He tried again in a less sassy tone, hoping to avoid getting stabbed with a pen.

"I know brat, I'm not blind, even with all these tests coming back normal." She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose in a way that Kakashi often saw Rin copying when she was exasperated. "There's nothing wrong with you, there's something different with you."

Kakashi felt his eyebrows scrunching at her tone. "Different?"

"Yes. I talked about the tests that returned normal, but the imaging exams returned with a different story. We believe you're dualsex, Kakashi." Tsunade finished in a very caring tone for her harsh personality, and he was confused. What was that? And why was Rin holding his hand with a concerned look on her face?

"We tried to explain this to you during your rut, but you weren't responsive, that's why we wanted to schedule an appointment for you after it was over."

"But what the hell is that? Is it bad?"

"It means you're both an alpha and an omega." Tsunade cut him and turned her laptop on her small desk for him to look. "Your dualsex characteristics are related to your secondary gender, and intersex to your primary gender. Here." She pointed a red nail to an image on her screen. "We have strong reasons to believe you have an underdeveloped omega uterus right here."

Kakashi looked at images that meant absolutely nothing to him. Grainy low resolution black and white forms that he didn't understand as himself. And Tsunade and Rin were telling him he had a uterus?

"Now, dualsex people are quite rare, and they show a whole array of different presentations between alpha and omega, so we'd like to investigate further to understand what your particularities are, Kakashi."

He felt his jaw and neck muscles lock in tension. This meant a lot more trips to the hospital than he'd like.

Rin squeezed her hand on his. "Kakashi, we don't think you'll have any serious issues from this, but we can only be certain if we have a clear picture of your body. This does mean you have to come visit Tsunade-sensei more often and go through the exams, no matter how much you hate hospitals and doctors."

Rin's tone was worried and caring and Kakashi didn't wanna hate her for saying what needed to be said. But he still did. Coming here wasn't easy for him, he fucking hated this place, and they knew why, how could they fucking ask that out of him?

"Look kid, don't." Tsunade slapped her hand on her small table and pointed a threatening finger at him. "I see the nasty look you're sending me, and I know that before last week you hadn't step foot in this hospital since Sakumo died here, but just don't. This is for your own good, the exams are mostly noninvasive, this will help us with what prescriptions to write you, and make your life more comfortable, so you need to work with us on this."

"Tsunade-san, is there no way for-"

"Kakashi, it's only like, a month, then the checkups will be further apart, ok? We'll try to make it better for you. I can go to your place too to get some of the information." Rin tried to appease him a bit, always the mediator.

"I can promise you Kakashi, that at every moment you're here at the hospital, you'll be accompanied by either me, Shizune or Rin. Would that make you more comfortable?"

That was thoughtful of her. But he should know, she was always a rock, unwavering and supportive, and like a mother to those around her even though she never had kids claiming she'd be a terrible parent. Tsunade was deeply kind despite her harsh attitude, and he sighed in defeat because he knew that if they both were asking this out of him, was from a place of concern. "…yeah, it would. Thanks Tsunade-san."

"Kakashi, I made a promise to your father that I would keep an eye on you, this is the least I could do. I'm already feeling very stupid for having missed this before."

"Please Tsunade-sensei, Kakashi always presented undoubtedly as alpha, there was no way of telling it."

"You're cute Rin, but shut up, you don't know what you're saying." Tsunade closed her laptop and grabbed some papers from her table and for someone who ran the hospital you'd think she would have a nicer office, but it wasn't the case. "Alright, I'll get you started on an entering dosage of Zonithasol, it's a great blocker, it has little to no side effects, but you gotta let me know of all the changes you experience. Until your next rut, whenever it happens, your pheromones will be kinda wacky because of all the medicine you took last week and the new blocker, ok?"

Kakashi grabbed the papers in an automatic motion and looked at it, recognizing the name Tsunade mentioned as something other alphas took. Maybe he wasn't much of a weirdo if he could still be medically treated as an alpha?

"The best thing you could do is either write a journal or get an app to record any symptoms you feel Kakashi, this is really important. Drugs exist to make our lives better, not worse."

"Listen to Miss Anesthesiologist here brat, she knows her stuff." Tsunade crossed her arms over her chest and nodded sardonically to Rin.

"You're too cruel Tsunade-sensei."

"You were my second most brilliant student after Shizune! I still can't believe I lost you to fucking anesthesiology! Those money crazed junkies!" Which was an ironic statement coming from a drunkard with a crippling gambling addiction. Rin and Kakashi exchanged a knowing look, but they let it slide.

"Anyway brat. Shizune will text you with a shitton of exams we need to run, so you act nice and answer her and schedule the goddamned exams."

"I will Tsunade-san." Kakashi agreed already regretting his answer. He really didn't wanna come here again if he could help it. "Just… one question, why now? I'm 28, there's nothing major going on in my life, why my rut was so weird this month?"

Tsunade leaned back on her chair crossing her arms over her chest again and nodding to his question. "Yes, you're far from puberty, from alphapause, from having babies and Rin also says your sorry single ass can't find a boyfriend, so I'm guessing you're far from bonding too."

"Tsunade-san you're too cruel." Kakashi whined repeating Rin's words.

"Anyway, I have no idea what prompted this whole circus that was your rut. It could be that incremental changes in your body due to dualsex presentations culminated now, or maybe omega hormones could be too high or low, we have some theories, but I'd rather not bother you with this until we're surer about it."

"Ok." He answered deflated.

"Cheer up Kakashi, you're gonna start having more standard mating cycles, like the rest of us."

He raised an eyebrow at her and said in a dragged voice. "Yay, can't wait."

"Yeah, well, welcome to the human race kid."

This morning the first thing he did was to stalk Kakashi's schedule, and sure enough after lunch he had some meetings with Kurenai and his boss and Obito sighed in relief that he was indeed back to work for real.

Now he regretted it. He shouldn't have checked in on Kakashi, because now he was the only thing Obito could think about, and no reading was getting done, and he was just stalling, scrolling on his computer. Suffice to say the morning wasn't very productive. Hopefully afternoon would be better, he'd drop by Kakashi's desk, say hello, and welcome him back to work in a very polite, very professional manner, then he could go back to that power point presentation he spent three hours not reading in the morning and finish going through it. Yeah, he was gonna have a normal, professional interaction with Kakashi and carry on living normally again. He wasn't gonna mention Friday, wasn't gonna mention how good his scent was, how Obito could still feel the lingering softness of his lips on his scarred cheek, how he knew that Kakashi was masturbating on the tub, how he wanted to hug him again and kiss him and- yeah, there was a whole list of topics to avoid, it would be hard, but he could do it.

He came back from lunch with Genma and pushed the number 10 button on the elevator and told him about Kakashi.

"Sure man, go ahead. Tell him I said welcome back."

"Alright."

"Shit, he gotta let us know which restaurant he got that stomach bug. My man was down for more than a week. Geez, bet he ate some nasty gas station sushi." Genma shook his head as if trying to get the image of spoiled sushi out of his head. Obito laughed at him trying not to think too much of the way he called Kakashi 'my man', he knew it was just a slang but what fucking idiotic slang wasn't it? Why use my? Kakashi wasn't Genma's. He wasn't Obito's either, but that's beside the point.

Obito stepped out of the elevator, and Kakashi was the same as always, silver messy hair, bored eyes, slouch, big hoodie, reading his porn as Kurenai talked to him about something.

"Hey Kakashi, are you feeling better?"

His crush turned to look at him and smiled. A proper smile, not teasing, not polite, just a happy-to-see-you smile, or at least, Obito hoped. "Oh Obito. Hi. Yeah. Better, yeah."

"That's great news. Hey Kurenai, how's it going?"

"Fine Obito, thanks." She waved back at him and Obito suddenly remembered how he was visiting Kurenai's desk during the previous week every day asking for Kakashi and he hoped that she wouldn't mention it to his crush. It would be deadly embarrassing.

"Back to work for good?"

"Oh, he certainly is, he's not taking any more vacations from me!" She let out a hollowed laughter and slapped Kakashi's shoulder stronger than she should with somebody who'd been sick for the last week.

"Ma, Kurenai, it wasn't exactly vacations you know?" Kakashi complained laughing with her, and he looked good enough, just a bit paler, or maybe it was the same because the guy was already very pale, but he didn't have that healthy rosy undertone under his skin anymore. Poor Kakashi, he must have suffered during his prolonged rut.

"You only say that because you weren't here to handle two people's jobs!" Kurenai smiled at him with a murderous smile again and Kakashi did the same.

"I see you developed a sense of humor during my forced sick leave."

They let out some more forced laughter and Obito was ready to get between them if one of them decided to jump at the other's throat, but fortunately Kurenai excused herself and took her leave to go to restroom. "I'm glad you're ok Kakashi."

"Thanks... and thanks for dropping by, it's just that-"

"Don't worry!" Obito interrupted promptly as Kakashi already moved to the number one item on his list of topics to avoid in this conversation. "I know what it can be like. Getting sick, I mean."

Kakashi smiled mischievously at how Obito called his rut "getting sick" but he moved on nonetheless. "Yeah, sick. The dumplings were good, for what I can remember."

"It was Kurenai's idea."

"Yeah, that sounds just like her." Kakashi sent a dirty look to Kurenai's retreating back and Obito had to smile at that. If glares could kill, she would be dead on the ground already.

"And about what I did, when..."

"Oh, don't, don't worry-" Geez, Kakashi was intent on making this conversation awkward or what? No need for them to go through this.

"Sorry about that, they pumped me up with all sorts of tranquilizers at the hospital, they said I was being too aggressive."

"Yeah, I used to get like that too before the meds." Oh thank god he was talking about being aggressive, ok, not about him rubbing one off at the tub, thank god, thank god…

"Yeah, Rin had to clean up my apartment because I trashed the place, and I was- well, it's a good thing you saw me after the meds, or I would have jumped you probably." He laughed shyly.

Kakashi most likely meant that he would jump Obito physically, punching him, violence wasn't an uncommon symptom of rut for unmedicated alphas, but Obito's very obvious desire heard that Kakashi would jump him violentlyandsexually, and Obito's first thought is that he'd like that very much.

He cleared his throat. "Yeah! Like I said, don't worry. Anyways, gotta go. See you later?"

"Sure, see you around." Kakashi shrugged and smiled again.

Thank fucking god, this conversation wasn't nearly half as bad as Obito expected, they just had to keep it like that for now, bury the issue, and never, never, never, never talk about it again. Even if the smell of Kakashi's arousal was forever registered in Obito's brain.

In the last minute before Obito clocked out, Sarutobi-san asked him to compile some very specific data which he saw no use for, but he just smiled and got to work on it. It was a pain in the ass to gather the info, and he wondered why a tech company had such a neolithic financial ledgers system. He was gonna talk to his boss about this, there was no way this was the most efficient way to run a company.

The lights were still on but there was no one in his floor except for the cleaning company's people. Great. The week was off to a bad start if it was only Monday and he was leaving the office this late. He grabbed his jacket and pressed the elevator button repeatedly. Shit he was hungry, but he just wanted to go home and sleep, he'd end up sleeping on the train back for sure, shit and also-

Well…since he was here already… there was no harm in checking in on Kakashi, right? Obito entered and stared at the elevator's buttons for some time, the doors remaining opened. Yeah, finance team was on the eleventh floor, developers on the tenth, it's like the elevator was already gonna pass by it anyway, so why not just drop by? It made perfect sense, besides it's not like Kakashi was there for sure, but if he was, it would be a nice coincidence. He settled on pressing the tenth-floor button and said it was no big deal. He got out of the elevator and the developers' area was deserted, his heart dropped a little. Yeah, it made sense, he just got back to work today, he shouldn't be working so hard right of the bet.

He did a double take as he was about to leave and felt a smile creeping in when he noticed arms raised up as if they were stretching and Obito already knew whose arms were those.

"Shouldn't you be home by now?"

"I could say the same about you." Kakashi groaned tiredly as he finished stretching, moving his neck left and right with sounds popping loud enough for Obito to hear before turning his chair to face him.

"But you just got back."

"Precisely why I need to stay back, work piled up. Kurenai would have killed me already if I hadn't just come out of a hospital. You know how it's like." Kakashi shrugged in an accepting way and Obito could relate.

"I guess I do." He scrunched his nose remembering when he was back to work after his appendicitis. It was not cool.

He knew how it was like, he just didn't like seeing Kakashi so tired. He was only wearing a big t-shirt now, and Obito could see his collarbones showing, were they always this noticeable or had he lost some weight? Was he not fully recovered yet? Was he eating enough? Obito lowered his gaze to Kakashi's thin wrists, wrapped in bandages. The back of his neck also had some bandages that he hadn't noticed before under the big hoodie, the bandages didn't look like they were bloody, so whatever it was it didn't seem to be worrying, but Obito couldn't hold himself from asking.

"Are you ok? You look like you lost a bit of weight."

Kakashi looked down to himself trying to evaluate what Obito just said and looked back up with an awkward smile. "I think I did… but I'm fine now. Why is it? Ma, the coordinator is worried about me?"

Obito rolled his eyes at the teasing. "Shut up. And the bandages?"

"Oh, this? I… I don't know how but I hurt myself, but it's nothing serious."

"Oh, I hope it gets better." It made sense now that Obito thought about it, the bandages were right over the scent glands, over the neck and the wrists and they would likely be affected by the rut issue, but he still wondered what happened.

"Thanks, Obito."

"Wanna grab dinner?" He said before his mind could control his stupid mouth. "I mean… if you're up for it, maybe you're still sick, or still have a lot to do or-"

"I'd like that, yeah." Kakashi smiled under the mask, his eyes creasing in that cute way that made him look like a satisfied cat. Obito let out a smile of his own, happy to have Kakashi back in his life. He'd missed him.

In a completely unsurprising plot twist, Kakashi is also an omega! *shocked pikachu*

So, I did something here. I know that maybe I could use "intersex" here to refer to Kakashi, but I feel that since ABO is a fantasy, all conditions and medications related to it should be fictional too, and I don't wanna spread misinformation, that's why all medication names here are invented by a random generator on the internet (except propofol and lorazepam because, well, those exist, and those really are used in hospitals, please don't self-medicate based on fanfiction, ask a doctor). I also don't wanna invalidate anyone's identity, so I used dualsex instead which is a fantasy name somebody on reddit suggested and I liked it.

Also, I don't know if gas station sushi is a thing in Japan, but it's as disgusting as it sounds. I could have gone with some random food stall on the street, but I don't know, I feel people in big cities have more antibodies and resistance against the strangest bacteria shit. Either way, the sushi wasn't what put Kakashi out of commission, but don't eat spoiled raw fish folks, it's bad for your tummy.