“I can’t help but think this might be a really bad idea,” Rin said for the third time as she eyed the bottle and cups lined up on the counter. “We can still just all go out for food.”
“No, and no, again. This is a celebration, so we’re going to do it right.” Obito actually vaulted over a couch to prevent the girl from putting away the bottle. “You are not wussing out on me.” He uncorked the bottle and raised it, swirling the dark liquid inside. “Its not like we’re pilfering the good sake. This stuff is for kids.”
“Right. Just the plum wine, no sake.” Rin agreed.
“Okay, soooo…” Obito poured two cups. He raised his. His dark eyes were sparkling with mischief, and Rin was torn between wanting to punch him or hug him. “To a successful mission!”
They clinked glasses, and Rin watched as Obito downed his. “Come on! This is no time to be such a *girl*!” he declared.
This earned him a Look, and he backpedaled. “You know what I mean. Loosen up. If you do, Super Ninja will too!”
Rin sipped delicately, and then realized she was indeed being a *girl*, which would render the insult accurate, as it really had nothing to do with her gender. She tossed back the drink, and grimaced as Obito clapped her on the back. “Wow, that stuff is sweet. That much sugar content is going to give us all terrible headaches.”
“Hmmm. Well, I guess there IS always the sake.” Obito walked over to look in the liquor cabinet. Thank the gods his aunt and uncle kept the Uchiha family summerhouse well stocked at all times. He caught a glimpse of his great-grandparents glaring at him from a frame in the family shrine. He cautiously laid it face down, and then grabbed the bottle. “Well, they won’t miss it, we just won’t have all that much.”
Rin sighed as Obito poured them each another glass, this time out of the expensive looking black bottle.
“I'm still sure this is probably a really bad idea.”
---------
As Kakashi approached the cabin, he could hear music pulsing from fully 100 yards away. He wasn’t sure what it was, exactly, but it was horrible. When his knock wasn’t answered, he let himself in and took off his sandals. By the time he reached the living room he’d had to cover his ears, but he could still hear the yell that pierced through the thumping bass and shrill vocals.
“CAN’T YOU FIND ANYTHING ELSE? THAT SHIT IS AWFUL!” The voice echoed through the high-ceilinged room.
“COME ON, THIS IS ABBA! ITS CLASSIC DANCE MUSIC!” The second voice came from a corner of the room, where a figure was crouched on the floor surrounded by crates of records. “HA, YOUR RELATIVES LOVE DISCO!” The crouching figure stood up and swayed, album brandished in hand. “YOU COME DOWN HERE AND FIND SOMETHING BETTER THEN!”
All Kakashi could do was stare at Rin, who glanced over to see him standing there with his hands over his ears. She dropped the record and squealed at a decibel level that still managed to reach his eardrums. “Kakashi-kun, I didn’t hear you come in! 'BITO! HE’S HERE!”
Kakashi had never known she could yell like that.
She ran towards him, looking for all the world as if she were going to tackle him. He shook his head violently at her, pointing back at the stereo, mouthing “Turn it down, turn it down!” She stopped, looking puzzled, then her mouth dropped open in an exaggerated expression of realization. She turned back and turned the volume to a tolerable level and ran towards him again.
He spun her around and released her at arm’s length in order to maintain his usual requirements of comfortable personal space. Requirements she was usually more than respectful of. Then a peculiar scent wafted over him, and he looked around, taking in the bottles on the counter. “Don’t even tell me you two have been drinking," he chided. Really, they were unbelieveable. Did they take *nothing* seriously?
“I'm out, pour me another!" Obito sang out as he slid down the banister from upstairs. He stumbled slightly upon landing. “Hey, wha….who turned off the music?”
“I did, nincompoop. 'Kashi has really sensitive ears, remember?” Rin stage-whispered and pointed at Kakashi behind her hand.
“Oooh, yeaaahhh…Hey Kakashi!” Obito seemed to suddenly notice Kakashi was there. And looking even more irritable than usual. “Okay, this is YOUR party so DON’T EVEN START!”
Kakashi didn’t respond, so Rin stepped in to help explain. She was now holding three glasses of clear liquid, one of which she handed to Obito He slopped a good portion of his drink over her hand as he took it, but she didn’t even react. “You know. We’re celebrating. ‘Cause you’re getting promoted.” The last sentence, while a bit slurred, was pronounced slowly and carefully, as though Kakashi were hard of hearing, or a foreigner.
Kakashi decided that his first activity as a Jounin was possibly going to be killing them both. He could easily cover up and make it look like another missing-ninja hit. “How do you already know about that?”
“HEY, since when are we not on the same TEAM?” Obito asked indignantly.
“And since WHEN does 'Bito not snoop through Sensei’s paperwork?” Rin continued. Obito shot her a hurt look, complete with pouty lower lip. “Anyhow, enough of that,” she pushed a glass against Kakashi’s chest, not paying attention as she did so that he had to take it rather than let it hit the floor. “So, congratulations!” She raised her glass, and nudged Obito harder than necessary, so that he lost his balance a bit and more sake sloshed out of his glass. This time he licked it off his own hand.
Kakashi was having none of it. “I thought we were going to have dinner.” Gods, they really were as immature as he'd always thought. If there was anything to celebrate, it was that he’d soon be rid of them. Just one more mission.
“Well….we are. I just haven’t made anything yet. Be patient!” Rin waggled a finger at him. She stood for a moment, smiling and holding up her glass expectantly. When no one else did anything, she gave a gusty sigh and put it down.
“Look. I'm sure you think this is a stupid idea, and you really didn’t want to hang out with us anyhow, and blah blah blah. We thought this would be fun. A last hurrah, if you will, because we'll miss you.”
Obito snorted.
Kakashi set his glass on the counter, and turned around. “I’m leaving. *You two* have fun.”
He had one sandal on before they caught up to him at the front door. Rin attached herself to one arm, Obito glommed on to the other, and both held on for dear life. Increasingly pitiful whines pummeled him from both sides.
“Come ON!”
“You NEVER do anything fun with us unless Sensei MAKES you!”
“When do we ever ask you for ANYTHING?!”
“I promise, I’ll make food!”
“Just ONE toast, then we’ll put the sake away!”
“We’ll go swimming!”
“We’ll stay up all night!”
“We’ll invent new jutsus!”
“Oooh, good one!"
"PLEEAAASSE, 'Kashi!" Obito was actually pouting again. Rin took her cue from him and made a pair of frighteningly huge dewy puppy dog eyes at Kakashi.
His shoulders began to slump as he realized they were actually wearing him down. It was still vastly irritating, but at the same time, it was starting to be oddly appealing, the way a helpless stray baby animal might be appealing, for a minute or two. He was used to both of them leaning on him in one way or another, but never quite in the literal way that they were at the moment. And he was used to feeling a bit like the outsider, and acting like that was totally okay with him, but, with both of them begging and hanging on him and making soppy sad faces….it was comical, really…
He sighed and dropped his sandal. How bad could it be? He could view it as training in how to deal with circumventing the wishes of drunken idiots, which might come in handy someday.
-----Two hours later…
“You d-d-didn’t say the water was freezing, 'Bito!” Rin chattered as climbed onto the dock. The giant t-shirt and shorts she’d borrowed were plastered to her slender frame.
Obito still bobbed in the water, looking a little blue. “S'never this cold in Sept...October...whatever is is.” He glared at Kakashi, who was floating on the other side of the dock. “I was gonna get in, pushy fucker!”
“You weren’t, and its not that cold.” Kakashi’s lazy voice wafted over them.
Obito hauled himself out, dripping freezing water, and grabbed Rin around the waist. She shrieked and twisted, until he pressed a hand against her head and mashed his face wetly against her ear. They stayed in this position for a comically long time, until Kakashi floated closer to get a better look at what appeared to be a drunken display of affection. He rolled his eyes.
“NOW! Obito yelled, and they both canonballed almost on top of him, hitting with the force of a tidal wave. It was a testament to his own level of inebriation that he couldn’t avoid them at all. He sank several feet to where the water was indeed, perilously cold, and then surfaced, spluttering through his mask.
“GOT YOU!” Obito surged up on top of him to dunk him again, and Kakashi seized the other boy. Obito, unfortunately, was slippery, so they ended up more or less squirmily embracing, while Rin laughed helplessly until she choked and water came out her nose.
-----Another half hour later…
“ 'Bito, this is the last time I let you plan for ANYTHING!” Rin flopped down beside the pile of blankets sprawled in front of the fireplace. She swallowed mightily from a bottle, before handing it and another one to the boys huddled on the floor. “Leave it to you to forget all the bed-stuff!”
“Shut up. Shrew.”
“Dumbass.”
“*Girl*”
"Hey! Fuckwit!"
“HEY!”
“BOTH shut up!” Kakashi pulled a quilt up over his head, taking a bottle with him. “And you wonder why I don’ hang out with you?” He still hadn’t warmed up again after changing clothes, probably because he hadn’t been able to find a shirt. More drinking would help, he was sure of it.
Rin nudged her way under his quilt, and pulled it away from him more to be annoying than to cover herself. She had abandoned her wet clothes in favor of the shirt Kakashi couldn’t find, and underpants, and was blissfully unconcerned with whatever opinions, positive OR negative, the boys might have about her attire. It was just fun to watch them not know where to look.
She leaned over Kakashi to coo at him. “You *looove* us, 'Kashi. Me ‘n Bito are the best thing that EVER happened to you.”
Kakashi didn’t disagree, out loud anyhow. He took a swallow from his bottle, then traded with Obito. “Gaah. Plum wine s’yucky.”
“Mmm, its GOOD!” Obito, wrapped up in an old bathrobe he’d found somewhere in the house, chugged, then stared fuzzily at Kakashi. “How y' drink without takin' that off?” He tugged the edge of Kakashi’s mask, which earned him a halfhearted warning look. “S’not fair that neither me or Rin has EVER seen your damn face!”
Rin’s eyes widened, and she pressed her lips together and suddenly became very interested in the edge of a blanket.
Kakashi groaned, and slid back under the quilt. It was warmer there anyhow.
“YOU!” Obito growled at Rin, and suddenly there was a tangle of arms and legs as he attempted to climb over Kakashi and attack her. “When the FUCK did you see Kashi-kun without his MASK?” The three of them struggled, and Obito ended up more or less draped on top his companions.
“I’m a MEDIC, idiot! One of you gets hit in the face, and I have to FIX it That means I have to SEE it!” Rin indignantly kicked at Obito, instead tangling her legs against Kakashi’s under the blankets. He pinned one of her legs with his. She was warm.
Obito was silent, and looked hurt.
Rin sounded contrite. “ 'Bito, I totally don’ ‘member what he looked like.”
“It was dark,” Kakashi chimed in, just to be helpful, to try to either distract Obito, or make his sad pouty lip go away.
“We were getting attacked.”
“By giant spiders.”
“And fireballs.”
“Uh huh!”
Obito continued to pout, and rolled off them sulkily.
Kakashi realized their positions had suddenly flip-flopped, and suddenly it was him and Rin making Obito feel left out, instead of him pretending he Totally Didn’t Care that the other two had their own way of communicating and looking out for each other that unintentionally excluded him.
Clearly it was up to him to Save The Day, again.
He tugged his mask down, tapped on Obito’s forehead, and gave him a *There, happy now?* look.
Obito just stared for a long moment, then picked up his bottle again and took several long swallows.
Rin, on the other hand, snuggled down happily next to Kakashi, and ran her fingers lightly through his damp hair.
“See, 'Bito?” She waited until Obito stopped drinking. “Isn’t he beautiful?”
Obito set the bottle down, and nobody noticed as it tipped over. He leaned over Kakashi to really get a good look, which took a lot longer than it should have.
An odd sort of warm companionability settled over them. Rin wore a little smile, Obito had a look of contemplation as he examined Kakashi’s alleged beauty, and Kakashi let his eyes go half closed and enjoyed the feeling of both of them sandwiched around him.
Rin had leaned down and kissed him gently on the side of the mouth before he had any time to react.
“Your turn,” Rin said to Obito.
He raised his eyebrows at her, then leaned across Kakashi and kissed her. Kakashi could see
their lips part and mesh together above his face.
Rin giggled, and pushed her thumb against Obito’s chin. “Okay. Now him.” She leaned down and rubbed her nose against Kakashi’s cheek, as if willing Obito to follow her.
“ ’M not beautiful,” Kakashi said rather unnecessarily, because he had to say something, and closed his eyes because he wasn’t sure he wanted to see what was going to happen next. Soft breath against his cheek, then lower, behind his ear. Fingers in his hair. Another finger, callused, tracing his lower lip. He flicked his tongue out slightly, and the finger was withdrawn.
“Def’nly not even pretty,” a voice whispered nearby, and lips replaced the finger. Warm, and a little chapped, but Kakashi didn’t have a chance to make more of a comparison before they were gone.
Kakashi made a small sound. Rin burrowed her head into the crook of his neck and shoulder, grinning. Obito cast about again for the bottle, found it upended and empty, and gave up. He claimed the other side of Kakashi, but reached across to pull Rin’s hair.
“Wha?” She mumbled and squirmed.
“Wasn’t a bad idea. At ALL.”
Kakashi decided not to ask.
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Chapter notes: I don't own or make money from Naruto, etc etc.
No idea what to rate it, but if you like bad language, underage drinking, mild citrusy-ness, and one cute little interaction for a rather tragic trio, then this is for you.