Two years post-Kyuubi attack; Kakashi's team is still alive and Yondaime is still Hokage. Kakashi and Obito are both 16.
Kakashi loosened the stranglehold on his chakra and stood up. With a long sigh, swiping the back of his sleeve across his forehead and leaving his hand there to block the sun, he let his eyes roam, unseen from within the shade of his arm. Looking without appearing to look. Hoping without appearing to...
He didn't like where that thought was going and derailed it immediately, flipping back around to take another go at chidori. There was something missing from the control element; something he couldn't see.
He tried again, centering chakra at the ends of his fingers, building up a charge of elemental electricity. Kakashi raced forward and slammed chidori into a tree, smashing the wood in a fiery explosion.
He landed flat on his back twenty paces away, something that couldn't happen in battle--not if he wanted to live.
And these chidori were only charged to a third of its full potential.
"You're doin' it wrong, Kaka-baka."
"You."
"Don't sound so surprised, teme. You knew I was there the whole time."
Instead of a retort, Kakashi spared a few seconds longer to glare at Obito, taking in the jet black hair, the confident stance...ignoring--not avoiding--the red Sharingan eyes, then turned back to his work. He charged chidori again, realizing he could only manage perhaps one last after this before giving up for the week.
His back still to Obito, Kakashi surged forward, slamming his hand into another tree.
"...shi.."
Someone...
"...akashi! Kakashi! Hey!"
Opening his eyes, Kakashi found Obito leaned over him, shaking him. Touching him. He winced, shying away from the probing fingers, then slapped at Obito's hands on his shoulders. "I'm fine."
"Kakashi--"
"I'm fine." He started to walk away, his final chidori charging, pouring the last of his strength into controlling the white hot chakra that jumped at his fingertips.
Obito slid up behind him, the flat of his stomach against the small of Kakashi's back. Kakashi's wrist taken firmly in hand even though chidori's excess electricity must have singed the boy's arm, his jacket. Lips very close to Kakashi's ear brushed his skin and whispered over the screaming chidori, "Let me help you. I can see. Let me be your eyes, Kashi-kun."
Kakashi hated the part of himself that winced when Obito resumed using the honorific on the end of his name. For a moment, just a moment, he'd felt like...Abruptly, the truth of the situation solidified in his mind: he was standing flush against and leaning back into Obito. A twitch deep in his gut, admittedly a bit below his gut, wrenched, and Kakashi swallowed, fighting the urge to press his ear toward the lips and breath that were so close.
So close.
Again, that wrenching twitch, and instead of following his instincts, he leaned slightly away, putting distance between their faces, mouths, eyes. He mumbled, "Show me," and Obito's silent nod shifted at the edge of Kakashi's vision. The boy he often called dobe started to talk, and before long, Kakashi had forgotten his teammate's body warming his and the strong hand grasping his arm, completely taken in by the amazing explanation.
"--'cause it's here, in your wrist. And here, in your shoulder. Instead of focusing on your fingertips, focus on those two places. Control the flow, not the flood."
Was it something sensei had told the Uchiha? Kakashi didn't think so; why would he? It was just Obito, stumbling onto something profound, probably completely unaware of his own...
"...genius."
A little shake rocked the body against his, and had it not sent a sharp wave of sensation through his groin, Kakashi might have been able to discern that it was laughter and would have realized he'd said the word aloud. He couldn't. Couldn't concentrate, couldn't think. He was acutely aware of the feel of Obito's heat behind him, the way he was responding to the hinted tang of the other teenager's sweat...Obito always smelled of dust and grass and what Kakashi imagined home must smell like. The childhood smell of the Hatake estate had long been supplanted in his mind by that sweet, earthy scent, and he inhaled it deeply, centering his mind and forcing a return to the task at hand.
Shoulder...wrist...fingertips relaxed...
"There!" Obito shouted, jumping back as chidori changed from a violent cloud of barely controlled chakra to a focused edge of white electricity. It screamed across the clearing and Kakashi charged.
He cut down three trees in succession before letting the chakra dissipate; the sound of a thousand electric birds fading out and giving way to the real ones. There had been no explosion, no pain, no concussive aftershocks. And the trees were cleanly cut, he was certain. With a grin behind his dark, sweat-soaked mask, Kakashi fell back into the grass, panting with effort and chakra depletion, watching the sky through a newly made hole in the canopy.
He'd been working on chidori for four years, always out-of-sight, out-of-range of the village. Away from Obito, who seemed not to mind being left-out until recently. It had taken real effort to escape him the last two times. Today, Kakashi had simply rolled his eyes and allowed his rival to watch, hidden in the bushes. He'd hoped to make the boy jealous. He hadn't considered that he might actually help.
Obito came bounding up to him, a loose, loud ball of ecstatic chakra. When he saw Kakashi lying on the ground, his signature shifted in pattern and form. Its usual spiking excitement became a calm orb of concern and, for the first time, Kakashi was actually watching when it happened.
The dark haired boy flopped to the ground beside his teammate, arms folded behind his head, staring up at the slowly coasting clouds. After a few long minutes of quiet amidst the trees and birdsong--longer than Kakashi would have expected from Obito, as he'd missed the many moments over the years in which the Uchiha observed him in silent solitude--Obito sighed and sat up. It seemed he would continue to move past sitting, intent on standing and walking away. Without a conscious thought, Kakashi sat up and reached out in one fluid motion, snagging the black Uchiha jacket's hem and yanking him back to the ground before his better judgment could stop him. Obito landed with a surprised "oomph" and a muttered curse, but immediately changed direction as soon as he hit the ground. Kakashi was still staring in shock at the hand that had reached out to the boy in the first place, and to his continued horror, Obito's hands suddenly shoved him forcefully flat against the ground.
"You know, Kashi...you coulda just asked me not to go. I...I woulda stayed if you asked..."
"Then, stay?" Kakashi whispered it, looking up at Obito from where he lay on the ground. Though the pressure of Obito's chest against his own wasn't all that much, certainly nothing he couldn't handle, Kakashi thought the words had sounded laced with too much need, so he added, "But move, dobe. You're heavy." The Uchiha lingered, catching Kakashi's coal gray eyes with his own darker ones, then rolled away to lie on the grass, slightly closer than before.
Nearly an hour later, as Obito felt himself starting to drift to sleep and the sky was beginning to streak with the oranges and reds of sunset, he heard something that sounding very much like "thank you" as it would sound if muttered from beneath a cloth mask facing in the opposite direction. Obito chuckled silently, happily surprised by the spontaneous show of gratitude.
Then, a hand silently curled itself into Obito's, fingers lacing with his. That hand...it was the ungloved hand Kakashi had used to produce chidori. Palm pressed skin-to-skin with Kakashi's, Obito's expression became serious as he held his breath, willing the moment to freeze, to never end.
A little clearer and much closer than before, he heard "Obito...thank you" and felt a tentative squeeze on his hand.
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