Mangetsu hasn't mentioned anything crude about his courtship to Utakata's cousin Tsugi, or anyone, really, but he's been around enough swordsmen to know how they talk. He's sure the marriage bed won't be Mangetsu and Tsugi's first battle, if you catch his drift.

The strange pall that thought casts over him is forgotten the second he rattles the jar. Bubbles float to the fluid's surface, and the exposed nerve endings stir to life, grasping after them in ribbons of blue and purple as the appendage bobs in something too thick to be water. Like a sea anemone grasping at fish, this small part of Mangetsu clings desperately to life. He taps a fingernail against the glass, and marvels as tiny suckers extend from the nerve endings and cling to the glass.

A strange thrill hums up his spine. He’s read every file there is on the Hozuki, and not a single one mentions anything like this. This is something unknown and undiscovered. Two of Utakata’s favorite things.

“Fascinating,” Utakata murmurs. Or, rather, that's what he means to say. What slips out is, "Beautiful." He sets the jaw down and quickly coughs into his fist, covering his slip of the tongue just in time for Mangetsu's tidal wave of words to wash it out to sea.

"turns out i can lose limbs. seems like they still grow back," mangetsu wiggles his fingers where utakata can see, "but if i don't liquefy in time, this happens. took a while for it to regenerate, too. thought you might want it for your creepy sex dungeon—"

Utakata throws the first thing his hand touches at him. Mangetsu ducks the book with a laugh, and Utakata huffs a sharp tch when it sails out the open window, then winces at the cry of a servant and the distant clatter of expensive dishware hitting stone. He'll be hearing about that later.

"—okay, alright, your lab. i thought you might want it for your lab."

"Hmph," Utakata says, and because he's seventeen and allergic to saying thanks for thinking of me, he abruptly whips off his sandal and throws it at Mangetsu's leg with the pinpoint accuracy of a kunai. Mangetsu raises his leg out of the way. Utakata rocks back in his chair and shoves his friend down and back onto his bed in a ripple of unmade blankets and silky blue sheets.

Utakata stands, leaning over Mangetsu, dangling the jar over his face with a lazy, satisfied smirk. "Do you think you'll feel it when I pull you apart? Or... maybe I could clone you, with enough time and saline solution." Father and Tsugi would like that.

Kakashi had needed it. It'd been weeks of being unable to sleep more than a few hours a night; his body and mind so tired that his vision had started crawling and his ears would catch sounds that weren't there. He was jumping at shadows, which is not something one wants to be doing at all as a shinobi, let alone a fresh-faced teenager trying to prove oneself on a new ANBU squad. So he'd gone to the hospital after the conclusion of his assignment with the team to get stitches along his collarbone instead of doing them himself, and when the nurse had finished patching him up he'd cleared his throat, shrugged his coat back over his shoulders, and asked with his eyes downcast if she could do something for him.

The nurse had watched him for a long moment before answering in the affirmative, the same way one watches a wild animal behaving strangely, just to make sure it isn't rabid. He would have been offended, but he knows he has a reputation at the hospital for being a bit of a hard case- when he'd shown up, conscious and of his own volition, they'd darted around in a frenzy to admit him and accommodate him before they'd realized, no, he wasn't dying, and no, he wasn't bleeding all that badly either. She'd probably feared he was hiding another injury from her, or some kind of illness or poisoning.

Instead he'd asked if she could give him something to help him sleep- flat-calm and frank and cold, gaze locked on the curtain that separates the bed he's seated on from the rest of the emergency ward, something that offers them less privacy than the fact that most other people on the floor are unconscious, drugged to the gills, or on their way out as the nurses turn over the beds to prepare for the next patient. From the corner of his eye he'd seen her expression twist first with surprise, then anger, then pity, but when he turned to look at her dead-on her expression had shifted right back to neutral.

"I'm not in the business of handing out meds like candy," she'd informed him flatly, so close to his own tone in asking that he'd nearly lost all courage then and there. "And I can't prescribe you anything, anyway. You'll have to talk to a doctor if you-" She'd paused when Kakashi's fists had clenched, and only resumed when he deliberately flattened his palms against the tops of his thighs, head bowed and gaze locked on the floor. Her voice softened, then, like she didn't want to spook him. Probably for the best. "Have you talked to Psych?"

Kakashi had shaken his head.

"Why not?"

"Because, um..." He'd paused, reached up to scratch his cheek, shaken his head again as if to clear it. "Because they might try to section eight me. And I want to keep working, it's just... been a rough couple of weeks."

Her lips had pursed, and her gaze had turned very searching. That flash of anger had returned as well, but he didn't feel like it was aimed at him. She'd stared at him for what felt like forever, until she'd stood up from her little rolling stool with a long sigh. "I'll give you a sample pack of some sleeping pills," she'd conceded. "Enough for a couple of days. If they help, you should go to Psych and talk through getting a prescription for them, or maybe you won't need to after a couple of nights' sleep."

He'd blinked at her, his lone eye dark and dull in the harsh buzzing light above them. "Okay," Kakashi had agreed, not really understanding why she was asking this of him but willing to say anything to get some kind of respite from the sleepless nights, no matter how short-lived it was.

She'd stood up, brushed her hands off on her smock, and marched off. She'd returned with a blister pack of little purple and yellow capsules. An eight pack. "One a day," she'd said. "Thirty minutes before you're planning on sleeping. Make sure you can get a full eight to ten hours of sleep, drink plenty of water with them, and don't take any assignments until you know you aren't suffering from any side effects like dizziness, excessive sleepiness, or confusion." He'd taken the pack- she pressed it into his hands, her brows furrowed, her expression serious. "And stop taking soldier pills. Those are supposed to be for emergencies only, they are not replacements for a full night's sleep."

Kakashi had nodded, though he had no intention of stopping the soldier pills, because he's fifteen trying to keep up with adults in ANBU, and those adults in ANBU are also taking soldier pills to manage their hectic schedules and dangerous missions. They're supposed to be safe, aren't they?

One week ago he'd made it all the way back to his apartment before the little blister pack had made him think of his father, his eyes cracked open and dull and sightless, stinking of death and decay, limp on the floor. The thought of his father had pushed him to tucking the pills away in a bathroom drawer and leaving them there.

One more week of sleepless nights. He had cut back on the soldier pills, and that had made his hands tremble and his skin itch but he still hadn't been able to sleep. The blister pack had appeared in his hand that night as he got ready to lay on his back and stare at the ceiling and try to sleep. He'd stared at it. He'd popped out four, figured he needed all the help he could get, swallowed them with a handful of water from the bathroom sink. Brushed his teeth. Started tidying up his apartment, until the tiredness had hit him like a brick wall, sudden and harsh and abrasive, and he'd stumbled into his bed.

The sheets had felt hot. His body felt hot. It didn't matter. He hadn't been awake long enough to register the heat. He hadn't registered the shift in the breeze.

The dream, when it starts, is unremarkable. He's walking a ways behind his team- Obito, Rin, Minato, all expression obscured by the sun in front of them. Something weighs his steps down, slows him to a crawl. He wants to keep up, but he can't. He has to try. They need him to-

"maa, kakashi, what are you so scared of?" obito's face is young. round and boyish, split open on a grin. "great wars? kanabi bridge? ghosts? what are you talking about?" @falsedream laughs. keeps laughing, then laughs some more. there are tears in his eyes. "you're always so serious. listen to that! ghosts. can you believe it?" the laughter continues, mounting, until it's brittle and manic, and the next time kakashi blinks, obito's face is split open with blood. his eye is missing. half of his face is caved in. barely recognizable. "what kind of ghost would want to haunt you?"

I'm not scared.

He cannot tell that to the ghost.

And it must be a ghost, because Obito had cried quite a bit when he'd known him but he hadn't known about the bridge until after. He'd known the war. He'd been afraid of ghosts. Isn't that a beautiful irony? The boy who'd cried at the thought of a haunting now stands before him crying with laughter at the absurdity of being one.

Kakashi doesn't look away from the sight even as his vision in the dream starts to cloud and shift and tint red, like he's watching it through the gifted sharingan eye, like he's weeping blood.

The ghost pitches his voice up to mimic Kakashi's voice, cries out "Obito, Obito-" and then reaches out to grab Kakashi by the collar and crushing him close to Obito's chest. His blood, cold like mud, drips onto Kakashi's bare face. His voice slips into a low growl. "I'm not the ghost that wants to haunt you, Bakashi."

"Obito," he reaches out for the boy's ruined face, like Kakashi's filthy hands might be able to shape the crushed bone back into something right, something alive. The flesh under his hands is sticky and cold, like it belongs to any other corpse. But it isn't any other corpse, it's-

"Obito."

But you're here.

Kakashi doesn't say it because he suddenly can't move. The hands pressed to Obito's mess of a face slip down to hang limp and filthy at his sides. His tongue is heavy in his mouth. The boy shakes him by the shoulders and snarls when Kakashi's head rolls around on his shoulders like a doll's. He shoves him to the ground.

He feels the bones in his striking hand break. Obito straddles him, his ruined face looming over Kakashi as he grips him by his wrist and lifts the hand up to the space between him. Cuts from rib bones, familiar streaks of charred blood. Obito's free hand grips his jaw. His body, his hands are hot on Kakashi's skin.

He's dead. Ghosts shouldn't be hot, because they're cold, like the bloody mess of Obito's crushed skull. Should he remind him?

"Look," he snarls. "Look at this. Why should I haunt you? Huh? This is all that you are, this hand and the awful, killer's body attached to it. So why should I haunt you?"

"Ss- Srr-" Kakashi's mouth and tongue don't quite want to work.

"You're sorry, huh?" Obito tosses his arm carelessly back to the ground. Ground that isn't ground. Because he's dreaming.

The knowledge doesn't bring him any comfort. Normally once he recognizes the dream he's able to wake himself, but he's stuck on the ground trapped beneath the weight of Obito's body, crushing him, boiling him from the inside.

"You look real sorry, Kakashi," he hisses. "But not sorry enough."

The background fades back in, like it had politely receded only to return when it realized Kakashi would not be waking up. He shifts like he's thinking about struggling, and the ground shifts with the sound of loose stones. They're in a cave. The world is still red. Kakashi works his jaw until Obito slaps him open handed on the cheek. His ear rings. His jaw finally unlocks.

"You..." he rasps.

"Me? Me what?"

"I promised... you."

To see the future together. Is that what traps Obito here, haunting him? He's often comforted himself with the thought that he isn't truly alone because he carries Obito with him wherever he goes, and sometimes he thinks he can feel the heavy weight of familiar judgment hanging over him. Disappointment. Rage. It's better than nothing, almost like he still has a conscience.

"You... you promised me..." Obito's laugh is ragged and obnoxious, the same way it sounded when he was alive. "The future with you? What good is that future? Look at the state of you."

Obito's hands circle his throat and start to squeeze until Kakashi thrashes, and he lets up the pressure with a sneer visible on the eyeless, untorn side of his face. The bloody mass on the other side grows and grows until Kakashi feels like he might fall into it. In the center spins a familiar sharingan eye.

"You think pretty highly of yourself, don't you," Obito snarls, pressing his thumb to the tender skin beneath their eye until it starts to hurt. "I should take this back, see how good you are without m-"

He's interrupted by Kakashi's fist hammering into the bloody mass of his face. He screams and rolls off of him, clutching at the ruined flesh and squirming. His fingers squelch in the cold blood, and Kakashi scrambles to his feet and stumbles.

"Fuck you," he snarls, unsure where the vitriol comes from when Obito hasn't spoken an untrue word since this nightmare started. "You're mine. You're my ghost. I d-don't give a fuck if you're stuck here because of my promise. You can't leave me now. You can't have it back-"

Obito tackles him around the waist with a howl, and Kakashi's body slams into the dirt hard enough to knock the wind out of him. He thrashes, lashing out with his fists and sinking his teeth into Obito's hand when it darts too close to his neck. He wraps his legs around the other boy's hips and slings them over until Kakashi is sitting on top of him, slapping and scratching and snarling in a way he'd never done when Obito was alive.

"I was a good shinobi before you," Kakashi bites out, fingers digging into the wound on the side of Obito's skull as he thrashes below him, "And I'd be a good one without you. But you can't have it back. You're mine."

He doesn't wake up for a very, very long time.