#kirpy

Kakashi lets the kunai tilt his chin up, tries to still the shaking of his exhausted body. The calm of a shinobi doesn’t come to him, never had where he was concerned. Still, Kakashi looks, because this is the treatment he’s earned.

“I hated you, you know?” Obito coos, looking down at Kakashi from where he sat atop his chest, keeping him pinned to the cold floor of Kamui.

Kakashi’s body twitches, and Obito pulls the kunai back just a hair, just enough to stop Kakashi from cutting his own throat on it. The blade stays in place, pressing, cutting through the thin fabric on his neck. It would be so easy for Obito to do it, and Kakashi wants him to, wants Obito to take his revenge, to dish out the punishment Kakashi had always known he deserves.

Tears stream from Kakashi’s sharingan, Obito’s gift, a gift Kakashi had always squandered. 

(His other eye never cried, hadn’t since Obito died. Even when he was desperate, even when he was pleading, Kakashi could never cry, not on his own.)

It should have been you. Kakashi thought, said, felt.

Thought on the nightmare stricken nights.

Said to the ever silent memorial stone.

Felt in every moment of all his failings, in every moment of undeserved happiness, in every breath.

It should have been Obito alive, living, should have been Obito laughing.

Kakashi courts his failures, spends days by their side and nights in their bed, forever fond of the suffering he earned. Obito’s presence, his words now, they confirm what Kakashi had always known.

He was trash, plain and simple, and Obito hated him for it.

“But I don’t, not anymore.”

Kamui is a wretched kind of silent, the heavy kind. It rings in his ears, makes everything echo, louder than it had any right to be.

Kakashi forces himself to look, to stare, to meet Obito’s mismatched gaze with his own. Despite looking, he’s not seeing, not understanding. Obito doesn’t look at him with hatred, not the kind he had when their blades first clashed in this empty space. Obito looks at him with pity, the same way one looked at an unwanted stray cast out to the streets.

Kakashi swallows, whispers. “You don’t?”

He knows about kicked dogs, their fear, their desire to crawl back and go belly up. He craves it just as he craves everything else, he wants so badly to be loved—he knows he doesn’t deserve it.

Even if Obito kicked, at least he would be touching him.

“No.” Obito hums, a thoughtful sound. The kunai presses harder against Kakashi’s neck, and he tilts his head back without thinking, bares his throat.

“I don’t hate you anymore.” Obito decides, and the kunai pulls away. Instinctively, Kakashi wants to chase it, wants to keep it close.

“This wasn’t your fault, Kakashi. I can see that now.” And Obito’s tone is sickly sweet again, cooing to persuade an injured animal from it’s hiding place. He drops the kunai to the ground, and Kakashi can’t help but flinch at the sound.

Obito is quick to hush up, almost gentle in the way he made to cup Kakashi’s face. Kakashi let him, would let Obito do anything.

He’s been trained against this, a distant part of Kakashi’s mind reminds, but it’s so quiet here, so easy to look at Obito, at the swirl of his eyes. It’s easy to sink, to listen.

“They turned you into a weapon,” Obito hums, stroking his thumb against Kakashi’s cheek, dragging a nail against the scar tissue that stretched under Kakashi’s eye, “and then they told you to find peace.”

Something in Kakashi shifts horribly, and the tears that had begun to slow return with a vengeance. A sob bubbles out of his mouth, even as his hands come up to grab at Obito’s wrists, nails digging in to mismatched skins. He should fight him, Kakashi knows he should fight him, but he can’t, can’t do anything aside from shake like a tree in a storm, trembling down to his roots.

“Poor Bakashi.” A nickname from childhood shouldn’t hurt, shouldn’t cut the way it does. Obito says it so kindly, and Kakashi knows it is anything but.

“Please.” Kakashi whispers. There is nothing else to say.

“It’s okay.” Obito hushes him again, says nothing about Kakashi’s nails, trying to dig through paper thin skin and cut. ”They weren’t using you right, were they? Don’t worry. I know what you need, I’ll use you just right, okay?”

Kakashi should shake his head, should fight, should have done so many things differently in his life. He can’t escape this, deep down he isn’t sure he wants to. It’s terrifying.

Broken, ripped apart, resurfacing alongside the twisting agony he had tried to bury.

Kakashi’s own eye begins to tear, wetness gathering in the corner.

“Oh, shh, it’s okay. You're okay.” Obito’s soft voice makes it worse, makes him want to weep like a child still scared of the dark unknown and the thunder of storms.

“Poor thing.” Obito murmurs. “Poor thing...”

Obito’s thumbs run under his eyes, wiping away tears, smearing the saltwater into Kakashi’s skin.

“No more of that, alright?”

His sharingan still leaks, but the pressure in his own eye holds, just at the edge of giving in, on the cusp of shattering.

Obito smiles, still holding Kakashi’s face, still forcing him to look into his eyes, into the depths of Obito’s madness.

Kakashi doesn’t fight it, doesn’t want to win.

Obito is so kind, so deserving. Kakashi would do anything for him, would suffer anything because of him.

Obito knows it, and it’s terrifying.