Scar Tissue

Chapter Five

Kakashi put new sheets on his futon, stripping off the old and adding several more blankets. He brewed green tea and used a coffee mug for it, wrapping Obito's fingers around it when the man didn't react right away. When he'd drunk the tea, Kakashi pulled Obito to his feet and put him in the bed, piling blankets over the unresponsive shape. He waited until he was sure Obito was warm enough to fight shock, and then left the room and closed the door.

He should've told Obito sooner. He knew it, had known it before, but . . . how did you explain something this massive? Kakashi rubbed his eyes and poured himself sake. He needed something a little stiffer than green tea, but didn't want to leave Obito alone. Drinking by himself wasn't great, but hells, it was better than nothing.

**

"Here."

Obito looked up from his hands in his lap, where his gaze had been tracing the twisted scars that ended abruptly in the lack of a finger.

Kakashi stood over him, holding out a fistful of clothing. Obito looked at it. "What's that?" he asked woodenly.

"Clothes. You're never going to fit into mine, and you don't have any . . . They're borrowed," he added. Obito gave him a dry look. Of *course* they were borrowed.

"From who?" The Uchiha as a clan were small; on average they only reached other shinobi's chins. Obito was smaller.

"Hiashi. He's close to your height." Kakashi considered, then added, "You'll probably need a belt."

Obito snatched the clothes before Kakashi could make any more stupid remarks about his weight that might make him feel *more* self-conscious. At thirteen, he'd been bigger than the other Uchiha his age. He'd had hopes of being *almost* as tall as other ninja.

At nearly thirty, he hadn't grown to his full height, and he was definitely underweight. If the other Uchiha had been alive, he'd still be short.

But they weren't alive.

He glared at the fistful of cloth, not seeing it at all but watching images of friends and family, images he'd held dear, images he'd made up of being reunited, swarm before his eyes. Tears threatened. He fought them back, not wanting to cry--not in front of Kakashi. He'd embarrassed himself enough.

Kakashi shifted from foot to foot, hands in his pockets. Finally, he cleared his throat and said, "You can stay here as long as you need." Then he turned and quietly left the room, closing the door behind him.

**

Tsunade glanced up, saw the short, slender man standing in her doorway, and closed the file. She smiled warmly, folding her hands on her desk. "Obito-san," she said, and gestured to a chair. "We're glad to have you back."

She watched him as he came in, moving carefully on the crutches. She'd read every word she could find on him, and had various doctors fill out psyche reports. They didn't need another Itachi. But while the man before her was slender, pale, and had long black hair, the similarities between him and his distant cousin ended there.

Lines bracketed Obito's mouth, and scars ran over half his face. His hair, pulled neatly back and tied at the base of his neck, was streaked with silver. His movements weren't clumsy, but neither did they hold the grace an uninjured Uchiha wore so easily. He was badly underweight, and his skin was so pale it was nearly translucent. Dark shadows crouched under his eyes like bruises, and he looked like he hadn't slept in weeks. His cheeks were hollow, his hair was lank, his fingernails were slightly yellowed and jagged--broken off. The best of her medics hadn't managed to completely untwist his leg, and she could feel the ruin of his chakra pathways despite weeks of work.

Overall, he felt tired, and weary, and beaten. Tsunade looked down at her file, now closed, and hazarded a guess. "You've been to the Uchiha compound, then."

His lips tightened. He nodded once. "You'll excuse me," he said in a hoarse voice, and gestured to his leg, "if I don't bow." Carefully, he levered himself into a chair across from Tsunade.

She smiled wryly. "I understand." The propriety seemed a little stupid, given his condition. "The village would like to pay for your accommodations, until you get back on your feet," Tsunade said, and regretted the use of the phrase when she saw him flinch. "Metaphorically," she added. "Where are you staying?"

He hesitated, as if the thought hadn't occurred to him. "I stayed with Kakashi--" he glanced at her and clarified, as if she might not know who he was talking about. "Hatake Kakashi."

Tsunade lifted a brow. "Yes," she said dryly.

"I stayed with him last night, but . . . I don't know . . ." He looked lost, floundering.

Tsunade came to his rescue. "When you do decide, just tell them to bill the Hokage."

He nodded. "Thank you."

Tsunade picked his file up, tapped it to even out the edges, and set it down again. She hated this part of being the Hokage. All of this. "I'm afraid we can't give you the Uchiha grounds," she said bluntly, and kept her eyes lowered so she could pretend she didn't see him pale at the mention. "They've been earmarked by the Hyuuga, already paid for. Contractors have been hired. You understand?"

He nodded wordlessly, staring at his hands in his lap.

"The village will, of course, reimburse you for their value." He was about to be a fairly wealthy individual. The council wasn't happy.

"Thank you," he murmured. The unscarred fingers of one hand traced scars on the other, pausing to massage the stump of the ring finger.

"Does it hurt?" Tsunade asked.

He jumped and looked up. "I'm sorry?"

She nodded toward his hands. She was good at being a doctor. "Do you have phantom pain?"

He glanced down, then nodded and looked back up.

"Tell Shizune, my aide. It's a chakra line that didn't close. We can--" 'amputate' was such an ugly word. "--help."

"Thank you," he said again, quietly.

"Next time," Tsunade added a bit sharper, "tell your doctor."

He nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

Tsunade snorted. "You already know, I'm assuming, that you're not going to be a ninja anymore."

Obito gave her a look that clearly said, "No shit."

Tsunade hid a smile. "But since you fell in the line of duty, you qualify for all the ninja benefits. Kakashi especially likes the free massages."

Obito snorted. "Of course he does."

Tsunade didn't bother to hide her smile. Then she glanced down at the list of things she was supposed to talk to him about, and her smile faded. "We should have come for you," she said quietly, solemnly. "I'm sorry we didn't."

He said nothing. Not, she noticed, an assurance that it was all right, that he understood. She didn't blame him.

"That said, I'm going to ask you to stay inside the village walls. We're at truce with Earth Country now, and that's going to remain."

He looked at her, hurt and betrayal clear in his single eye. He'd never learned to hide, she supposed. "They *tortured* me!"

"We can't afford to go to war over this," Tsunade said sharply, her voice ringing with command. She'd been friendly, but it didn't change who, or what, she was. "The administration says they didn't know you were alive. That it was a single individual--"

"That's a lie!" he shouted, and Tsunade thought he would have jumped to his feet if he could have.

"It doesn't matter. It's a lie we're going to go along with. We *cannot* go to war over this." Expressions fled across his face, but he remained silent. When Tsunade was sure it would hold, she continued, "Until this settles, you're to stay in the village."

He nodded mulishly.

"I'm sorry," Tsunade offered.

"You didn't come for me," he said bitterly. "Why should I expect you'd fix it?"

Tsunade slapped her palm on her desk, snapping his head up with the sound. She leaned over, pointing a finger right at him. "Enough. You're shinobi. Deal."

He pulled away, shock wiping out every other emotion. Mission accomplished, Tsunade sat back. "Now." She smiled pleasantly, just to throw him for another loop. "Do you have any questions I can answer?"

**

The apartment was dark when Kakashi got home. He stepped in and flipped on the lights, only to find Obito sitting on the couch, staring at nothing. His injured leg was stretched out before him, his hands absently rubbing his thigh.

"Yo," Kakashi said hesitantly.

Obito looked at him, then away.

Kakashi walked in, slipped off his shoes, and stood directly in Obito's line of sight. "I heard the Hokage wanted to see you."

Obito nodded, eyes focused on something only he could see. "Said welcome home, my clan grounds aren't mine, tough shit about the whole torture thing. Oh, and they're giving me guilt-money."

Kakashi didn't wince. "Did the physical therapist find you?"

Obito nodded again. Then his eye refocused, and he stopped rubbing. "Is there a bar around here? I think I'm overdue for a good drunk."

Kakashi nodded. "Down the street. I'll take--"

"I'll find it." Obito levered himself up, hooked his crutches under his arm, and started the painful process of getting to the door. "I'd rather be alone."

"Sure," Kakashi said, trying not to be hurt. "I'll just . . . read." He was talking to the door. He pulled his hitai-ate off and rubbed Obito's eye.

**

Being alone didn't last long. It seemed everyone in the village was aware of who he was, if not where he'd been. Rumors ranged from 'on a mission' to 'plagued with amnesia and wandering the forest.' He thought that one was especially stupid.

He remembered a few faces. Gai was impossible to forget, what with the eyebrows. He had no memory of Anko, but she just laughed it off and said she'd been a few grades below him. Genma and Raidou he remembered idolizing as the all-powerful upperclassmen, though Raidou looked nothing like he had as a child. The scars, for instance, were new.

He found out several of his classmates were dead. More had taken jobs as civilians, and passed out of the general knowledge of shinobi. He drank to the dead ones, and wondered if normal people felt light-headed after half a pint. He supposed not, given the way the others were drinking, and wished he remembered more about alcohol rules. At thirteen, he hadn't paid much attention.

It didn't matter. Everyone was dead, and he figured this might make him forget, just for a little while. So he drank more, until the room seemed brighter than it was, until laughter was loud and ringing in his head, and it didn't matter that he was nearly blind. Shinobi crowded his booth, snugged in beside him, sitting on the table, leaning over the back. There to check out the last non-traitorous Uchiha, he supposed, and found he didn't mind. He didn't seem to mind anything, though he blushed bright red--to much laughter--when Anko put her hand on his knee.

"You act," Anko said with a grin, to hoots and hollers, "like you've never been kissed."

He suspected he turned brighter red. "Well . . ." He couldn't think of an addition to that 'well.' His mind was muddled and slow, and his thoughts kept circling back to his knee. Another woman, with long, curly black hair, laughed and leaned over the table.

"He *was* thirteen, Anko," she said, and with her breasts pushed up against the wood, she sprawled over and kissed him.

Obito, drunk and not-hurting for the first time in years, laughed low and shakily. It brought peals of hilarity from the crowd, and Anko grabbed his chin and kissed him, too. The curly-haired woman had done so carefully, a gentle brush of lips against lips. Anko used her tongue. And teeth. And then she crawled into his lap and *rubbed*--

"Hey, knock that off!" the bartender shouted, and Anko flopped back over to her seat again.

"Well, we've popped *that* cherry!" she said cheerfully.

Obito just blinked.

"Hang on!" the cool upperclassman said, and handed Genma his drink for safekeeping. Then he leaned over, caught Obito's chin in a burn-scarred hand, and kissed him. Hard.

Obito blinked again.

"Popped that cherry, too!" Raidou crowed.

The group roared with laughter, faces blurring together and voices smearing and swapping until he couldn't tell what came from where. Obito's head rocked back, and he felt stubble along one cheek from above him, realized it was someone leaning over the partition, and said, "I think I'm really drunk."

A hand clapped him on the shoulder, warm and big and comforting. "That you are, friend," a gruff, smoke-filled voice answered. "Welcome home."

Obito laughed, letting the wave of drunken revelry cascading over the bar pick him up and carry him along. He laughed and laughed and laughed and began to cry. He laughed and sobbed, hiccoughing between, giggling through tears and feeling his breath catch and fall loose. He couldn't stop. He couldn't stop either one, and the room was going quiet, but he couldn't stop.

"I'm sorry--" he said between breaths, and leaned his forehead on his arms, crossed over the deep wood. "I'm so sorry--" Then the laughter was gone, and the only sound in the bar was him, wretched and hoarse.

Slender arms wrapped around him, he heard cloth rustle and move, and a woman smelling of cinnamon and apples pulled him close and held him there, rocking back and forth, whispering, "Shh, shh, it'll be all right," over and over again. He clung to her, felt hands at his back, rubbing up along his spine and down again, breath at the nape of his neck as another woman leaned against him, resting her head on the breadth of his shoulders.

He didn't know if the crowd remained or dispersed, couldn’t bring himself to care, couldn't say why he cried only that he couldn’t seem to stop. He wished he could cry with both eyes, thought that maybe it would be over twice as fast, laughed but couldn't say why he did that, either.

He wasn't sure he liked being drunk after all.

**

Obito lay in Kakashi's bed, unable to remember how he got there, but remembering enough of the night before to feel abject humiliation. And his eye was still leaking. He didn't even feel like he *needed* to cry, but he kept tearing up and the corner of his lid was raw where water had run past all night long.

He almost flinched when he heard the door open and footsteps come quietly in.

"I completely embarrassed myself," he muttered, defensive, before Kakashi could mention it.

"Oh?" The single word was very neutral. Overly so. That gods-damned asshole.

"Yes, 'oh'!" Obito yelled, sitting up, eye closed. His head pounded, and he clutched his temples in both hands. "Don't act like you're surprised, you overbearing, arrogant son of a bitch! I'm *sure* you've heard!"

Kakashi was silent. Then metal dragged against wood, and Obito cracked his eye and turned his head until he could see Kakashi tying his hitai-ate around his Sharingan. "I'll be back later," Kakashi said simply, and left.

That asshole. Obito lowered himself back to the bed and curled up around his queasy stomach.

He'd made an idiot of himself. And still the damned tears came.

**

There were Rules about Competitions and Challenges, followed if never stated.

Rule 1: Challenging a man in his own home was forbidden.

Rule 2: Challenging a man in the apartment building that both Gai and his Most Esteemed Rival both shared was also forbidden, as if it were an extension of their homes.

Rule 3: Laying any sort of trap or holding a Competition in or near their homes was forbidden.

They seemed like simple rules, and they kept things easy so that Gai and Kakashi each had a safe place to go, if neither wanted to be Challenged.

It was, therefore, with some surprise that Gai walked into his bedroom and saw the previously closed window open, and his Most Esteemed Rival curled up on his futon. This obviously was not a Challenge, or a Competition. But Kakashi entering his home didn't happen terribly often, either, and usually only after he'd been drinking and missed his own window, or after someone had died.

No one had died, that Gai knew of. And it was too early in the morning for drinking.

Gai thought up and discarded several opening phrases, and finally decided that this was one of those few times when mild was probably the way to go. "Kakashi?"

Kakashi grabbed Gai's pillow and dragged it over his head. "Just a few minutes, 'kay Gai?" he mumbled from underneath pillowcase and foam.

"My Eternal Rival?" Gai asked cautiously.

"Just a few minutes," Kakashi said again, curling tighter into a little ball. "Obito's been using my bed and . . . he's grouchy."

Gai moved farther into the room and sat down carefully near Kakashi's knees. "You and your teammate are not getting along?"

"He's not my teammate anymore," Kakashi mumbled. "And he seems to think I'm the greatest cause for all the trouble in every Country."

Gai sighed. "Most Eternal Rival, may I offer you some advice?"

"No," Kakashi said flatly.

Gai thought about that. Then he shrugged, pulled a blanket over Kakashi, and left the room.

******