Scar Tissue

Chapter Seven

The next morning, Obito woke half-sprawled on Kakashi's chest, listening to the thump-thump of a heartbeat. While warm and rather comfortable, it did make him realize a few things.

The first was that sharing a bed with Kakashi was just a little weird.

The second was that he needed his own bed.

The third was that getting anything of his own was terrifying thought, and so Kakashi might just be right: he might be afraid of moving forward.

He decided that that fucker would never be right, and he'd find his own apartment. That very day.

"You stole the covers," Kakashi muttered a few hours later, wandering out of the bedroom.

Obito snorted and flipped through the paper, looking at vacancies. "I've got a bruise the size of an egg from your pointy elbows."

"Look who's talking," Kakashi mumbled, opening the fridge and staring inside. "Mister Skin-and-Bones himself."

"Asshole." Obito circled another possibility, then, just for curiosity's sake, glanced over buildings for sale. He didn't need a building, and sure as hell wouldn't be climbing stairs, but the listings were there to look at. So he looked.

"What are you doing?" Kakashi asked, putting coffee on to brew.

"Finding a place to live. Fuck it all if I'm gonna sleep in a bed with *you* again." Silence met his statement, and he finally looked up, sweeping his limited vision across the kitchen to where Kakashi leaned against the counter in flannel pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, arms crossed, one eyebrow arched.

"Mm hm," the Copy Ninja said blandly. "Coffee?"

Obito hesitated. He couldn't actually remember ever drinking coffee before. "Sure."

Kakashi turned away and pulled two mugs out of a cupboard, then stood staring at the coffee pot until it had finished brewing. Somehow, Obito had always thought that would take longer. He watched Kakashi pour dark liquid into the mugs, add milk to one, and then put the milk, a mug, and sugar on the table.

The one he'd diluted he sipped from, leaning against the counter again.

Obito picked his own mug up carefully and peered inside. The brown was so dark it might as well have been black. He sipped.

And spat it back out, letting it dribble off his tongue and into the mug. "Oh, *gods!*" he shouted, slapping his hand on the table until he hit the napkin holder. He yanked several out and wiped off his mouth. "That's foul!"

Kakashi laughed, tenor voice rolling through the apartment in waves.

"And you *knew* it was foul! Gods, you asshole!" Obito yelled, shoving up from the table and grabbing his crutch, banging around to make himself tea and hopefully erase the charcoal-ass taste from his mouth.

"Add sugar," Kakashi said, still laughing.

"Fuck you, 'add sugar,'" Obito muttered. "It probably has some asinine chemical reaction and will burn my damn tongue off!" He poured tap water into a mug and stuck it in the microwave, hitting numbers and turning it on. "*Gods* that's sick," he muttered again, and set Kakashi off in more peals of laughter.

**

Obito sat at the patio café, leaning back in his chair to get the most of the sunshine. At the tale across from him Anko sat, inching her chair into the shade as it slowly moved. "How much money do you want to spend?" she asked, sipping cola and flipping through the vacancies.

"I don't know. I have a lot."

Anko snorted. "Yeah, but if you spend it all in the next year what will you live on?"

Obito frowned but didn't open his eye. He reached up, moving the black eyepatch strap and itching beneath.

"How much do you have total?"

He shrugged, lifting and letting his good shoulder fall. "A lot." He didn't actually know.

"Like, more than a hundred thousand?"

Obito laughed. He shifted in the hard iron chair, feeling his bad leg tingle. "Whatever all of the Uchiha compound was worth."

"So, a lot," Anko muttered. He heard her slurp soda through her straw, then the scrape of her chair over concrete as she moved more firmly into shade. "Oi!" she shouted, startling him. "Raidou! Come over here!"

Obito slitted his eye and scanned the patio until he saw Raidou--one of the cool upperclassmen, the one with the burn scars. He wore a black tank top, fitted over hard muscles, exposing the warped skin across his face, down his neck, over one shoulder and sweeping around his arm in a far from natural pattern.

"What's up?" he asked, taking a chair and swinging it around backward. He straddled it, put his plate on their table, and began forking rice and vegetables into his mouth.

"How much money does Obito have?"

Raidou glanced toward him, looking lost. "I give up. Obito, how much money do you have?"

Obito blinked his eye fully open, supposing he shouldn't be dozing. With Anko it was fine, but he didn't know Raidou all that well.

"He doesn't know!" Anko said with great scorn before Obito could answer. "That's why we're asking you!"

"Because I should know?" Raidou laughed.

"Because you work in the Hokage's office and you're good with numbers. C'mon, c'mon." She nudged him under the table. "Guess. The entire Uchiha compound."

Raidou stirred broccoli into rice, one arm braced across the backrest of the chair. "Well . . . that whole area doesn't have great property value because it's a ghost town," he said slowly, twirling his fork. "But it's an awful lot of land, and they just got a contract from the Hyuuga to do something with it . . . given the square footage and the buildings still in good repair . . ."

Obito stopped listening while Raidou thought out loud, leaning back again and closing his eye. The sun felt warm on his face, too warm, and he suspected he was getting sunburned. He didn't care. It was only his face, anyway. Long sleeves and pants hid the rest of him, hid away the scars writhing over his whole body.

"Obito!" Anko said, and kicked his good leg.

"Ow!" he muttered reflexively. "What?"

"Raidou thinks you're a multi-millionaire."

"Almost," Raidou said. "And I could be wrong."

Obito blinked. "Wow."

"So, you could have any place!" Anko said cheerfully.

"You'll still want to budget," Raidou cautioned. "You'd be surprised how easy it is to go through money. Even that much of it." He arced his neck, peering at the vacancies in front of Anko. "Ground floor apartments aren't easy to come by . . . even with money," he muttered thoughtfully. "They're in high demand." He glanced at Obito. "How soon do you need a place?"

"As soon as possible," Obito answered, thinking of Kakashi.

Raidou winced, the scars pulling. "Might buy a house, then. You'd have to hire gardening done . . . and make sure it's a single-story . . ."

Obito glowered. "I'm not completely helpless, you know," he snapped.

Raidou looked at him, fork dangling as he used it to point out houses for sale. "Look, if I were you I wouldn't want to make my life harder than I have to. But if you *really* need to prove something, as opposed to be happy, go for it." He rolled his eyes and Obito felt twelve again, newly Genin and trying--and failing--to impress the Chuunin.

"Widow Marin just died . . . her place is for sale," Anko suggested.

Raidou shook his head. "Crappy area. The widow was a Jounin, remember? It's the only way her house wasn't robbed. I heard vandals have already gotten inside."

"Assholes," Anko muttered.

"Besides, if Obito wants to do something, we oughta get him a place near that. Obito? What do you want to do?"

Obito shrugged, flustered. "I--I can't really do anything," he said.

"Bullshit. Take up watercolors or something. You can't just sit around and do *nothing* for the rest of your life," Raidou said off handedly. Then he turned to Anko and instructed, "Just look at places near the center of the village."

"Here." Anko pointed one out to Raidou.

"No," he said. "Two-story."

Obito watched them, wavering between amused and annoyed, as they discussed where he should live.

"Good afternoon, friends!" a voice boomed as a figure strode up beside them. "And what are you doing on this fine day full of sunshine and good cheer?"

Anko waved a hand at the last open seat. "Finding Obito a place to live," she said as Gai sat.

"A truly noble cause," Gai said solemnly. "Obito, my Eternal Rival's good friend, you may stay with me if you need!"

"He's rich, Gai. We're trying to find him his own place," Raidou said without looking up from the paper. "Preferably something single story, near the center of the village, and Obito doesn't know what he wants to do yet so he'll need something large enough to do anything."

Obito hadn't heard that part, but it made sense to him. He could always hire it cleaned.

"Why not the Senbon and Shuriken?" Gai suggested, digging into a pile of meat sitting on top of a bit of rice.

Raidou looked up at him. "The pub?"

"It went up for sale last week. Sadly, it met its winter of hibernation and closed down two months ago," Gai said through food. "But there're living quarters, and the restaurant itself would have plenty of space."

"You know," Obito said into the quiet, "that's not a bad idea."

**

The four shinobi wandered around the outside of the building while waiting for someone to get there and unlock it.

"Good location," Raidou said, having gone around to check out the back. "Easily defensible."

"Because he'll be using this place as an assault base," Anko said dryly.

Raidou just shrugged.

Obito ignored them and looked at the brick building, glancing at the concrete area that could easily be a patio in the summer, at the windows that had dirt where signs had been. When he peered inside he could still see booths, tables and chairs, a bar at the far end.

"Hello! Thank you for waiting!" a small woman said, running up from across the street. She pulled a ring of keys off her belt, hurrying to open the door. When dealing with shinobi, the thanks for waiting was an honest one--they could have simply broken in.

Anko followed the realtor in, Gai after, and Raidou gestured to Obito.

He crutched up to the door and froze.

It was dark inside. The realtor flipped on overhead lights, exposing a high ceiling with large pipes running across and lamps hanging down.

But it was still dark.

"You go ahead," Obito said, stepping away and gesturing Raidou forward. When the Jounin had passed, Obito took a deep breath and started inside.

He stopped again.

His heart pounded. He couldn't breathe. The walls looked like they were coming in, the ceiling coming down. He stepped away, tried to get his shaking under control, listened to the realtor babble about maximum occupancy and how a band would be a great draw, and moved to step inside.

He almost vomited.

Obito stepped back.

"Hey," Anko said quietly, melting out of the gloom. "You all right?"

He shook his head, mouth too dry to speak. He swallowed, gave her a wobbly smile. "Take a look around for me, huh?" he asked.

She looked at him, then nodded and went back in.

Shit. He leaned against the wall and stared up at the sun, hoping it would burn out what was left of his vision. He kept seeing the cell. Shit.

The others were gone for about ten minutes, and then the realtor reappeared, thanking them again and locking back up. The four stood there while she left, and no one said anything to Obito about how he hadn't gone in.

"It's nice," Anko said at last. "But I guess we should find you someplace else, huh?"

"No, wait," Obito said, frowning. The idea of owning a bar had taken hold, and he *liked* it. It appealed to him. He couldn't, after all, just sit around doing nothing for the rest of his life. "Are there other restaurants for sale?"

"Not that I know of," Anko said doubtfully.

"We can look," Raidou added.

"Yeah, okay," Obito said. "Let's look."

**

At the end of the day Obito sat in Kakashi's living room, his bad leg propped on the coffee table, pain making his foul mood worse. Something holy had taken pity on him, and Kakashi wasn't home. He and Anko had the place to themselves, and Anko made excellent tea.

"I can't believe I panicked like that," Obito muttered, digging his thumbs into his thigh muscle.

"Obito," the Special Jounin said, smiling humorlessly as she set down a tea cup, "you were in a cell for years. No one expects you to be coping perfectly. Or even well," she added in an undertone.

"*I* do!" Obito cried.

"Well, stop." Anko shrugged and sprawled out in the recliner, sipping from her own cup. "You aren't a Sannin."

Obito frowned, reaching out to take his cup, trying to focus on heat and taste rather than pain. He'd done too much walking. Again. And they hadn't found another building--just houses, which the other shinobi tried to convince him would be good. But, damn it, he *would* need something to do! A bar was perfect!

Just not a dark one.

He sighed. Who ever heard of a not-dark bar? At least, his hazy recollection of bars, and the few he'd seen, weren't exactly bright. They were mostly walls. He supposed tipsy ninja wanted to feel safe, and windows left them feeling open to attack. Or maybe it was something more basic, more primal than that. Animals coming in from the world, finding safety in a den.

That instinct had, apparently, been abolished in him.

And, gods, his leg *hurt*!

"Look, honey, I need to go," Anko said, standing and putting her cup in the kitchen. She walked back to him, running her fingers once through his straight black hair. He felt her chakra slide in and boost his, and accepted the gift silently. "Kakashi'll be home soon. Try and get some sleep, okay?"

He nodded wordlessly, listened as she went out the door and closed it behind her. If he didn't look up, he couldn't see her leave. Nothing more than a tunnel straight ahead, his world shrunk down to almost nothing. He breathed, deep and long, concentrating on relaxing his muscles and sending chakra to the damaged ones, like Kaori had said.

It didn't seem to be helping.

He sat there for what felt like forever before the door opened again. He ignored it, trying desperately to find a balance, a place of peace around the agony. When Kakashi came into his line of sight, kneeling down in front of him, he realized the man had spoken. Hands rose, slipping up around his wrists.

Obito tensed for more pain, but chakra--more powerful than his, more subtle than his, balanced and healthy chakra from healthy pathways--caressed over muscle and tendon, slipping past his defenses effortlessly, and eased into the frayed, brittle edges of his energy.

He breathed. The pain subsided. He shuddered at the alien feel of another's power sliding along his legs, but it was helping. He accepted it, felt his body take another step toward peace.

"Are you all right?" Kakashi asked quietly, and Obito realized it wasn't the first time the question had been asked.

He nodded, tight-lipped. "Just--too much walking today." His face felt cold. As soon as that registered, Kakashi's hands moved, sliding up his body a hair's breadth away, pausing at his neck. Heat poured into him. He shivered as the chill was driven up out of his bones, exploding through his skin before dissipating.

He took another breath. His cheeks colored, he felt the warmth of a blush, and he pulled away. "Thanks," he mumbled.

Kakashi sat back, rocking on his heels. "You worried me for a minute there."

Obito lifted his good shoulder in a jerky shrug. "Don't know why."

There was a strained silence. He swept his gaze up, over the shinobi uniform, the mask, to the single visible eye. Kakashi looked weary.

"Well, we weren't friends," Obito pointed out sharply, feeling like the weariness was entirely his fault. He wouldn't carry that responsibility.

"No," Kakashi said softly. "We weren't." He stood, pulling off mask and hitai-ate. Obito saw them land on the table, but didn't look up to watch Kakashi walk away. "But you're the only person still alive who knew me then, who knew my friends. And I'm the only person still alive who knew you and yours."

Obito frowned, closed his eye, rubbed at the corner. "Does that matter?"

Dishes clinked, cupboards opened and closed. "I suppose it doesn't have to," Kakashi said after a long time.

Obito opened his eyes and stared at the coffee table. Eventually, he pulled the newspaper out from under Kakashi's things. "I'm going to buy a bar," he said, changing the subject and daring Kakashi to change it back, or tell him he couldn't.

"Oh?"

"Yeah. And be a bartender. Owner. Something."

"Have you found a place? There was a bar that just closed down . . ."

Obito smiled wryly. "Yeah, I think that's the place we were looking at." He almost told Kakashi about his panic attack, then decided against it.

"You should know it's had three other bars there. They've all shut down."

Obito shrugged. "We took a look at my finances. Raidou says if I never have a customer, I can keep it up and running for ten years and still have enough to retire comfortably."

"Well, then congratulations," Kakashi said, and a bowl of stir fried vegetables appeared in Obito's limited vision.

He took it, muttering a thanks.

"Can I help?"

Obito looked up suspiciously, wary of Kakashi falling back into the pity trap. He didn't need help *eating.*

But Kakashi was leaning against the wall, picking through his own bowl.

"Help with the restaurant?" At Kakashi's nod, Obito just shook his head. "Nah. I got it covered."

**

It was dark, and cold, and damp. The chill had soaked through his bones, and every time he shivered pain wracked up his leg with bloody claws. He'd screamed himself hoarse first with defiance and then with agony, and no one had come.

No one was going to.

He lay and sobbed and shivered, mind blank with the way bone ground against bone.

And then the world twisted, changed, and he was strapped to a table, trying to scream, but nothing came out, his voice was a croak, and no one cared anyway. They had needles and jutsu to paralyze him with, and he could only watch, unmoving, as they picked apart his Sharingan and put it back together again--

The Rock ninja grabbed him, shook him, and said in a familiar voice, "Obito--wake up."

Obito struggled, lashed out now that his arms were no longer tied, saw brown hair shade to gray, the cell get even *darker*--he screamed. His voice exploded, louder than it had been before, no longer broken and raw but fully-fledged. Panicked, striking, he fought against the arms holding him down, strength returning as pain faded. The shinobi blocked everything, but didn't strike back, simply trying to restrain him.

He jabbed at eyes, black and red in the darkness, missed. "No more--" he said, somewhere between a demand and a plea. "No--no more--"

"No more," the ninja whispered back, grabbing his wrist in one firm hand and reaching out, away, to get--something sharp, something painful--

The lights flipped on, and Obito's limited vision was suddenly much better. Almost automatically the Sharingan rose, and his field of sight grew.

A bedroom, not a cell. He struck again at the man beside him, still too filled with terror to stop and think. A bedroom, not a cell, but the pain was still with him, clawing up his leg, burning through his eye.

"It's all right. You're safe," the ninja said, a low mantra of words over and over.

Obito struggled still, writhing around to bite whatever flesh he could, getting a mouthful of blankets instead--

--blankets. There weren't *blankets* in the cell, no more than a single thin one, dark and grimy with filth.

It didn't matter. He punched at the man's gut, missed through the other's speed, felt another hand grab his *other* wrist and yank him up, twisting him around no matter how much he fought or howled or struggled. Then he was upright, his back to the man's chest, arms crossed over his torso and held firmly.

He twisted and kicked at the bed, gasping through agony that swam up his leg when he did so. Plain white walls kept fading out, replaced by stone and brick and darkness. Then they'd be there again, clean, reflecting the lamp light, and--

His Sharingan was off.

He activated it again, the world swimming in shadows and blood-red.

"Stop that," the ninja said, something the ninja never said, and gave him a little shake. "Obito--Obito, you're safe now. *Safe.*"

It didn't matter how much he fought, he couldn't escape. He went still, praying that if he didn't fight it would go easier, they'd be nicer.

He sat, shivering, waiting for the pain to strengthen, waiting for a blade to descend. His heart pounded, his muscles trembled as he stifled the urge to fight. There was no point in fighting. Maybe if he didn't, it would be over sooner.

Slowly, he realized there were no knives. No scalpels. Nothing sharp and delicate to plunge into his skin or eye.

A bedroom. White walls. Futon. Blankets. He held himself still, trying not to fight, struggling against adrenaline that still raged through his body, screaming at him to lash and kick and get free.

But the knowledge, once come, was absolute. He wasn't in the cell. He was in Kakashi's apartment. In his bedroom.

Safe.

He shuddered, breath rattling against the walls. One of Kakashi's arms released its hold on his wrist, traveled up until he was rubbing Obito's arm and shoulder, soothing and comforting.

Obito slumped back against the other man's chest, injured leg twitching in pain. He took a deep breath, then another, closing his eye, letting too-powerful relief take him over and drag him along, making him shake until he thought he might be sick.

"It's all right," Kakashi murmured, both hands rubbing his arms now, pulling him closer without actually trapping him. "It was just a nightmare."

He shifted, damn all pride, until he could turn enough to press his cheek against Kakashi's T-shirt. Soft, white, old. Old enough that the material had gone thin and fuzzy, giving it a vaguely peach look because of the skin underneath.

A hand stroked up through his hair, fingers sliding through it, brushing it back. "It's all right," Kakashi continued to say, firm and solid. Even his chakra seemed wall-like, surrounding Obito and blocking everything else out.

Slowly, Obito calmed. He closed his eye, activated the Sharingan, pulling together the bits of chakra that had torn loose, winding them into the pathways they should have gone down if he hadn't been tearing them free to protect himself.

He could see the scarring, the areas of blackness where chakra should have run. He distracted himself with it, tracing patterns of healthy energy and dead ruins, still pressed into Kakashi's chest. He could see the Jounin's energy, too, an almost blinding glow if he looked at it too long. It nearly filled the room, and he realized that Kakashi was spreading it purposefully, using it as a bulwark against--

He wasn't sure what. He licked dry lips, swallowed spit down a cottony mouth, and asked, "Why is your chakra so big?"

"It, ah, acts like a buffer," Kakashi said after a moment. "Stops your chakra, as long as you're not focusing. Keeps anyone else from prying into the apartment."

Obito nodded, blushed faintly as he felt his cheek rub against muscle sheathed in cloth. He pulled away, grateful when Kakashi put his hands out, offering support so there was less strain on Obito's leg as he sat up.

"I didn't mean to wake you," Obito mumbled.

"That must have been some dream." Kakashi stood, long, broad feet padding quietly over wooden boards, out to the main room. "Tea?" he called back.

Obito rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassment fading with Kakashi's blithe acceptance. "Um. Yeah," he said finally. "Chamomile?"

"I have a better idea," he heard Kakashi say. The microwave beeped, and a moment later Kakashi came in with a steaming mug. "Try this," he murmured, sitting back down on the edge of the futon and handing the mug over.

"What is it?" Obito asked, looking into vaguely pink depths.

"A relaxant. Mild sedative. Won't make you sleep, but when you do it'll calm your dreams."

He glanced up at Kakashi, frowning. "You drink this?"

Kakashi gave a funny little nod, a half-lift of his shoulders. "Very occasionally."

It was an admission the Copy Ninja wasn't entirely comfortable with, he could see. Obito paused, then blew across the top of the liquid and took a sip. It was a little sweet, mostly soothing. He blew again and took another sip.

"Shizune said to tell your doctor if you started having bad dreams," Kakashi said, the words somewhere between apology and request for permission.

Obito paused, then just nodded. He took another sip. He stared down into ripples of liquid, the shadow of a reflection, and said, "I dreamt I was back there." He shivered. Kakashi lifted the blanket and pulled it up, over Obito's shoulders. "You'd think if I were going to have trauma dreams," he said bitterly, "they'd have already started."

"Your mind needs time to realize it's safe before it can begin to cope with healing," Kakashi murmured. "Trauma dreams are almost always delayed, at least slightly."

Obito winced. "This sucks."

There was a dry laugh from Kakashi. "Drink your tea. It'll help."

Obito nodded and sipped at it, Sharingan eye casting around the room. Kakashi's chakra was small, again. Contained. If he hadn't seen it, he wouldn't have known it could get that big.

His hands were still shaking, but even that was beginning to fade. "Do you have nightmares?" he asked softly.

"Sometimes. Most of the time, I don't remember my dreams. If I have nightmares I'm not aware of it."

"You don't hardly move in your sleep," Obito said, part question.

"Too many field missions. Movement's dangerous," Kakashi answered.

Obito sipped again. He could feel the drug working, making him relaxed and sleepy, though forcing nothing. He wasn’t sure he could turn the light off and rest, though.

"Book?" Kakashi asked, pulling one from the nightstand and offering it.

Obito took it, watched the other man relax back against the headboard, apparently fine with staying up half the night while Obito calmed enough to sleep. There was no judgment there, no resentment. Just warm tea and easy, safe, companionship. Kakashi, he thought, could have gone to sleep elsewhere.

"Thanks," Obito said quietly.

Kakashi's eyes flickered to him, and he smiled. "No problem. It's a good one." He was already holding another book.

Obito looked down at the paperback, then shook his head. "No, I meant--" Kakashi was watching him, waiting easily. "Never mind," Obito said. He forced a smile, scooted until he sat beside Kakashi, leaning against the headboard, tea in one hand and book in the other. "This isn't one of your porn books, is it?" he asked mock-suspiciously.

"I wouldn't want to embarrass your virgin eyes," Kakashi answered, all sweetness.

"Asshole," Obito snorted softly. He opened the book, took another sip of tea, and pretended to read.

His hands still shook.

*******