Chapter Text
The first time Kakashi saw Obito, way back on day one of the Academy, his first thought was “I’d let you sink your teeth into my throat, intertwine yourself with my guts, splay yourself along the curve of my ribs and—this is a really weird intrusive thought to have about someone I’ve literally never seen before in my life.”
Whereas Obito looked away from where his new academy sensei was already looking a little exasperated and caught sight of a small puff of dandelion-grey hair and thought, apropos of nothing, “I want to split your ribs open, crawl inside, cradle your heart in my hands, and never let go. I want to feel the slick of your pulse against my skin for the rest of my life.”
And then he took a major internal step back because that is a very creepy thought to have period, let alone about a kid who is visibly several years younger than him.
But afterwards, they start having strange dreams.
Once or twice a week, Kakashi will dream that he’s laid out on the ground. He was dying. He knew he was dying. But it’s only a dream, so there’s none of the agony he knew he should be feeling.
A shadow fell over him, and he blinked open exhausted eyes. Through the blur of tears, Kakashi saw—a girl. Thin, pale, barefoot, clad in a worn gray sleep kimono. Tangled wheat-gold hair crowned with a garland of willow fronds.
Eye sockets full of scarlet spider lilies.
The dream-distant fear of dying slid away. A strange relief filled him.
The thing that appeared to be a girl knelt at his side. It frowned in its strange clunky way, as though it were mimicking a sight it could not see—Kakashi bit back a smile at the endearing result. Obito’s frowns were always so cute, just like his smiles.
Obito? Kakashi’s brow furrowed—that wasn’t quite the right name. The dream jarred slightly as his confusion disturbed it, then settled again as Obito reached forwards and pressed a clumsy hand against Kakashi’s forehead.
What did it matter what name the being bore? Every face he wore had their own names, once, and Obito was probably just the name of this face.
“You’re hurt,” he said, the words flat and atonal—and yet, somehow, it was still the most emotion Kakashi had ever heard from him.
“I am,” Kakashi agreed, and despite the distant pain, Kakashi’s voice was light with joy. “I guess you’ll finally win a game of tag, then. How’s it feel to be the winner for once?”
Obito stayed silent, and the hand on Kakashi’s forehead drifted down, cupping the curve of his cheek. After a moment, it moved on, downwards, fumbling over the column of his throat, the bump of his collarbone, the swell of his breast, until it reached the gaping hole in Kakashi’s torso.
Gentle fingers closed around the jut of a rib, thumb slipping into the broken edge. Testing, questing—when Obito lifted his thumb, the tip came away wet with what little marrow remained.
Was it just Kakashi’s addled mind playing tricks on him or did that hand look less like flesh and more like willow fronds?
The joints distorted into knots of wood, cracked skin segmented further into panels of bark, pale nails painted with flowers—no, they were flowers.
Spider lilies sprouted from fingertips, crept over the edge of bone until they found an opening, and then a faint needle of pain told Kakashi that the bouquet had planted its roots into the marrow channel of his rib.
Kakashi dragged a breath in, head spinning for reasons that had nothing to do with the blood loss and everything to do with the pressure of sap flooding his hollow bones.
“Oh,” he said, and it came out embarrassingly high. Agony withered in his chest and something sweet bloomed in its place.
He forced himself to blink up at Obito. To focus on the furrow of his brow, the stiffness of his shoulders, the tight, lopsided purse of his mouth. “Oh, do you make death this sweet for all your meals? I suddenly find myself much more jealous of them, getting to be so spoiled in their final moments.”
“I don’t,” Obito said, voice still flat. Flat, atonal, but not emotionless. Kakashi could read distress in the way the spider lilies in his eye sockets flourished, heavy blossoms spilling down his cheeks like tears. “Just for you. You shouldn’t suffer while you die. You shouldn’t die.”
“Ah,” Kakashi said, and he might have said Obito’s name—knew he said Obito’s name, but it dragged on for too many syllables—“put that face away. I’m a meal that’s tempted you many times, and you’ve been so hungry for so long. And here you are, at long last, getting to feast upon me. Shouldn’t you rejoice?”
He smiled up at him. Soft, sweet, affectionate. Pouring all his emotions into his voice. Let this be one final lesson on blending in with his prey. “All things die eventually, and I’d much rather be eaten by you than by the one who set this trap.”
Obito’s willow hands trembled. Pollen dusted the air.
Are you crying? Kakashi wanted to ask, but he didn’t get the chance.
“No,” Obito said, fierce. Angry. For the first time, he was emoting verbally.
Kakashi blinked away another wash of tears. He always was such a quick learner when it mattered most. And it wasn’t long before Kakashi wouldn’t be able to teach him anymore, so it was nice to see that progress being made right away.
And, admittedly, it was nice to know that the first bit of verbal emoting was for him.
“No! I refuse to let you die here!” Obito’s borrowed face unwound, skin splitting back into slabs of bark, branches reaching for him.
The bouquet of spider lilies in Kakashi’s rib bloomed bigger, brighter, and the rush of their sap through his bones made his breath hitch. The first roots dug into Kakashi’s flesh, but all he felt was a mild pinch, before the flood of jubokko venom, so intrinsic to the sap, washed through him and everything went hazy.
Kakashi was dimly aware of Obito scooping out his ruined intestines. Of the trunk that used to be Obito’s head suddenly gaping open, branches shoveling offal into the hollow, before bark sealed it away again.
The bark rippled, then took on soft peachy undertones that looked more like Kakashi’s skin than anything a tree ought to have.
Had Kakashi been even an ounce less high than he currently was, he would have realized that Obito had just eaten part of him and was now wearing his skin the way he wore the faces of all his meals. Had he been an ounce more sober than he was, he would have had a teasing remark on the tip of his tongue.
As it was, Kakashi merely felt a deep wave of affection roll through him. His mouth curved into a breathlessly adoring smile.
He might have said Obito’s name.
He might have begged for more.
He might have wept in his ecstasy.
But in the mind-numbing haze of euphoria, all Kakashi could concretely describe was the soft, distant squirm of roots slipping under his skin. The slick glide of his organs being gently, oh so gently, tucked back into order and stitched together with branches. The sweet, soothing warmth as his lifeblood drained from his veins and sap pumped in to replace it, and the nearly too crisp bite of air in lungs freshly woven from leaves.
Obito’s external body seemed to shorten as more and more of it crept into Kakashi’s chest cavity, curling up amidst his organs, growing along the trellis of his bones, until the only thing outside of Kakashi’s body was a single willow branch, carefully shaped into a hand.
It clutched at Kakashi’s hand, fingers intertwined, palm rough like the bark it didn’t pretend not to be. A thumb dragged over his pulse point, a hollow opened where tendons ought to be, and the last thing Kakashi was aware of was Obito’s voice murmuring, “Don’t worry. I’ll stay with you forever. You’re my flowerbed and now that I’ve planted myself in you, I don’t ever intend to let us wither away.”