Lime Green lime green and tangerine. The sickly sweet colours of the devil in my dreams- The Cure

Part 1

The first time Kakashi saw Obito and Gai in a room together was entirely unremarkable. Come to think of it, the second through to probably about the several-thousandth times were pretty unremarkable. They had after all, all been classmates back when the three of them had all been children.

Kakashi was quite firm on reminding people that. It was important to establish, because he was not going to be blamed for introducing the two of them.

"Aw but Bakashi, we might never have become reacquainted if it hadn't been for you!" Obito cooed from two barstools over when Kakashi protested for what had to be at least the fourth time in one night.

Kakashi just groaned and let his head fall forward onto the bar, determinedly ignoring the stickiness of spilled beer that instantly adhered to his forehead.

"Yes! My Most Esteemed Rival! It Is You We Have To Thank And I Am Very Grateful That You Aided Me In Finding My Delightful Tangerine!" Gai enthused about a foot from Kakashi's ear.

"Inside voice Gai," Obito reminded him, apparently unperturbed at being called a fruit.

Although come to think of it…

Nah, too easy, Kakashi decided. Pretty much the definition of low-hanging fruit, but if Kakashi opened the floor to puns, he would be the one suffering the punishment.

…which his brain was apparently already bent on inflicting on him without his two loudest friends' help, so clearly he needed more alcohol.

He looked up and caught the eye of the bartender, whose expression was somewhere between schadenfreude and an impending headache.

Kakashi knew that expression well. That was how he normally felt when he inflicted his friends on other people.

He should never have put them back in touch with one another, not even for his own sick amusement.

Kakashi could admit, in the privacy of his own head, that his little prank had backfired and hard.

"Another round, please," came the voice of his relatively sane friend Rin.

(Although then again, she was three months into night shifts on her first residency, this was the first night off she'd had in about three weeks, and the manic exhaustion in her eyes reminded Kakashi that Rin's sanity was indeed relative. Still, it was an improvement on how she'd been when she'd been attending med school. Somewhat.)

When it came, Kakashi knocked back his beer like it was a shot.

"Oh don't be such a big baby," Rin said, shoving his shoulder. Even without looking directly at her, Kakashi could hear the eyeroll. "You should be happy that two of our friends are so happy together," she continued, gesturing to where Obito and Gai were loudly arguing about who should choose the next song on the jukebox. (Obito was apparently missing that Gai was loudly arguing that Obito should choose the next song, or maybe he was well aware and was just winding him up for the fun of it. It was hard to tell which it was.)

Kakashi turned so that he could glare properly at Rin, since she was sitting in his blind spot.

"I am happy for them," he admitted, "but that doesn't mean that I'm not pre-emptively quivering in terror for the rest of us. It is an unholy union that will cause double the mayhem, mark my words," he complained.

A dark corner of Kakashi's mind reminded him that this was probably the most positive thing he had ever done to or for Obito, and it hadn't even been entirely on purpose. Not like…

He refused to turn and look at the scars. He wouldn't do that, and make Obito feel self-conscious, and then bring the tone of the whole night down.

Rin, because she was basically psychic (or because she just knew Kakashi so well that she could read his thoughts from his face, either option was equally alarming really), huffed at him and said, "quit beating yourself up. You were young, stupid, and he forgave you ages ago. You weren't those rock-heads who caused the crash, and he was just as dumb as you to get into that car in the first place," she reminded him.

Kakashi grimaced. Rin was doing that thing where she accidentally did an unnervingly accurate impression of his psychologist. Which probably meant that she had a decent point, but the mistakes of his thirteen-year-old self had left rather permanent marks, especially on his best friend, and sometimes it was just so hard to…

No, focus. Don't let your brain go down that path again, nothing productive lies there.

"Fine," he huffed, pretending affront. "Besides, why dwell on past mistakes when I have recent mistakes to dwell on," he grumbled, waving one hand in the direction of where Gai and Obito had apparently stopped arguing in favour of making out obnoxiously against the jukebox.

Rin just laughed at him.

...

A/N: To be continued...