Cloth tore down, air hit skin, and Kakashi almost snapped Ryouma's neck. Seven years of hard-learned lessons clenched his fingers in blankets and tangled black hair before instinct yielded a corpse.

He took a slow burning breath.

"Because I didn't want to see you dead, asshole." Without thin-worn cloth in the way, the urge to lean down and sink his teeth into Ryouma's throat, to make him shut up and stop arguing and smell better, was strong enough to make Kakashi's jaw ache. He clenched his back teeth. "In case you missed it, alcohol doesn't exactly take you to a warm and fuzzy place. I wasn't blind."

Obito's eye seared behind its lid. Kakashi opened it and saw the world through layers of chakra-blue. Tightened his hold in Ryouma's hair, anchoring his head in place, and let him face down every secret kept hidden behind masks and scars.

Ryouma wanted to know why. Like there was even a question involved.

Like he didn't think there was anything of himself worth risking a life over.

"If I was already gone," Kakashi said, soft and dangerous, "why would I take you with me?" He remembered the sticky-sweet taste in his mouth, the solid muscle of Ryouma beneath him. The chaos before everything went black. "You got me out. You killed the damn target. Why are you making it hard?"

Sweat sheened the plane of Ryouma's throat. Kakashi bit his lower lip until teeth tore through.