| [Nov. 29th, 2016|10:21 pm] |
Ryouma's hand clenched on the handle of the water jug. He trekked up the sloping cave floor to drop it off with Abe, and then skirted the rest of the group to sit, pointedly, at Kakashi's side.
Kakashi said softly, "Making friends?"
"It's my winning personality," Ryouma said, accepting a packet of curry-rice and spoon. "You put up with me, though, so sooner or later I'll win the rest of 'em over." He scowled at Satomi's slim back. "What's a caveat?"
"A warning or cautionary detail." Kakashi's eyebrow cocked. "Why?"
"Building my vocabulary," Ryouma said vaguely, with his mouth full.
Genma looked up from his own curry-rice pouch, blinked, and focused on Ryouma's face. "I assume you did the fresh bandage, Hatake. All Sakamoto said is that it was bloody — how bad is it? And please tell me you didn't get decomp fluids into the wound."
"Three inch lac, didn't go down to the bone," Kakashi said, as if he were rattling off case details from one of the medical textbooks he'd been reading to Ryouma recently. "Put some sutures in. It'll be a rakish scar."
Three inches? Ryouma lifted his hand to touch the bandage, caught himself, and dropped it again.
"Is there a reason you didn't get Abe or me to look at it first?" Genma asked, in a carefully controlled tone. "Stitches are an infection risk." He motioned for Ryouma to come nearer.
Ryouma's brilliantly altruistic idea was starting to look slightly more idiotic. He glanced nervously at Kakashi, then pushed up and circled around to crouch in between Genma and Ginta. Ginta made room, obligingly, with his spoon dangling from his lips and bright interest in his eyes. On Genma's other side, Raidou polished off a rat bar and sat back to watch.
"You both seemed pretty tired," Ryouma explained. Genma unwrapped the bandage, swiftly and skillfully; Ryouma watched the lines of tension deepen around his mouth, and dropped his gaze to Genma's collarbones. "I was thinking about conserving medics' chakra — and we'll be fighting later…"
Kakashi slid behind Raidou's broad shoulder, and began wrestling into a shirt.
"Well," Genma said, "that's true. And it's good thinking."
Ryouma looked up, startled.
Genma flicked the tip of his nose, lightly stinging. "But that's when you're the medic. When you're the patient, let the medic be the judge of how best to manage his chakra."
He prodded gently at the stitches, which stung worse. "You didn't do a bad job, Hatake. But I'm still going to have to take them out. Shallow wound sealing isn't that taxing for most higher level field medics," he added to Ryouma. "And we don't need you with a big white target on your head if we end up in a fight."
"No rakish scar for you after all," Ginta said, sounding amused.
Kakashi's head lifted above Raidou's shoulder, just enough for Ryouma to see his narrowed eye. "So you're not tired, Lieutenant?"
Raidou snorted, before Genma could respond. "He is. Which is why both of you will doing exactly what he says for the rest of this mission." He paused. "And no more exploding mountains."
"It was an exploding tunnel," Ryouma muttered. "And he didn't do it on purpose."
"If anyone thought he'd done it on purpose," Genma said quietly, "we'd be having a very different conversation right now." He looked past Ryouma, at Ginta. "Hand me that kit, Sakamoto?" |
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