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Tweak says, "Fifty points from Gryffindor!"

fallen_kakashi (fallen_kakashi) wrote in fallen_leaves,
@ 2008-03-04 03:45:00

Current mood:	drained
Entry tags:	ginta, kakashi

It Takes a Jackass to Save a Genius [Closed to Ginta & Kakashi]
Continues from Genuis is Subjective, Jackassery Is Universal

Good, Ginta was correcting his pronunciation. He wasn't dead. Now Kakashi could kill him.

The copy-nin let his head fall back with the barest ghost of a chuckle and rested against the warm, wet bulk of slightly bemused mastiff. "S'good to know," he managed, and closed his eye as his vision blurred, slumping a little. Not good. He grabbed onto the fresh chakra from the soldier pill and threw it into the embers of his own, coaxing up weak flames. It was a drop in the ocean, but better then nothing. He swallowed painfully and shivered.

Fuck he was cold. Soaked right through and chilled. It froze his fingers like twigs, crawled up his limbs and chewed right into his bones, left them thin and brittle feeling. Old, old breaks ached. Most bones. It was a hazard of the job. He'd gotten used to the snap and the crunch and the broken glass grind, little splinters of white in the red of muscle.

Skin wasn't a good colour. Purple under the blood on his hand -- dried now, black and cracked -- Kakashi could make out mottling flesh, tinted blue around the violet, colours like a child's toy. Bruise colours. Flower colours. Pale, pale fingernails, short and blunt and edged now with red-black gore that wouldn't come out without a scrubbing brush and a painful round of work.

Ginta looked worse. Kakashi wondered if the red on his face was from burns or cold. Both. At least the frozen air kept the swelling down. Breathing was all wrong though, cold didn't help that. Just made it visible in little white clouds.

Rock under his hip. No warmth there. Warmth at his back but not enough. No chakra to keep him warm inside.

"Twenty hours." In a cave, in the middle of nowhere, with a mastiff and an I'm-not-even-sure-what-the-hell-that-breed-is to guard them. "You make it twenty hours?" There was a slight inflection of 'wuss' around the words, knee-jerk reflex.

His mask was still down, he didn't have the energy to yank it back up. Kakashi leaned against the mastiff, looked at his comrade, and didn't count the ways they were probably going to die.

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fallen_ginta
2008-03-04 04:01 am UTC (link)

"I can go forty," Ginta said, and gave Kakashi a weak yet insolent grin. It made his burned cheek stretch and crack, popping open a blister, releasing clear fluid in a trickle down the side of his neck. Ginta winced and leaned gingerly back against the remaining dog. Dog was warm. Warmth was good. Blankets would be warm...

Right, blankets. He forced himself to sit upright again, and pawed at a pouch on his right side. The side with the fucked up injury. Dammit, no twisting. It was a bitch and a half getting the little folded foil blanket free without twisting, but it did come free, along with a couple of ration bars and a small flare.

"So..." Ginta unfolded the blanket and considered it for half a moment, before draping it over his prone colleague. "You got one of these I can drag out of your pocket..." A pause for a wheeze or two, and perhaps for effect. "Or are we sharing?"

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fallen_kakashi
2008-03-04 04:03 am UTC (link)

I realise my mask is down," said Kakashi, slightly wry, mostly tired, "But there's no need to get all touchy-feely with me." That was mostly a lie, he was fucking freezing and the dog was only keeping his back warm.

He shifted and tried to pull himself up a little, back aching with the awkward slouch he was in. "Think there's one in my left pocket." He regarded the rain, looked at the clouds, anywhere but Ginta, before shutting his eyes and leaning back, "We should share anyway, body warmth. Stay alive. Put the smaller dog over our legs if you can stand it."

He hated the missions that ended with cuddling. It always looked so damn ridiculous on the reports. "Tell anyone... and I'll..." he couldn't think of a nasty enough threat, "Think of something evil... and... pretend I said it." His words were slurring, running together, and gods he was so tired.

He shifted and flinched when something bit into his hip. What--? The coin. Ginta’s heavy gold coin. Kakashi felt the very, very edge of a smirk touch his lips. "'an as soon as 'm feelin' a bit better, 'm gonna laugh an' laugh an' laugh, burn boy. Think karma got your ass."

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fallen_ginta
2008-03-04 04:13 am UTC (link)

"Karma's got nothing to do with it," Ginta rasped. "Can't believe a genius like you'd believe everything he hears from old bald guys in saffron robes."

He didn't wait long before leaning over Kakashi, feeling for the blanket in the promised pocket. "And you think," he said as he rummaged, "that I'd brag about the fact that the only way I was able to get in your pants was by waiting for you to be next to passed out?"

He found the blanket and sat back up with a groan, bending over his knees and coughing again. Time was slipping and the edges of his vision started to dim a little before he got his breath again, surprised to feel the dog that had been at his side pushing its nose against his hand.

"Um..." Ow. Hurt. He sighed. Sleep would be good. Kakashi was halfway there. If he could figure out how to lie down and still get enough air. "I should build a fire." It sounded right. Sooooo much work though. Ginta didn't move one way or the other, just sat hunched and braced, with Kakashi on one side and a dog on the other, thermal blanket draped over his knees.

The dog pushed again. Cold nose against his cold fingers. Cold. Sleep would be good. But one of them should stand watch, and it obviously wasn't going to be Kakashi. "You really sure you're not dying or anything?"

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fallen_kakashi
2008-03-04 04:15 am UTC (link)

Kakashi's eye cracked open, he blinked and it widened. Awake, he needed to be awake. The dog leaning against Ginta whimpered and made a soft whining noise, Kakashi frowned, listening. “I like the saffron.” He mumbled, eye on the dog, “You have to appreciate a group of people who can wear that as a uniform and still be taken seriously.”

Eye on Ginta. "I'm okay," Mostly. "Just spent. Be even better when we get home and I can sleep for a week." He leaned an elbow on the mastiff and shoved himself forward as best he could, straightening up. "You need to lie the fuck down," he said shortly. "Get warm, the dogs'll guard. Don't bother with a fire, everything's too wet." They could work around that technically, if they had to, but it was extra chakra neither of them had to spare.

"You're worrying Hoshika," he added, naming the the dog for Ginta's benefit. Most of the pack communicated without names, though they did have them. Pakkun was something of an exception. You're worrying me, he didn't add.

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fallen_ginta
2008-03-04 04:18 am UTC (link)

"Such a tender bedmate you promise to be, too," Ginta said. He shifted his weight onto his left hip, turned to face Kakashi, and slowly eased himself down until he was resting with his head against the mastiff's shoulder. It was actually a little easier to breathe somehow, lying on his side like that. The injured ribs moved less. Or maybe the morphine was kicking in.

"You lie down, too. I'm gonna... gonna just rest a minute. Then I'll take watch." Well, that was his intention, anyway. Kakashi's skepticism was palpable. "I'm okay. Just got a little roughed up." The thrumming chakra from the soldier pills was a great confidence booster.

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fallen_kakashi
2008-03-04 04:22 am UTC (link)

“Promises are cheap,” quoted Kakashi, bracing himself to shift. “A shinobi values actions over words.” He steeled himself and pushed away from the dog, it was more of a graceless drop then a calculated move. He couldn't manage to bring his hands up quick enough to catch himself, so he landed shoulder first instead. Ow.

At least it was better then his face.

"Provided you watch with your eyes closed, and snoring, we're in complete agreement," He pushed himself up on arms that shook and tried to bring his legs up. That failed completely. "Except s-scratch the snoring because I will kill you."

The mastiff helped him out, assisted by Hoshika. Between the two of them they nudged him until he could drop alongside Ginta fairly neatly, without touching the ninja's injured ribs. Kakashi mumbled something. Hoshika, well trained in odd commands, took the edge of the blanket gently in her teeth and dragged it over them as best she could. Then she shoved herself underneath it and curled up between their legs, pressed to both.

Kakashi regarded Ginta from a much closer distance and frowned unhappily. Blue skin, pain lines, white lips. None of it good. "When we get back," he muttered, closing his eyes, "You're learning how to dodge, jackass."

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fallen_ginta
2008-03-04 04:27 am UTC (link)

"You really think you could have dodged that, genius?" Ginta asked. He blinked past the blur and studied Kakashi's face--he had to be one of only a handful of people afforded this opportunity. The rumors seemed mostly unfounded. Kakashi had a somewhat narrow, almost delicate looking jaw, and unsurprisingly, he was very pale. There was actually a tan line. It made Ginta smile.

"Rumors lie," he said, blue eyes raking over the shimmer that was a hint of pale, silvery stubble, the small, hooked scar at one corner of Kakashi's lip, the larger scar that descended from the eye hidden under his hitai-ate to stop almost even with the end of Kakashi's nose.

He would have said more, but talking was an effort. Still, the faint flush he thought he detected in Kakashi's cheeks in response to the scrutiny was a victory. Got both of them thinking about something other than the twenty hour wait ahead of them.