They'd tried to send him on seduction training. They really had. Every time it had started, it had either ended because the trainer was doing a great job and they wound up just having sex without learning the seduction, or the trainer was doing an okay job and Kaito was uncomfortable and suddenly they kept wanting to hug him.

The final agent who'd signed him off as 'trained' had walked in, looked at him, said, "Think horny thoughts." And left.

But it seemed to have worked. His first mission went all right; just a straight 'get in, get laid, get out,' and while he hadn't been exactly prepared for it, the girl had been pretty, and really kinda nice. His second... Well, this was the second.

If someone found him before he got himself uncollared from the wall, he was going to be humiliated.

If someone didn't find him before he got sold and shipped off, he was going to be very upset.

His gaze slid across the concrete floor of the politician's little basement-dungeon, finding the pair of boots attached to legs like tree trunks, and wondered how long before Taka came back. He hoped a really, really long time. Trees-For-Legs might be glaring at him, but at least he wasn't getting touched.

Oh, sure, "go get blackmail material--remember to film it," sounded bad in the first place. It wasn't half as bad as fighting off hands on your skin and under your clothes and knowing you couldn't win. Not nearly as bad as being found out and sold off into human slavery. Taka had said something about genjutsu'ing compliance... Kaito didn't know if that was possible. He really didn't want to know if that was possible.

His gaze traveled up the tree-trunk legs to the barrel-sized torso and table-width shoulders.

The woman had a nice face. There was sympathy there, along with the glare. Maybe she'd try to hug him. He wasn't sure what he'd do then--his hands were bound with shackles and seals behind him. But at least she'd be over here, instead of over there...

And if she did come over here, he'd be in range of her, again.

He swallowed bile. She might not have liked hurting him, but she'd done it anyway. Her partner--thankfully gone, now--had been more enthusiastic. Only Taka's protests not to leave him scarred had kept him whole.

Resale price went down if the goods were damaged.

Apparently it didn't matter so much, though, if he had marks at wrist, ankles, and throat. Cuff-scars were, he'd been told, hot.

The one good thing about Yokohama, besides its fantastic seafood, was that it was close. Within a day's run for a decent ninja, even if you didn't travel at top speed. And considerably less than that if you did.

Raidou split the difference and hit on a pace that got him there in decent time and with the added bonus of still being able to breathe.

It was late when he hit the city walls; the sun was just cresting below the horizon. He perched up on high, rough brickwork, and watched the bright twinkle of lights roll across the landscape as Yakahoma's nightlife geared up to party.

Well, at least that would help provide a distraction if he needed one.

Ganzai Taka's house was an unsubtle monstrosity built on an artificially constructed hill; it loomed in the distance, broad windows gleaming with internal lights. Dark silhouettes prowled around it, marking the presence of guards and dogs.

Raidou studied the layout, noting possible exits. Definitely the windows...

He'd been forbidden to just blow the building up and steal Kaito out of the wreckage. ANBU didn't obliterate people they considered too important--or too well-connected--to organize a blackmail attempt on. Taka was a member of the exclusive 'leave him alive, dammit' list.

Which could be a problem.

Raidou pulled out a kunai and tapped it thoughtfully against his mask, making a dull clink. Technically, as long as he left Taka mostly in one piece and didn't reveal Konoha's presence behind the assault--

Assuming Kaito hadn't given that away already.

--then he could get away with creating a bit of chaos.

"This should be fun," he murmured quietly, and sliced a length of bandage off his thigh. A quick twist and a tight knot covered ANBU's stylized tattoo. And that was the only piece of Konoha insignia he carried...

Raidou ferreted in his belt, and pulled out a handful of explosion tags. They shimmered a dull yellow in the distant neon lights.

"Definitely fun." He smiled grimly, shaped a few seals, and vanished.

Five minutes later, every one of Taka's windows blew out.

Kaito's head snapped up, his heart leaping into his throat. That was an explosion. He glanced at the former kunoichi, hoping she'd go running out to make sure everything was all right.

Instead she faced the doorway and braced.

That was no good. Kaito ran through the jutsu he knew--everything involved seals, and there was a bar between his hands to keep that from happening. Still, she wasn't looking... He twisted back, choking for a moment against the collar as he squirmed to drag his wrists over his feet, shoulders popping out of joint.

"Stop it," the kunoichi muttered without looking back.

He jerked once more, pulling the bar over his toes, and sat up, breathing again.

Hands in front. That was good. Still couldn't do anything...

The inventor of clones, Raidou decided, deserved a medal. He loved clones. They were fabulous bits of fighting distraction you could scatter everywhere...

He made fifteen solid ones, threw in another thirty insubstantial ones, and released them on the panicking household. Three died instantly when they touched some nasty seals, but the rest made it through intact. Raidou grinned as he watched several of the guards prove their non-shinobi credentials--mostly by bleeding spectacularly--and chakra-walked his quiet way in over the high ceiling. A nice, neat little jutsu kept him hidden from plain sight.

Until he ran into a non-bleeding guard.

"Identify yourself," commanded the tattooed shinobi, as Raidou eyeballed the quivering blade that had buried itself in plaster a scant inch from his nose.

"Easter bunny," he replied, and used the shinobi's lethal dagger to remove a hand. Blue-swirled fingers twitched on the floor twenty feet below as he conducted an impromptu Q and A session. The dagger saw a lot more use.

He'd lost five more clones--solid and insubstantial both--by the time he'd forced Kaito's location out of the shinobi. He thanked the man, gave him a clean death, and translocated two stories down before another ninja could break past his remaining clones to put a terminal end to his rescue attempt.

He wound up in a cellar.

"Cheerful," he said, very softly, as water dripped down the slick brickwork. "Very traditional decor..."

There were cameras nestled in high corners. Raidou took them out with kunai, found the door, and headed down a hallway. Above him, the sounds of a fight raged.

The place was soundproofed. The rattle of explosions had been stronger than anything else, had shook the walls and the floor, but after that...

Nothing happened.

It seemed an eternity stretching, Kaito's mind racing as he tried to think of anything useful to do. His weapons were gone. His hands were bound.

He decided then and there that being captive was far worse than getting mauled. His stomach knotted, twisting anxiety through him.

The kunoichi glanced away from the door, back at him.

He looked at her, looked down, and remembered his jounin sensei. "Think of kicking puppies, would you? If people are going to notice you, at least do it on purpose!"

He started thinking of kicking puppies. Of the way Taka's breath had smelled, like sour wine and old sweat. Of the way that other guard had looked at him as they'd gotten him out and down, of knowing that he was about to be hurt, badly, of wondering if he was going to survive this at all--

The kunoichi turned to look at him fully. He wondered how long he was going to have to keep this up.

Raidou blinked as something rippled down into his chest and tugged at him. Something distant and afraid. Something that said go this way...

Which was the way the shinobi had said.

Emotional influence, he thought, and rubbed the heel of his palm over his heart. At least that meant the kid was still alive, even if he wasn't happy about it.

Raidou threw on a burst of speed, breaking from a swift jog to a flat out run, and wound his way through a branching series of stone-lined corridors--

Right into the arms of a grossly fat man.

"--!" said Raidou, as heavy muscle sheathed in wobbling flesh pinned his arms and squeezed the breath from his lungs. He hadn't felt any chakra. Who the hell was this guy--

He looked up, past a treble set of chins, and felt a distant little switch go click.

Ganzai Taka.

Perfect.

"You look bigger in person," he gasped, and felt his ribs creak. For a civillian, Taka was strong.

"You should see me in private," Taka said, in a voice like rumbling mountains. "Or possibly not. And who the hell are you, shinobi?"

"Suffocating--easter bunny," Raidou managed, trying to find some leverage. His feet weren't touching the floor.

"Amusing," said Taka, studying his mask. "Does that mean you have buck teeth under there? Because that would be such a shame..."

"Shame this." One knee was all it took. Raidou slammed up and managed to connect with certain delicate parts, dropping Taka into his own, very private, world of pain. The man collapsed in a huddle--

Taking Raidou with him.

"This had better not go on any reports," he muttered, trying to catch his breath before he moved. At least the landing had been soft...

He decided not to think about that.

Behind Taka, a metal-lined door boasted an impressive looking padlock. Raidou picked himself up, kicked the politician in the head for good measure, and staggered over to examine it. The sad feeling plucking at his significantly more bruised chest grew stronger the closer he got.

So did a double chakra signature.

At least one shinobi, then.

Raidou considered the door, studied the small, high sliding grate set into the metal, and stood to one side. With the tip of a kunai, he slid the grate across.

"Drop any weapons and step away from the kid," he said to the opposite wall. "Or your boss dies unpleasantly."

It was hard to think about puppy-kicking when you suddenly knew rescue was on the way, carried by a low, vastly annoyed rumble through the steel of a door.

It was much easier to think of puppy-kicking when the ninja stepped close--close enough to strike but not close enough for Kaito to do anything--and threatened back.

"Drop any weapons and step away from my boss," she called. "Or I start cutting bits off the boy."

"I'm not a boy," Kaito muttered unhappily. "Or a kid."

Damn.

Raidou tapped the tip of his kunai against the door, making a very quiet rasping sound, and considered his options.

"No, see, that just doesn't work for me," he said finally. "Or you, if you think about it. That kid's your only bargaining chip. If you start hacking bits off then I'm not going to want him back. And if I don't want him back, there's nothing to stop me playing find-the-kidney with your boss. Or from dangling you by your tendons off the roof, which I assure you I'll take great delight in doing."

If you're going to bluff, his sensei had always said, make sure it's a damn good one.

"But," he went on, "if you give me the kid back with all his important pieces still attached, I can get out of your hair and your boss'll probably give you a raise for showing unexpected thinking on the line of duty. What d'you reckon?"

"I reckon you wouldn't have come all this way just to leave him, missing bits or no. But I can start with the toes and the ears. Re-sale price goes down less. Maybe the tongue... hurts sex-pricing, but then, not everyone likes their 'buddies' to talk back, anyway. You could really be doing him a favor."

Kaito shifted his weight, clamping his jaw shut. Both ankles were bound together, but if she came for his toes he could still kick.

So much for option one.

"Y'know, for a politician's employee," Raidou muttered, "you're really not that diplomatic." The images the kunoichi--she was definitely female, even if her voice was deep--had called up were nothing new to a veteran ninja, but the deepening pinch around his heart wasn't making them easier to listen to.

Quit it, kid. Not helping!

The subtle, delicate approach wasn't working. Raidou pulled his chakra in carefully and raised his voice, "Okay, okay. You win. No hacking off anything while I go down the hallway--"

Translocating quickly had certain risks, like leaving a body part behind, but a decent rescue was all about weighing the costs...

He vanished in a cloud of smoke, appeared in another, and landed neatly on the kunoichi's closely shaven head. Blackened steel flashed as the woman yelled, staggering beneath him. He felt something slam heavily into his backplate, skittering sideways across the armour until it gouged into flesh--

But by that point he had his kunai buried up to the handle in the woman's ear.

Blood spurted warm and wet over his wrist, accompanied by the dull crunch of skull fragments splintering. The kunoichi trembled, muscles quivering, then she collapsed. Raidou fell with her, hitting stone floor and dead flesh with equal grace.

"I'm getting good at this soft landing thing," he grunted. He levered himself up onto one elbow and glanced at the teenager chained to the wall. "Hi."

Kaito took a breath and released it slowly. "Hi." His eyes widened and he rocked back, holding both hands up in a 'wait' gesture. "Don't hug me." The collar tugged. His earlier certainty proved completely true, as blood rushed into his face and he winced with embarrassment.

Which meant he felt worse. Which meant hugging was more likely. Damn it. "My pants are up there," he said, pointing. "Could you, maybe--?" His voice broke.

It had been a long day.

"Pants and no hugging," echoed Raidou. "No problem. Just--give me one sec..." He reached back carefully, following a patch of numbness that was fast blooming into something else, and touched wet steel. A sharp edge sliced through cloth, nicking a callous. He traced the shape, feeling delicately with gloved fingers, and decided the kunoichi had tried to give him a liver piercing with a good ol' traditional kunai.

Well, considering he'd left one inside her head, that probably counted as a fair trade.

He braced himself and jerked the blade out with a wince. The wound didn't feel deep. And it was definitely off to one side...

"If that's fatal," he said, climbing to his feet, "I'm making you wear that collar all the way home." He left his hand pressed over his back and retrieved the kid's pants from a shelf, hooking them down with a shirt--gauzy and brightly coloured; probably a seduction thing--and a pair of balled socks. There was no underwear.

No underwear on the kid, either.

Raidou shoved his mask aside with the back of his wrist and crouched down in front of the teenager, studying his face. Dark blue eyes, tanned skin that was just a shade too pale, narrow jaw...

"You must be Kaito," he said, and dropped the clothes on the boy's lap. "I'm Namiashi Raidou: official rescue party. Nice to meetcha. Do me a favour and switch off that chest-hurting thing while I get you out of these cuffs? It's kind of distracting."

He had a set of lockpicks somewhere, he just needed to find them...

"'S nice that ANBU comes complete with rescue parties, y'know?" Kaito fumbled, looking anywhere but at the man. He'd needed a rescue party for a stupid seduction mission! And now the guy was hurt, and Kaito was still naked and would be until his feet were untied--

He jerked himself to a stop. It wasn't like he'd never been in a worse position, and, okay, being stuck in the middle of a damn seduction mission was utterly humiliating--

STOP! This guy probably hadn't even noticed he was naked, anyway. People didn't care about things like that. Really.

Besides, Kaito had a job. The guy--Raidou--had given him a job.

Turn the chest-hurting thing off. That was as good a name for it as any, he supposed.

Turn it off.

Just--off.

Off. Stop. Halt. Quit. Like--things spiraling down. Shutting it off. Flipping a switch. Think of his mother's eyes swirling to silver, and then back to brown. Off. No big deal. Anyone could do it. All of his clan could.

Okay, not his clan, exactly, but his mother's clan, and--

"Is, uh, that any better?" He winced.

"Not in so many words," Raidou said, after a long second. He breathed out slowly through his nose; the pinch around his heart had melted into... he wasn't even sure. A tight, nasty feeling a little like panic and a little like frustration. It wasn't exactly conducive to maintaining a mission focus.

His eyes flicked over the blush staining the kid's cheeks--teenager, really; his face was young, but there was muscle padding over his chest and lining his arms--and the awkward twitch as Kaito refused to look at him. "You can't control it, can you?" he guessed. "Well, that figures. The sky'd probably turn orange before we caught a break..."

He offered a quick smile to take the sting away and managed to locate his lockpicks with a triumphant, "Ah!"

Using them one-handed, however, was another matter. Raidou muttered something under his breath as he let go of his back, and set to work on the first set of manacles. Blood made his grip slippery. He focused on touching Kaito as little as he could--the teenager was clearly edgy, which made sense given his naked issues--and kept an ear on the distant sounds of battle drifting through the open grate in the cell door.

"Well, y'know, I'm, uh, workin' on it," Kaito lied, trying to act like it was no big deal. He was working on it as little as possible--or rather, he was working on never doing it, which was such a big failure that he preferred not to think about it at all.

He wondered how the fight was going, and how soon he'd be free to help. The lock picks were matte-black, but he could see a shine on them. Blood. Fuck.

"How bad?" he asked, nodding toward the other ninja's hands. That wasn't the injury of course, but he couldn't very well nod to the man's back.

"I'm pretty sure the gloves'll wash," Raidou said cheerfully. "Just needs a bit of thread work for that slit, and good as new."

Now the kid was looking at him--just for a second. Raidou smiled to himself and twisted the lockpick. He was rewarded with a quiet click as the manacle dropped off Kaito's wrist, baring a chafed band of skin and some deep bruising.

With any luck, those and the rest of the punch-marks over the kid were the only injuries.

He attacked the second manacle, working quicker now he had the hang of the mechanism. "And it's not bad. Just a flesh wound, I think. So it probably will be fine with some thread work. What about you? Anything I need to know about?"

His relief at the rescue party not needing rescuing was short lived. The guy, thank the gods, was still looking at his manacles. He pulled his free hand back and rubbed it against his ribs.

There was a tone to that question--

Okay, there probably wasn't. But there could have been. After all, what he'd been doing was pretty obvious from the lack of uniform and the clothes and, OH YEAH, the fact that the guy knew his name and had probably been told everything.

"I'm fine." His voice came out strangled. He cleared his throat and stared at the last manacle, trying again with a bored tone. "I mean, y'know." He still sounded strangled.

He gave up trying to look like nothing was bothering him and slumped a little. "I would just really, really like to go home. Can we just go home? I swear I'm just sore." He blushed bright red. "I mean--'cause they hit me." How did even that sound dirty?! "With their fists."

Oh good gods. He was just going to shut up now.

Generally, blushing kids did not make Raidou feel the need to buy them an ice cream cone. But apparently this kid was special. He scrubbed his non-bloody hand briefly over the teenager's hair before he stopped to think about it and tossed him a bit of advice instead. "Soft toilet paper will be your best friend," he said matter-of-factly, and turned his attention back to the second manacle. The lockpicks twisted, scraping metal, and then that beautiful click went up. The steel separator bar clattered to the floor.

Two cuffs down, two more to go. And that collar.

He didn't think about bruises, internal or not. Kaito's little emotions trick was already doing a number on his focus, Raidou didn't need to add to it. He'd think about the unfairness of sending out kids--teenagers or not--to lie back and think of Konoha when he was home and the distraction wouldn't get them both killed.

"Good friend of mine's a seduction expert," he added, breaking one of the ankle cuffs. "He swears by a decent bubble bath. Gets you clean and it'll do good things for any aches..."

Kaito couldn't decide if it was better or worse that this guy was just sitting here, talking about it like it was... like it was...

Fine.

He grabbed the bundle of clothing and put it in his lap while the shinobi worked on his ankles. "Bubble bath," he echoed, a little lightheaded. "Sure. Any bran--oh, dude. Just--grab your lock picks, huh?" Then he let go of his clothes, twisted his fingers through seals, and translocated out of the rest of the manacles.

Freedom felt awesome.

He started yanking his pants on without turning to look at the other ninja. "Besides, it's not like it's a big deal. S'just sex." Atsuo had been jealous when he'd learned that they wanted to train Kaito in seduction techniques. The other teenager's jealousy was, he had to admit, most of the reason he'd agreed in the first place.

Then the training had fallen through, and they didn't really want a seducer so much as a victim, anyway...

His jaw tensed, and he purposefully relaxed it. It was just sex. No big deal. He glanced toward the locked door, buttoning his jeans. They were too tight, but his other clothes were stashed in the forest. "So, how we gonna get out of here? You have like, a master plan? Because, y'know, we could wait around for my skin to turn pretty colors," not that it wasn't already--that stupid asshole had taken great pleasure out of making him hurt, "but if I can get home before the contents of my fridge go bad..." He turned and looked at the other man, crooking a smile.

The other guy looked like a proper ninja, in bone and black with muscles rippling all over.

And scars rippling across his face, half hidden by the angle of the mask. They teased at the edge of shadow, fingering over the bridge of his nose but then vanishing into darkness. Kaito couldn't get a good look without squinting, and his manners were better than that. Barely.

Well, that was one way of saving time. Raidou shoved his lockpicks away and got to his feet, absently picking up the kunoichi's kunai as he did so. His back stung, warning him not to move too quick; he ignored it as best he could.

The seep of warm blood down his hip demanded a little more attention.

"Master plan," he said thoughtfully, slapping a hand over the wound again. "Well, getting out alive usually ranks as my number one priority..."

He tucked the kunai into his belt, slid his mask back into place, and regarded the kid. Kaito's smile, lightning quick but definitely there, lit up the serious lines of his face for a moment, showcasing a set of lady-killer dimples. Or man-killer, Raidou thought belatedly, remembering the felled politician in the hallway.

Still, a smile was good. And the kid was thinking--even better.

"I've got about fifteen clones upstairs wrecking havoc," he said. "So how about we grab some embarrassing pictures of your target to keep the Powers That Be happy, and get the hell out of here. How far can you translocate?"

"Uh..." His instant reaction--to brag that he could go as far as the other shinobi, Raidou, could--was smothered quickly. "Maybe... halfway through the city?"

He didn't miss the careful movement, or the way the other ninja held a hand over his back. Weren't you supposed to treat wounds as soon as you could? Wasn't that one of the cardinal rules? They seemed pretty safe down here--safe enough for a bandage job...

"But--we gotta stop and get--" his blush returned, full force, and he busied himself pulling on his shirt so he didn't have to think about it. "There's, uh, film in, y'know, the bedroom. I don't think they got it..." He hoped not. If he'd gone through all this crap and they still had to scrap the mission...

"They--they didn't even ask about it. They thought I was an assassin." He rolled his eyes. "As if I'd'a let him stick his fat tongue down my throat--" He stopped, cringing, staring down at his bare feet. "Anyway. There's film I gotta grab, and--you sure we shouldn't like, bandage that before we go? I mean, no one's here..."

A moment to focus and a hard flick of chakra sent one of the remaining solid clones scrambling. Raidou tracked it breaking away from the fight, feeling its energy move overhead, then winced as his back twinged. It was amazing what your back could connect to.

Amazing in the sense of really damn annoying right now.

He twisted, trying to get a look at the wound, and scowled. As angles went, that one was seriously awkward. He pivoted carefully and regarded the teenager staring at the floor. Kaito was bright red and clearly feeling uncomfortable, long fingers picking at his shirt. But he was a chuunin, which meant something.

He was also pretty tall, Raidou realized with a blink. If he stopped slouching, they'd almost be on eye level.

"Alright, kid," he said, shoving his mask aside again. "Seeing as you're the one with the plan, how about you lend me a hand over here?" He fished a tiny medi-kit out of one belt pouch and tossed it over. "And we should find you some shoes at some point, or running's going to be very unpleasant." He considered that, then added, "Unless you can make some bark clogs. Because that'd be a bit entertaining."

Wait--he was the one with the plan? Kaito straightened up a little. Yeah. Right. He was the one with the plan.

"Uh, no bark clogs." He grinned, catching the kit and opening it up. "My shoes are upstairs, too. With the camera. Actually, they are the camera. Ugly thick-soled things to hide it all... I.T. comes up with the stupidest shit, and then the guys who put me in this--" he indicated his too-tight pants and too-tight shirt with some disgust, "--have to figure out how to make it all work. They're not made for running, but my uniform's stashed outside the village walls, so..." Just had to get that far.

In the meantime, he bent to look at the gouge under cloth and armor, carefully peeling material away. "You're gonna have to take off your shirt, man." He rapped his knuckles against the shoulder blades of the armor. "Back plate, too."

Raidou didn't sigh. "Oh goody," he muttered, and glanced at the door again. The grating was still open, letting distant sounds bleed through. The fight seemed to be dying down. Taka definitely wasn't getting up yet--which was a shame, because Raidou had certain plans to kick him again--and there were still at least five living clones. They'd probably won.

All the time in the world to take his shirt off, then.

Damn.

He reached for his armour buckles, unlatching them slowly, and said: "They gave you camera shoes? That's really kind of special. Still, you should probably be grateful they aren't neon. Your shirt's close enough." He twisted up a grin, flicking a glance at the sheer blue material laminated to Kaito's upper body. "I especially like the pearly buttons. Very fetching."

With a grunt he dropped his armour and mask carefully to one side, bracing them against his leg, and reached for the hem of his ANBU turtleneck. Only someone paying very close attention would have seen the momentary hesitation.

But there wasn't much choice between battered pride and possibly bleeding to death.

Raidou gritted his teeth, stripped his shirt up, and angled himself so that Kaito could see nothing but his back. "But they didn't send you out in ruffles," he continued, crossing his arms stiffly over his chest. His shirt draped limply over one arm, staining his skin red. "They did that to a buddy of mine once. Bright pink ruffles. I almost hurt myself laughing."

Kaito snorted, embarrassed by his outfit but refusing to acknowledge it. "Hey, it brings out my eyes. And the buttons... uh... my teeth."

He dug through the kit, pulling out bandages and medical tape, wondering if a tensor wrap would be better for pressure... The other ninja--Raidou--was talking about ruffles while stripping down.

Kaito laughed. "This your seduction expert friend? How do you get to be a seduction expert, anyway?" he mumbled. "Never mind. I don't wanna know. Definitely not what I thought I'd be doing in ANBU--" He glanced up and stopped.

The guy had scars. Not normal scars, like all ninja got--though he had those, too--but huge, twisting, nasty ones across his shoulder blade. They held the eye, and when Kaito tried to trace them with his gaze they seemed to writhe, snarling his vision.

He yanked it away, forcing himself to look down at the bleeding wound in the man's lower back. Raidou hadn't stared when Kaito'd been collared and naked against the wall. Nor had he hugged or oozed pity all over. Kaito could at least show the same respect.

He wondered if the facial scars that he hadn't quite seen were as bad.

Chewing on his lip, he regarded the gouge in the man's flesh. "Hold still," he said, and tore open a pad soaked in hydrogen peroxide. He swiped it over the cut, watching it foam--gross--and tried to get a look at how deep it was before the blood welled back up.

It was longer than a simple hole, more of a gash but not quite a slice. Closing it with steri-strips could seal in infection; leaving it alone meant bleeding. He finally pressed a pad over it, holding it firmly and taping it in place, then grabbing the tensor bandage and wrapping it around the guy's torso to hold it tight.

"Can you still breathe?" he asked wryly, already knowing the answer but aware of how bandages like that felt, even if you could still breathe. He kept his gaze down, afraid that if he looked up again he'd start staring and be unable to look away. Curiosity was eating at him now. He wanted to see the guy's face. He didn't want to see the guy's face. How did you get scars like that? Nasty.