| [May. 31st, 2009|07:45 pm] |
"I'm a badass," Asuma agreed, accepting the pills. "Arrowed a guy to death right before I fell off a cliffside and everything--oh wait, that was you." He grinned to himself as Natsumi opened her mouth to protest, and tossed the pills back. Blood-stained fingertips smeared the coating before he could get a look at what he was taking, but right now he'd happily swallow ground glass if there was the slightest chance it'd make his side stop hurting. Or his shoulder. Or his back...
"Does it count as stoic if I'm still complaining under my breath?" he asked, glancing around the cramped shelter for his kit. "Because I can do it louder if that'll make you feel better. Remember when I tried to haul you up the cliffside? That definitely left bruises. I think you owe me dinner for that one, princess..."
His belt, hip-pouches included, had been folded neatly and tucked under a natural overhang of branches, stacked on top of his armour. And pants. And jockstrap. Asuma pressed his lips together and strangled an entirely inappropriate, possibly hysterical, burst of laughter, mostly because it'd hurt like hell. She'd even folded up his fire-sash headband and piled his bracelets carefully on top. "Or maybe we should skip dinner, seeing as we've already jumped the foreplay."
Natsumi's blush was back in full force. Asuma flashed a grin at her, then stopped smiling entirely when a quick search through his things turned up only two hip-pouches out of four. He dropped his hand from Natsumi's arm to scramble through them, taking the inventory he should have done at the riverbank. Crushed scrolls, waterlogged cigarettes, one coded map that was definitely the worse for wear...
No medkit. No canteen. No ration bars.
"Shit." He dragged his ruined uniform aside and almost sliced his fingers open on the antique sword. At least that was still there. He turned back, half-losing the blanket, to find Natsumi watching him silently above a scattered mess of suddenly-precious medical supplies. Darkness (pain) had left her pupils impossibly dilated, wide and black in worried eyes. Deep lines pinched between drawn eyebrows. Her wrecked hand was still curled in close, tucked against her ribcage; her other hand was decorated with his blood, and he was really ready to stop letting her down.
He tossed his uniform back, picked up a roll of bandages and a roll of tape, put them momentarily to rest on his knee, and re-captured her right hand as gently as he knew how. Natsumi stiffened like ancient stone, but let him draw her forearm down to rest on his other knee, already raised like a blanketed brace. Her eyes followed everything he did.
Asuma reached out and lifted her chin. "Here. Watch my face, and don't forget to breathe. You can picture me naked if that'll help." The blanket slipped a little further, folding into his lap as he deliberately shrugged one shoulder. "Actually, picturing might not be necessary."
The faintest breath of a laugh twisted between Natsumi's lips. Asuma waited for the rasping inhale that followed, then grasped her index finger and pulled it straight. |
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