| Hide from the Sound [Ginta & Kakashi] | [Jun. 5th, 2009|12:36 am] |
[Immediately follows Can't See the Light]
The safe house creaked and swayed with the wind. Or maybe the sensation of movement was just a leftover from an overtaxed vestibular system, from pain meds and exhaustion. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Ginta rasped orders at Kakashi's clone--orders it probably didn't need--it would have seen to Kakashi anyway. It carefully carried Kakashi to a second camp bed, stripped him down, stitched and bandaged his bloodied hip, spread sweet-smelling balm across Kakashi's burned shoulders, and bandaged them too.
It was the same balm it had used on Ginta, from the same stash of medical supplies. It made their high-placed hideaway smell like summer grass, new tatami mats, a soft breeze.
"Lights," Ginta whispered, as the last of the twilight faded. The clone, whether on its own initiative or in response to Ginta's command, found a pair of oil lamps. It lit them both, setting one next to Ginta's bed, carrying the other back to Kakashi's prone form. After a moment it turned up the wick, casting strong shadows. Ginta glanced at the window and hoped the security seals concealing them were reactivated. It was how they were designed, he remembered, a sort of dead-man's switch--it took chakra to reveal a safe house, and only then if you knew the revealing jutsu. With no chakra applied, the native state was concealment.
In the stronger light he could see more injuries. Older ones. Kakashi's face was bare and pale, his throat bruised and scabbed with what looked like a days-old cut. When the clone picked up his hand, Ginta could see Kakashi's right palm bore the distinctive scorch marks of the chidori, but the wrist was puffy and mottled green with an aging bruise. He must have come straight off one mission onto this one.
This fucked up rescue.
He turned away to stare at his own IV lines, listening to the clone bandaging Kakashi, dosing him with chakra boosters, setting up IV fluids. In two days time, additional rescuers would arrive. A distress signal would have gone out when they entered the safe house. Someone in Konoha would know someone was in trouble here. Just like they'd known Ginta and Tsuyako had needed help and sent Kakashi...
It didn't matter.
Ginta closed his eyes.
***
A stronger gust of wind hit the trees from the north, making them sway and rock, waking Ginta. It was darker now, only one lamp still lit, and it was turned low. It cast soft beams across a wood-planked floor, and for a moment Ginta had the sensation he was on a ship. Why was he on a ship? He raised his head. Kakashi lay unmoving in his bed, bandaged and blanketed. The clone looked over when Ginta stirred, then came over and silently slid more morphine into Ginta's IV.
Ship of fools, he thought, and let the drug pull him under again. |
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