"Probably," Ginta answered, through chattering teeth. The ice Kakashi had packed in next to him was a torture all its own, and he tried to shift away from it. Kakashi patiently pushed it back. It was a brutal but effective method of lowering his soaring temperature. That plus the water Kakashi urged him to drink, that congealed into a lead weight in his stomach. But it cooled him. With cooling came rationality.

He stared at his legs, right one encased in a splint, black with bruises at knee and ankle. The ragged tears an enemy claw had raked down his shin were hidden under sopping bandages. The left was bright red, streaked with yellow. The flesh ballooned against the bandages until they were almost a tourniquet, stained with faded red and sickly yellow-green.

"Maybe I should do it." A stupid suggestion. "Maybe you should just leave it. Medics will come. Just loosen the bandages and leave it." There was a note of pleading in Ginta's voice that he tried to hold back. A chill raced up his spine. "Maybe we should wait. Make sure I don't puke the painkillers up."

They didn't even look like legs. It was hard to think of them as his. They were hideously injured things, looking like wounds he'd seen on other men when war had raged. Smelling like a battlefield.

"You're tired." It was true. Kakashi looked exhausted, despite his sleep. He moved as if every muscle hurt. His back was bandaged, his hip bound up in stained linen. His favored his right hand, hiding the palm. "We could wait. You could rest."