Keeping it all straight was the hardest part. Even screaming became a non-issue, when his voice finally cracked right into silence -- something Kakashi thought would earn him a break, and welcomed with burning relief. But it was a poor interrogator who couldn't lipread, and Takajin was anything but incompetent.

If Takajin was anything but a bastard, Kakashi hadn't seen it yet.

The lights snapped on, so bright Kakashi could feel them all the way down to his bones, and everything happened in technicolour for a while.

There was no pattern, and he gave up trying to find one. Heat became suffocation became buckets of ice-water doused over his head, washing away accumulated filth. At some point they brought in a stereo, set it up next to his head, and played a skull-pounding combination of death metal and screaming infants at full volume. For hours.

Genjutsu brought everything.

Mostly, Kakashi tried not to focus that. On anything but the flood of false information he'd created, ripped from real facts and real people and his home, and twisted into something else entirely. He fed it by drips to start with, testing himself, seeing if he could work around the drugs, his own wrenching exhaustion, and Takajin's scalpel-edge questions, and remember everything.

He could. Just about.

Either way, it was the only option. The drugs kept his tongue loose no matter how hard he fought -- it was only quick thinking and deflection that kept him from betraying every oath he'd ever made. And as time wore on, Kakashi stopped feeling quick. Stopped feeling anything but purely desperate.

He didn't crack, but it wasn't hard to fake.

Takajin kissed him hard on the forehead, like a perverted benediction, when Kakashi first started talking. The medic who bandaged his hand gave him a suspicious look, but left when the thick stench of smoke began to get to him. Kakashi rested his aching skull against the chair-back when he could, and talked.

And talked.

It was almost like sleeping after a while, except out loud and as focused as he could make it. But the moments when he said something interesting were the moments Takajin stopped touching him, and that was good enough.

Then, sometime between a long skid of darkness and a bloody-violent genjutsu, halfway into a slurring sentence about the Hokage's secret predilections for underage boys, Kakashi fell asleep for real. Black sleep, empty and silent, which was how he knew it was true.

Takajin brought him back with a nasty jab of chakra, but after that things deteriorated. Despite the drugs, and despite Takajin's lip-reading skills, Kakashi couldn't keep his focus together long enough to string out a sentence, let alone a lie. Exhaustion crowded his brain, leadened his limbs, and wiped everything out.

He forgot Genma entirely, and knew he'd lost hold of something important.

Then a lethal-looking agent burst in, dressed in anonymous blacks, and dragged Takajin away to confer. After far-too-long, Takajin came back, looking furious for the first time Kakashi could remember, and Kakashi knew he'd won. He'd lasted long enough and Konoha had gotten a message through. Everything was going to change.

Laughter had fallen by the wayside endless hours ago, but one corner of his naked, blood-cracked mouth curved up.

Thanks, he mouthed. Enjoyed -- the therapy.

Takajin's eyebrows flew up, a dangerous scowl hardened his face -- almost as tired looking as Kakashi's by now -- but the lethal-looking agent caught his hand before he could do anything. Kakashi switched his fraying attention to the new man just long enough to see the green-glowing hands reaching for his head, then everything went finally, thankfully black.

Genma slept. Fitfully, painfully, and every time he woke there was that blaring video, that mumbling video, that bastard in the video assaulting Kakashi with attacks Genma could only guess at half the time; there to keep him unbearable company. He couldn't stand to watch. He made himself watch, because someone would come, someone would come, they came before, and Kakashi would need Genma to be able to tell the truth about what had happened.

They brought Genma food. He refused it. Kumoto reappeared with a nasogastric tube and a large syringe full of thick, pale pinkish liquid. The woman was with him: she held Genma down while they forced the tube up his nose, down the back of his throat, and into his belly, then squirted the nauseating paste down the tube. Genma wasn't sure if it was a victory or not when he vomited the mixture back up only moments after they'd left him alone with the video again.

A different functionary came in -- another shift, Genma guessed -- this one a man with round glasses and a too-long neck, too-thin face. He was less threatening than the woman had been, but only because he seemed more bored. More confident that Genma was no threat at all. A neutralized threat.

Imahara came back at one point and asked him if he was ready to make life easier for his teammate yet. Genma almost acquiesced. But Kakashi was still telling lies, staggering through lies, floundering in lies. He wasn't broken.

"We know he's lying," Imahara told Genma. "But we can pull the truth out of those lies. You could make this all stop."

Genma made a thick noise at the back of his throat, and spat a gob of slick, puke-flavored mucous at her face. She hauled a hand back to slap him, thought better of it, and grabbed his hand instead, squeezing his fingers in a bone-crushing grip.

His own screams echoing off the concrete walls were the first sign, Genma knew, that his interrogators were winning.

They left him alone for longer. And then, abruptly, the video went dark.

Genma felt his heart stop.

The blonde woman and the thin-faced man came back, accompanied by a broad-shouldered man in a dressier, blacker version of their uniforms. He had eyes like a poisonous snake's, and a manner that bespoke long authority. Kumoto was nowhere to be seen.

"Get up," Thin-man said. Genma stared at him. But Blonde unshackled his feet from the bed, and bound them instead to each other. Then she unlocked one hand. Genma made a desperate grab for her, but Thin-man's elbow was at his throat, cutting off air until Genma went limp and saw only brown-purple blotches. When his vision cleared, his hands were manacled together, elbows and wrists contorted so that his hands were back-to-back. The woman ran a cold chain around Genma's naked waist like a belt, and attached his cuffed hands to that with a lock.

"Up," Thin-man repeated. He hauled on Genma's shoulders. "On your feet. You're being moved."

The silent commander said nothing at all.

The two guards between them manhandled Genma into standing. The woman said something Genma didn't catch, the man snickered, and then the woman reached down, pressed a hand glowing green against Genma's lower abdomen, and yanked the catheter she'd so unlovingly placed god's knew how many hours ago back out. The pain was crippling; Genma doubled over, groaning, but the smirking guard grabbed Genma's elbow and kept him on his feet.

They forced him to move. He shuffled naked along the white-painted hallway, until they came to a low, brick-arched door. Dressy man unlocked it, and the woman shoved Genma into what seemed to be some kind of airlock. A tiny antechamber to another room.

Now it starts for real, Genma thought with dread.

"You will not be able to use jutsu in this room, and we advise you not to try, Leaf-ninja," the Dressy man said, speaking for the first time. He had a softer-pitched voice than Genma had expected. A less imperious manner. "Kumoto-sensei assures me that any attempt to do so on your part is very likely to kill you. I believe him."

What the fuck was going on? The outer door was locked, the inner one swung open.

In the room, lit with pale daylight coming from a high, barred slit near the ceiling, there was nothing but a simple metal toilet jutting out from the wall in one corner, and in the other a pair of mattresses on the floor. On one of the mattresses, sprawled face down, lay Kakashi. He was bruised and pale, with his hair cropped nearly to the scalp. But he was bandaged, and dressed in a light-grey t-shirt and baggy pajama bottoms.

The woman unshackled Genma's feet first, as before, but this time she removed the restraints altogether. "Step," she instructed, and Genma was shocked to see her holding a pair of pajama pants for him.

Her face bore no expression at all, as she pulled the pants up over Genma's hip bones, and tightened the drawstring down. They left him shirtless. The woman took a key on a long string, and tied it high around Genma's neck. Too high to reach with his hands chained to his waist. She showed him a folded greyish shirt identical to Kakashi's, setting it on the empty mattress.

Kakashi didn't stir. But he wasn't shackled.

"When he wakes up, he can release your hands." Dressy man said. The woman shoved a hand between Genma's shoulder blades, sending him teetering off balance. He crashed to his knees with a curse. The door slammed shut behind him, and he heard the double click and quieter slam of the outer door being opened and relocked.

Crawling across the floor on his knees -- a clean floor, Genma noted with shock -- took all the strength his trembling muscles had left. He got as far as Kakashi's mattress and lay down on the cool concrete.

What the fuck was going on?

For the first time in years, Kakashi didn't dream. There was blackness behind his eyelids, and nothingness inside his skull, and if he'd had the choice he would have given half his stolen jutsu to stay there. But physical sensation crept slowly back, driven by body that knew it wasn't safe, and he slid like a knifeblade back into the real world.

He was lying down.

That alone was almost overwhelming. But his senses didn't stop there; they spread out, catching information and dragging it back, demanding he pay attention. There was light, a faint red glimmer shining though closed eyelids. Cool air, brushing over stretches of exposed skin -- he was wearing clothes again. The scent of things, finally, that weren't smoke. A hundred things, crowding in at once, dragging his attention a hundred different ways. Cotton cloth, old stone, blood and urine and vomit, fresh air, his own skin, ginseng-poison-pain--

Too much.

He dropped his mouth open, dragged in a shuddery, scentless breath, and let it out.

Scattered wits tried to collect themselves. He twitched his wrists and ankles, but found no metal or leather, only the lingering bruised reminders. No broad strap pinned his chest back against a chair. No hands touched him anywhere at all.

A day and a half's worth of memory reported back, and Kakashi drew another unsteady breath. Let it out. His throat burned like the aftermath of a chemical fire.

There were still no hands.

He shifted carefully, slowly, drawing his arms up beneath him -- arms that moved, finally, when he wanted them to -- and pressed his palms flat against something solid but soft. Every single muscle ached, right down to his core. He drew a last breath.

Shoved up, wrenched himself sideways, forced his eyes open, and moved.

It was a closed cell, empty of everything but two mattresses and a body on the floor; Kakashi slammed his back up against the corner furthest away from the door, where no one could get to him without him seeing them first, and slid down when his knees abruptly gave way.

Silence.

The body twitched. Kakashi locked his gaze on it.

Nothing else stayed still; he could feel himself shaking. Could feel himself, when he yanked his hands in close and flattened them over his chest, up to his bare face, over recently-shorn hair -- he grimaced hard and dropped them, fighting the urge to wrap his arms around his knees. To grab himself tight and scream everything out, because he'd already done that second part and it hadn't helped.

The body grunted, groaned, and rolled over. It was bare-chested, hands chained awkwardly together in front. Long brown hair fell in snarling tangles around a bone-white face; pale golden-brown eyes sought Kakashi out and stared at him.

And Kakashi finally, disbelievingly put together who he was looking at, and what that meant.

Genma.

Still alive.

He reached for his chakra -- singing now, bright and violent -- to rip the genjutsu apart.

Genma watched in horrified disbelief as Kakashi brought both hands up in the Tiger seal. "No jutsu," Genma barked, struggling to rise. He got up onto one knee before he fell, and rolled to his side again, staring in terror at Kakashi.

Nothing happened. Kakashi mouthed the word to break a genjutsu, focused his chakra, stared hard at Genma...

Genma felt the pressure wave of Kakashi's chakra radiating out from him. Kakashi didn't burst into flame, or fall backwards convulsing, or suffer any of the other unspeakable fates Genma envisioned in the split second between seeing Kakashi's hands go up and feeling Kakashi's chakra flooding out.

Kakashi continued to stare in horror at him. Utter, disconnected from any hint of reality horror. Was he still drugged? Was he even, Genma thought with sick dread, really there? How better to convince a man that an imposter was his recently-tortured partner than to make him act like a paranoid as fuck, traumatized ninja?

Genma couldn't move his hands into the Tiger seal for his own attempt at a kai. And the warning still shook him: Kumoto says if you try a jutsu, it will kill you. I believe him. Of all the threats Genma had heard from his Iwagakure captors, that mild warning carried by far the most weight.

"Kakashi--" Genma started.

Kakashi brought his hands together for another kai. This time the pressure wave of chakra made Genma feel ill. It seemed to drain Kakashi, who shook, staring. His face was unmasked. His hair was shorn. And both eyes were wide open, Sharingan whirling.

Was it illusion? Was it real? Genma avoided looking into that sickly spinning red iris.

What could he ask? What sign would prove he was himself, and that was really Kakashi?

"How did I kill Arihiro?" Genma bit the words out, bitter as the bile in his throat, and waited. If it was an imposter, there would be no way he'd know, but if it was really Kakashi...

Genma braced for a blow.

Kakashi's head jerked up and back, narrowly missing a strike against the wall.

You-- he tried to say, but all that came out was a dry, grating rasp, nothing like words. He swallowed hard, dropped his hands, and forced himself back to his feet. The wall met his shoulders; he leaned for a second, breathing raw, then shoved himself away.

Two steps forward and nothing at his back, the shaking got worse.

Two more steps and he sank into a barely-controlled crouch by Genma's side, bracing himself with a hand on the concrete floor. Wide, wary eyes stared at him. Genma's scent roiled through a confused tangle of fear and hope and choked down, barely held grief -- because he was talking about Arihiro, and Arihiro always brought with him the memory of two other ninja Genma had failed to save.

Kakashi had failed to save.

(It's always your fault, isn't it?)

After everything else, he didn't have the room left to feel worse. Or the strength to feel better, because this was Genma, knowing things only he could know, asking questions that felt like another gut-punch, and Kakashi barely knew whether to strangle or kiss him.

He coughed instead, fighting to clear his voice out, and dragged up an answer.

"Left him -- too long." The words broke, but Kakashi refused to go with them. He held himself together with will and fumes and bloody-headed stubbornness, and hooked the key off Genma's neck with a hand that wouldn't steady. Unlocked the cuffs with the barest brush against Genma's hands, dropped the key, and touched the only person he'd wanted to in the last thirty-six hours.

Genma's chest was bare; Kakashi flattened a hand directly over his heartbeat. Felt warm skin, rising breath, living chakra -- and everything was worth it.

"See?" he croaked, letting his aching head bow forward, "told you -- it'd work."

Genma let go a shimmering held breath. Took another one, just as shaky, and another. He was acutely conscious of Kakashi's chakra, blue-white, edged in turquoise. Ragged and sharp, like a serrated blade. Unbroken. And that hand, with its scar-creased palm that could have punched a lightning storm right through Genma's sternum, but instead just rested there, trembling, warm, rising and falling with the slight motion of Genma's inhalations.

"Was still a suicide move," Genma rasped back. He lifted his own hand, aching and chased all over with Saint Elmo's Fire now that the cuffs were off, as feeling returned to his fingers. Lifted it and wrapped his fingers loosely around Kakashi's wrist, holding Kakashi's hand in place.

Kakashi flinched, then allowed the touch. He looked at Genma sharply, puzzlement in his weary eyes.

"Shut your Sharingan before you pass yourself out."

Kakashi's gaze seemed to turn inward for a moment, and then he refocused one grey eye; the red one slid closed.

"That's better," Genma whispered. He held on to Kakashi's wrist, feeling the steady beat of Kakashi's pulse under his fingertips. Held on to the edge of his own sanity, the edge of his own dignity. It had been a suicide move, and neither one of them were dead.

After a long moment, Kakashi inhaled, then coughed. It reminded Genma to take another breath, too.

"I'm sorry," Genma whispered, looking away from Kakashi's eye. He stared at close-cropped grey hair, at a bruise he could see edging under the newly exposed hairline. "About Arihiro." Three deep, shaking breaths followed. One for every corpse on that unforgivable mission.

Kakashi's hand clenched against Genma's chest; Genma winced, his own grip tightening with an automatic flinch, and Kakashi had to fight down the feeling of a manacle snapping closed around his wrist. He hissed out a breath between his teeth. Carefully, they both eased up.

"Arihiro's been -- dead for two years," Kakashi got out, like the words didn't burn in his mouth, or catch fire in his throat. "He's--" His voice shook, caught, and fell apart. He dragged it back. "I can't. We have to -- focus on us. Apologies later. I can't think -- about that much."

Not and keep functioning. Takajin had covered him in a lifetime's worth of blood; buried him under crawling heaps of rotten corpses; locked him down in the graves of fallen comrades. It'd all been genjutsu and Kakashi knew that, but after thirty-six hours he'd forgotten how to care about the difference.

Something must have shown on his face, because Genma hauled himself upright, sat loosely cross-legged, and put a hand that was probably meant to be comforting on Kakashi's shoulder. Protective, where Takajin had been possessive. Strengthening, instead of destroying.

Kakashi braced himself better, shrugged free of both holds before they took him apart from the inside out, and splayed a hand over his lower face. Wished for a mask.

"They're probably watching us," he said, voice growing stronger as his mind rediscovered tactics, mental weapons. "I think a message -- got through from Konoha. That's why we're here, now. Did they treat your chakra?" One hand almost twitched back to Genma, but stopped far short. Kakashi gave him a long, searching look, then said cautiously, "You look better."

On a comparative scale from mostly-dead to half-alive.

Without Kakashi to hold on to, Genma wavered, balance fraying and strength ebbing. He shifted his weight cautiously, bracing one palm flat against the floor, and looked around the bare room. Of course they were watching. They always watched. And they'd come back.

"It's what they want us to think," he told Kakashi softly. He didn't want to rob hope from Kakashi, didn't want to undermine whatever fragile hold on himself the other shinobi had pulled together, but...

But this was Iwagakure, and Genma knew better. Which would be worse, to let Kakashi hold on to a fragile, desperate, false belief that they were about to be saved? Or to prepare him for what had to be coming next?

"I... Listen. This isn't telling them anything new; they already know. They know.... who I am. Who you are, obviously. But..." He could feel his arm starting to shake. His head aching. His hands...

Gods, his hands. Genma shifted again, swaying precariously, hunched over himself as if he were cold, cradling his hands to his chest. His eyes slid sideways to Kakashi, up through his own lank hair. He didn't bother to push it out of his face.

"You know, right? You know I was here, before. Not here, another... facility. But here."

Kakashi nodded once, tightly. When his head bent forward, Genma could see the swelling, and heavy black stitches buried in blood-stained, too-short hair.

"This," Genma's eyes swept the room, coming to rest on the window. Then back down, to Kakashi. Clean. Clothed. Bandaged. "This is new. But I watched. They showed me--video feed. Saw what they did to you."

Kakashi flinched like he'd been struck.

Genma just continued, almost to himself. A raw monotone. "Same tactics. Same tactics, different interrogators. Medic's the same, though. Fucking medic." For a moment fire flashed. Genma shuddered. "He's good. Keeps you just enough alive that the questioning doesn't kill you." His voice guttered down again, ragged and flat.

"You're good. Stronger than Seijuro. I never saw Seijuro till almost the end. Saw him once, and then didn't see him, and then saw him again and it was bad..." He trailed off, seeing nightmares. Then looked up abruptly, catching Kakashi with a piercing gaze.

"Don't let them do that to you."

No instant answer came -- and Kakashi realized in a background, shaking way that the drugs were finally out of his system. His thoughts were his own again, locked safely behind clenched teeth and an aching jaw. He exhaled raw gratitude through his fingers and inhaled through his mouth, trying not to catch Genma's dying-faith scent.

Shook his head.

"You're wrong." Genma's head jerked up, eyebrows furrowing sharply together, and Kakashi didn't have to guess what he was thinking. Optimism, denial, Kakashi's lost his grip. But there was a flicker of desperate hope there, too -- buried deep, barely a glint in Genma's haunted eyes -- but there. Kakashi reached out and closed a hand over Genma's knee; Genma's breath hitched. "I don't know how with it you were, but I sent a message back to Konoha. Pakkun, one of my dogs. If we've been here as long as I think, he should've made it by now."

Genma's eyes were too wide, halfway to shocky, but re-focusing fast. Seeing nothing in the world but Kakashi. Listening. Relieved, Kakashi cleared his dry throat, coughing on the echo of words that caught and broke. The IV had kept him alive, but it hadn't done much else.

"And Konoha sent a message back. I saw Takajin's face." Kakashi slashed a brief, dark, triumphant smile, trapped behind his mask-hand. "He was pissed. He wasn't going to let me out unless he had to. Someone made him."

Which Genma hadn't seen, Kakashi guessed. But he'd seen everything else.

Self-disgust tasted like bile; Kakashi swallowed it down and kept going. He could fall apart later, in private, when they'd made it home.

His grip tightened on Genma's knee. "You didn't tell me -- did they fix your chakra? I need to know everything that happened."

Genma lost himself a little in the parade of emotions passing over Kakashi's poorly-obscured face. He'd thought for half a second, when Kakashi's hand first touched him, that he couldn't breathe--that he might weep. And then the sensation passed, and another breath came, riding on the touch of Kakashi's hand, Kakashi's chakra. Unbroken.

It was the last look of Kakashi's that propelled words into Genma's numb mouth: the desperation--the need he saw in Kakashi's glittering, red-rimmed grey eye. "They fixed it. They said they fixed it. Feels-- feels like they fixed it, at least enough..." He couldn't finish that sentence. But he was still here, still breathing. He could sit up, albeit weakly. He could string a complete sentence together without stuttering. He could feel every muscle, every limb.

Every raw, aching inch of his chakra system.

"I don't know what else they did. I think they did--" Genma turned his head away, felt Kakashi's fingers tighten again, looked back. "They did a lot of things. Knocked me out. Woke me up. Drugs, jutsu. They said they isolated some of the poison that was still there. Might have given me an antidote."

Kakashi winced, and Genma could see the thought -- the same thought he'd had: that poison had been one of Konoha's. A village secret. They'd both have to answer for that. But the wince was just a tiny piece of something much more profound at work on his teammate. Kakashi'd already been subtly trembling, now the tremors turned to outright shakes. Deep breaths. His eye wide, scanning Genma up and down.

It was infectious, that shaking. Genma took a deep, gasping breath of his own, then slowly, carefully, reached out to hold on to Kakashi's arm. His right hand closed around Kakashi's left biceps, obscuring the crimson tattoo. He wanted to fall. Wanted to collapse against the man, to share between them what strength they could muster.

If what Kakashi said was true -- and Genma believed him. Had to believe him -- then Kakashi's insane gamble had saved them both. "They asked a lot of questions about how I got out of here before," he said in a parched whisper. "I told 'em it was magic."

His fingers against Kakashi's skin tapped out a code. You did it. You didn't break. I didn't break, either.

Thirty-six hours, a wealth of torture, and all of Takajin's focused, psychological expertise, had barely done more than crawl inside Kakashi's skin and guarantee him a month's worth of nightmares.

Genma's touch, those still-breathing words, nearly shattered him.

"Son of a bitch," Kakashi groaned, hunching forwards, and heard the words crack with laughter. With a shuddery, airless sound that felt like dying. Because he hated Genma, and didn't hate him, and had almost killed him.

Saved him.

Saved them both. Because Kakashi hadn't broken, and Genma hadn't broken -- Genma had seen everything -- and Kakashi knew relief could feel like a heart attack, but it had never felt like this before. Like a weight had lifted from his shoulders and doubled back to kick him in the chest. Like he was sitting in the middle of the village who'd killed Obito, and tortured Genma half to death, and his last-ditch, last stand, stupid plan had still worked.

Genma's broken-handed grip tightened hard around Kakashi's arm. Kakashi tried to wrench himself back together, but his hands were still busy hiding his face and clutching Genma's knee, his mouth was too busy laughing-not-crying, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this tired.

Good ninja felt nothing but duty.

Iwa was still watching.

Kakashi closed his eyes, choked himself silent, and tried to remember what control felt like. He was just exhausted, starved, parched half-crazy -- but Genma was, too, and Genma wasn't falling apart. Genma had withstood the same thing for a month -- probably without drugs, because he was immune to half of everything under the sun, and when Kakashi made it home he intended to copy-cat the hell out of that survival strategy -- but Genma was still hanging on. Keeping his head, even when he'd thought there was nothing but more torture to come.

And they weren't home yet.

Kakashi forced his brain to think, and his hand on Genma's knee to move, tapping out blurred words. We need a plan.

Genma supposed sharing what strength they had between them included sharing this. Kakashi could laugh like he was crying for the both of them, for a few minutes, and Genma could just hang on and shake right along with Kakashi. Breathe just as raggedly. Grip just as tightly.

And then Kakashi found his core again. A ninja core, as solid and enduring as the iron core of a meteorite. As sharp as a blade forged from that iron. His breathing steadied, his shaking eased. Genma let the code Kakashi tapped sink into his skin like a healing balm.

We need water. Food. Sleep, Genma tapped back. If rescue is coming, we wait for them. And if it wasn't? The shudders crawled back up Genma's spine, sickening his empty stomach. But if it wasn't, they needed to rest even more urgently, to recover chakra and strength. To have something left with which to endure.

Iwa was watching. If he and Kakashi were silent for too long, their captors might guess at the coded messages being passed. Maybe separate them again. Go with me, he tapped to Kakashi. As he tapped he raised his head and looked for a camera--none obvious but that meant nothing--and then stared at the brushed-metal toilet. "I was pretty sure," he rasped in as loud a voice as he could muster and still sound conversational, "that the new treaty specified prisoners would be kept humanely. With access to clean water for drinking and bathing. Also fed. Have they fed you?"

Kakashi choke-laughed, getting Genma's plan in a heartbeat. "Does smoke count?"

"Did it have calories?"

"It's appetite suppressing," Kakashi rasped. He released Genma's knee and gestured mockingly to himself. "I've been meaning to shed a few pounds. What d'you reckon?"

Genma laughed. It sounded almost completely natural, if you ignored the faint undercurrent of barely-leashed hysteria. "Yeah, I always thought the famine victim look was a good one for you." He coughed, cleared his throat. "Compliments your colouring."

"I thought so. Matches the refugee-chic, too." Kakashi ran a hand over his brutalized hair, avoiding stitches, and didn't quite wince. It was just hair; it'd grow back. Even if it left him feeling almost as naked as his missing mask, and strangely light-headed. Cold on the back of his neck. "We make a hell of a pair, with your half-naked look going on."

Genma's eyebrows arched; he glanced down at himself as if he'd forgotten. Kakashi leaned, swiped the folded shirt from the other mattress with a still-shaking hand, and dropped it into Genma's lap. Genma stared at it for a second, then shrugged it painfully over his head. It was too big for him, like Kakashi's shirt, but the pale-stone shade actually did set off his colouring. Made hollow-bruised, amber-brown eyes and tangled, light brown hair stand out in sharp relief.

Bastard, Kakashi thought, with something like resigned malice.

He lifted his desert-dry voice. "So, if you had the choice, what would you want now? Besides a full rescue team and a good-looking nurse?"

"Decent tea," said Genma instantly, quick enough that Kakashi wondered how long he'd been fantasizing about that. "Rice porridge. A poison test kit. And some painkillers. Also sheets and blankets. And a pillow. You?"

Weapons. Armour. My real clothes. And a hundred other things besides, including almost everything on Genma's list, but mostly Kakashi wanted his mask, his own bed, and the peace to sleep for a week.

Or Takajin's head on a stick.

"A shower," he said instead, touching his hair one more time. It still carried the lingering traces of cigarette smoke -- something he'd probably be smelling to his grave. "A full med-kit. Something to read..."

Thoughts failed, broken by exhaustion. He tried to get them back and hit nothing but I want my mask. And my hitai-ate. It wasn't easy to keep one eye-lid closed for any length of time, not without provoking an already-savage headache.

Then he almost kicked himself. He was wearing a shirt. Shirts ripped.

Genma's eyebrows flew up again when Kakashi finally dropped the hand covering his mouth, grabbed the hem of his t-shirt, and bit through it with a jerking slash of his head. The paper-thin cloth tore easy. He ripped off a long strip that went all the way around, about two inches wide, until he had something that looked like a ragged bandage, and tied it proficiently around his head. Then, aching-cautious, he relaxed. The eye stayed closed.

Kakashi let out a quiet breath.

A mask would be harder, but it was something to do. He eyed his left pyjama pant's leg speculatively, then paused. Went still.

He reached out and gripped Genma's knee again, tapping so urgently he fumbled the message twice. What happened to Baiji?

It took Genma far too long to make sense of that question. Far too long. He stared dumbly at Kakashi -- at the new bandanna and freshly covered eye, at the length of old scar cutting down Kakashi's cheek -- and tried to remember who Baiji was.

Kakashi evidently took Genma's muteness as a sign that Baiji -- who the hell was Baiji? -- had fared poorly. The raw grief that transited across Kakashi's single exposed eye was finally what made it plain for Genma. He'd seen that expression on Kakashi's face once before, over the lifeless body of a large brown and black dog. Over Arihiro.

He couldn't make another grab for Kakashi without tipping their captors off to something happening between them. Genma grasped for some other tactic and came up with not much. "You remember that mission to Wave Country? The one where that kid was supposedly kidnapped but it turned out he was hiding under the tea house?"

Kakashi stared at him like he'd gone mad. Contact. They needed contact. Genma swallowed, swayed, and fell against Kakashi. Hardly an acting job. Kakashi nearly toppled himself, but he caught Genma, and Genma got his hand back on Kakashi's arm.

He's safe, Genma tapped frantically. Baiji's safe! They were going to kill him, so I ordered him to go. He un-summoned himself.

Kakashi gave Genma a numb, entirely too mistrusting look. Genma didn't have any idea how to change that. Every second that ticked by felt like an eternity, and those Iwa bastard were watching. They'd use this against them. Scent Kakashi's distress, and the seeds of doubt. They'd recognize that crack between Konoha comrades and drive a wedge into it. Use them against each other in entirely new, and much more horrific ways than just forcing one to watch while the other was tortured.

"I feel like hell," Genma whispered. "And that's no lie. I swear on the Heroes' Stone and my tattoo."

Kakashi went utterly still.

Ninja lied. Ninja lied for a living. Out of habit. Because they wanted to. For a mission. To stop their comrades from taking yet another soul-blow in the crux of a hellish situation that might still see both of them in the ground...

But no ninja would pervert the memory of his dead comrades, or his reason for withstanding torture twice-over, not if he had any claim left to loyalty. Not even for fear, or guilt, or bone-shaking shame.

And scent didn't lie.

Genma was right there, pressed so close Kakashi could feel his heartbeat -- there was no way not to smell him. And this time Kakashi wanted to. Wanted to so much that he wrapped his arms tight around Genma's shaking shoulders, yanked him even closer, shoved his own unmasked face into the crook of Genma's neck, where scent and pulse twined around each other, and inhaled deep and desperate. Acid-sweat, body-oil, unwashed skin, vomit and blood -- surface things -- beneath them ran Genma's own scent, soured by sickness but still recognizable: ginseng, sweet spices, and the entrenched echoes of old poisons. Kakashi drew another breath, trying to read everything all at once. Exhaustion ground in so deep it went beyond the physical, anxiety like a heart-shock, adrenaline-soaked fear...

But nothing else.

Truth.

It was a little like having his bones melted. He felt himself go limp, drenched with relief, almost unstrung. Without his support, both of them nearly sprawled over -- a delicate counter-balance of weight was the only thing that kept them upright. Genma's free arm lifted instantly, without hesitation, and wrapped around Kakashi's back like a vice, forcing Kakashi's right arm higher until it was almost entirely around Genma's neck. A bastardized, muscle-bruising, entirely unsteady hug that Kakashi wouldn't have permitted or participated in for all the jutsu in the world two days ago.

But a lot had changed in two days. Genma's other hand gripped Kakashi's tattooed arm harder, Genma's breath shuddered against Kakashi's shoulder, and Kakashi wasn't the only one who'd been dragged to the breaking edge and back. Wasn't the only one scarred-bloody from a reeling circle of loss-turned-salvation.

Suguru was dead, Baiji wasn't. Genma wasn't. Konoha was coming.

Iwa was still watching.

Kakashi almost didn't care. He drew a deep, unsteady breath (truth, truth, truth), and let his aching head rest against Genma's collarbone. There was nothing they could break him with now.

Genma wasn't sure who was holding up whom. Who was being strong for whom. He was sure, though, that neither of them, no matter how far down they'd been knocked, were weak. He held on, held on, held on, because at least for now, at least for this moment, Kakashi was alive and whole, and Genma was alive and whole, and the two of them were together without interrogators and sadistic medics.

And Kakashi believed him.

If someone had told Genma, "By the end of this mission you'll be holding Kakashi in your arms like he's the most important person in the world," Genma would have asked which of the bottles of hallucinogenic poison down in the lab had been used to brew the coffee. Not now.

Now there was only the too-cold air, their too-empty stomachs, a too-bare cell, and the too-tenuous promise of rescue.

Genma could smell the stale smoke clinging to Kakashi's hair. The interrogator's smoke. It didn't smell quite normal, like maybe the tobacco had been tainted with something extra... That would be a good way to get drugs into an unwilling subject, some distant part of Genma's brain thought. Fill the room with cigarette smoke laced with something else, something the interrogator was immune to.

The smell made Genma crave a cigarette. But... But there was a reason he hadn't listed a pack of smokes in his litany of things he wished he had. After what he'd seen Kakashi go though, and knowing how sensitive Kakashi's nose was, he couldn't bring himself to even consider smoking around the man. Even now Kakashi was taking deep breaths, as if somehow Genma's scent was a restorative.

We need some sleep. Can you sleep? Genma's fingers tapped. In answer Kakashi stiffened, suddenly alert, with a tremor that rattled into rock stillness. Genma had just enough time to tense himself, to feel a lightning pulse of automatically-called-upon chakra race through his system leaving deep burns in its wake.

They're coming Kakashi's hand on the nape of Genma's neck spelled out.

Kakashi pushed away from Genma and staggered to his feet. Put himself between the door and Genma. Genma fell, caught himself on one elbow, and tried to shove back up. There was a rising rush in his ears, a distant cold-hot feeling. The light in the room seemed dim, the floor under him unsteady.

There was a clatter in the outer lock, a creak, footsteps, voices. Genma pushed himself to stand on bare feet that ached with ancient breaks. The door opened.

It was the well-dressed commander, and a man Genma thought he should recognize but couldn't quite. A man in well-made civilian clothes -- priestly clothes -- with heavy grey eyebrows and a balding head. He carried two bundles of bedding, which he set down carefully by the door.

"Gentlemen," the priest said. "On behalf of the Tsuchikage, I want to apologize for the unpleasantness of your first few days in our village. I am here to ensure that you find yourselves more comfortable for the duration of your stay with us."

Genma felt his blood turn to slush.

The ninja commander stepped closer. He held something out, showing it to Kakashi, then laid it and three more objects carefully on the floor where Kakashi could pick them up. A pair of Konoha hitai-ate -- Genma recognized his own, and the other must be Kakashi's -- and two sets of dog tags on two identical stainless steel chains.

Kakashi bit his first reply in half. The world was cold and sharp and clear, humming with adrenaline -- and this was just a new slice of bullshit diplomacy. Something that broken necks wouldn't help in the slightest, even if his bones shook with the need. Genma could barely stand, and Kakashi couldn't move fast enough. They wouldn't even make it past the door.

And Konoha wouldn't thank them for breaking the treaty, either.

He barely glanced at the collection of scarred steel and scorched cloth, refusing to let his hands curl into fists or too-visible teeth sink into his naked lower lip. Want was weakness; visible want would just give Iwa another hold over them.

"How long a stay?" he rasped instead, inhaling subtley on the return-breath. Scent-testing.

"I'm afraid I'm not privy to that information," said the man dressed like a religious leader. He smelled like cool control and arrogant conceit, but not violence -- or the intent to order violence. His chakra was organized for a civillian, almost a smooth tangle, but a civillian nonetheless.

Kakashi recognized his face. And, after a second's thought, the name that went along with it.

"Maruyama Kiyoshi," he said, and felt a distant flicker of satisfaction when the man twitched a barest fraction. It wasn't a blade into flesh, but it was the best he was going to get. "It's unusual for a council-member to be so ill-informed."

"Even the most most well-informed among us, Hatake-san, find it a challenge to forsee the future." Maruyama bowed, an exacting little gesture that felt like a return sword-slice.

Kakashi quenched a snarl. Let me lend you an eye, then. He could bluff on a poor hand, but not on a hand lacking cards entirely. And not when Genma's life rested amongst the chips.

Not when the man dressed in commander-blacks watched them both steadily, chakra coiled like a waiting viper.

"How about something more simple?" Kakashi suggested tightly. "Food and water, medical supplies, basic ammeneties. And contact with Konoha's representative, presuming he hasn't met with his own unpleasantness."

One elegant hand gestured backwards, towards the bedding bundles by the door. "I'm sure you will find some of the comforts you seek here," Maruyama said. "Are you in need of a medic's attention?"

Kakashi felt Genma's flinch. A jagged ripple of chakra, a spike in scent, a sudden lack of breathing. He tucked a hand behind him, flashing a quick, hidden handsign. Breathe. I won't let them touch you.

Half-choked, Genma inhaled.

"I'm in need of a faith-gesture," Kakashi answered. "You'll forgive me if I'm not feeling especially engendered towards blind trust right now. You do have a Konoha representative, don't you? Assuming a treaty is still on the books. I know we're keeping one of your men in good quarters at home."

"Murasaki-san has been told you're here," Maruyama said, as if that closed the matter. And if that was true, it might. A foreign diplomat solely in charge of negotiating delicate relations held a lot of sway -- Konoha itself held a lot of sway. Now there was a chance they'd been doubly informed.

Not for a moment did Kakashi let himself relax. Maruyama's scent was like opaque glass; emotions swirled beneath, but Kakashi couldn't get any kind of clear view of them. Part of him wondered if the religious diplomat was a sociopath, or just one of the most exquisitely controlled men Kakashi had ever met. The rest of him didn't have the room to care. Food, water, amenities, get them out of here before Genma loses it...

Before I lose it.

"Give him my regards when you see him," Kakashi said, and cut a bladed smile. "And the Tsuchikage. I hope one day we can show him the same kind of hospitality you've graced us with."

Utterly still-faced, Maruyama bowed again. The man in commander blacks gave Kakashi a long, slow look that roiled with something else underneath, but said nothing. Kakashi watched as they left, feeling like a guard dog spliced through a willing target -- but better they focus on him than Genma. That had been the entire point of this insanity.

The door fell back into place with the heavy clunk of locks.

Kakashi watched it for six cold, sickening heartbeats, then felt the ice break out of his spine. The headache roared back and grabbed him by the temples, bringing shaking muscles with it. He walked forward with every intention of grabbing those bundles and taking them back to Genma, but wound up with his forehead pressed against the cold metal door, trying not to go down at the knees.

There were seals in the steel, licking against his skin. Chakra limiters, if he had to guess, and he remembered Genma's shout of no jutsu. The wrench of chakra ripping out of him, far too much for two simple kai.

That made one less card.

Genma smelled like a lifetime's worth of panic in a body too tired to handle it. Kakashi found his words, dragged up from down deep, and shook the diplomacy off them. "Still sane, Shiranui?"

Don't break on me.

"As sane as you are," Genma said a little nastily. Nasty was good. Nasty was focused. He stood swaying, with his feet braced under him and his arms held stiffly, as if there were something in the thin air around him he could grasp for balance. His ears burned and buzzed. His chest was tight.

I won't let them touch you, Kakashi had signed. It was a promise Genma desperately needed, and desperately hated himself for needing.

He took one stiff-limbed, staggering step. Swayed. A second step. The Konoha headbands and dogtags sat on the grey floor, looking like salvation. A third step, and he was almost to them. His knees buckled, and he lurched to the side, caught his balance again, but not his strength. Let himself slide to the floor.

Kakashi turned, startling a step forward, staring like the strength of his gaze might keep Genma upright. Genma waved a hand at him. An exhausted, I'm okay, one of the first signs an ANBU learned. I'm okay. I'm in trouble. Enemies in that direction. Follow me. Don't advance...

Kakashi nodded, slumped back against the door, and slid down it, with his eye still riveted to Genma.

Genma gave him a weary nod, then focused on the things on the floor. One unsteady, scar-striped hand reached out, and his fingers closed around pale steel etched with his home's sigil. Around dark-as-night cloth that had been his since he had earned the right to call himself a ninja of Konoha at the age of ten. Slowly, carefully, he spread out the cloth, folded it into a triangle, and wrapped it over his hair, with the steel plate cradling the back of his skull and the gathered corners of fabric knotted over his forehead.

He picked up the dog tags. Kakashi's. Was it still Kakashi's birthday? Wrapping the chain around the other hitai-ate, he lobbed them both towards Kakashi in a powerless arc. "Here. Happy belated birthday," he said with a steel-screened laugh. Then he picked up his own tags. Looked at them. Ran his thumb over them. Read them.

Shiranui Genma
010203
Sp J A
DOB 7/17
BT A pos.

Then as carefully as he'd put his bandanna on, he hung the tags back around his neck.

"Much better," he said softly. And meant it.

It was like watching a man put himself back together, one home-marker at a time. Steel at throat and skull; blue, battle-scarred cloth covering bedraggled hair, enforcing a kind of new order. Genma's spine straightened; his shoulders settled down. A breath of calm trickled through his scent.

Thank God.

Kakashi didn't believe in a higher power, but just for today he'd thank the Kyuubi itself if it kept Genma's head together -- his own head together -- and got them home.

Genma's weak toss had landed Kakashi's dogtags and hitai-ate just within reach; he elbowed himself away from the door, stretched, and managed to snatch them up before gravity caught him. The door greeted him back like an old friend, with a hearty slap. Kakashi slouched against it and felt a little like he was melting; the room was starting to shimmer at the edges.

He took a deep breath and refocused.

Cold, battered steel settled around his throat like home-forged strength -- like a reminder. Ninja. Soldier. Dogtags clinked gently in the hollow between his collarbones, gleaming dull in the natural light. His thumb touched the birthdate for the skin of a second. Newly-minted nineteen and still not dead, even if this was fast approaching the worst after-birthday ever.

He unfolded the hitai-ate. It wasn't the one he'd graduated with, more than a decade ago -- that one was out rotting somewhere in Iwa-country, lost during the war -- this one had more meaning. Minato-sensei's old hitai-ate, gifted to protect Obito's last act in the world, a year before Minato had given himself to the Fox.

Kakashi remembered the blinding smile, the hair-ruffle he'd been too slow to duck. Don't lose it!

And he hadn't.

He pressed the metal plate to his forehead, exhaling slow, then stripped off the t-shirt bandage and tied the hitai-ate in its place, like slanting armour. Familiar weight.

Much better.

If he'd been on his own, he might have gone to sleep right then, resting against the door and relieved all over again. Drowning in relief. At this rate, he was almost going to start believing in good news.

But Genma was right there, hollow with exhaustion and looking much sicker than he had a minute ago, and there were two more bundles within reach of Kakashi's hands. More things they both needed to do.

Kakashi reached for one, kicked the other to Genma, and staggered back to his feet. The bundle settled beneath one arm, more heavy than it had any right to be. He shoved himself away from the door and back to his teammate, until he could lean down and wrap his free hand beneath Genma's tattooed biceps, bracing himself for the effort of hauling Genma back up.

"C'mon," he mumbled. "Mattresses are over there. We should stay away from th'door."

Genma looked up at Kakashi, weariness in every motion. Even breathing felt like effort, but it was clear Kakashi wanted him to stand. He tried to shrug Kakashi's hand off, but the motion seemed to be some kind of cue to Kakashi, who tightened his grip and pulled.

At least with contact again Genma could feel Kakashi's chakra like a beacon. Alive, alive, alive, unbroken.

He grabbed the bundle with his right hand, and used it to push off from the floor. Let Kakashi's pull steady him. Even so the floor lurched under him. "Let go. Don't want to take you down with me. I can't do much for you without a decent medkit, and I'm not letting them--" Genma's sentence ended abruptly in a nauseated gulp. "Just go. Sit. Mattresses."

Not letting Kumoto and his assistant conduct any more experiments on either one of them. Not letting himself think about it.

Kakashi snorted. "Don't flatter yourself, Shiranui. You haven't taken me down yet." Disdain and something else laced through his raspy voice. Something Genma couldn't identify. Kakashi's fingers tightened again, steadying and pushing at the same time.

"You're a bastard," Genma said quietly, with no malice. Together they stumbled the rest of the way across the room to collapse on the mattresses. Kakashi shoved Genma towards the mattress closest to the wall -- furthest from the door. It was another scathing blow to Genma's pride that he needed that. Needed what fragile protection Kakashi -- beaten, battered, and swaying on his feet -- could offer.

All Genma wanted to do was lie down with his back against the cold wall, Kakashi within touching distance, and sleep. When he opened his blanket bundle, a bottle of water rolled out. A second water bottle stayed nestled in the folds of heavy cloth. There were foil-wrapped ration bars, too, and a small selection of basic medical supplies: aspirin tablets, antibiotic ointment, a roll of gauze. There was a toothbrush, a bar of soap, a comb. It looked like a standard prisoner's kit.

He wondered if they could trust the water, tantalizing in its crystal-clear bottle. He grabbed the one that had rolled away and uncapped it, sniffing cautiously at the mouth of the bottle. Nothing his nose could detect. "Can you tell? Is it safe?" he asked.

Kakashi leaned wordlessly across and inhaled without putting his hands anywhere near Genma's. A chaotic melody of scents met his nose -- everything in the bundle Genma had just unwrapped, the jagged tangle from Genma's own skin, the cold stone surroundings -- he frowned and pushed himself wearily onto hands and knees, getting closer.

Genma gave him a funny look. Kakashi reflected that he probably looked a lot like a bruised hunting hound, stretched out and sniffing.

"Shut up," he said, and put his head right over the bottle-neck. Genma had cracked the factory seal; there weren't any obvious needles marks in the plastic cap. Kakashi breathed in.

Water -- just water -- cool, clean, and mouthwatering. He checked once again, just to be sure, and then drew back before he snatched the prize away from Genma. His head thumped a lurching beat of want.

"I think it's okay," he croaked, and ripped into his own bundle. "It's not like there aren't easier ways to drug us -- they could just throw in a gas-grenade and close the door."

Genma made a rasping noise of agreement, like a verbal wince, and then went abruptly quiet. Water glugged and gurgled. Kakashi didn't have to look up to know that his teammate was engaged in trying to drown himself in the most pleasant way possible.

"Don't choke," he muttered, and let out a breath when he found two water bottles in his own stash, identical to Genma's. Kakashi's blanket-wrapped kit was almost exactly the same: ration bars, pitifully few medical supplies, toothbrush, toothpaste, and a comb which Kakashi stared blankly at, then tossed aside. A flat pillow. And one crucial difference.

Folded at the bottom, neat and pressed and smelling of laundry detergent, was a mask.

His mask. Stripped away by a medic countless hours ago, and, Kakashi had assumed, destroyed. But there were marks he recognized, little nicks in the tough cloth, a ragged pulled stitch in the hem, and it was his.

His hand hesitated. It was also a beautifully orchestrated gesture from Iwa, as if they could take it away and give it back and expect him to be grateful. As if he was that easily manipulated.

But it was his mask.

Kakashi touched it once, then yanked his hand away and picked up a water bottle instead. He snapped the cap off, sniffed the neck once -- it smelled just the same as Genma's -- and threw a long, angry, wildly relieving gulp of water down his parched throat. It tasted like nirvana. His headache eased back, just a little; his stomach clenched around the first thing he'd put into it in almost two days.

Kakashi pressed the cold bottle momentarily to the back of his neck. Then he put his mask on.

Genma had downed three-quarters of his first bottle before the sensation of cold water in his exhausted, empty belly set his system reeling. He took three shaky breaths, then carefully recapped the water bottle, set it and its mate aside, along with the ration bars and medical supplies, pulled the blanket around his shoulders, and lay down. He watched Kakashi, and took slow, deep breaths, blowing them out through pursed lips, and eventually the queasiness melted into simple chills.

When Kakashi gave him a concerned look, he signed again: I'm okay. Kakashi's impatient shake of his head was more than adequate to convey his belief that Genma was lying.

"Feel better with that on?" Genma asked, hoping conversation would suffice to end this non-verbal discussion of his own distress. "I'm surprised they sent that back to you. Just when I was getting used to the idea you had a chin, too."

"Subtle," Kakashi drawled. His body language was at odds with his tone, as his shoulder twitched and he turned his gaze sharply away. "I was just getting used to the idea of you not being a total asshole."

Genma was too spent to muster more than a dismissive "Hnh," in response. He lay still, conserving what little energy he had, and tried to imagine himself warm. At least it was warmer here than it had been in that medical room. And Kakashi was undoubtedly grateful for the cool, after the smoke-filled oven he'd been roasted in.

Kakashi picked up one of the ration bars, examined it carefully, turning it over and over, running his fingers along every seam, before he pulled it open, sniffed the contents, and looked up at Genma again. He leaned closer, shifting his weight onto the opposite hip, and held the bar out to Genma. "This one's safe. Are you going to eat, or do I have to shove it down your throat?"

Genma's eyes flicked wide, then narrowed. "Not hungry," he said. And it was true. But he knew it was only because he'd crossed the line that fatigue and fasting set, where the body finally decided craving unavailable food was a waste of energy. The idea of biting into that ration bar turned his stomach. He reached for it, anyway.

"Blueberry crunch," he read from the label. "They grow those up here. Blueberries. Kobo liked them, but it was February when we were here, so there were only dried ones." An innocuous memory tied to every disaster after it: eating dried Earth Country blueberries at breakfast, the morning before they had been ambushed.

He took an experimental bite of one corner of the bar. It was shockingly sweet. Tasty. "I decided I'd keep liking blueberries, for Kobo's sake. You know? A lot of guys would hate them, but I decided to like them instead."

Eat, don't reminisce, Kakashi wanted to say, but Genma was managing both. Kakashi watched him for a long moment, waiting to see if that ugly pallid-green colour washed back over Genma's face, but water and warmth seemed to be doing the trick. Genma took another, bigger bite, and his scent stayed mostly nausea-free. Sliced through with half a dozen difficult emotions Kakashi hesitated to even guess at, underwritten with bone-crunching exhaustion, but vomiting didn't seem to be in the immediate future.

Kakashi relaxed.

Food, water, physical comfort -- there was nothing else he could do for his teammate, other than keep Genma flat on his back and as safe as possible. (Nasty joke, that, deep in the bowls of Iwa's prison. Kakashi tried not to dwell on the thought.) He found a second ration bar -- soy flavoured this time, blessedly unsweet -- and went through the same process of examining it thoroughly while his stomach clenched and growled. No trace of visible tampering or poison. Kakashi resigned himself, and pulled his mask down to his chin. The bar vanished in three bites, chased by another long swallow of water; he yanked his mask back up.

Sticky grain hit his stomach like a gift, stirring only the faintest ripple of nausea. Kakashi ignored it; he didn't have the time, will, or energy to be sick. His fingers found another ration bar, but he let it stay wrapped. There was no telling when they'd be given more food.

Genma was still eating his own ration bar in slow, cautious, half-sized mouthfuls. Still looking inward, as the taste of blueberries took him back to the memory of a teammate who'd likely been dead for years.

His teammate from the last broken mission that had landed him in Iwa's tender care, Kakashi didn't have to guess.

Kobo liked wild fruit. Seijuro wasn't strong enough.

Kakashi wondered if their names were on the monument, knew that Kobo's would be, and wished Genma had kept his mouth closed. Between them, they already carried a lifetime's worth of tragedies -- Kakashi didn't need more. Didn't need to know life details about a captain he'd run missions with twice, and unbent enough to actually consider a good man. And if Genma didn't guard himself, he was going to end up saying something he didn't mean. Something Iwa would be interested in.

"You should sleep," Kakashi said quietly. He pulled a knee up, draping one arm over it, and rested his chin on the crook of his elbow. "Dream about -- something better."

"Yeah, sleep" Genma agreed on a soft breath. For a moment his eyes shut and his hands went lax. The rest of his ration bar fell to the mattress beside him, protected in its torn wrapper. Forgotten. For a moment, just a moment, Genma dreamed of Seijuro's laugh.

He took a deep breath and opened his eyes wide. Control was slipping by the second, and fatigue was edging into something more dangerous. Kakashi's suggestion of dreams felt almost like a threat. Genma made himself focus, trying to conjure up some safe thought. "I'll dream about tea," he told Kakashi. "Really good tea. That silver-leaf stuff from down south." He yawned, curled up on his side. "In a nice... nice iron pot."

Kakashi chuckled quietly. "Tea is good."

Genma's eyes fell unfocused again. Kakashi was an indistinct grey blur, in clothes nearly the same shade as the walls. Camouflage. Prison camouflage. Iwa couldn't have intended it. Maybe they didn't know. Genma snorted half a laugh and curled his hands in close to his body. "You too. Sleep," he said, after a pause. "Lie down. Not like there's any point setting a watch."

Kakashi made a face that even with his mask on was clear: puzzlement that turned into a wince. Not setting a watch was just wrong.

"I know," Genma murmured. "It's fucked up."

Kakashi answered with a tiny exhausted nod and a sigh. He carefully arranged the things their captors had given him next to the wall: the empty water bottle and the full one, soap, comb, and toothbrush. He set the pillow and blanket on the mattress, then dragged the mattress around until it was right next to Genma's, between Genma's and the door. For a moment he knelt there, looking at Genma, at the door. Making sure Genma was completely guarded.

Genma shuddered under his blankets, gut twisting with gratefulness for that gesture.

Kakashi picked up his own blanket and wrapped it around his shoulders like a cape, then fell with a suddenness that set Genma's heart racing. Genma jerked up, reaching out to touch Kakashi's shoulder.

Alarm burst in a sour ripple of scent. Cold, crooked fingers tightened over the t-shirt covered angle of Kakashi's shoulder.

He barely twitched. It was just Genma, and Kakashi was too tired.

"M'okay," he mumbled, with a belated guess at what that heartfelt collapse had looked like from Genma's angle. He reached back and closed a too-heavy hand around Genma's forearm, high above scar-slashed fingers. Patted once, like soothing a fraught dog, and let his hand drop away. "S'fine..."

Genma's hand hesitated, then pulled back. Kakashi heard blankets rustling as he settled again. "Don't do that," Genma muttered, sounding wildly tired and far too relieved. There was a pause, dense with silence, then a dead-voiced mumble. "Bastard."

Kakashi exhaled a silent, one-breath laugh. "Keeps me young," he agreed nonsensically.

"Go to sleep, brat."

Genma sounded like he was well on his way, words slurring together into deep, unpeaceful breathing. Kakashi kept himself forcibly awake for one more minute, listening to that rhythm. Inhaling the swirled tangle of Genma's scent as it eased out, coiling in on itself, tension and fear and pain bleeding into nothing but an echo.

Reflecting unpleasantly on what he was going to have to do, if they made it out alive and that nickname turned into an attempt at anything more. Not a relationship -- Genma wasn't nearly that stupid -- but trauma was bonding, and this much bad luck was probably life-partner making, and--

And it wouldn't be the first time Kakashi had dragged someone through hell and back, only to find himself breaking fingers at the end of it.

His hand clenched. Genma made a quiet sighing sound in his sleep.

Kakashi rolled onto his aching side, putting his back very firmly to his mission-partner and his face squarely towards the door, and reminded himself why they were here. Fixing his mistake. Getting out alive. Whatever it took. Everything else was something he could deal with later.

The door stayed bolted. No obvious camera lenses glinted from the walls. Kakashi made a mental note to check every single inch of this cell when he could stand back up -- and another note to find out what exactly they'd done to Genma, why even the mention of medics made him flinch like a knife-strike. And he needed to learn what jutsu, exactly, this cell was designed to eat...

Sleep came like a choke-hold, dragging Kakashi down. For a long time, he didn't dream.