| [Jan. 1st, 2011|08:30 pm] |
"You should go keep him warm, then," Ginta said. He shivered as the icy rain pelted his face, and pulled the blanket Kakashi'd draped over him earlier higher on his shoulders. The fire popped and hissed, and a gust of wind caught the treetops, rattling the branches.
Pakkun cocked his head to the right slightly and gave Ginta an almost blank look. "Have you noticed recently how I'm twelve inches long?"
Ginta returned the flat look. "You're more tired than I am, then. Seeing as you're so much smaller."
"Hardly. I joined this party after you'd already put in a full day's run," Pakkun pointed out.
"Fine. But..." Ginta glanced towards the dark tent, then back at the sputtering fire. "The only way this fire is going to stay lit is if I keep feeding it chakra."
Pakkun didn't even have to voice the objection to that, his look said it all: I am a ninja, you know.
He could feel Pakkun's eyes boring into him.
"I'm not the one he wants in there with him," Ginta said quietly.
Pakkun gave an aggrieved sigh. "It's a good thing you're pretty, kid, because you're winning no prizes for brains." He got up, walked three steps over to Ginta, and stretched up to rest his front paws on Ginta's chest, lowering his voice. "We're three weeks late trying to save the guy he wants with him. The same stupid guy who ripped his heart all out a month ago when he left without a word. If you were anyone else, Kakashi would've knocked you out sixteen hours ago and bolted with your notes. But you're still here and he's actually listening to you, so if you ever cared about him, you need to get your butt in there and pretend like it's still true." He looked Ginta in the eye with an iron-core stare. "Or I can bite your nose off. Your choice."
Ginta shivered, but he didn't look away. "I do care. If I had to pretend, I'd have given him my notes and let him go it alone. Or not ever told him I even had them in the first place. I was prepared to do this search on my own."
Go ahead and try to scent a lie there, he thought, just try.
Not caring about the fact that Kakashi had already proved to be the one puzzle he hadn't been able to master, despite concerted effort.
He put his palms flat on the ground and pushed to his feet. His injured leg was shaky to the point of uselessness, but thanks to that gel Kakashi'd given him, the pain was a deeply distant ache, like thunder a long way off. "He said to let him sleep three hours. You can wake me instead, if you want."
When he crawled into the tent he whispered a quiet, preemptive, "It's me, Genius. Your dog wants to take first watch. Go back to sleep." Then he lay down close to Kakashi, cast a warming jutsu, and pulled the blankets up over the pair of them.
Kakashi mumbled something incoherent that might have ended in Ginta's name. He rolled towards Ginta, throwing a hand across Ginta's chest and curling his fingers around the chestplate strap, then tucked his masked chin down, with his head pressed against Ginta's shoulder. His soft breaths settled back into the rhythm of sleep.
After a moment, Ginta reached out with a hand of his own, and carefully laid it over Kakashi's arm, before he, too, closed his eyes and let sleep descend. |
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