| [Mar. 28th, 2015|03:20 am] |
Once he could breathe again, face wet and nose clogged, an undetermined amount of time later, Asuma finally opened his mouth to lie, “I’m okay.”
“And I’m Hokage,” Genma replied, voice teasing but shaded with concern. He saw through the lie, and wasn’t going to let Asuma stand behind it. “You want a cup of tea? Or some of Aoba’s good stuff? I know where he keeps it.”
Ordinarily Asuma would laugh at the tease, but he didn’t have the energy for it. Instead he just sighed, and put his hand over Genma’s, where it was resting on Asuma’s belly.
“I can just see you trying to make tea at this hour,” he said. Though he hadn’t really cried (not really), his throat still felt sore. “Your nurse would kill me.”
“She doesn’t have to know. And I don’t know how you make tea, but I think I can manage, if you want some.” Despite the assurance, Genma made no move to get up. After a pause, his voice turned softer, more serious. “I know tea’s not… Not enough.”
Nothing’s enough, Asuma thought, but he knew Genma knew that. Academically, if nothing else.
“It’s okay,” he said, and wasn’t entirely lying this time. No, it wasn’t okay, but it was okay that Genma didn’t have anything that could bandage the still-raw edges of this wound. It wasn’t Genma’s fault that nothing could bandage such a wound.
Genma accepted that in silence, but after a moment started to prop himself up on one elbow. “Should I get that tea?” he asked. “Or Aoba’s top shelf whiskey?”
Asuma shook his head, just a little. “I’m good. I think I should just try to go back to sleep.”
Thankfully, Genma appeared to accept that. He tugged the covers up higher, over his own shoulder and higher on Asuma, and settled back down. It was a neat reverse from earlier in the night, Genma’s cheek resting on Asuma’s shoulder, breathing warm and soft against his skin.
“Wake me up if you can’t get back to sleep, okay?” he said, and wrapped his arm back around Asuma’s waist. The weight was more comforting than Asuma had expected.
“I will,” Asuma replied softly. He didn’t really expect to fall back asleep, not with that dream echoing in the back of his mind. How could anyone get back to sleep after dreaming you’d sentenced your best friend to some kind of metaphorical hell?
Eventually, after a long time spent staring at the ceiling and listening to Genma’s measured breaths, he slept. If he dreamed, the memory of it was gone by morning. |
|