| Purgatory is a Hospital Bed. [Closed to Kakashi & Haruichi] | [May. 16th, 2008|08:50 pm] |
Backdated. Follows directly after Come Hell or High Water
When Kakashi woke up, it wasn't the dark sloping roof of a low cave that met his sight first. Neither was it the high-vaulted arches of Konoha's forest trees. It wasn't even the familiar ceiling of his own room.
Instead he groaned, shifted, and cracked one eye open to find his vision full of blue and orange. He blinked and the blur resolved itself into a face, one with wide orange eyes and hair that had been dyed magenta and blue before its owner had forced it into a multitude of braids. It was a girl, and she was roughly six inches from his nose.
His unmasked nose.
Kakashi had half a second to see his own shock mirrored in wide eyes, before she smiled like a sunbreak and leaned back. The gesture wasn't vastly reassuring. He tried to jerk his hands close, and instead felt them yanked back by something that hurt. He flinched, one-eyed gaze jittering sideways, and caught a confused impression of tubes and needles and softly beeping machines. An array of paper seals swathed over his right forearm, glowing softly with chakra. There was something strapped over his face, hissing gently in a way that suggested oxygen.
Capture? Had they been caught? Where was Haruichi?
Before Kakashi could gather the mental reserves necessary to panic or injure the girl--or both--Pakkun uncurled from the bottom of the bed and padded neatly up to sit down by his elbow. "Hey, brat."
Kakashi blinked, gaze flickering from girl to dog. There was something tied over his sharingan; he couldn't see even when he opened the eye. He coughed and tried to say 'Pakkun?', but his voice died somewhere around throat level.
Pakkun's floppy ears twitched. "S'okay, kid. Stay calm. You're in Konoha. Hospital, actually. You've had a bunch of surgery and healing, so don't do anything stupid to mess it up. Like moving."
Hospital, not captured. Relief settled around his heart, slowing the wavy green lines that traced over nearby monitors. He studied the girl once more, and gave Pakkun a questioning look.
The little pug licked his elbow and settled down, small body pressed against Kakashi's ribs. "This is Hoshi. She's deaf, so smile nicely. She's Haruichi's fiancée. The dog over there is hers." Pakkun's expression shifted to something Kakashi might've called slightly love-struck, if he'd been capable of words. "She's Pika. And Haruichi's over there."
Kakashi followed the dog's nod to another bed across the room. If Haruichi was in it, he'd managed to fall asleep with a book across his face. There was a heavy plaster cast wrapped around his right arm, and an IV stretching from his left. Kakashi remembered a knife, standing out bloody and obscene from flesh and bones that had to be broken. But Haruichi was there, and he was definitely alive. Kakashi relaxed slightly. |
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