| [May. 4th, 2009|05:36 pm] |
It took Genma a moment to register that Raidou was talking to him. Responding to him. He'd dropped the syringe after injecting Raidou, and started stroking his arm over and over, as if he could force the drug to work faster by pushing the blood through Raidou's veins. Whispered the meaningless reassurances of all medics everywhere. Hang on. Breathe. Stay with me. Breathe.
"Rai..." Genma said, and suddenly couldn't think. He just repeated the name, rocking back on his knees to try to see more of him, eyes sweeping from bandage to bandage, burn to burn. The gauze on Raidou's face had come loose, exposing yellowish blisters and angry red welts where Sago's rake had lain waste to the already scarred skin.
"Rai." It was a mantra of relief, a prayer. The only thing keeping Genma anchored in the present. There was blood smeared over his friend, a black bruise across his sternum. "They kicked you..." Genma reached a hesitant hand up, not quite touching.
Raidou flinched away, and Genma did too, drawing his hand back as if he'd brushed a live coal.
Raidou's voice sounded a million miles away when he repeated himself, urging Genma to give him his hand. His other hand.
Genma turned numbly to look at it, bloody and grotesque.
"I can't..." He shuddered, felt the ground shifting under him. His bare shoulders met the edge of the cot, and he twitched, started shaking afresh. Pulling it in towards his body, he cradled his left arm at the elbow with his right, and looked up at Raidou.
"It was worse--before." |
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