| [Jun. 5th, 2009|02:54 am] |
Four hours felt like nothing when the clone set its hand on Kakashi's neck, barely got a twitch, and shocked him awake with Ryouma's chakra-to-brain technique. He bolted upright, shedding blankets and knocking the IV stand over, and grabbed his mirror-image by the throat before cognitive thought switched back on.
Grey eyes stared at one another.
Slowly, the hand Kakashi had clenched around the kunai left on his cot-side table relaxed, releasing the weapon. The clone opened its mouth, rasped something unintelligible, and gave up. It signed with hands held very carefully out to its sides.
Let go?
Kakashi blinked, shook his head in a tangle of flyaway, chemical-stained hair, and pulled his hand back before he accidentally crushed something, like a voicebox. "How long?" His voice was a croak.
"Four hours."
Kakashi coughed and touched his throat; fingers flicked away before they did more than brush old steri-strips. He frowned, lifting his hand to his mouth. "You took my mask?"
"Priorities," the clone reminded him. It was starting to shimmer around the edges, chakra weakening after so long.
"That is a priority," Kakashi grated, hauling himself up. Bandages pulled him up short. Hip, shoulders, right hand; the clone had been busy. He tried again, prepared for the tight squeeze of linen over protesting injuries, and found himself dressed in nothing but blood-splattered pants.
His shirt was folded on the floor. He reached for it and had to stop. He felt beaten. Every muscle from the neck down moaned the kind of dark red protest you would normally associate with sledgehammers wielded by strong, violent men. It was like having a body built out of heavily twanged rubber bands. His head pounded.
"Son of a--" He started to groan, and stopped. The curse was Ryouma's, and if he thought about Ryouma now he wouldn't be able to stand.
Carefully, he stretched. Joints cracked, an orchestra of bones settling back into place. He reached for his shirt again. "News?"
"None."
"Enemies?"
"No sign."
"How's Ginta?"
"See for yourself." The clone offered his mask back, and tipped its head sideways. Kakashi yanked his shirt down, pulled the mask over his head--exhaled, soft and quiet, because cloth sliding down his face fixed something basic--and turned his head.
In the warm light cast by a single oil lamp, Ginta's skin didn't seem quite so pale. Kakashi took a step closer, not-quite-awake gaze taking in everything there was to see. A blanket covered Ginta up to the ribcage, hiding the worst of his injuries. His hands rested lax at his sides. Deep bruises, almost black in the low light, kissed the edge of his narrow jaw and the corner of his right eye. His cheeks were hollower than Kakashi remembered, sharper, bones lifted out in razor-blade relief. A single split marred his lower lip. Cinder-burns slick with shiny ointment slid down the left side of his face, dropped off the jawbone, and reddened his throat.
Slowly, steadily, his narrow chest lifted.
Beyond exhausted, aching from head to foot, ravenous and still entangled by his IV line, Kakashi managed the edge of a smile. Even with Tsuyako's death on his soul and a whole factory-clusterfuck to explain back home...
Worth it.
He sat down by Ginta's head, and touched two careful fingers to the pulse in his throat. Eyelashes flickered; a sliver of blue glinted. Kakashi pulled his hand back.
"Hey," he said quietly. |
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