| [Feb. 21st, 2010|04:46 am] |
Without Kakashi to hold on to, Genma wavered, balance fraying and strength ebbing. He shifted his weight cautiously, bracing one palm flat against the floor, and looked around the bare room. Of course they were watching. They always watched. And they'd come back.
"It's what they want us to think," he told Kakashi softly. He didn't want to rob hope from Kakashi, didn't want to undermine whatever fragile hold on himself the other shinobi had pulled together, but...
But this was Iwagakure, and Genma knew better. Which would be worse, to let Kakashi hold on to a fragile, desperate, false belief that they were about to be saved? Or to prepare him for what had to be coming next?
"I... Listen. This isn't telling them anything new; they already know. They know.... who I am. Who you are, obviously. But..." He could feel his arm starting to shake. His head aching. His hands...
Gods, his hands. Genma shifted again, swaying precariously, hunched over himself as if he were cold, cradling his hands to his chest. His eyes slid sideways to Kakashi, up through his own lank hair. He didn't bother to push it out of his face.
"You know, right? You know I was here, before. Not here, another... facility. But here."
Kakashi nodded once, tightly. When his head bent forward, Genma could see the swelling, and heavy black stitches buried in blood-stained, too-short hair.
"This," Genma's eyes swept the room, coming to rest on the window. Then back down, to Kakashi. Clean. Clothed. Bandaged. "This is new. But I watched. They showed me--video feed. Saw what they did to you."
Kakashi flinched like he'd been struck.
Genma just continued, almost to himself. A raw monotone. "Same tactics. Same tactics, different interrogators. Medic's the same, though. Fucking medic." For a moment fire flashed. Genma shuddered. "He's good. Keeps you just enough alive that the questioning doesn't kill you." His voice guttered down again, ragged and flat.
"You're good. Stronger than Seijuro. I never saw Seijuro till almost the end. Saw him once, and then didn't see him, and then saw him again and it was bad..." He trailed off, seeing nightmares. Then looked up abruptly, catching Kakashi with a piercing gaze.
"Don't let them do that to you." |
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