Alarm burst in a sour ripple of scent. Cold, crooked fingers tightened over the t-shirt covered angle of Kakashi's shoulder.

He barely twitched. It was just Genma, and Kakashi was too tired.

"M'okay," he mumbled, with a belated guess at what that heartfelt collapse had looked like from Genma's angle. He reached back and closed a too-heavy hand around Genma's forearm, high above scar-slashed fingers. Patted once, like soothing a fraught dog, and let his hand drop away. "S'fine..."

Genma's hand hesitated, then pulled back. Kakashi heard blankets rustling as he settled again. "Don't do that," Genma muttered, sounding wildly tired and far too relieved. There was a pause, dense with silence, then a dead-voiced mumble. "Bastard."

Kakashi exhaled a silent, one-breath laugh. "Keeps me young," he agreed nonsensically.

"Go to sleep, brat."

Genma sounded like he was well on his way, words slurring together into deep, unpeaceful breathing. Kakashi kept himself forcibly awake for one more minute, listening to that rhythm. Inhaling the swirled tangle of Genma's scent as it eased out, coiling in on itself, tension and fear and pain bleeding into nothing but an echo.

Reflecting unpleasantly on what he was going to have to do, if they made it out alive and that nickname turned into an attempt at anything more. Not a relationship -- Genma wasn't nearly that stupid -- but trauma was bonding, and this much bad luck was probably life-partner making, and--

And it wouldn't be the first time Kakashi had dragged someone through hell and back, only to find himself breaking fingers at the end of it.

His hand clenched. Genma made a quiet sighing sound in his sleep.

Kakashi rolled onto his aching side, putting his back very firmly to his mission-partner and his face squarely towards the door, and reminded himself why they were here. Fixing his mistake. Getting out alive. Whatever it took. Everything else was something he could deal with later.

The door stayed bolted. No obvious camera lenses glinted from the walls. Kakashi made a mental note to check every single inch of this cell when he could stand back up -- and another note to find out what exactly they'd done to Genma, why even the mention of medics made him flinch like a knife-strike. And he needed to learn what jutsu, exactly, this cell was designed to eat...

Sleep came like a choke-hold, dragging Kakashi down. For a long time, he didn't dream.