Genma had finally allowed himself to succumb to the relentless undertow of sleep when the barred trapazoid near the ceiling had muted from navy to periwinkle, and shadows had revealed the depth of the recess, turning it back into a rectangle again. Now it was blindingly bright, glaring like a headache or a hangover. Genma winced and shut his eyes again, but didn't roll away from Kakashi's touch.

"What's wrong?" he asked sleepily. Shoving himself up on his elbows made him miserably aware of how little recovered he was, how much everything hurt. "Did they come back? Are you okay?"

Kakashi's masked face was carefully blank for the space of too many heartbeats, and then he shook his head as if dismissing some annoying thought. "No one's come back," he told Genma. He held up his injured hand. "Have you seen this before?"

The wound across the back of Kakashi's right hand was clearly deep, sharply incised, and held together by a series of spidery black stitches. Under bruises and dried blood, and the oily film of antibiotic ointment, the script seal almost seemed to twist like a live thing. Like a handful of writhing leeches.

Genma had never seen the like.

He frowned and sat the rest of the way up, hunching forward with a stiff groan. The world lurched dizzily around him, as his slow heart and weak chakra system struggled to supply enough energy to keep his brain running. Kakashi's uninjured hand caught his shoulder, steadying him.

When Genma's vision cleared, he examined the mark. "It's... I don't know. This part is chakra-limiting, but I've seen it on other medical jutsu. And I think this bit you sometimes see in antiseptic seals..." One bloodless, swollen-jointed finger traced along a delicate squiggle that wasn't any writing Genma could recognize. "This looks a little like that script they use way up north, in Snow Country. I think." He met Kakashi's gaze. "Does it hurt either more or less than it should, given how bad that looks? Can you flex all your fingers? Form seals?"

Medic's questions -- and good ones. Kakashi spread his hand out under Genma's careful, broken touch, splaying his fingers wide. Pain caught and pulled in a thick red line, like crawling fire, but no more than he'd expected. He twisted his fingers stiffly into one-sided seals: only half of a genin's basic pattern, nothing Iwa could steal and use. The movements were awkward, but acceptable.

"Everything's working like it should." Kakashi shrugged one frustrated shoulder. "I don't know what chakra would do, but I don't feel like risking it."

Instant alarm washed over Genma's wax-pale face. "No. Don't. They warned me yesterday. Chakra limiters in the walls. They had them before, too. Blistered my... my arms. Hands. Before. When I tried. Before."

Kakashi blinked once, slowly, as if exaggerated calm could stem the rush of fractured words. Or at least bring a little sense to them. Before as in the last time Genma had been at Iwa's extended mercy, or before as in yesterday? Or both? He flicked a glance at Genma's hands -- swollen joints, pale-mottled skin, endless networking scars -- and looked away when Genma stiffened. Not quite a flinch, but a reaction Kakashi didn't plan to provoke further. There had been a trace of redness -- remnants of blisters?

It was entirely frustrating, Kakashi realized abruptly, to know nothing of Genma's Iwa-experiences when Genma had been privy to Kakashi's not-entirely-faked, babbling crack up in full technicolour.

Genma had watched him scream. Kakashi didn't even know why Genma's knuckles looked red.

He pinched the bridge of his nose with his injured hand, letting the uninjured one continue to hold Genma steady, and refocussed. Priorities. Seals first.

"I know about the chakra limiters -- they've got a full matrix of seals in the walls. I'm more concerned with the seals on us right now. We need to check ourselves over." He twisted to show Genma the back of his neck, tugging his mask briefly down. "Any more you can see?"

Genma had to tear his eyes away from the back of Kakashi's hand, from the sight of the pulling, red-edged laceration and the sinister black script. Even the carefully placed sutures looked malevolent, glistening under their slathering of antibiotic ointment. His eyes dropped to his own hands for a moment, retracing the look Kakashi had given them. Swollen and red at the joints in a way they hadn't been in months. Aching with a fierceness that set an edge of nausea against Genma's back teeth if he thought about it too hard.

When he looked up again, Kakashi had twisted away and pushed black cloth down, baring the back of his neck. Genma's lips tightened and his eyes narrowed as he peered at the pale skin bordering paler hair. "Nothing here. Take your shirt off and raise your arms," he told Kakashi. "And I need to see your throat."

Kakashi gave him a careful, almost threatening look, assessing something Genma could only guess at, then stripped the overly-large t-shirt over his head. The mask stayed in place, and Genma let it go for the moment.

Kakashi's skin was surprisingly unmarked. There were scars, of course, new ones layered over old, layered over those so long ago inflicted they had almost ceased to exist. Scars earned in young childhood that had vanished as Kakashi's body grew around them.

Steel-grey tufts of hair in Kakashi's armpits hid no cleverly painted seals. The only black marking him was decaying blood under pale skin, and the bruises were days old, already going to yellow at the edges. The one gracing Kakashi's jaw, hidden by his mask, Genma had placed himself. Funny how long ago that hunting mission seemed now.

He continued his inspection, laying hands on Kakashi to turn him one way and another, peering at the places Kakashi couldn't see for himself with extra scrutiny: the scalp, where another bruised, stitched wound, this time without any tracery of seals, was the only black to be seen in the strangely-short hair. He checked the nape again, then traced Kakashi's neck vertebra to broad shoulders, followed the spinal curve lower until he reached the downy small of Kakashi's back.

"I don't see anything else yet," Genma said at last. "Take your pants off."

This time the look Kakashi gave him was even more unsettling.

"No," said Kakashi at length, and heard the finality in his voice clang like an iron door.

"If I were going to hide a seal on you," Genma said with level, careful calm, "I'd put it where I didn't think you'd let anybody look, and where you can't look yourself without a clone. Which you can't make in here." He paused, gaze flicking away and back. "You'll need to check me, too."

Kakashi's jaw clenched hard enough to crack at the hinges. He could still feel Genma's touch on his skin, burning like handprints pressed into cold clay. A watermark written into muscle-memory, ranked alongside every other time Genma had ever touched him -- violent, careful, easing, hurting -- and even his own body couldn't decide whether to lean forwards or away.

And that didn't even approach the issue of being naked. Kakashi wasn't wearing his own clothes, but after thirty straight hours of nothing but bare skin in the yawning darkness, he was getting pretty attached to his t-shirt and pants. Particularly because he didn't much enjoy being naked in front of his teammates anyway, even when necessity overruled modesty.

Except -- it had never really been about modesty. More like a bone-deep, full-body revulsion at stripping away any more layers than he had to, and a burning compulsion to not be seen. By anybody. Ever.

Especially not a man who'd already seen so much.

Something must have shown on his face, because Genma cast him a silent, waiting look, then leaned unsteadily to scoop up Kakashi's abandoned shirt and hold it out. "Quicker you do it," he pointed out, "the quicker it's over with."

"If you could not talk, I would find that very helpful," Kakashi said flatly. "Ever again, for preference." The words slid down into a throat-deep cut-off growl as he yanked the shirt back over his head. Two quick movements jerked his mask down and his hitai-ate off, then he stood up to lose his pants. They landed in a crumpled heap around his ankles. He turned a circle with his hands held out from his sides, feeling every shade of ridiculous and furious (helpless), before pulling them back on. Genma wisely made no comment as Kakashi sat down, just leaned in to study Kakashi's face intently.

Kakashi left his mask down for a second longer, chin tipping reluctantly up to let Genma look at his throat. He glared at a point somewhere above that messy brown head, feeling his cheeks heat and his stomach twist, and fantasized about razing Iwa to the ground.

Genma looked as quickly as he could. The tension and impatience in Kakashi's every motion was an added layer to the warning snarl in Kakashi's voice, the hard glare of an angry eye. When Kakashi tipped his chin up showing dusty stubble on a pallid throat, Genma could see the edge of his own knuckles printed in mud-blue bruising along the left side of Kakashi's jaw.

There were no seals. No seals at all, except for the alarming one on Kakashi's injured hand.

Genma turned his gaze away, slid himself back, and didn't reach out to touch Kakashi again. "I don't see anything else," he said quietly. "Maybe it really is just a medical. That's a nasty looking cut." With a nasty looking seal. In Iwagakure's prison. Inflicted by Kumoto or his assistant. Genma didn't believe his own lie for a second.

His gut tightened warningly, and he glanced at that hideously exposed toilet. There was nothing in him but water and half a rat-bar, he told himself. But he did need a piss, which somehow seemed like an insult. He pushed himself to unsteady feet, stripped off his t-shirt with a shiver, and limped his way across the small room. "Turn your back, or whatever," he said as casually as he could, and turned his whole body away while he undid the pajama pants and let them pool around his ankles. He heard a small, startled noise from Kakashi, and a shuffling sound from across the room. Drowned it out with the echo of liquid splashing in a metal chamber.

When he'd finished he turned back, kicked the pants up into his hand, and went to stand naked and goosefleshed by the mattresses. Kakashi was examining the wall again, probably looking for cracks where microphones and cameras might be hidden.

It gave Genma time to gather the pathetic little plastic toothbrush and tube of vaguely mint-flavored paste their captors had given him, make a second trip back across the cell, and clean the film of sleep from his mouth with a few parsimonious sips of water from his remaining bottle. He rinsed and spat into the toilet then looked up at Kakashi and the mattresses again. He wished he'd kept his damn shirt on, wished he wasn't still so drained, wished he wasn't tempted to drop to his knees and crawl back to the ersatz bed.

"Okay." His voice sounded too loud in the silence. As he made his halting way back across the room, he could feel Kakashi's gaze on him. It made no sense--Genma was accustomed to being naked with others, accustomed to scrutiny of his bare flesh. He didn't have any shame left, did he?--but Kakashi's edgy regard cut like a knife.

Even pale with a mesh-work of fatigue, sickness, and pain, Genma's skin still held the remains of a golden summery tan. And no tan lines.

Kakashi felt his shoulderblades hitch against the cold stone wall -- something like surprise, uncomfort, and a rising awareness of all that nakedness -- and bit down hard on the inside of his cheek. There were no bitemarks around Genma's throat, no fingerprint bruises marking his hips -- nothing at all to show he'd done anything but sleep last night. But memory bloomed bright and hot in full colour, and this was precisely why Kakashi liked to be gone the morning after.

A small, much more collected inner part of him turned that thought over and declared it ridiculous -- when had this ever happened before? -- but the rest of him ignored it in favour of trying to focus.

Genma watched warily as Kakashi pushed away from the wall and moved closer; Kakashi tried very hard not to prowl.

"Lift your arms," he said, circling around behind Genma's back. Genma did so, muscles sliding smoothly under skin, head twisting to watch Kakashi's progress. Kakashi didn't touch him, but he did get close enough to breathe a complex lungful of Shiranui Genma feeling uncomfortable as he looked for seals in the shadowed hair beneath Genma's arms. The paler skin of his inner thighs. Across his shoulders, down the length of his spine. Beneath the sharp, stubble-blurred angle of a lifted jaw.

The focus of having an actual task crept back and re-settled Kakashi when they were about halfway through -- more so when Genma stepped back into his own pants and hiked them up. The older ninja was shaking by that point, renewed exhaustion rolling through his scent like burning pitch. Kakashi set a hand on one still-bare shoulder, pushing Genma back down onto the mattress.

Genma stiffened very slightly, but went willingly and sat cross-legged with a relieved breath. Kakashi crouched down beside him, but hesitated before touching the hitai-ate still knotted in place.

"Nothing so far," he said. "I need to look under your hair."

There was a momentarily puzzled silence, then Genma made a quiet ah noise and reached up to slip his backwards hitai-ate free. Beneath the steel-fixed cloth his hair was still a wild mess, dark with dried sweat and splattered flecks of old blood, a remnant of where Kakashi had yanked that tangle of poison out the back of Genma's neck.

There was a bandage covering the wound now; a taped patch of gauze that Kakashi eyed with deep suspicion. He brushed Genma's hair aside and picked the edge carefully free.

"Hold still."

It came away cleanly, with a long peeling sound that reminded Kakashi of tearing paper, and revealed solid, stomach-knotting proof that all this nakedness hadn't been for nothing. The wound was still there -- cleaned now, and healthier looking without the strange blue tint it had carried before, glossy under a layer of ointment -- but it wasn't the only thing on Genma's neck.

A cluster of seals stood out starkly, wound together like a tattoo carved into wounded skin.

Kakashi held his right hand up next to them, studying the loops and whorls next to each other, and blew out a tight breath between his teeth.

"You have seals on the back of your neck," he said reluctantly. "They're different to mine. More delicate -- hang on." He pulled his hand away, letting Genma's hair resettle against rigid shoulders, and almost bit his own thumb before a better idea occurred. They had no writing implements, but toothpaste made a better substitute than blood. He retrieved his small, half-used tube and sketched out a quick, accurate design on the flagstones. "Look. These coils are the same -- here and here. But these are completely different."

And he still had no idea what any of it meant.

Genma blew out another breath and stared at the seals Kakashi had sketched in streaky white on the cement floor. He recognized some bits, but seals weren't his forte. "That's... If you turn that sideways, it's similar to the bit at the base of your thumb," he said slowly. "The chakra-limiting bit. But it's not activated. At least it doesn't look like it's activated. Usually you need a fire sign at the apex to activate a chakra inhibitor, and I don't see... Unless these things are a fire sign." He pointed at three little parallel ticks Kakashi had made with the paste.

Kakashi shook his head, evidently as baffled as Genma. As alarmed. Maybe even more so, judging by the grim expression on his masked face. Genma folded his arms around himself, tucking achy hands against his ribs. "I don't know. But the... the chakra sieve jutsu that went wrong... Between that and the poison, it's not surprising there's some seal work there. That's why we even came here, right? Because otherwise I was--"

Kakashi's look shut him up.

They stared in silence at the designs drying on the floor, until Genma started shivering and Kakashi handed him his shirt. He pulled it on gratefully and curled his knees up close to himself. Lying back down under blankets and just sleeping until the next thing happened, whatever that was, seemed like the only attractive option. But Kakashi's hand was still unbandaged, oozing serous fluid and a few drops of blood. "You need to wrap that back up. You want me to do it?"

Kakashi gave him an unfathomably dry look. "I prefer medics with unshaking hands," he said bluntly. Genma looked down at himself, at hands he tried to hold carefully still, and saw tremors racing through parchment-pale skin and swollen, reddened joints.

What had that bastard Kumoto done to him?

"Sleep, if you need to," Kakashi said firmly. "I'll take care of it." He turned his eye back on his own hand, and the design on the floor, staring as hard as a medium into a rainbow-blurred scrying stone.

Genma's right hand rose cautiously to the back of his neck, where the gauze still flapped down. His fingers met heated, moist flesh, and sent a shock of fire through torn nerves in the damaged skin. When he jerked his hand down, his fingers came away blood-tinged and oily.

"What else is there, besides the seals?" he asked in as carefully neutral a voice as he could muster. "How deep is it? Did they..." Did they what? He was breathing, speaking, able to use all his limbs.

But he remembered detonations at the base of his neck under Kumoto's hands. Remembered his fingers being flexed and prodded. Hair-thin senbon inserted into joints, threaded into chakra channels as probes.

What the fuck had Kumoto done to him? And what in the name of the holy merciful Bodhisattva were those seals?

There wasn't much change in Genma's voice, and Kakashi wasn't really listening to him anyway. But the scent change -- that grabbed Kakashi's attention. He flicked a quick glance sideways, measuring Genma's stiff-backed profile. There wasn't much expression on Genma's pale, still face, but Kakashi had a lifetime's worth of practice at reading barely-concealed panic in fever-bright eyes.

He sat back, left hand casually covering the injured right, obscuring the design from Genma's view, and gave his teammate his full attention. Seals could wait, if they had to; struggling comrades couldn't. Especially when there was nowhere to run, no one to fight, and if Genma went down he'd drag Kakashi with him.

"It's just a scratch," he said calmly, with a nod towards Genma's neck. "And a... puncture in the middle, about the size of a fingernail. It's not deep enough to see bone." He didn't have much amusement in him, but he made a smile curve his mouth anyway, crooked at the corners. "If you're worried about spine-damage, I think we would have seen symptoms before. It's hard to miss your legs not working."

"I... Yeah. I know," said Genma, without any kind of attempt to meet Kakashi's eye. "If they wanted to cripple me, they had ample opportunity."

"Mm," Kakashi agreed, and realized he really had no idea what was going on inside Genma's head. Was this just more worry? Anxiety wrapped around tension and sickness until Genma went grey with it, bland-voiced and hot-bright-eyed, and just--stopped. Or was it simple exhaustion flattening his reactions? Or the quietest, most sedate panic attack Kakashi had ever witnessed.

None of them were especially good. And Kakashi didn't know Genma well enough to know.

He kicked a foot out, smearing the toothpaste seal-replica until it was an unrecognizable gritty smudge, and got to his feet. Genma watched, still wary, as Kakashi crossed over and dropped down next to him, sitting in a relaxed slouch that didn't feel quite natural, but still hid his wounded hand and looked good enough. He tilted his head back, glancing at the sunlit window, at the gold strings of light chasing through Genma's ragged hair.

"Talk," he said, but the word came out soft. Halfway between a suggestion, an offer, and an order. "I'll listen."

Genma turned to look at Kakashi, studying the sharply-cut profile hidden under clinging blue-black fabric. Yellow-tinged light slanted across Kakashi's hidden features, giving a lively glow to his pale skin. In some other circumstance, in some other life, Genma might even have called him handsome.

It was getting harder and harder to remember that he hated the man.

But this offer to listen, this strange command to talk... No. He could guess at what Kakashi wanted him to talk about, given where they were and what was common knowledge, at least amongst ANBU, about Genma's past. Given that pointed remark about shaking hands Kakashi had made. Talking about that couldn't lead anywhere good.

It was Genma's turn for a flat refusal.

He opened his mouth on 'no', but found different words taking shape. It was almost like that truth serum they'd drugged Kakashi with was flowing through his own veins now, he thought with alarm, hearing himself speak. Or maybe it was just that he was sick and scared, and trying to keep it together in circumstances that seemed designed to tear him apart. Maybe he really wanted to talk.

"Did I tell you about the medic? His name's Kumoto. Never learned his given name, everyone around him calls him Kumoto-sensei. I was pretty sure he was dead. Turns out I was wrong."

Kakashi brought a knee up in front of him, braced his elbow on that, and cupped his chin in his hand. He seemed as relaxed and focused as it was possible for a man to be. Like they had all the time in the world for this conversation, and there was nothing he'd rather be doing. All they lacked were a couple of beers and a riverbank to laze beside, instead of half-empty prison-issue water bottles and ninjutsu-limned jail walls.

The idea was startling enough it made Genma laugh. A hollow laugh, racked with irony, but a laugh nonetheless. "You'll never believe the image that just occured to me: the two of us sharing beers out on Kinomizu flat, at the gravel bar."

The look that crossed Kakashi's face was subtle. Almost a flinch. Almost a head shake. Almost like something Genma had said had been wounding.

"Yeah, I know, right? Never gonna happen. Told you you wouldn't believe it."

"I'm logical that way," said Kakashi, as dry and unforgiving as Suna's most barren stretch of desert.

Wounded, Genma thought again, and didn't know why.

"The medic?" Kakashi prompted.

"The medic," Genma echoed. He really didn't want to talk about it now.

"Usually a ninja of a medical persuasion," Kakashi said. His normal sarcasm was back, which was oddly reassuring to Genma. "Often has training related to a medical nature. Tend to be pretty good with jutsu." Then it was Kakashi who crossed the line. "Or, to put it another way," he said, drilling Genma with a look, "you watched me get my head ripped open in payment for your treatment, for hours, and I have absolutely no idea why a man who's not dead is making you spasm. So talk."

"Fuck you, Kakashi." Genma spat. He glared at the smeared-out seal on the floor, at his own feet, naked and scarred, and just as red-pricked as his hands. Almost as painful. "I don't owe you a fucking thing." His voice dropped low, almost as if he were talking to himself. "I was watching your back, that's why I watched. Not because I wanted to see them do that to you." He took a deep breath and looked up, surprised that Kakashi hadn't moved away.

Kakashi's bracing hand had moved, sliding beneath his chin until long scarred fingers could fan over his masked mouth and press down hard. It didn't help; his lips still broke into a dark, unhealthy, truthful grin. Like a razorblade with teeth.

Fuck you. I don't owe you a thing.

Genma was right; he owed Kakashi nothing. Kakashi had just done his job, and Genma had done his in return, and there wasn't going to be any gratitude. No attempt at beer and friendship and turning desperate midnight not-sex into anything but a stopgap to hold off the darkness. Genma was angry, not thankful, and there were a thousand ways to make anger work for you. Even if it broke the one-hundred rules of shinobi conduct. But if you were going to have a feeling burning in your stomach, clawing at your brain, rage was better than anything else.

Better than fear. Or anxiety that just turned inwards until it ate you alive.

Better than talking, if Genma could hold himself together without venting whatever mental poison that not-dead medic had spilled into his skull. At least until they made it home and Kakashi could hand him over to real medics, real psych agents. People actually qualified to deal with pulling someone apart and stitching them back together afterwards.

Genma was watching him, still stiff with irritation, but there was alertness in his face now. A vibrant, pissy, dark-eyed quality that reminded Kakashi of what the man had been like back at the start of this godawful mission, when every third sentence traded between them had been an insult.

I was watching your back.

Was Genma waiting for a thank you?

Kakashi dropped his hand and let his grin slide free, like a knife from a sheathe. Like uncaring, unthinking relief, and parroted Genma's words back to him in perfect cadence. "Fuck you, Shiranui. I don't owe you a thing."

Genma had seen few things more unsettling than that smile twisting under Kakashi's mask, and that gleam in his eye, full of self-awareness and cunning and pleasure. It looked, for one terrifying moment, just exactly the way Kumoto's face had looked, when Genma had been Iwagakure's prisoner before. When there had been no pretense of maintaining a treaty.

Kakashi hadn't moved away; Genma did. He slid himself back across mattresses and blankets until his shoulders met cold wall, and the chill chasing up his spine came as much from the physical world as his own racing mind. He grabbed up the blanket -- rough olive green wool, standard military issue for half-a-dozen shinobi nations, that varied only in intensity of dye and the stenciled sigil decorating one corner -- and wrapped it over himself as if it offered some kind of protection. Tense fingers clawed over the paired iconic stones that marked this as Iwa's property.

Kakashi had backed off, too. The smile was gone, replaced with wariness. The ease left his posture, replaced with mission-tense alertness. Genma was suddenly conscious of cameras and microphones they couldn't see. Of his fear from the day before: Iwa was trying to drive a wedge between them. They'd take any little crack Genma and Kakashi let show, and use it to split them both into kindling.

He made himself take a breath. Made himself relax his shoulders, ease the tension from his spine. Made himself lift the blanket and offer one corner to Kakashi. "Good. As long as we're clear on that. Are you cold? I don't know why they have to keep it so damn cold in here."

Kakashi just stared at him as if he'd spoken gibberish. "What?"

"Cold," Genma repeated. Mimicking Kakashi's mockery from before. "It's that condition when ambient temperature is enough below body temperature that you notice it and want to put on more clothes. Animals raise their fur, but humans just get goose skin, like this." He held out one arm, pimpled with erect hairs.

Kakashi continued to stare, frozen in place with a look on his face like Genma had sprouted an extra head. "You're a laugh riot," he drawled, in a voice far more casual than his stance.

Genma risked telegraphing his thoughts to their Iwa watchers, and let his eyes rove to the corners of the room where cameras might be hidden, then back to Kakashi. He wasn't having any trouble hating the man now. Sit your ass down and act normal, he thought fiercely at Kakashi. Aloud he said, "I thought you wanted to talk. I'd say we could play cards, but they didn't give us any. How about two truths and a lie? I'll start."

The look Kakashi was giving him still conveyed only that Kakashi thought Genma was insane.

"OK, let's see. Uchiha Fujiko cornered me at the back of Yamanaka's flower store and kissed me when I was six. I bought a new pair of jeans right before this mission and spilled coffee on them the first time I wore them. You give good head."

Genma's habit of talking in cryptic clues was getting frankly ridiculous.

Kakashi stayed where he was, back pressed to nothing, and tried to find the mental energy to work out what Genma wanted. To talk; to not talk. For Kakashi to be close; for Kakashi to get away. Fresh, honest ingratitude; a lying pretense of camaraderie.

Bizarre party games, apparently.

He thought they'd cracked it for a moment -- thought Genma was fine with plain dislike, easy-breathing anger, and Kakashi could just relax and be himself, without having to worry about walking the line between caring for a teammate and still being enough of a bastard to not be worth chasing when the mission was done. Not be worth dying for.

But Genma had paled and withdrawn and smelled like smoldering fear, and Kakashi knew he'd gone too far. And now Genma was being insane.

Obviously it was something to do with Iwa watching, judging by that unsubtle eye-flick, but if Genma was talking Konoha-code it was some obscure brand Kakashi didn't know. Yes, Iwa was watching. And?

"Lie," he answered finally, because Genma's scent had given him away. "And two truths. Though that last one is technically a lie: I give great head."

"You give mediocre head at best," Genma said, in the confident tones of a man with the experience to tell the difference. "My sensei would have made you practice juggling sugar marbles on your tongue until you could spit them out smaller but just as round as they went in."

"That's just disturbing." Kakashi had a brief mental picture of Minato-sensei holding out a handful of sugar marbles, grinning broadly, while Obito choked on horror and Rin went bright, bright red, and couldn't even put a name to the emotion that twisted in his chest. "You are deeply disturbed. Your sensei warped you."

"My sensei trained me," Genma said levelly, in a voice with secret sharp edges. "Too bad you were too fucked up to appreciate it the time I showed you."

Kakashi wanted out of this cell right now. His fingers twitched at his sides, the barest visual sign of hands that wanted to clench and snap something, like every one of Genma's stupid broken-healed fingers. He raised his chin, let a breath out, and crushed the urge.

"Oh, I appreciated it," he said, lying-bright, and let that grin come back. "I even said thank you, if I remember right. Do you come by that sadistic streak naturally, or did someone kick it into you?"

Genma's scent blackened, but his expression didn't change. "They bred it into me, same as you."

"Oh, bite me," Kakashi snapped, turning away and giving into the urge to pace. The cell wasn't that long; Kakashi covered it in eight strides, then turned and came back. Genma watched with lifted eyebrows, scent still churning through a complex mesh of emotions that were starting to give Kakashi a headache, but said nothing. Kakashi whirled on him before he'd finished his third lap. "You are completely inconsistent," he spat, in the same tone of voice judges used to accuse mobs of murdering small children.

Genma's mouth dropped open. "Me--?" he began.

"Shut up," Kakashi cut him off. "You are just -- phenomenally insane, and weird, and you make no sense." Genma was starting to make abrupt shutupshutup motions with his hands, like a man trying to redirect a herd of charging cattle. Kakashi ignored him, frustrated and trapped and boiling over. "I realize it's not your fault -- you were probably dropped down a flight of stairs as a child -- but if you could at least attempt to make some continued sense, or just stay in a corner and not pitch some kind of epileptic fit every thirty seconds--"

Light dawned for Genma. This -- this nonsensical, ineffective, sharp-as-a-kunai, twisted like iron left too long in the forge, crazy fury from Kakashi -- this was breaking. That demand in the showers a year ago, that craving to be hurt, that wasn't Kakashi's break; this was. This was Kakashi falling apart at the seams, and trying to provoke Genma into hurting him, because that might -- might -- help him get himself back together again.

A year ago, Genma had refused to oblige.

A year ago he hadn't really cared if Kakashi broke.

But right here, right now, it was the most important thing in the world that Kakashi pull his shit together. Genma gathered himself and leapt to his feet with every bit of skill and speed he had ever trained for, getting right in front of Kakashi. He raised one arm, crossed in front of his face to ward off the inevitable blow. With the other he reached for Kakashi's wounded hand, grabbing for the wrist above the injury, and yanking sharply down in a twist, using Kakashi's own weight against him, trying to throw him off balance.

"Hatake, sit the fuck down and get a hold of yourself," he barked, with far more assurance than he felt.

Kakashi lurched and yelped, completely taken by surprise. That, in turn, shocked Genma. Had he gauged wrong? But it was too late to change course now, as Kakashi's instincts kicked in and he fought back.

Kakashi was steadier on his feet than Genma by far, and faster. A foot caught Genma's knee, and hands grabbed for purchase, one closing over Genma's own with raking, blunt nails, and the other twisting free from Genma's grasp to deliver a solid blow to the already bruised side of Genma's jaw.

Then Kakashi's weight shifted again, a stumbling, staggering step back. The hand that had closed over Genma's flew away as if Kakashi had touched something hot. Genma was falling. Kakashi was going down with him. It all happened in strange slow motion, like a training film on how not to grapple.

The concrete, when they hit it, was utterly unforgiving. Genma felt his neck crack when his shoulder hit the mattress, and there were Kakashi's fingers again, wrapped around his ear.

Protecting his head?

"Kakashi?" he panted, with his face pressed against blanket and overheated, unwashed skin. "Fuck."

Kakashi didn't quite have words yet, so he let a pained exhale do the talking for him. Somewhere in the falling tangle, Genma's elbow had slammed hard into his stomach, knocking half the breath out of him. He was also pretty certain Genma had managed to kick him on the shin. And there was the small detail where his arms were full of breathless, swearing crazy-man, and Genma had apparently decided tackling was an appropriate conflict-resolution tactic.

Kakashi had grabbed his hand. He fully suspected that was about to come back and bite them hard.

"Before I kill you," he gasped, striking out for sanity, "I have a question: What the hell, Shiranui?"

Genma's answer, when it came, was broken with ragged breaths, exhausted, and so close to giving up Kakashi could feel it -- but it was understandable. "I don't know," he mumbled, voice half-muffled in Kakashi's shoulder. "I don't have any idea. Maybe they're drugging us."

A possibility, but Kakashi hadn't been moved to take any flying leaps lately. He shifted carefully, feeling like the concrete had dealt him a full-body bruise all down one side, and looked down. Genma was half sprawled on him, half on the naked floor, but his head had landed squarely on the thin mattress, just like Kakashi's. Kakashi couldn't see his face.

Two options: let go and shout a lot; or stay where he was and shout a lot.

Or, judging by the way Genma was shaking, winded, and smelled like absolute death, Kakashi could take the third option -- stay where he was, make no sudden movements, and return to that what the hell? question.

He released an aching breath. "I'll rephrase," he said, quieter and calmer. "Any particular reason you felt the need to toss me on my ass?"

"You were losing it. They'll use that against us." It was a whisper, barely stirring the cloth of Kakashi's shirt, but Kakashi still felt his chest clench. Before he could answer, Genma continued. "Don't bother telling me, I already know. It was stupid."

Stuck in the depths of Iwagakure, already injured, sick, poisoned, tattooed with an unknown set of seals, trapped with a teammate apparently going off the rails -- and Genma's choice had been to stand up, pick his battlefield, and -- quite literally -- tackle the problem head on.

Kakashi couldn't help thinking back to last night, when he really had been losing it, and of the barely comprehensible explanation that hadn't even made it past his lips. Takajin... Dreamed he came back. Stupid, huh?

And Genma's answer, like he understood exactly what it felt like to have your own mind hit you right where it hurt.

"Not that stupid," Kakashi muttered, and meant it. "For future reference, though, a well-executed nerve-pinch will probably stop you from getting smacked in the face." With an injured hand. He winced faintly at the ominous burning just above his right wrist, and the slow hot trickle spilling down his fingers. So much for those stitches.

His hand was not really the concern, though. Genma didn't smell like a man about to take a shattering swan dive off a mental precipice, but he didn't smell exactly happy, either. Or unpained. Kakashi searched for a delicate way to phrase things, then stuck with what he knew. "Any imminent flashbacks I should be concerned about? Just in case I feel the need to get my flying tackle on."

Imminent flashbacks? Who needed flashbacks when you were practically reliving the experience that had given them to you? Genma's hand throbbed where Kakashi had grabbed it, old violence mingling with fresh, giving Kakashi a place in Genma's personal casting call for potential players in his nightmares. Right next to that dead -- he knew at least she was dead -- Iwa interrogator.

But Kakashi had yanked his own hand away almost as soon as he'd grabbed. He'd cradled Genma's head on the way down. He was wearing a black cloth mask, not a featureless white porcelain one.

Genma remembered his own trick from the night before: focus on what was real. Right now what was real was that if he didn't trust Kakashi, he had no one at all.

"Nothing new," Genma answered slowly. "And I'll keep that in mind about the nerve-pinch." He groaned and rolled away from Kakashi, letting his head fall unsupported against the mattress; scraped-raw skin on his elbow dragged along the ground. "Ow." He blew out a breath. "Are you hurt?"

He hadn't been trying to injure. Hurt maybe, to get Kakashi snapped back into his own head, but not injure. But.. He wasn't really sure anymore what he'd been trying. It had made sense at the time, but...

But it had worked. Kakashi was calm. Rational. Genma was calm and rational, too. If you could call this calm. If you could call any of this even remotely rational.

"Just my pride," Kakashi said. He shifted a little, but Genma couldn't see what he was doing.

"Good," Genma breathed. "I didn't want to hurt you."

Kakashi snorted at that, and Genma had to concede the point.

"I could totally kick your ass, on any other day."

Kakashi snorted again.

Genma stared at dust motes dancing in the light filtering in from the window. It was strange how peaceful everything was, right then. With Kakashi in contact -- why did he care? -- and the crisis for the moment over; with nothing to worry about but the ache in every limb, the fresh bruises from Kakashi's blows and their fall; with no energy left because he'd used it all on that pointless, stupid (but it had worked) tackle; he almost felt calm.

The sound of a key in the outer lock shattered it. Genma tensed in synchrony with Kakashi. Started to rise.

There was a sharp burst of air, like a gust of wind aimed at the ground. A feeling, for half a second, of weightlessness. Genma threw his body forward, trying to launch himself to his feet. There was a crackling feeling at the back of his neck that spread in a net through every limb. A sudden and complete shock like triggering a lightning-based trap. He fell, landing hard on his back. Out of the corner of his eye, Genma saw Kakashi lurch up, grab his hand, arch back, and fall as well.

Voices filtered in as the door was opened. A woman. Kumoto's woman. "... restitch the laceration with aught-four this time, Kumoto-sensei?"

"If you like. But it can wait until we have a look at our friend Genma-san."

The jutsu pressed Genma against the ground, draining all the power from his muscles. Even breathing was an effort. He recalled the jutsu the Iwa ninja who had captured them had used, and rolled his eyes desperately, trying to see Kakashi.

A pair of Iwa ninja picked Kakashi up and set him on the mattress. And Kakashi didn't fight back. He just lay there, limp, glaring. His hand, Genma could see now, was bleeding over that dark seal. And the seal was very faintly glowing purple black.

"Alright," Kumoto said. He leaned over Genma, scowling in distaste. "Let's get to work."

Genma tried to yell, and managed to grate out a tight-throated, "Go to hell."

"You're still talking?" Kumoto touched Genma's neck, fingers searing like a branding iron. "I told you you'd need to make the fourth inversion a double tau, Koto."

Kakashi was getting thoroughly tired of his body not being his own. His head had tilted sideways when the Iwa ninja had dumped him on the mattress; he had half a view of the room, and not much more. The two ninja had backed off, standing at lazy attention near the far wall, looking bored. The woman who acted like an apprentice was out of sight, but Kakashi could hear her murmuring an apology. The medic had his back turned, but Kakashi still recognized him from Takajin's cell -- the weaselly little medical man who'd come in to strip Kakashi's clothes, fix his hand, and flee when the smoke had gotten to him.

Kumoto-sensei. The not-dead man Genma had talked about, and wasn't this just beautiful timing? Not for the first time, Kakashi entertained a mental image of finding every camera, ripping them out, and using them to make the invisible surveillance team painfully air-tight.

Beyond Kumoto, Genma was just a pair of bare feet and a rasping voice that had fallen ominously silent; Kumoto's crouching body hid the rest of him. And Kakashi only had one uncovered eye to see with -- the cloth mask and the bridge of his nose blocked any view of Genma's head. Kakashi could see Kumoto's shoulders shifting as he moved, and hear the silvery tinkle of something metal. Genma's scent boiled black with fear.

That was not good. That was worlds of not good.

Kakashi struggled to make himself move -- to make anything move -- but his fingers wouldn't even twitch. It was like the glowing seal had knotted around his spinal chord and ripped the nerves apart. Or like Kakashi had taken a second dose of Genma's experimental antidote, except this time there was no chance of staying safe. His body felt like a bag of sand, laid flat on the mattress and immovable. Useless.

And the apprentice had clearly gotten the fourth inversion of a double tau right in his seal, because his voice wouldn't come.

Were they suicidal? If they laid one wounding hand on Genma they would be in full violation of the treaty and they knew it. What were they doing?

By pure, furious accident, Kakashi found the one thing he was still able to do. His lungs constricted, his throat tightened, and throttled, raging sound spilled out into the world. A dark nasty harmonic that wasn't remotely human -- or even really canine. It was just a bloody promise given wordless, verbal shape.

He is mine. Touch him and I'll kill you.

Even sound was muffled by the jutsu that held Genma immobile. Or maybe that was just the effect of adrenaline making his own heartbeat, his own strangled breathing, the loudest sounds he could hear. Above that there were voices: Kumoto and his assistant, the guard, and Kakashi, growling and inhuman and steady.

At least they weren't hurting Kakashi.

Yet.

Any trust Genma had that the treaty was going to be observed had vaporized the instant that jutsu had hit him.

Kumoto's fingers seared against that wound on Genma's neck. They abruptly disappeared. He pushed Genma's shoulder, twisting Genma onto his side. The fingers came again, probing deeper this time.

"Hand me two number sevens," Kumoto instructed his assistant, and the sound of a senbon case being unrolled sent a shiver down Genma's paralyzed spine.

"Do you want me to go ahead and administer the stuff the poison-lab made up for us, sensei?" the assistant asked. Genma couldn't see her past Kumoto. He tried to tell himself it was an antidote they were talking about. Kumoto had said there was still poison in Genma's system before. It was an antidote. Please let it be an antidote...

"One thing at a time," Kumoto said mildly. "The sevens?" Genma saw the shadow when she leaned over his body to hand Kumoto his needles. "Thank you."

The needles, when Kumoto slid them in, felt like they were sinking right into Genma's brain. Felt like they ought to come out his eyes or the front of his face. His vision blurred, so that what little he'd been able to see before became nothing but a watery black and grey smear.

"Sensei!"

"I see it." Another needle, sliding deeper. Genma's awareness narrowed to the apocalypse taking place at the back of his neck.

Relief came seconds later. An eternity later. Kakashi was still growling, a guard said something indistinct.

"There," announced Kumoto; he sounded far too pleased with himself. "Now give me some sixes, and let's see if we can't get an idea what's going on here. No wait, let's get his shirt off and pull down the pants, I need access to his sacral spine, too." Two pairs of hands undressed Genma, almost gently. They lifted him and rolled him like a child's doll, and laid him back down again half-naked with his back to Kumoto and his face to the wall.

He felt each senbon as Kumoto tapped it in. One at each major spinal chakra point -- Genma named then in his head as they sank in -- and a few at the minor meridians, too. When the needle that corresponded to the lower abdomen slid in, Genma would have doubled over retching, if he could have.

"Okay, that looks like one breakdown," Kumoto said. "Give me a pair of fives so I can check the kidneys." More needles. More inexpressible pain.

Kakashi's growling voice became a lifeline.

"Damn," he heard one of the guards say with an impressed whistle. "Did one of our guys mess him up that bad?"

The needles came out, replaced by a cold, wet sensation. Blood? Or no, Genma recognized the scent of medicinal ink. With each carefully placed brushstroke, the pain melted away.

"Alright, now you can give him the shot. Then sew up the other one while I activate this," Kumoto said. Genma didn't even feel the prick of the injection. He did feel Kumoto's chakra -- healing chakra -- flooding into him, from hands placed carefully at the base of his skull and the small of his back. Grey swirled into black swirled into nothing at all.

Awareness returned, and Kumoto's hands with it, carefully taping gauze down the length of Genma's spine. Rolling him back onto his back. The medic's pasty face appeared over Genma's, still out of focus. "You'd do better if you just stayed in bed," he said. "Gentlemen? Recovery position please."

The guards detached themselves from the wall and came to do Kumoto's bidding, picking Genma up under the shoulders and knees, and laying him down on his side on the mattress. "Damn, he doesn't look this heavy," one of them complained.

"The other one's lighter. Is he ready?"

"I'm finished," the woman's voice came.

Genma was suddenly aware that Kakashi's snarl had silenced. He saw the guards move, saw them lift Kakashi, mattress and all, and drag him around so that he was facing Genma. Saw one fierce grey eye still open, still alert, still full of malice.

"We'll be going then," Kumoto said. He picked up an enameled basin that held a number of long, slender senbon half-coated with blood, and a bamboo-handled brush with its hairs slicked black with ink. The assistant took it from him and headed out the door. Kumoto followed her, but stopped to look back at his patients. "You'll want to try to stay hydrated. I'll make sure you receive additional water with your meal. And please, Genma-san, try to get some rest. I'd like to take the evening off, if I may."

If Kakashi had been able to, he would have snarled the nastiest invective he knew at the retreating medic. But the assistant had done something -- pressed a handful of cold chakra to his throat -- and his vocal chords were locked tight. His growl was gone; his voice was gone.

Which was a damn shame, because stitching without anasthesia was an experience that generally inclined its sufferer towards swearing.

He lay on his back, head tilted towards Genma, and felt his hand throb with bright pain. His chest lifted in unsteady, rage-choked breaths. Genma's eyes were wide, showing whites all the way around, half obscured by the long strands of hair that had slipped across his face. He'd been curled into the recovery position, with one hand pressed up beneath his cheek and the other flung out towards Kakashi, palm up and fingers open. Almost like a beseechment, except that as far as Kakashi knew, Genma never held out his hands to anyone.

He smelled like someone had tried to skin him. Like panic and pain and choking bewilderment -- which was probably almost exactly how Kakashi smelled, minus the fury -- but there was no blood. No fresh injuries Kakashi could see. And even as he watched, the dead white pallor of Genma's skin faded back, replaced by something a lot closer to his normal gold-brown tan. The acid-bite scent of new hurts slipped away. Those tea-coloured eyes brightened a little.

Genma actually looked better.

If that had been Iwa's version of a healing visit, Kakashi was going to laugh until he was sick. And then maybe beat his head against a wall until things made sense.

Before he could expand on that thought, the cell door clanged open again. Konoha's stranded ninja couldn't tense, but Kakashi saw the flash of alarm in Genma's eyes -- and Genma had a slightly better view of the cell, with his head tilted down. As Kakashi watched, the faintest puzzled crease appeared between Genma's eyebrows.

Which was the exact moment the scent of cooked food hit Kakashi's nose.

"Don't make yourselves sick, guys," said a mellow, unfamiliar voice, and the door banged closed again. Silence came back, heavy and strangling, and Kakashi wondered how they were supposed to do anything. The tortorous aroma of cooked meat and roasted vegetables drifted on the air, and he ammended that thought: he could probably drown in his own saliva. Especially lying flat on his back.

That was actually becoming a real concern -- along with all the others -- when something like a chakra surge blossomed through the walls, scraping raw over Kakashi's high-strung senses, and the paralyzing jutsu snapped. He drew one full, deep breath, like a whole-body gasp, and electrified to his feet.

Staggered. Fell.

Shocked muscles took a moment to reorient themselves. Kakashi landed awkwardly on his hands and knees next to Genma, snatched his newly stitched, rebandaged right hand back off the floor when it howled agony at him, and managed to stop himself from grabbing his mission partner. Genma was already struggling upright.

What did they do-- Kakashi tried to say, and stopped dead. His mouth opened, his lungs worked just fine. But his throat felt like a block of ice. No sound broke past his lips.

Oh, for the love of god. He slammed a frustrated-past-the-point-of-tolerance uninjured hand against the stone floor, gave up on talking, and waited for Genma to tell him. Or shatter apart. Whichever came first.

It was Genma who touched first, reaching a careful hand out to Kakashi's shoulder. "What's wrong? What did they do to you?"

The tension in Kakashi's muscles modulated just enough to telegraph relief. He reached for Genma, sliding his calloused palm along Genma's forearm to the elbow. With his bandaged hand he made a cutting motion across his throat, while the one on Genma's arm tapped out finger code. Medic did something.

"Does it hurt?" Genma asked. He wished he'd been able to see. Wished he'd been able to think past the pain of whatever it was Kumoto had done.

Kakashi shook his head.Think they might be trying to give you a break. Are you okay?

Genma blinked. "Give me a break? From what?"

Me. Kakashi's face was wry.

It took a second for that to sink in. Then Genma chuckled, worn out past hysteria. "Yeah."

Are you okay? Kakashi repeated, more urgently this time.

Genma let his awareness coast through his body. He felt stronger, less feverish, warmer, less achy. Hungry. "I'm... actually... Yeah," he said with wonder in his voice. "I think... That hurt, but... I think they actually... Actually fixed something." He looked down at his hands, surprised to find that even they felt better. There was the echo of a feeling like a kick in the back and a punch in the gut, but just an echo. His neck felt more tired than painful.

In fact, the most painful injury at the moment was that rebruised jaw Kakashi had given him.

"I don't know what they did," Genma said. "I couldn't see after they immobilized us both; I think that seal has something to do with it. And then that bastard did something to my chakra. Senbon in every major nexus, and he did something, but..."

But it had been healing chakra. And he felt better.

"I don't get it," he sighed, shaking his head. The food smelled amazing. His stomach gurgled loud enough for both of them to hear, and he glanced down in surprise. "I don't get it, but I think they actually healed me up some. What about you? Are you okay, other than your voice?"

Kakashi nodded curtly, turning over this new puzzle in his mind. It was too easy to reach a paranoid conclusion, but paranoia was the key to continued breathing when you were this far behind enemy lines. He tapped the message against Genma's warming skin. They're messing with us. They can't hurt us if they want to uphold the treaty, and they're obliged to keep you healthy. But there's nothing to stop them from scaring the piss out of us while they do it.

Not an easy message to code, linguistically speaking, but Genma seemed to catch the gist.

"Yeah," he said, on a shaky exhale. His eyes darkened. "That guy, Kumoto. That's the medic I was talking about before. His job is to put people back together after the interrogators have finished for the day."

Should've bitten him when I had the chance, Kakashi tapped ruefully. Genma barked a cracked-glass laugh, and Kakashi quirked a smile at him. He wished he could promise Kumoto's head on a stick, but even if they came up with a way to get the seals off -- and Kakashi was already working on ideas -- there was no way to take down any of Iwa's agents without breaking that damned treaty. Genma's twice-deserved vengeance would have to wait.

The next time either one of them was in Iwa, Kakashi suspected, there would be blood.

He tried another experimental sound, but the solid-ice feeling stayed exactly where it was. Even a hum produced nothing. It wasn't a jutsu anymore, not with those chakra-eating seals back in place; he just had to hope the physical effects of whatever Kumoto's assistant had done would wear off soon.

Or at all.

Kakashi's lips flattened into a grim line. He could fight without his voice if he had to -- could still be a ninja, if it came to that. But it would be such a pain. And Iwa had already won an eye from him.

C'mon. His fingers wrapped briefly around Genma's arm in an insistent tug, then released to continue tapping. They left food. And-- He looked for the first time, blinked, and then blinked again. And... other things.

Genma didn't need a lot of persuasion to go investigate the food. On a small table in the little airlock chamber there was a covered wooden dish filled with rice, another bowl bubbling with some kind of thick, meat-and-vegetable-laden stew, a pair of rice bowls and two sets of chopsticks, a pair of serving spoons, five large bottles of water, a pot of tea--tea!--and two cups, and a box of Stone country's famous lotus seed moon cakes. Genma picked up this last item and showed it to Kakashi with a wry laugh. "It's like all of a sudden they want us to think we're at an onsen on some kind of spa retreat. All we need are yukata and access to the baths."

Kakashi gave him a look that spoke plainly of longing for that fantasy bath. He almost looked pained as he shook his head in evident regret at the utter unavailability of anything like.

There were more "gifts" besides the accouterments for a meal, which Kakashi was carefully sorting through: two more blankets, identical to the ones they had already, a pair of heavy tan sweatshirts emblazoned with Iwa's crest, and two pairs of thick woolen socks. Genma shrugged one of the sweatshirts on immediately. Kakashi picked something small up and held it out to Genma: a hair tie. Genma stared at it a moment, then reached a hand up to touch his greasy, disheveled hair and returned Kakashi's look with one of open-mouthed astonishment. "I guess someone was listening when I was bitching about being cold. But I have no explanation for this."

Kakashi shrugged, and pointed to what lay behind the blankets: a deck of cards, and most important of all, a lamp. And not just any lamp, but an oil lamp, with fuel and matches.

"Have they lost their minds?" Genma breathed, fingering the matchbook carefully. "We could set fire to the bedding." Which they surely knew. It was almost a taunt: we can give you fuel and fire, and you still have no chance of escape.

But they had a lamp. A meal. Warm clothes. Even that deck of cards. Obviously Iwa was listening.

And this could all be some kind of nasty ploy to lull them into compliance next time the interrogators came. Or maybe the food was drugged. Or maybe...

Genma's stomach growled long and liquid, and gods, the rice, at least, had to be safe, didn't it? And tea. Oh how he wanted that tea. He picked up the tray the food was on and looked at Kakashi. "You think it's safe enough?"

Kakashi gave Genma a look so dry it could have clotted. Does it matter? he signed one-handed.

"Yeah, guess not," Genma agreed, and carried to food into their chamber. Kakashi followed with arms full of blankets and clothes, set those down on the mattresses, and went back for the lantern and cards, while Genma dished up bowls for both of them. Before he picked up his bowl to eat, he took the comb they'd given him in their first set of prisoner's comforts, and carefully raked it through his tangled hair, pulling it back into a low ponytail with the tie Kakashi had handed him. Then he sat cross-legged on the mattress, picked up his bowl, and offered a silent first bite to whatever gods might be listening.

By this point, after what had to be at least two days on nothing but a ration bar and a half, 'starving' was not quite the word. Kakashi exercised as much self-control as he could in getting things organized, sorting out the new supplies and putting them close by before anything could be snatched away, but his hands were still shaking by the time he sat down.

Genma pointed wordlessly at the half-measure of food he'd shared out, mouth already full with rice and meat, and Kakashi fell on his share like a ravening wolf. It really didn't matter if the food was drugged -- Iwa could already drug them whenever they wanted. Not to mention take them down with those seals. At least this way they'd get some vitamins in the process.

For a long time there was nothing but contented silence. Genma ate neatly, with graceful movements that had obviously been deeply engrained. Kakashi was sharper, ruthlessly efficient. Neither one of them ate enough to make themselves sick, though Genma looked at the tea as if he was seriously considering it.

It was black tea with chrysanthemum, earthy and spicy and strong. Genma made rapturous noises of pleasure over it, but it did nothing to melt the cold in Kakashi's throat. He drank it anyway, letting the warmth sooth away the ragged memory of screaming himself soundless, and swapped his share of the sweet seed cakes for more stew.

He ate with his mask around his throat, too weary to keep up the dancing-hand pretense of no-face-here. Genma didn't comment, and Kakashi was grateful.

When he was done and Genma was still eating, Kakashi turned his attention back to the seal. And the matches. He'd been intending to snap his toothbrush in half and use the sharpened haft as a make-shift blade, but fire worked better. Chakra responded to fire, if you had the affinity in your blood. And Kakashi did.

He stripped the new bandage from his hand, rolling it up and laying it carefully aside, and selected one match from their precious store. Genma paused with his chopsticks held halfway to his mouth. "What're you--?" he began.

Kakashi glanced at the back of his bruised, stitched, blood-stained hand, still shaking slightly, and looked up at Genma. Signed with his spare hand. Don't watch.

Then he struck the match, set his teeth, reached for his chakra, and pressed the flame to the seal's lowest coil.

"What the hell are you doing?" Genma screeched. But he knew, because it was obvious, because if you could destroy your shackles, why wouldn't you? Even if it meant breaking your own wrist to get out of them. Or burning up your own skin. Of course there was no guarantee it would work. If a seal were so easily obliterated as that, then there would be no point placing one.

"Kakashi, fuck! It's not worth..." But it evidently was worth it. Before Genma's warning could leave his mouth, the seal itself blazed with that same oily purple glow it had before, but this time blue flames raced over the back of Kakashi's hand, following the inky maze. Kakashi stuttered out a voiceless groan, shaking from the core out, holding his arm rigid in front of him as he fed chakra into the flames. The seals in the room activated, pulling energy from Kakashi, from the fire. The raw energy from the breaking seal crackled over Genma, too, resonating along every pinprick hole Kumoto's senbon had left behind.

"Stop it!" gasped Genma. The fire was lifting off of Kakashi's hand now. Genma grabbed his half-full cup of cooled tea and lunged for Kakashi, sluicing liquid over the injured hand, dousing the flames. They sputtered and died. Carbonized bits of ink flaked from Kakashi's skin and washed away. What was left was an angry blister at the point Kakashi had applied the match, a faint tracery of red where the seal had been burned away, a few remaining tendrils of ruined seal closer to Kakashi's knuckles, and a panting, obviously pained but triumphant man, barely able to hold himself upright after that chakra-drain.

"You fucking idiot!" Genma raged, shocked by his own vehemence. He grabbed Kakashi's shoulders in horror.

Kakashi just grinned more broadly and whispered, "It worked."

Genma didn't know whether to help the man or knock him flat. He settled on a mix of the two, pushing Kakashi towards the mattress. "Lie down. You idiot. Are you trying to cripple yourself? You didn't know what was going to happen. And what's to stop them coming back in here and setting another seal on you? And fuck, it's not like you have chakra to spare. Fuck!" Swearing made him feel a little better, but only a little. His heart was still racing, and his hands shaking, when he picked up Kakashi's burned, lacerated hand, and studied the damage.

Kakashi winced, but still looked defiantly pleased with himself.

"Idiot. Bastard fucking idiot," Genma muttered, as he got out antibiotic ointment and smeared it carefully over the damaged skin.

"My parents were married," Kakashi managed. The words came out impossibly quiet, like a shaped breath forced over still shocky vocal-chords, but the chakra surge seemed to have loosened something up. He flinched when Genma's fingers smoothed over singed, tea-stained stitches, but couldn't stop the crooked smile that wanted to spread over his whole face. It had worked.

At more of a cost than he'd wanted, what with all that chakra expenditure, but he'd still beaten an unknown seal in a jutsu-protected room with nothing more than a match and a theory. Thrown a wrench in one tiny part of Iwa's plan. It was worth the hurt.

"You're still a bastard. And an idiot," Genma said fiercely, re-wrapping Kakashi's hand in gauze and bandages. "How badly did that drain you? And don't even think of casting a jutsu to test."

Kakashi lifted his left hand -- shaking worse now -- and swayed it in the universal sign of 'not so bad'. Genma gave him a frankly disbelieving look, almost scarlet with anger, and Kakashi shrugged one shoulder. He felt roughly like an avalanche had rolled him over, but he'd felt worse yesterday. A hundred times worse the day before.

Actually, considering he'd been poisoned, paralyzed, knocked unconscious, drugged, starved, genjutsu'd, tortured, paralyzed again, and set on fire, he felt pretty good. A lot better than Genma looked, at least.

"Sorry about your tea," Kakashi whispered, just to see renewed outrage spark fire in amber-brown eyes. Genma looked homicidal. Kakashi beamed at him. It wasn't a technique that was going to work for Genma's seal -- the chakra surge would kill him -- and Iwa wasn't likely to be happy, but Kakashi didn't care. He could fight again, if he had to. Protect Genma if that medic came back, or at least put up enough of a struggle to make Iwa think twice about their messing-with-Konoha policy. And one thing had gone right.

It was a start.

All the smiling was starting to feel unnatural on his face, but Kakashi let himself bask in the moment of hard-won, dizzy joy. "Want to play cards?"

Genma set his teeth together, tensed his lips, and shut his eyes, inhaling deeply through flared nostrils in a face he'd inherited directly from his mother. A face that said, "You have trod on my very last nerve; beatings will be forthcoming." Shiranui Etsuko had made that same face at her son more than a few times in Genma's childhood. It came naturally now, and completely unconsciously.

But no matter how richly Kakashi might deserve a beating, Genma wasn't in any shape to deliver it, and Kakashi had certainly already done himself enough harm during that insane maneuver. Genma opened his eyes and looked down at his fool of a comrade. "Sure," he said levelly. "Let's play cards." The clipped edge to his tone was the sound of a man keeping himself in control because at least one of them needed to have something like restraint.

"Stay there, and don't do anything else stupid," he added, and pushed himself up to go clear the dishes away. There was still a little rice in the pot, but no more stew. The lotus cakes would keep for later. And there was one more cup of tea in the pot. Stupid Kakashi making him waste his tea, and then laughing about it. Genma poured out the cup, sipped the bitter, over-brewed dregs, and grimaced.

Then he grabbed up the blankets, spread one over Kakashi, dropped the other one onto his vacant, closer-to-the-wall mattress, and sat down with it. He reached over and plucked up the book of matches Kakashi had dropped, and wished he had a pocket into which to place them.

Stay hydrated, Kumoto had warned. And loathe as Genma was to agree with anything that detestable medic might have said, it was good advice. Kakashi had set the water bottles close to their mattresses, and it was an easy thing to lean across and grab one. Twisting the cap off brought awareness back to Genma that he truly wasn't in any shape to fight with Kakashi. He hissed and cursed at the ache it drove into his knuckles, and the sparks it showered through abused nerves in his palm.

"This is why you shouldn't have done that," he said through gritted teeth. He held his own shaking hand up for Kakashi's inspection, "I can't believe you'd deliberately do something to hurt one of your hands."

Between normal teammates this would probably have been a moment for deeper understanding, renewed respect and a touch of bonding in the crucible of a badly fractured mission. Kakashi would have realized the full cost of Genma's old injuries, the still-lingering effects, the way he probably had to battle every single day with healed bones, mutilated tendons, and warped chakra pathways--

And actually, Kakashi did understand that. But he also wished Genma would get the hell over himself.

"Oh, grow up," he said. "It's not like I ripped a finger off. And that hand was already injured; adding a little sunburn on top barely makes a difference." Genma's mouth flattened into a knife-line slash; Kakashi snorted. "I understand you have pain, Shiranui, but move on. You think you're the only one with old scars?" He flicked two fingers at his face in a sharp, expressive gesture. "We're ninja. Deal with it."

"It's not about pain, asshole, it's about function," Genma snapped. "If it was about pain I'd still be curled up in some fucking corner at home, not sitting in this fucking prison with you. Do shit like that and you start to look a hell of a lot like a walking suicide. Like Suguru. Remember him?" Genma's eyes narrowed, weirdly coloured irises glinting like a threat. "How many one-handed ninja do you know?"

He drank his water. Kakashi gave him a blank stare.

"How many one-eyed ninja do you know?" he said. He held up both of his still very-attached hands. "Also, are you blind, you carnival of insanity? I'm still functional -- probably a lot more functional than you, given that I'm not having a fluttering panic attack over every little thing. And there is a vast difference between taking an acceptable risk for a tactical gain, and committing suicide."

He should have punctuated that point with something hard and heavy thrown directly at Genma's forehead. Kakashi might have a death wish (just like Sakumo; ever since Minato), but it hadn't killed him yet. And he certainly didn't intend to let it splash all over his teammates.

"Also," he added pointedly, "you completely failed to get the cards."

Genma waited before he responded. Waiting was one thing you got good at, being a ninja. He waited, and tried to see beneath the underneath, as every sensei in the history of the martial arts had taught every apprentice ninja. He waited because he didn't have the energy to fight, and because...

Because, loathe as he was to admit it to himself, there was a kernel of truth to what Kakashi said. It had been a tactical decision, maybe, even if it was a self-destructive one. And it had given them an edge. Maybe even been worth the risk of that third-degree burn Genma had seen in his mind's eye when Kakashi applied that flame. And maybe there was something just a little broken about Genma that he could almost see the charred flesh and soot-stained bones he'd expected, under the stitched and reddened skin of Kakashi's hand.

He wasn't having panic attacks, though.

But maybe, a voice whispered, he was. He certainly wasn't feeling his most calm and rational self, with his heart racing and his temper hair-trigger. This was why there were those damned hundred rules. This was when you needed your training to surf that spike of chemical juice nature gave you, because you couldn't prevent fear or anger or grief, but you could damn well master them and not let them master you.

He took a deep breath.

"Next time maybe explain your logic before you give me a heart attack," he said at length, and leaned across the mattress to grab the deck of cards. "And I want it on record, you've got some balls calling me insane."

The corner of Kakashi's mouth twitched. "We're stuck in the middle of Iwa, in a cell with cameras everywhere, covered in tea -- and bruises, Mr. Happytackle -- but my rescue is still going exactly to plan. 'Insane genius' is the phrase you want."

Genma's breath caught in his throat, almost like a laugh. Mostly not.

"Besides," Kakashi continued, "if I had to explain everything I did, I'd never have time to get anything done."

The cards fanned out between Genma's hands with a slick snap.

"This would all go a lot smoother if I just let go of the notion that sanity was going to ever be any use to me again, wouldn't it?" he said, shuffling like a gambling addict trying to get his fix. Quick, capable movements. A blur of cards. A faint scent of leashed hysteria in the air.

"Pretty much," Kakashi agreed, because he couldn't do soothing. Not for Genma. Not without one of them saying something they didn't mean, or didn't want -- or without someone getting slammed to the floor again. Soothing was a failgame. But he could walk the same exhausted tightrope as Genma, and they could both pretend there weren't sharks below. "Sanity's for civilians, anyway."

"If you can call wanting to be an accountant and work in an office all day sane anyway," Genma said, with a not-entirely-faked shudder. He dealt the face cards out of the deck, discarding them, and flicked two cards to land face-down in front of Kakashi.

Kakashi picked them up, left-handed. "Oicho-Kabu?"

"Yeah," said Genma. "Aces count as one, seeing as we don't have a kabufuda deck."

"Fair enough." Kakashi cracked his neck, glanced at his cards, and sent up a dim thank-you that mental math wasn't really his talent. Counting cards would make the game end much too fast. "Hit me."

"Don't tempt me," Genma drawled, flicking another card into Kakashi's lap. He fanned out his own hand, cards held close together in crooked fingers. The edges trembled slightly.

"Wouldn't dare," Kakashi said, after a slow beat. Genma's eyes lifted, dark gold beneath thick lashes. Kakashi gave him a dry look. "Too many bruises already."

"Wuss," said Genma, taking another card.

Kakashi raked his bandaged hand through shorn hair. "Headcase," he shot back.

"Mental patient."

"Jackass."

Genma smiled like a razor, won three straight games in a row, and lit the oil lamp when the sun finally started to drift down. Kakashi won the next six and worked out how to make a pot of mediocre tea with the lamp's heat, the bottled water, and the few remaining tea leaves still clinging to the bottom of the pot. Genma didn't thank him; Kakashi didn't expect him to.

When the cell's corners were thick with shadows, they'd played thirty-six games, lost track of who was in the lead, and managed not to strangle each other for at least four hours. Genma ate the remaining seed cakes, Kakashi finished off the rice, and they both downed a bottle of water each.

In the end, somewhere close to midnight, Kakashi fell asleep with his aching shoulders against the wall, a losing hand slipping between his fingers, and Genma's slightly amused, much calmer voice fading in his ears. He dreamed -- he always did -- but this time he stayed asleep.