Two things competed for Genma's attention: the peeling bandages on Raidou's face, and the tightly controlled panic in Raidou's eyes.

"It's okay," Genma said in a reflexively calm voice. "It's okay, Rai. Put your hand down and let me look. Is it painful?"

Raidou didn't move a muscle other than to answer a tense, "Unh-uh," through clenched teeth.

"That's a no?" Genma asked carefully. He shifted a little more upright and braced his palm against Raidou's shoulder, ignoring the twinges from his own injured hand. Ignoring the hammering of his heart as possibilities streamed through his mind like a lecture on wound care. On complications.

"Doesn't hurt. Yet." Raidou's voice sounded pained, despite his words. It sounded like he was in agony.

"It's okay. Rai—" Raidou's focus was entirely inward, his breath shallow and rapid, the color drained from his face. Genma tightened his grip. "Raidou, look at me. It's just the bandages peeling. From what I can see it looks good underneath."

And please let that not be a lie. The bandages were greasy with ointment and stained with blood. Where they'd pulled away from the burn there was bright pink granulation tissue dotted with fresh bleeding and crusted with yellow-brown scabs. Healthy-looking scabs from what Genma could see.

"It smells okay. That's a good sign. Doesn't smell like infection. You with me, Rai? Can you pull your hand away and let me look, or you want me to get some pain meds in you before I try?"

"They're not supposed to peel," Raidou forced out, ignoring Genma's questions. "They're sealed. They're not meant to unseal."

He wasn't even supposed to be out of the hospital yet; they'd only released him because Fujita-sensei's magical ground-breaking seal-work was supposed to prevent infection and complications and bits of his face sloughing off.

Something warm and wet trickled down the side of his jaw, halted for a moment, then splashed onto his collarbone. Raidou closed his eyes.

"Y'need to get a medic," he said, so quietly the words barely moved his lips. "Right now. No, wait -- clingfilm first, then a medic. I can't move; the rest of it will come apart." He could already feel it slipping beneath his fingers, fighting to slide down his neck. He jerked his hand away from Genma's shoulder and pressed it against his own chest, fingers spread wide over damp bandages.

They were supposed to be waterproof.

What little control Raidou had over his terror was eroding fast. Another drop of blood-tinged serous fluid oozed from the exposed wound, earning a flinch from Raidou that was almost a whimper. And what was one medical emergency was fast becoming two, or maybe three, between failing bandages with broken seals, shock, and a panic attack that was halfway to a full on breakdown.

Shock was the one that might actually kill.

"Lie down. Right now. Lie back down. It won't peel any further if you're lying down," Genma said firmly. He wrapped his arm around Raidou's shoulders and pulled as carefully as he could, drawing Raidou back against him and towards the pillows again.

Raidou was tense as steel, but he let Genma ease him down. His hands stayed clamped to the bandages on his face and chest like he was holding his whole body together.

"Good. Stay with me, Raidou. Open your eyes and look at me." It was gratifying how deeply embedded the training was. How easy it was to push all thoughts to the side for now and just function. Genma carefully positioned himself, kneeling over his best friend with a hand on Raidou's elbow, carefully not touching the burned shoulder.

Why were the bandages peeling? Why were they coming off? The new skin did look healthy, and there really was no scent of decay, no sickly-sweet odor of bacteria, no opacity to the fluid that was oozing from under the bandage edge.

"Raidou, open your eyes. Slow, deep breath and look at me."

There was something about sealed bandages. Something about bacterial seals. Genma looked at his own hand, and the seals painted on the bandages that wrapped over the points where metal pierced skin holding bones in place. But those were open wounds that would stay open until Itoh-sensei closed them. Raidou's burns were supposed to close. There was something about dissolving stitches...

"Your bandages. I need to look at the seal painted on the end. Look at me, let go for a minute, and let me see."

Raidou would have given several important pieces of his anatomy to never hear Genma talk in that bedrock-calm Everything Is Going To Be Okay (Even Though I Don't Really Believe It) voice again. He'd had enough of that voice, and more than enough of needing it.

He opened his eyes.

"This is your god's fault." Staring down at him, Genma's eyebrows lifted. Raidou focused hard on the fine line that appeared between them. "I mean it. Your god has a thing against gay sex. This is a divine assassination plot. And I'm not having hysterics; stop looking at me like that."

He was very close to having hysterics, but that was neither here nor there.

"The Buddha is totally fine with gay sex," said Genma calmly. "He was probably gay himself. You're confusing him with that weird asshole god they worship in Western Wind country." There was a quiet second, then Genma's fingertips settled again on Raidou's right arm. "Let me look at the seal, okay? I think... I think your bandages were supposed to start coming apart once you reached a certain level of healing. Like the way a steristrip peels off after a few days."

Raidou could barely hear past the pounding blood-beat in his own ears, but that made it through, kindling sharp hope -- which died abruptly.

"Think the doc would've mentioned that," he hissed, then paused. Fujita-sensei had been whiplash smart, fast with his hands, and intimidating as all hell. He'd barely put up with Raidou's clenched-teeth moments of pain, let alone the throttled screams when the nurses had tackled raw, weeping flesh with debridement tools -- and he'd never exactly hung around to answer questions afterwards. How likely would he have been to mention something like unsealing bandages?

It still didn't hurt. Not badly.

Raidou bit the inside of his cheek hard -- the right side, where nothing was scarred -- and eased his hands free. Tacky bandages clung to his palms, ungluing themselves. He closed his eyes, then opened them; focused on Genma, then past Genma to a mid-point of nothing. Tried to breathe steadily and not do anything stupid, like tear all the bandages off just to get this over with.

"Don't touch it," he said numbly. "Don't breathe on it. Just-- don't. I'd hurt you and I don't want to."

"You're not going to hurt me," Genma said with a certainty he didn't entirely feel. "And I'm not going to touch. I'm just looking. I need to turn the end of this piece of gauze over to read the seal, but that's all." He moved his hand slowly towards the strip of lose bandage that hung limply near Raidou's collarbone, and hated the flinch he saw in his partner's eyes.

Shocky eyes, focused in that unfocused way a man who'd just watched his whole platoon slaughtered might have.

"Rai, I'm with you, okay? Think about something really awesome. Like... Like that time we went skinny dipping at midnight last August. Remember? We had that mission with that one comm specialist chick, and we were so glad to get rid of her when we got her delivered to her new post? The one who thought she was some kind of princess, remember her? And then we got drunk and went swimming."

His fingers closed over the bandage and he turned it over, bending close to peer at the seal. At the end of the bandage, where it had been secured to itself, there was a fading fire seal and a brighter water seal. Genma pushed an experimental probe of chakra to his fingertip and felt the answering buzz of an activated jutsu, as the water seal flared.

Raidou's eyes went wide, and his breathing stopped in his chest. His shoulder tensed.

"Rai, it's okay. It's supposed to be coming off. It's canceled itself out. It's like I said, steristrip." Genma dropped the bandage and dodged back so that Raidou could look him in the eye. And head butt him, if he was of a mind to, but fuck it. "Rai, you with me? It's supposed to be coming off."

"Bandages don't just fall off."

It would have been a shout, if it hadn't been hissed between tightly clenched teeth. Genma was leaning in close (too close), eyes sharp and intent, radiating the kind of sincere, implacable calm medics learned to veneer over panic. Saying the standard dialogue. Are you with me? It should have been reassuring, that dialogue: familiar, but any minute now it was going to be breathe, or it's just a scratch, you baby and Raidou would be forced to kill him.

Genma didn't stick with standard.

"Yes," he said firmly. "They do. They were sealed--"

Raidou made a noise deep in the back of his throat, the rough and raw approximation of why aren't you getting a medic, dammit?

Genma gave him a quiet, steady look, and continued. "They were sealed shut with a seal designed to break when the there was a complete layer of epidermis formed. Didn't your instructions say something about it? When the bandages loosen you could change them, something like that?"

"No." Raidou wet dry lips. "I was just told not to tou-- to touch them."

Epidermis was skin. How could he have skin already? Burned scars didn't react to chakra healing the same way burned flesh did. The four long rake-marks on his ribs were already healed, but it was supposed to be weeks yet before he could look forward to not-seeing his own face.

He'd felt oozing flesh hit his collarbone.

"Fuck," he said, because no other word presented itself. Then he looked at Genma, really looked at him, and hauled himself up. Genma jerked backwards, eyes flashing wide. Raidou clapped both hands back over his chest and neck, holding slipping bandages on; stickiness squished beneath his fingers, but pain only flared and stung. It didn't crucify.

"You're not helping," he said, tight-jawed. Tight-chested. Betrayed by Genma not helping. "I'm going to the hospital. Move your ass out the way."

"You're naked, your hands aren't clean, and you need me to help you get to the hospital." Genma didn't move to let Raidou up. Instead he set his jaw, tensed his shoulders, and glared right back. "Stop touching it before you damage something, hold still, and trust me for thirty seconds. Am I or am I not a field medic and your best fucking friend?"

Raidou's snarl was septic, but he stopped struggling for a moment.

Now what? Obviously the bandages needed to come off, and even in the worst case, if there was putrid, gangrenous flesh underneath them, it would be safer to remove the failing gauze and replace it with self-sealing antibacterial dressings from Genma's med kit for the trip to the hospital. And it was likely to hurt. A lot. More than Genma could bear to see Raidou suffer.

There was one obvious solution: a ninja medic's solution. It turned Genma's stomach to contemplate it.

He looked down at Raidou's abdomen. "Oh damn, what the hell is that?"

Raidou's head jerked forward, eyes going wide, a curse half out of his mouth.

Genma flexed his fingers into a right-handed half of the Ram seal, pushed chakra into his fingertips, and hit Raidou between the eyes with three green-glowing fingers. Pushed, so that when Raidou fell unconscious, it was back onto the pillows.

Genma checked Raidou's pulse: steady; his breathing: even. Then he swallowed a nauseous moment of fear, pried Raidou's hands away from the bandages, and started stripping off the seal-painted gauze from Raidou's face.

Underneath the new skin was shiny, tight and bright red, greasy with ointment and glistening with serous fluid, scabbed and bleeding in some places, thick with new-forming keloids along the tracks the chakra-rake had left. But not — Genma breathed a prayer of gratitude — not infected. Not decaying. It looked far better than his memory of the wounds. The swelling was considerably down, so the contours of Raidou's face were visible. There was still the old scar, and over it the fresh ones, like plowed furrows. But it looked healthy under the scabs.

The bandages over Raidou's chest and shoulder came away with a little more difficulty, with Genma struggling to shift Raidou one-handed and free the windings of gauze from around his back. The scars on his chest looked almost as good as the ones on his face, a little more scabby, a little more raw, but healthy. Healthy granulation tissue. Healthy, healing, single-cell-thick layer of epidermis creeping across the wounds.

When Genma got to his feet to get the medical kit the hospital had sent home with them, his knees felt weak. He cursed his single-handed uselessness, dropped a roll of gauze, banged his hand and set pain echoing up through the bones right into his jaw, but he managed to get antiseptic poured into a bowl, then washed his hand and soaked a soft sponge in the soapy liquid and carefully scrubbed away the scabby debris from Raidou's wounds until he'd convinced himself there was no sign of anything but recovery.

He patted at oozing bleeders until they clotted, checked Raidou's breathing and pulse again, and finally found the take home sheets he and Raidou had been given. Diagnoses, medications, medical boilerplate about diet and rest, avoiding alcohol, no jutsu — that chakra pulse Genma'd delivered to Raidou's hippocampus wasn't really a jutsu exactly, he told himself. And it had been an emergency.

He kept scanning the papers until he found Raidou's instructions for dressing changes. And yes. There. "The bandages will loosen when sufficient skin regrowth has been achieved. This should coincide with your next appointment. If they loosen or are dislodged before that, remove the old bandages and redress the wounds as necessary with the provided ointment and clean gauze, unless there are signs of infection..." Followed by all the signs of infection, none of which Raidou had. No fever, no abnormal redness or swelling, no pus, no odor.

He sat down on the edge of the bed, checked Raidou's vitals again then got up and grabbed a hand mirror from his utility kit and sat back down. While he waited for Raidou to wake, he studied Raidou's features. Defined brows, short, dense lashes, a strong, handsome face with a slightly prominent nose, and lips that parted just a little. The scars slid over the left side, following the lines of Raidou's cheekbone and up over the bridge of his nose in slender folds.

"It's not that bad, Rai," Genma said quietly. "It's really not bad at all."

The last time Raidou had been knocked out in a flash of green fire, he'd woken up to find Genma finally (finally) in sight, within reach, barely an hour after Fujita-sensei had lacquered his face in new bandages. He'd been confused, heartsick -- and soul-relieved.

This time there was still Genma, but Raidou was just pissed.

"You son of a bitch," he rasped, shoving up onto his elbow. The whole room swam, like the edges were made of liquid-light. It was almost pretty, except for how it made him want to throw up. Genma's lips pressed into a razor-slash line, white at the corners, but Raidou was too busy bowing over himself to pay full attention.

His face hurt. His chest hurt. Bright red ripples of pain from the arch of his cheekbone down to the edge of his left pectoral, because Genma had done something. Something stupid and makeshift and field medic when he should have run for the real thing. Should've listened, for once in his whole bastard life--

"You arrogant-- fucking--" Raidou began, too afraid to look.

"Son of a goddamned bitch. I know," said Genma. He sounded weary. "You gonna break my jaw now, or wait for me to explain you're fine and your burns are healing?"

There are some instances in life you regret having reflexes. Now was not one of them. Raidou lunged up, clenched a fist, and slugged Genma solidly in the diaphragm. Breath whooshed out in a long wheeze that ended in a painful squeak; Genma jerked back, fighting to inhale, and couldn't. His eyes snapped open wide. Something flew from his only hand as he clutched at his chest and folded forward, curling over his sling.

Raidou pulled back and pushed up until he could sit steady, finding his balance. He was still naked -- more naked, because nothing felt like bandages. The only movement against skin was the free swing of his dogtags, rasping against red pain at the side of his throat. Genma had... Genma had...

Genma gasped a throttled sound.

"You're fine," Raidou snapped, almost blind with (fear) fury. "Give it a minute. I told you not to touch."

It wasn't quite enough of a blow to knock him out, but the lack of air, the shock to his still-healing abdomen, and the pain as his metal-splinted hand jarred in its cage were enough to take all the details out of Genma's peripheral vision. The center greyed down to a sepia-toned blur as he struggled to inhale. He could see folds of blanket, his own bare legs, the edge of one of Raidou's feet. From the floor the fallen mirror caught a ray of light through the blinds and redirected it towards the ceiling.

Breath came back eventually, and with it hearing. Raidou's rage-laced breaths, and Genma's own undignified rasping whimpers as he cradled his hand. He was almost used to it now, to the sudden jarring pain that came from small movements, unexpected twists. Used to it, and able to stay in the present and not slide into the kind of day-terrors that got an agent sedated by the psych guys and kept off the duty roster indefinitely.

He wasn't sure Raidou was there yet, though. And he'd fucked with Raidou's face. Although Raidou sounded coherent. Mostly. Thunderstruck with wrath, outraged, hurt, frightened, but still fully present. Genma scrabbled for the fallen papers and clenched a hand around them, thrusting them blindly at Raidou.

"Read— that—" He waved the papers and pushed himself to his feet, lurching over to grab the mirror. He sat back down with a harsh grunt and shoved the mirror at Raidou, too. "Look for yourself. Bastard." Then he curled up around himself again and groaned a heartfelt "Mother— fuck."

It was pamphlet. And a hand-mirror.

Raidou caught them both by reflex, uncomprehending, and gave Genma a look that should have been fondly exasperated, but was just rage-wracked and confused. His chest was burning, inside and out, like someone had strapped a belt around it and added flame. Panic and pain and what--

Pamphlet. It was just a block of dense text, headed by Konoha's hospital insignia. The mirror was wooden-edged, stained dark and polished to a glossy sheen. Raidou turned it, caught a glimpse of himself: pale skin, one dark eye, a red warped river of melted...

He slapped the mirror face-down on the bed. Swallowed an empty breath.

Breathe. Think. He'd woken up with sloughing bandages; that had never happened before. He'd felt flesh run down the side of his neck; he knew what that meant. Genma had knocked him out, taken the last rags of bandages, done something that hurt, not called a medic, not rebandaged anything, screwed about with paper and platitudes and godsdamned mirrors...

Your burns are healing.

They couldn't have; it was too soon. Absent gods, they were open to the raw air and it felt like Genma had scoured them bloody. He'd catch something flesh-eating and it'd rot into his skin and his eyes and his brain. He had three younger brothers relying on him, just old enough to understand exactly what would happen. Had Genma to look out for, the man he'd just slept with (just punched), because Genma would do something suicidal-stupid without Raidou to keep a leash on him, but Genma had just ripped his scars off.

Raidou choked down bile, paper crackling as his hand clenched. He couldn't read the words, they were shaking too hard.

Genma was uncurling, sitting back up, unwounded hand falling slowly away from his chest. Finding stillness again. Raidou glanced sideways at him, seeing naked skin and old scars, gleaming evil metal and bed-mussed hair. Over-bright eyes, like soft gold. They'd walked through hell together, more than once. He'd carried Genma back to Konoha, let Genma shove numbing senbon through his chest, brought him off twice and felt nothing but brilliant about it...

Genma looked back at him, and Raidou's eyes burned.

"Trusted you," he forced out, through nausea and embers. He exhaled hard. "Still trust you. I can't -- I haven't looked at a mirror in ten years."

The full weight of the betrayal Genma had perpetrated on Raidou hit Genma a glancing blow and fled to the depths of his psyche a second later, when Raidou said, Still trust you. How Raidou could sit there, with that fractured look on his face like he was waiting for the world to end, and still trust Genma was staggering.

Genma'd known Raidou avoided mirrors. He'd known the attack that had scarred Raidou's face the first time had come when Raidou was just fourteen. But the bleak, naked truth in Raidou's soft, almost stuttered monotone — I haven't looked at a mirror in ten years — was shattering. That and the fear. I trust you, but I'm dying. I trust you, but you tried to kill me.

"Rai." Genma took a breath and slid closer to his partner, reaching out with a scar-striped, bony foot to touch Raidou's ankle. He picked up the mirror. "Your burns are healing. They're healing fast. The care sheet says the bandages will come off when there's a fully protective depth of new tissue, which there is. I checked. I cleaned them and checked, and I was really careful, Rai, I promise. Obviously you have to keep the wounds clean and covered still, but they don't need the seals anymore."

He took a shaky breath and met Raidou's eyes. "Your face looks good. Really good. You can see how the new scars are forming and it doesn't really change your looks much. I mean it's healing still, and it changes the texture of the scars that were already there, but it doesn't change your looks. And it's healing, Rai. You're gonna be okay. You're okay, and you don't have to look at your face, but at least look at your chest. You can see how it's healing. I left it unbandaged so you could see and put the ointment on yourself. I'm sorry I knocked you out, but I didn't want to hurt you and I had to get the old bandages off no matter what and..."

And he was babbling. He'd lost the carefully neutral, infinitely soothing medic's tone and fallen back on worried, guilt-ridden, apprehensive friend. Lover. Whether he and Raidou wanted to use that word or not.

Raidou reached out stiffly, like a man practicing a dance move he only half remembered, and flattened his hand over Genma's mouth.

"Kid," he said, rough-raw. "You talk too much."

Genma went rigid. Above the cut of his own fingers, Raidou watched Genma's eyes widen, all blown pupils and thin gold irises, showing whites all the way around. Felt Genma's breathing hitch out of sync.

Mercifully, Genma shut up.

Raidou tried to reorganize his massacred thoughts. Genma was the point-man, the lunatic with the plan, the flashy trap half their missions revolved around -- but Raidou was the down to earth, not-panicking-dammit fixit guy. So long as he kept his cool, things worked out fine. They always worked out fine. Even when 'fine' meant shattered limbs and nightmares for months.

He was failing to keep his cool.

A long, slow breath didn't help.

"We are not talking about my looks," he rasped finally, quiet as a coffin nail. "Ever. They aren't pretty; I know that. I don't need you to tell me different." He felt Genma's lips part beneath his palm and pressed harder, smothering whatever words wanted to get out. "I mean it."

Genma stilled again, a thin pin-scratch line between his eyebrows and pain in his eyes. For the first time, Raidou didn't have the want or the will to make it better, even when Genma's hand lifted, excruciatingly careful, and circled his wrist. Pale, scar-twisted fingers over tanned skin and heavy bone, like a manacle that wanted to comfort.

"You say you had to get the bandages off, I'll believe it," Raidou said. "And you had to -- to scrub it out, I'll believe that too. I'll even believe it's healing." Nothing was sliding down his neck now, just raw-clawed pain, like an acid lick. Like someone had gone to town with a scrub brush and good intentions. "And I'll look at it, because you asked me to--"

Because that never got old, seeing glimpses and half-views of something unfixable. The worst and second-worst days of his life, rammed together in a melted-plastic ruin of broken flesh. A melted-plastic bloody ruin.

He focused on his own hand, spread wide over Genma's mouth. Then up a fraction, to Genma's eyes, which looked like they were trying to laser some kind of message onto the inside of Raidou's skull.

"I'll do all of that," he said, re-catching the strands of his thoughts. "But if you ever screw with my scars again, I won't stop short at a punch in the gut. Fuck, Genma, you're lucky I didn't snap your hands off at the wrists."

Genma turned white. Raidou yanked away, nauseous to the base of his stomach, and dropped his head into his hand. Breathed and tried to convince himself that healing thing was really true.

For a moment Genma just sat and watched while Raidou sat razor-wire tense and doubled over like he'd taken a belly wound. Then something inside Genma took over. He heard his own voice, distant and much more in control than he felt. "Lie down, Raidou, you're shocky. Don't argue, lie down. I'll get you a pain tablet and would you lie the fuck down right now?"

"No." Raidou's refusal was harsh, his voice shaking like he might lose control of even that at any moment. "I'll lean," he conceded. Not looking at Genma at all. "I'm not lying down."

"OK, you can lean. Leaning's fine. Just don't pass out." Genma shoved up from the bed, found the bottle of pain killers labeled with Raidou's name, uncapped it with his teeth and dumped the pills into a bowl, then fished out two and held them out. Raidou took them from his palm with the barest brush of fingertips to Genma's skin.

They both flinched.

Water next, and there were too many furious, crazy, chaotic thoughts whirling inside Genma's head for him to make sense of it. Rely on training. Rely on training and get Raidou stable, he told himself, and the future would take care of itself. When was the last time he'd really seen Raidou freaked out? That time with Kuromaru on the mission with Tsume? The aftermath of his spar with Tsume later, that had lead to that bar brawl? That barefoot run through the snow half a year ago? A half dozen times on the mission they'd just barely survived?

He filled a glass and brought it over with the same overworked-steel tension in his own spine that had Raidou still shaking.

Training. He was a medic. Raidou was a patient. This wasn't about a partnership about to break to pieces...

And again there were words coming out, like Genma was just along for the ride, watching himself from a distance. Like watching a wildfire destroy a copse of trees on a distant ridge. "I didn't mean to fuck with your scars, I was just... I was treating your injuries. There is nothing in this world I hate worse than that you got hurt the way you did, and on my watch, on those scars. There is nothing in the fucking world that could get me to hurt you, Raidou. I knocked you out so you wouldn't have to feel it, and I should have told you I was gonna do that, or asked, or I don't even know what the fuck... I fucked it up. I fucked it up, and you can beat the shit out of me for it, and I'll let you, because hell, I deserve it."

He took a breath and sat heavily next to Raidou, and hesitated a moment. Then with excruciating care, he eased his left arm free of its sling, lifted it, and draped his upper arm carefully around Raidou's unscarred shoulder. He held his hand, with its awkward swaddling around metal struts, dead straight and away from Raidou's body. The movement set healing bones and tendons throbbing, and lent an edge to Genma's voice when he spoke.

"Rai. I'm sorry. Believe me or don't, it's up to you. We can go get a medic to tell you what I just told you, and maybe you'll believe him. Your burns are healing, the skin is growing back, and if anything the new scars make the old ones more regular and less disfiguring. You're right, you're not pretty. You're handsome, and your face is scarred and I don't the fuck care."

Genma never ever did what he was told.

Bizarrely, in a way that made Raidou feel better and worse all at once, that was a little comforting. Or maybe that was the arm circled around his shoulders, pressed tight against his back, hard against his unscarred shoulder, but completely absent from his left side.

Half a hug from a guy with one hand who thought a feel-better speech should say 'fuck' six times.

He tried that breathing trick again, inhaling long and slow, feeling his back move beneath Genma's arm, and decided Genma was just insane, because no one else would lie this hard just to screw with their best friend. Figuratively or otherwise. Lie this badly, in fact, because what kind of idiot said something like 'Your new scars make you less disfigured'?

Just Genma. With all the crazy conviction that said he believed it and to hell with anyone who disagreed with him.

"Y'know," Raidou mumbled, "I think this is pretty much the worst morning after in the history of ever."

"Well... Actually, the targets I sleep with who wake up dead probably think they have it worse," said Genma. "But for an actual first date morning after? Yeah. At least neither one of us is puking on the other and we know each other's names?"

Raidou hesitated. "Point."

"My area of expertise, remember?" said Genma, voice gentling a little. Raidou remembered him saying I can call you sexy if I want, and felt something hard and hurting catch in his chest. Something that had nothing to do with fresh-scoured scars. And suddenly it all came rushing back, when he'd been thirteen and a freshly made chuunin, tall and strong for his age, handsome enough that most young kunoichi looked twice and smiled at him. When he'd smiled back, confident and pleased with himself, and done something to show off because being thirteen and lovestruck never made anyone smart.

When he'd cared about looking good, rather than saving lives.

His eyes were burning again, almost as hot as Genma's arm resting against his sweat-cold back, and Raidou closed them hard. Didn't drop his head sideways to rest against Genma's shoulder, no matter how much he wanted to, because if he actually did break down and cry it'd just streak his face with salt and his scars would really burn, and there was only so much one man could take. And he'd never be able to look Genma in the eyes again.

And he was still mad at Genma.

God almighty, what a mess.

"Look," he croaked, and realized the painkillers were kicking in when his voice smeared. He cleared his throat. Didn't pull away because he couldn't without jarring Genma's hand. "My face is still open to the air; let's deal with the damn ointment and bandages first--" and that mirror "--and everything else after."

Genma's own deep breath echoed Raidou's. "Yeah. Let's get you fixed up." He hooked the medical kit over with one foot, dragging it by its strap, and didn't let go of Raidou's shoulder. He'd hurt Raidou, not for the first time, not intentionally, but fuck.

And now he was going to have to do it again.

"I... Either you have to let me touch your face to put the ointment where it needs to go, or you have to look in the mirror while you do it. I'm sorry, Rai, but... I know they've been doing this for you at the hospital, and I don't know how you got yourself through that, but—"

"Good drugs, pretty nurses, lots of screaming," Raidou interrupted. There was a dead blur to his voice that sent a chill down Genma's spine.

"I did the worst of it while you were out," Genma said quietly. He winced, imagining the screaming. He'd done some himself, under Ito-sensei's healing hands, but knowing that didn't make it any easier. "I've given you the best drugs we've got here. And..." He shrugged. "I don't know if I count as pretty. I think the bruises I've still got give me more of that shabby abuse-victim look, which I don't think is your kink."

Raidou's response was a dry-throated snort. "No, not so much." He reached over to tap gentle fingers against Genma's freshly punched stomach, right on the red mark. "Though I reckon I'm adding to it. Domestic abuse after twelve hours has to be some kind of a record."

A shard of the ice that had climbed up Genma's core melted under Raidou's hand.

"Yeah, and I started it. Any judge'd side with you. But damn, if anyone ever gave us a close look after a spar we'd both be up on charges if we were civilians." Genma turned his head a little, so his cheek brushed against Raidou's hair.

"I really am sorry, Rai."

Raidou's next breath sounded a little less ragged.

Genma tugged at the med kit again. "So, you want me to do it, or you want to do it yourself?"

"No," Raidou muttered, covering all the bases. A beat passed, then he could feel Genma's frustrated, helpless look. He sat up, dragging his hand down the right side of his face until his fingers covered his mouth, and swallowed down half a dozen words he wanted to say. Said the ones he didn't. "Give me the damn mirror."

Genma hesitated, barely a fraction of a second, but still a screaming-pause to men who could outrun anything living. "You sure?"

"No," Raidou said truthfully, and dropped his hand. "In fact, I can think of about eight-hundred things I'd rather be doing, including getting my toenails pulled, but it's gotta be done, right?"

"Yeah," Genma agreed, soft-voiced, and put the mirror into Raidou's hand. Just like that, easy as breathing.

Raidou flipped the mirror face up, like a scalpel strike, and lifted it. Looked at it.

It -- wasn't as bad as he expected.

The left side of his face and neck was pure train wreck: old scars like thick plastic twining down from the bridge of his nose, overlaid by red-raw furrows where Sago's rake had bitten deep. All of it slick and scrubbed and painful looking, but...

He'd seen worse. Ninja with missing limbs, full-body burns, holes blown through their torsos. Genin with their scalps peeled clean off their skulls. Chuunin drenched in acid. Jounin torn apart by their own jutsu.

This was just a face, made dangerous by a scar.

Raidou exhaled slowly, and watched the man in the mirror do the same. Clear brown eyes stared back at him, pupils dilated wide. He turned slightly, looking at the right side where the skin was clear. His jaw had squared out a lot, roughened with morning stubble; the hair was darker than he remembered. His nose was straight, his eyebrows dark and slightly slanted. He had cheekbones.

Okay, cheekbone. But still.

Very slowly, Raidou lifted a hand and raked it through his hair, messing up the stiff spikes. "It's got red in it," he said, startled. "Has it always had red in it?"

Watching Raidou look into that mirror had been, in some ways, as terrifying as watching the demon Fox bearing down on the village. Genma's heart hammered hard against his sternum — his pulse was loud in his ears, throbbing in his broken hand. Watching Raidou's expression transform from dread-cored courage to shocked wonder was breathtaking. A miracle. It was like watching the sun rise after a hurricane.

He slid closer, wedging himself behind Raidou so that he could look over Raidou's shoulder and see the reflection, too. Bracing his left elbow on Raidou's shoulder, with his splinted hand raised in the air, he reached with his right hand to touch Raidou's hair with the same kind of reverent awe Raidou had.

"Yeah. It's always been a little reddish. Just a little. It's handsome. Your beard, too, see?" This time Genma didn't touch. "It's got a little red in it. When you let it grow three or four days, you can really tell."

Raidou dragged his fingertips down his jawline, like he could feel the color in the stubble. He leaned back a little, into Genma, but didn't meet Genma's eyes in the mirror. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Genma agreed. "Very handsome." He pressed a barely-there kiss against Raidou's ear and pulled away again, not wanting to burst the soab-bubble fragility of the moment. Ten years. Ten years to erase a man's memory of his own hair color. Ten years and Raidou was looking at his reflection like it was the face of a stranger.

"I know I look pretty different from what I did ten years ago," Genma said quietly. "My eyes are the same, mostly. Do you even recognize yourself at all? I don't think you've ever showed me any pictures of yourself from be— from when you were a kid."

And Raidou had been a kid, back when he'd first been scarred. Fourteen. It made Genma's chest burn with a funny kind of ache to think about it. He wanted to wrap his arms around Raidou and protect him from... What? From a decade-old trauma? From the thing that had made Raidou who he was today? From the thing that had crafted the face in the mirror that Genma loved?

"You really are good looking, see? I wasn't lying."

When Raidou laughed -- a wry, edgeless, quiet thing -- his eyes crinkled in the mirror. A sharp line curved around the right side of his mouth, like a bow. "I never thought you were lying," he said. "I just figured you were crazy."

Or trying to be sweet, like a jounin telling a one-handed genin he still had a shot.

Okay, so maybe he'd thought Genma was lying.

"I'm pretty sure you know what direction my crazy runs to," Genma said slowly, like he was measuring each word before he spoke. Raidou flicked a half-beat glance at him, catching the wry look Genma flashed towards his bandaged, metal-bound hand. "And it never impaired my ability to judge hotness with anyone else."

Raidou snorted, watched the man-who-wasn't-quite-him change expressions again -- that face was articulate; quick and lively around the slab-of-meat scar -- and abruptly found it all too much. The mirror wavered in his hand, distorting the image. He dropped it face down on the bed.

You're handsome.

"I used to have freckles," he said hoarsely. He cleared his throat. "When I was a kid. Freckles and a year-round tan and brown hair, none of this red. I've got pictures somewhere. An album, actually -- my mom put it together after I made chuunin. I'm sure I've still got it."

He'd been stocky, solid, shorter. A brawler. Handsome enough -- well, average looking, really. Nothing like the delicate good looks Genma must have had, to get him drafted into eros training so young.

Raidou had been lucky that way.

Genma's uninjured arm slid around Raidou's ribcage, his hand carefully below the reach of the scar that had taken Raidou's left nipple, and tightened in a hard hug. Genma's whole body flanked Raidou's right side, like a warm metal girder. Like something strong he could lean against.

"I'd like to see it," Genma murmured.

You really are good looking.

Raidou felt himself give, all at once, like a cliff-side breaking apart. His throat closed, his eyes blurred, his lungs seized. It was almost like the hospital, when he'd seen Genma alive for the first time after four days of agonized waiting, when Raidou had hit his knees and Genma had wept and Raidou had almost followed him. But this wasn't relief, and there weren't any nurses to interrupt and let him catch his breath. This was...

Stupid. It was just a face, not the end of the whole damn world.

But it was still halfway whole, when he'd thought it was all the way ruined, and Genma liked it, and gods, he'd punched Genma--

I'm sorry, Raidou tried to say, but he didn't have the air. Genma's arm tightened harder, like a forged iron band, and Raidou pressed a hand over his eyes before salt could scour half-healed wounds apart.

Then he broke down and cried.

Genma held on through three long, shudder-breathed spasms of Raidou's shoulders before he felt Raidou flinch, and thought what those tears had to be doing to the unbandaged new skin under Raidou's left eye. Then he let go long enough to grab a roll of the gauze he'd opened before and press it carefully against the fingers shielding Raidou's eyes. Raidou took it from him with just the barest break in the rhythm of his weeping.

Raidou's tears were harsh and unaccustomed, rough-voiced and deep, shaking his whole body like each fresh breath had tapped into a whole new wellspring. And all Genma could do was hang on in a one-armed embrace and ride it out with him. Was it grief? Relief? Maybe ten-years worth of the one, never expressed, and the supernova burst of shock that came from its sudden release.

Genma let the heaves of Raidou's ribs against his chest set the pace of his own breaths, until he found himself rocking them both gently back and forth. Until Raidou's right hand reached up and clamped hard around Genma's forearm, strong fingers digging into sinewy muscle like Genma was the only thing anchoring Raidou from a terrible fall.

He held on and rocked, and whispered Raidou's name. And nothing more, because there weren't any words that made sense.

Raidou never cried. Never. Not like this. Genma'd seen Raidou tear up a few times at funerals, once when he'd had a really rough near-break and Genma'd run barefoot in the snow after him until they were both in danger of frostbite. Once, a very short time ago, through hospital bars, when the sounds of beeping monitors had been louder than anything else. This was different. This wasn't a few silent tears, or a couple of stifled shudders.

When Raidou's breaths eased and deepened, Genma slowed his rocking and pulled Raidou back against him, dropping his head to press his lips against the nape of Raidou's neck. To smell the tangy-musk of the other man, and feel the anvil-tension in Raidou's shoulders.

He wanted both arms to wrap Raidou in. Wanted to pull Raidou around to face him, to slide his hand up and cradle Raidou's head against his shoulder.

Needed to take a few deep breaths himself. He blinked salt-stung eyes and swallowed.

"Rai."

And nothing. What the hell else could he say?

It ended in hiccups, because nothing was fair, and a sting like he'd taken razor wire to his still-open scars. Raidou dragged in a deep breath, feeling it lurch and catch in his chest, and remembered what it was like to be four years old and hysterical, so broken up you couldn't breathe.

Of course, his father had been newly dead at the time -- and yeah, that was not a memory he needed to revisit. He was a fully grown adult now, with two years and thirty-plus pounds on the man he was crumbling against, and he really needed to pull it together.

Genma's arm deadlocked when Raidou started to shift away, immovable as granite. His mouth pressed against the back of Raidou's neck again, like a kiss and a point of contact all at once. He spoke without giving an inch, raw and steely.

"Don't you dare."

Raidou's chest did that choke-and-lurch thing again. He stilled, because it was that or stand and take Genma with him, and scrubbed the bedraggled roll of gauze over his burning eyes. His head felt like it was stuffed full of rocks. His nose was thoroughly clogged. He was, he realized, shaking faintly.

Well, this was just pathetic.

Genma's breath ghosted over the nape of his neck, warm as a river in summer, measured out in even inhale-exhales. Genma's grip couldn't get any tighter but he somehow felt more solid, like a wall at Raidou's back.

Like a partner who was more than that. Like a man who'd seen Raidou do far worse then get a little weepy.

Raidou swallowed hard, feeling his throat click, and stopped thinking about getting away.

"Want to hear something stupid?" he said thickly, after another moment to catch his breath. Genma hummed wordlessly against his skin, still not moving. Raidou drew strength from that. "She's been dead for for five years, but -- I miss my mom."

That drew a sharp breath from Genma. He let it out in a slow sigh and flattened his palm against Raidou's chest. "It's not stupid, Rai. My mom's been gone since I was a chuunin, and I still wish she was here when things are bad. Or my big sister. When... when I first came to a little, after that first surgery — when you weren't there, and I thought—" Raidou already knew what Genma'd thought. "I was really sure I heard her..." He trailed off, not sure he really wanted to dive any further into that memory.

Raidou lifted his head slightly, like he wanted Genma to go on.

Genma took another deep breath. "Yeah, it's stupid, too. I thought I heard Yumi's ghost calling my name, but it was just the nurse, I think."

Raidou wiped his eyes again and sat up a little bit. Not letting go of Genma, not even really moving apart. Just more centered in the way he rested in Genma's hold. "You never told me about your sister," he said quietly. "What was she like?"

"Yumi was... Well, she was smart. Smarter than me," Genma answered. "She was really responsible, too, and kind of... I don't know. Straight-laced, I guess. She had to be though, because Haruko was just a kid when our mom died. And I was.... well I was a new chuunin, and running Eros missions already, and.... Yeah. Yumi had to do all the real work. It was a good thing she was already a medic. It meant she could stay in the village easily and take care of the
house and Haruko."

The house. Gone. Razed to the foundation in the Fox's fires. And Haruko with it, in her wheelchair. And Yumi dead on the field, where she'd been a front-line medic that horrific night. Genma took another breath, and clung a little tighter to Raidou.

"You'd have probably liked her, actually. Yumi, I mean. She was probably more your type than I am, really. Everyone always said I looked like her."

Raidou could believe that. There had always been an edge of something a little delicate to Genma's features, something not-quite-but-almost feminine -- except in Genma it came out in edges and angles and long eyelashes. A rolling swing to his stride.

"I always thought you were girly," Raidou said raspily, feeling Genma's chest lift against his back. "And mad. I'm already straight-laced enough for two of me. I need your..."

Balance.

Partnership.

Ability not to laugh when Raidou admitted to being basically five years old and missing his mother.

Genma inhaled and said nothing, but his arm notched a little tighter around Raidou's ribcage. The stubble edging his jaw scratched against Raidou's throat, not at all girly, and Raidou wondered if Genma's mother had ever seen her son wear a beard. If Genma's sisters had ever imagined their only brother ending up in ANBU's armour and other people's beds for a living.

Probably not. Had they even known Genma liked men?

"We're in this for the long haul, aren't we?" Raidou said.

Genma almost answered before he'd really listened. Almost answered the first thing Raidou'd said instead of the last. Almost, with his lips parted for a breath, and then the air stopped in his throat. He sat rock-still, intensely aware of Raidou's back against his chest, Raidou's hand on his arm.

"In... what?" Genma stuttered. He felt tension shiver up Raidou's spine. Felt Raidou mirror the catch that had choked his own breath.

Genma tried to find words. "I... I mean. I mean..."

Yes. Obviously. Except...

The future? Not just tomorrow, but long term, the two of them. They were friends. Best friends. Lovers, as of last night, or maybe they had been for the last six months, or the almost-year since they'd first met even, but it had taken until yesterday to realize it. But the future?

Ninja didn't have futures. Did they?

They had the present, though. And the longer Genma didn't answer, the tenser he could feel Raidou become.

"I'm not going anywhere," Genma said at last. "I already told you that. I've always got your back, Rai. You're... I..."

Raidou tilted his head back, almost rubbing his unscarred cheek against Genma's. "Yeah. I thought so, Fearless." He leaned back against Genma's shoulder, tension draining, eyes closed. After a moment he took a raspy, hoarse-sounding breath, but he didn't move. "Can we bandage my damn face already?"

"Yeah." Genma took a breath, too. Breathed in synchrony with Raidou for three beats, just holding him. Feeling the weight of him.

The long haul.

Wow.

He took another slow, deep breath, then let go of Raidou to reach for the bandages.

"You want me to do the gauze, or do you want to do it yourself? And I'm not girly."

Raidou's mouth twitched at the corners, the right side higher than the left. "I'm all yours, mother-medic."

Genma snorted a laugh. "Okay, smart-ass. Turn around so I can work," he said, and pushed Raidou away so he could start bandaging.