"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."