| [Feb. 9th, 2011|09:23 pm] |
“Go ahead,” Kakashi murmured. “I’ll catch up.”
Ginta’s face was lit glo-stick green when he pulled his copy-cat mask down, making his cheekbones sharp and his eyes dark. He gave Kakashi a long, searching look.
“Okay,” he said finally, and left without another word.
Even in his absence, the full-colour ribbon of his living scent swept through the room like incense in a temple. Bright and busy and drowning everything else out. Kakashi inhaled deeply, trying to keep hold of smothered subtleties. Dust and stale air, paper, mud, a wrench of old copper-crimson from the stain on the lower mattress (GintaGintaGinta), the old lightning-burn of long gone chakra ...
And Ryouma.
Sunwarmed forests and salty skin, blackened steel and a lick of thunder. Soap and rot. Hair gel. The dark, sweet curl of too-strong, over-sugared coffee.
Kakashi fought the urge to climb up onto the top bunk and press his face into the mattress. Ryouma wasn’t here. The scent was months old.
When Ginta’s hand touched his shoulder, he almost jumped out of his skin.
“There’s nothing,” said Ginta, hastily pulling his hand back. Something like an apology flicked over his face, there and gone, leaving careful neutrality behind. “Kitchen’s empty. We should eat, though.”
“Seconded,” said Pakkun, finally piping up from near the main doorway, where he stood beneath Baiji’s shadowy bulk. Baiji rumbled weary agreement. The bunker was only marginally warmer than outside; there was still ice clotted in the mastiff’s fur and chunked heavily between the pads of his paws. Kakashi needed to take care of that.
"I can heat some water and make tea,” said Ginta, heading back into the main room. Kakashi followed him. “And rice. I’ve got a scroll with rice and dried mushrooms, so I could make us porridge."
Kakashi shrugged one aching, non-committal shoulder. “I’ll light the fire.”
“Keep it small,” Ginta advised. “The ventilation’s probably not great.”
Both dogs made quiet, delirious noises over the prospect of heat; if his mind hadn’t been locked so firmly elsewhere, Kakashi might have joined them. But mostly he just wanted to eat, sleep, and get moving again.
Ginta dropped down onto the battered couch, stripping off his soaked gloves and rummaging in his armour. Baiji and Pakkun flopped down in the centre of the room, where a dusty oval carpet offered scant insulation from the chilly floor. Kakashi settled cross-legged next to them on the concrete, also peeling his gloves off, and called up his chakra. He laced his fingers through awkward, sore-jointed seals -- monkey, horse, double ox, reverse dragon, snake -- to make the jutsu for a small, smokeless fire that would burn without wood...
And everything went very wrong. |
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