| [Feb. 9th, 2011|09:41 pm] |
In the dying light from the glowing kanji, in the settling dust, with his own heartbeat loud in his ears, Ginta looked down at Kakashi’s unresponsive face and knew Pakkun was lying. He took a moist, blood-saturated breath, blew it out, and shifted his hand so that the bandage pressed more firmly against the gaping wound on Kakashi’s scalp. Already he could feel the swelling underneath, and the bandage saturating like a sponge.
Pakkun was lying, because the truth was too horrifying to face.
Ginta took another breath and tried to get his head clear. Not a single thought came easy, and training, usually so deeply embedded it was nearly instinct, seemed to have fled.
Distantly, he was aware that he was shaking. That his breaths rasped and burbled and his head rang with pain. Distantly, he was aware of the red sting of a laceration across his cheek, and the shard-sharp ache of a broken nose. Of the way his jaw felt unstable and wrong every time he parted his lips, and sent something like a toothache radiating up into his right eye.
And Kakashi’s head was bleeding. Kakashi wasn’t moving.
He had to think.
What did you do for a head injury?
It was really hard to think.
A sharp yap from Pakkun brought Ginta’s eyes to the pug again.
“Ginta, get a grip, kid. Don’t phase out on me here.”
“What?”
“You’re really not all right, are you?” Pakkun sounded more like he was talking to himself than to Ginta.
All right. He needed to be all right.
“I...” Ginta felt along the knobs of Kakashi’s spine, talking to hear himself say it. “I don’t think his neck’s broken.” His fingers probed at the head wound, feeling for the telltale shift of bone. “If his skull’s cracked, I can’t tell...” He shifted the bandages, pressed them down again, and started winding gauze around Kakashi’s head in a clumsy turban, trying to keep the pressure tight.
Stop the bleeding.
He’d seen that chunk of concrete crack against Kakashi’s head.
What did you do for a head injury?
“Ginta!”
Ginta startled, looking down to see the bandaging done, Kakashi frighteningly still, and the end of the gauze trembling in his shaking fingers. He tried to take a breath, and couldn’t get air through his smashed nose. There was blood everywhere. Dying red light.
He looked up at Pakkun. “I don’t know what to do.” |
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