| All Fall Down [Ginta, Kakashi] | [Nov. 14th, 2011|12:57 am] |
[Takes place May 3, immediately following Off the Edge of the Map]
Half an hour passed before the shivering set in, while Ginta waited for Kakashi to do anything other than breathe. Cold from the floor, cold from shock, cold from unstemmed bleeding. The oppressive darkness turned hazy and gray, reducing Ginta’s world to Kakashi, unmoving but warm in his arms, and the icy dizziness trembling up from within. Baiji whined a worried sound when Ginta swayed, and tucked himself up close, sheltering both ninja against a broad, rough side.
A few chunks of ruined masonry fell, a groan rattled through the rubble, but their false cave held its shape.
Warmth.
The mastiff turned his massive head and licked at the blood on Ginta’s chin with another anxious whine.
From somewhere deep within, resolve reasserted itself. He could sit here and bleed to death, or he could deal. No. There wasn’t a choice. He would deal.
He eased one arm away from Kakashi and found a second roll of bandage, pressing it mercilessly against his cheek and snapping the crooked displacement of his nose back into line with a sharp curse.
The blackness burst with fireworks, and he tore a bitter, stubborn resolution from the pain.
It fucking hurt, and he was fucking pissed off. Pissed at Ryouma for getting himself lost and probably killed, pissed at Team Bad-Ass for laying this trap, pissed at Kakashi for dropping him like yesterday’s fish as soon as Ryouma had come along, pissed at himself for caring, pissed at the man breathing a steady coma in his arms as gods-knew-what bleeding seeped into that intricate, beautiful brain and ruined it forever.
Pissed at Pakkun for abandoning them. Pissed at Baiji for understanding and trying to comfort. Pissed and terrified, dizzy and queasy and cold.
“Kakashi, you wake the fuck up,” he shouted, inches from the man’s ear.
No response.
“Wake up. Wake the fuck up.” He could hear his voice breaking, feel every syllable punctuated with a shredded-steel grate of bone on bone in his smashed cheek.
“Please, Kakashi.”
Baiji whined and curled tighter still.
“Please, genius.”
And still there was no reply.
Hours passed. Cold turned to numbness, dizziness to drifting half-consciousness, sharp pain to an unrelenting ache. The weight of Kakashi in his arms didn’t change.
And then it did. There was a tension, suddenly, a twitch, a groan.
“Kakashi?” Ginta whispered, holding his breath.
Another inarticulate groan, and then, “My hair hurts.”
Ginta’s arms tightened against a suddenly responsive chest, and he gasped and shuddered as salt tears stung his cut up face. “You bastard,” he whispered. |
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