Fic: Something in the Silence. [Part 2/2]
Title: Something in the Silence. [Part 2/2]
Word Count: 14114
Summery: Kakashi runs into a unique jutsu. Ryouma almost kills himself laughing--and then really almost kills himself trying to get them both home. [Set in the world of Fallen Leaves.]
Warnings: Crack, angst, gore. Did I mention crack?
Notes: So right back around Christmas, I promised kilerkki a drabble for her present. Because she is awesome, she doesn't mind that it took me six months. And to make up for that, she's getting roughly 114 drabbles in one. This is officially the longest piece of fiction I've written solo (if having someone giving you feedback every step of the way counts as solo).
For you, Ki. I hope it's everything you wanted.
Part 1
---
A million miles and nothing to go, Kakashi falls asleep. Just like that. Chakra snuffing out like a candlelight as he flops down on Ryouma's shoulder and starts to slide off. Ryouma almost doesn't catch him in time, attention focused so closely on his own damn feet. He jerks to a halt, snatches Kakashi out of the air just before he hits the ground (oh-so-breakable ribs) and cradles the limp little body against his blood-streaked chestplate, fighting to breathe. (Don't sway.)
How the fuck do you check the pulse in a rabbit?
But Kakashi's chest lifts against his palm, more even and steady than its been since he fell asleep with flirelight gleaming on his fur, and Ryouma stares at him. Strokes a hand through matted fluff (nothing gleaming now) and tugs one of his ears, gentle at first then harder. Doesn't even get a twitch.
"Come on," he groans to the world at large, because bunnies and enemies and bruises from head to foot were bad enough but now he has to deal with comas?
Then logic smacks him straight between the eyes and he almost looks for the nearest tree to go beat his head against. Kakashi's not even a foot tall, less then ten pounds soaking wet, and he's been holding on with chakra since--since Ryouma can't even remember when. And it's not like his reserves are the best even when he's not got four paws and a tail.
(Chakra's the one thing Ryouma could always beat him at. Well, that and general awesomeness.)
(And a sparkling smile.)
He pulls up the ragged, soldier-pill-red threads of his own chakra and eases his way carefully into Kakashi's coils, floods dry pathways with fresh energy while he grits his teeth and fights not to yell Kakashi's ears off. Bastard's always gotta floor himself even when he's not fighting, splashing his energy about like water without a damn word (Kakashi can't talk), and Ryouma's tired of being the one to have a heart attack every time he watches his partner go down like a half-ton of bricks.
One brick.
Just when he's getting more dizzy than any conscious person has a right to (don't damn sway), Kakashi's ridiculously giant hind legs twitch, then flex out, little furry toes spread wide, and Ryouma's kind of glad his fur's on the long side of fluffy because he appreciates Kakashi naked (sweat pearling on pale skin), but a close up look at this version of Kakashi's whatever-euphemism is more than he feels like handling right now.
Except--not handling, because rabbit.
Kakashi's eye flickers open before Ryouma can decide if it's fever or blood loss or three days of running without sleep that's making his thoughts spiral in loops. He pulls his chakra back, lays it to rest in his coils, and stares down into that one jet-black eye that should be grey.
Kakashi stares right back, bedraggled and tiny and flat on his back, all his chakra wiped out from just hanging on, and Ryouma can't think of a thing to say.
"Little asshole," he croaks finally, and starts walking (running) again. Keeps the tiny body in his arms for as long as he can hold his hands up.
Which is pretty much forever, when they're braced under Kakashi's back.
---
Double vision doesn't make the twenty mile marker look any less gorgeous when Ryouma finally trips over it. He's so tired he almost lands on his knees just to (check it's really real) give the stylized leaf symbol a kiss.
"Almost there." His voice sounds like someone dragged it out of his throat and ripped it apart, but Kakashi hasn't stopped staring up at him and Ryouma's gotten used to filling the silence. Needs to, at this point, because he's never done well with solitude and Kakashi's only noise so far almost stopped his heart cold.
Well, except for a funny little grinding sound he made with his teeth once that was kind of like a purr. (Ryouma didn't tell him that; he's waiting to hear it again) But even that wasn't exactly conversation.
"Still with me, bucko?" He walks while he talks, staggers more than he slurs. "Blink once f'yes."
Kakashi blinks, but Ryouma thinks that might be coincidence. If that was the real-deal Kakashi in there, he'd be using a stick to scratch out pictures in the dirt, or stamping out the bunny version of morse code. Something smart. Something more than reflex chakra--
Ryouma shakes his head and keeps walking.
"'M gonna take a bath first thing," he says. "Big one. Maybe get a pretty nurse in there to scrub m'back."
If Kakashi has a reaction, it's hidden in the subtleties of bunny body language and Ryouma can't read it.
"You can have a bath, too. I'll get you a basin all of your own. An' we can eat and sleep and maybe see if we can't go chat up some pretty pet store owners before we get Sandaime-sama to turn you back. Might as well put those ears to use, right?"
Kakashi kicks over in his arms, going from still and staring to scrambling and moving so damn fast Ryouma almost drops him again. He grabs for a paw or a leg or a scuff, anything to keep Kakashi from hitting the ground and splashing, and manages lock his grip around one jerking hock.
"Whoa, whoa! Okay, so no pet store wom--umph!"
This time his back smashes into the tree, hip stinging dark and red from a blow he didn't even see, and Kakashi's spun away and gone before he has time to scream.
Ryouma screams, but it comes out cracked and raw, and shatters into dust when an arm slams across his throat. Blue eyes lean in and twinkle at him.
"Hello, Leaf-nin."
---
The thing Ryouma wants to know later is why them. He can think up a hundred reasons for the first team, and a hundred more for the second (starting with the blood on his hands), but the third guy makes less sense than a dissolvable raincoat.
Intel has some theories, but Intel's better at keeping its mouth closed than Kakashi on his worst day ever, and they're less susceptible to a wide grin and dancing eyes. (He tries anyway, pretends it doesn't matter when nothing works.)
The why shouldn't matter, really. He knows how and when and what shape the aftermath takes, cracks jokes about it until Kakashi almost pops a blood vessel with all the glaring he's doing.
But one blue-eyed bastard tracked them for six days, past half a dozen dead bodies, and how and when don't make much difference when why keeps scratching around inside Ryouma's head, keeping him up at night.
ANBU's a good gig, but he's starting to think the unanswered questions will kill him faster than the freakin' kunai.
---
"Go--to--hell." His voice is more grit than words, but it doesn't matter what he says so long as blue eyes are fixed on his mouth and not his hands. He spits blood for punctuation, follows it with a punch that's got more desperation behind it then real aim, and leaves behind half a falling tree trunk for the bastard to hit back.
First time Ryouma ever tried to substitute himself, he landed in the middle of a thorn-bush and spent the next hour pulling briers out of his skin. This time he hits the other half of that tree trunk, almost gets his head split open by an avalanche of branch and bark, and flings himself away before anything can catch up.
There's no sign of Kakashi.
(Kakashi can't talk)
Blue-Eyes nails him before he reaches a second tree, before he can even look, and Ryouma almost breaks his arm in half blocking a kick that wants to take his face off. He drops flat, catches himself on the hand he can still feel, and returns the favour with both heels, whipping around like oiled lightning to smash his feet up and under Blue-Eyes' chin. He's pretty sure he hears something crunch.
Pretty sure he feels something crunch when a knee slams him in the ribcage (it's not numb anymore) and bounces him off whatever bit of landscape leaps up to carve his back apart. Broken armour flaps and tangles and catches, yanking him down when he tries to get up, and Ryouma's starting to think passing out might be the better option anyway because something feels broken inside.
He sets his jaw and tears free. Scrambles, lurches, falls in a shower of rocks and leaves, coughs red all over the backs of his hands, and gets off his knees.
Blue-Eyes is waiting for him, watching like he thinks the whole thing is really kind of sad, mostly kind of funny. Steel drips from his fingers. Ryouma snarls at him, slaps his hands together, and grabs for every scrap of chakra he has left.
Which is right when Kakashi comes bombing in from left field, takes a flying leap that stings with blue-white energy, smashes paws-first right into Blue-Eyes' face, and convinces Ryouma he's lost his mind.
Blue-Eyes howls and grabs at himself, but he's doing it with two hands full of sharp edges, and Kakashi's kicking and scratching and screaming, and Ryouma doesn't have time to be insane. He lunges forward, dropping his chakra along with his hands, and slams his shoulder into Blue-Eye's armoured belly, driving the bastard straight into the dirt. Kakashi flies away, rolling head over tail into a scrubby tangle of tall grass, and Ryouma crunches fist against bone, puts everything he has into making sure Blue-Eyes never touches either one of them ever again.
Two oozing, bleeding scorch marks where ice-chip irises used to be makes the job a little easier.
He keeps hitting until he can't see scratches under blood (under bone chips), then picks Blue-Eyes' head up by the hair and brings it down on a rock. Doesn't hear the smash-crack-crunch over the thunder in his own ears, but the spray of red like strawberry pips says dead just as clear.
Blood drips in strings between Ryouma's teeth, sliding down his chin, and he thinks he almost prefers the rot. Then he realizes it's his own blood.
If it didn't hurt so damn much, he thinks he'd find the world funny again.
Kakashi comes limping back before he peels himself off the corpse, grass in the dark mess of his fur and black on his paws, skin hanging in strips under his claws; Ryouma picks him up, gentle as he remembers how, and re-visits the idea of passing out. Kind of starts to, when he slides sideways off Blue-Eyes' body and doesn't manage to catch himself with anything but his ribcage. Kakashi wriggles in his grip, kicking and fussing, then his nose touches the back of Ryouma's bruised knuckles, fast little breaths spilling across split-open skin, and Ryouma thinks maybe this is the part of the movie where he gets licked, all sweet and fuzzy, and the music rises and somehow he finds strength.
Kakashi bites him.
"Son of a bitch."
But he gets up again.
---
Blue-Eyes has scrolls in his pockets, tattoos on his chest, and an Iwagakure headband knotted around his wrist. Ryouma takes the first and the last, along with the dogtags from his throat, and curls a lip at the ink-work on general principles. Then he walks. Staggers. (Doesn't fall.) Kakashi's back in his arms, almost glued to the mess splattered over Ryouma's broken chestplate, and can't seem to decide if he's scared as hell or looking to rip something apart.
Speaking of which...
"Dude, a bunny chidori?" The words are ground up like glass, but seeing as Ryouma's been punched in the face, strangled, stabbed, kicked in the chest, flung all about the damn woods and feels sick (burned; there're no antibiotics left), he's fairly proud he manages anything at all.
Kakashi tilts his head to look up, ears flopping, and it's ridiculous he actually manages to look cute when he's been bounced around like a fuzzy pinball and hit every patch of mud along the way.
"How does that even work?" Ryouma's not expecting an answer, just wants to pretend that maybe he might get one. "It's not like you can make the seals."
Kakashi just looks at him, black in his fur and skin under his claws, and Ryouma thinks that maybe you can make a genius a rabbit but that doesn't mean you crush the genius.
(Kakashi's still in there)
And even if it wasn't a real chidori (no birdsong, no control, and no holes in Blue-Eyes' face) its not like Ryouma gives a damn. Four paws, one tail, less than ten pounds soaking wet, and Kakashi still has his back, even if he's gotta jump to reach it.
And with twenty miles left to go and the landscape melting around him, that's enough to keep walking for.
---
Five miles and forever from home, Ryouma's got nothing left. He makes it ten more steps anyway, riding on nothing but willpower and fuck this and fumes, but then the ground's coming up and his knees are buckling down and the only choice left is whether to catch himself with the one hand he can still feel or land flat and crush Kakashi broken.
Which is no choice at all.
His right hand hits the dirt, then his shoulder and his hip and somewhere between that and coughing his lungs up he ends up sprawled on his back, watching the sky wheel about overhead. Little points of light glitter, one great big one beaming like a white-blue coin (chidori), and how did it get to be night without him ever noticing?
Kakashi's braced on his stomach, held too tight in one black-caked hand; Ryouma lets him go so fast he almost burns himself and winces when that hand blisters from no feeling to way too much. Something in his forearm's rasping together and he's pretty sure it's bone, really sure he should have punched Blue-Eyes a few more times, but his knuckles already feel like meatslabs and would it really be worth it?
"Hell--yeah."
Weight changes, claws scrabble, then something like a giant freakin' rabbit foot stamps down on the bandaged hole in his ribcage. Ryouma flinches, hisses, and grabs for Kakashi again, but the little furry asshole dodges and then goes skittering straight up his wrecked chestplate, paws landing harder then something that size should really be able to manage. He winds up under Ryouma's chin, full weight resting on Ryouma's shredded throat just long enough to be really freakin' painful, before he slips off to one side and scampers about to stare Ryouma right in his left eye.
When Ryouma'd been a kid starving on the streets, picturing his last moment standing (better than thinking about food), there'd always been a lot more blazing glory and boobs than bunny nostrils.
More standing, too.
He kind of wishes he had something left to find this funny with.
Kakashi's sides are heaving again, dirty fur slicked down against his ribs, and if this is the part of the movie where he finally manages to talk or change back or become a magical healing bunny, Ryouma would really appreciate him getting on with it. But there's not even a whine in that worried little throat, and there's no morse code against his skin when Kakashi stretches up and braces two scorched paws against the blade of his cheekbone, and Ryouma finds a breath in the middle of all the fever (pain) and anger (fear) to wonder just how aware he really is. How scared he is.
He drags his hand up, a thousand-weight in lead and exhaustion (when did they sleep?), and cups it over Kakashi's hard-ridged little back (he can't remember eating). Fragile shoulderblades and arched ribs (like a temple roof, like a root cave and shelter for the night) lift beneath his palm, fast and shallow, and Ryouma sets his jaw and curses himself and rolls over and crawls.
Stands, staggers, falls back down. Gets up again. Keeps going.
Kakashi limps along by his side, sliding in mud, disappearing in leaves, but he stays and keeps up and when shadows draw in close, flickering with white and black and chakra, and put a hand on Ryouma's shoulder, he doesn't run.
He bites one of them on the ankle and almost gets himself kicked through a holly bush, instead. Ryouma tackles the man drawing his foot back (falls on him), grabs Kakashi up when he hits the dirt and spits something like Don't touch the bunny, asshole in garbled breath and blood before he passes right out.
Two miles from home and Kakashi rides in the stretcher the rest of the way back, curled up against Ryouma's throat.
---
Unconsciousness is a weird gig. Like reaching into a movie and stripping out the middle reels. Sometimes there's white, sometimes red (especially if someone cracks you in the head), but mostly there's a lurch from living-breathing colour to blackness and then you're waking up wondering why you're sprawled out on a rooftop with someone's initials scrawled across your chest.
Well, that tends to be the final chaser to a night of drinking, which isn't Ryouma's gig, (laugh and joke and tease and fix everything), but the principle's the same.
Fever makes a difference. Fever takes the middle reels and splices them everywhere. Ryouma spends two days dragged from black to colour and back again, watching his life play out upside-down and inside-out, sick and shaking and not sure whether it's safe enough to scream. (It's not.)
But he's a ninja and even if he wasn't born one the answer's still in his bones, carved in with steel and backbone and fuck this--
(Kakashi's not here)
--so he fights in full colour and sweats himself apart in the black and when two days splinter by and the fever (fire) finally wears itself out he wakes up with restraints on his wrists, stitches in his side, bandages everywhere he can see, and a nurse giving Kakashi a bath in a basin at the foot of his bed.
Ryouma licks split lips and says his first words in two days.
"That's--my job."
Kakashi struggles free, bounds over, and headbutts him under the chin. Ryouma figures that's bunny talk for welcome back.
---
Coming home with a fuzzy sidekicks brings some unexpected perks. They get their own room for starters (complete with a rabbit cage that Ryouma almost rips his stitches out cracking up over), and an endless supply of young pretty nurses who want to coo over a ninja bunny and his valiant saviour.
Kakashi doesn't exactly help by biting everyone who puts a finger near him, but just being around him gets Ryouma an almost disturbing number of I will totally take my panties off for you and your rabbit looks.
(He's almost tempted by one very pretty redhead, but then Kakashi bites him.)
The Uchiha elder who drops by with an aim to poke at sharingans is a lot less welcome, especially when he starts extracting gleaming silver needles from a leather pouch. Ryouma shoves Kakashi behind his pillow and bellows until his glass-edged voice cracks and shatters all over again; the bunny loving nurses spring to their rescue and get an order from the Sandaime that Kakashi's Strictly Off Limits.
Ryouma's only met the Sandaime once, when he first took his oath and mask, but he thinks he might love the guy, just a little.
Then the Sandaime actually drops by, handles Kakashi with careful, gentle fingers, and talks about an unfortunate pigeon incident in his youth (I still don't like seed), and Ryouma has to change that little to a lot. He tells the whole story as best he remembers it, from the first ninja right through to Blue-Eyes and everything after, and halfway through Kakashi flops into his lap and stretches out, legs kicked to one side. Absently, Ryouma scratches him between the ears until Kakashi dozes off, sides lifting quick and steady, and the air gets a kind of softness to it.
Eyes crinkling, the Sandaime takes the scrolls Ryouma dragged home, quotes some complicated theory about morphic fields and natural resonance that Ryouma's still too high on painkillers to completely follow, and sweeps out with the promise that everything's fixable.
(Everything's fixable)
Ryouma tells Kakashi he might have to learn how to read, just so he can compose a proper sonnet. But he does it quietly, because Kakashi's still asleep and now that he's half clean (only half; even with Ryouma bathing him, he still kicks up a hell of a fuss), he's pretty much the most adorable thing around, including the bunny lovers and pantie losers.
Ryouma crashes back into the black before he can ask a nurse to get him a camera.
---
Routine becomes a theme. In a way that Ryouma doesn't like to admit to, it's kind of comforting (wake up, sit up, drug up, get up, walk-stagger-limp until he wants to fall, chat up anyone who'll come near, apologize to anyone Kakashi happens to bite--wash, rinse, repeat), but mostly it's boring as all hell.
And Kakashi's still Strictly Off Limits, which makes Ryouma Off Limits By Proxy, which makes for an empty hospital room, especially when the nurses are busy.
Not that he's really expecting anyone to come visit--maybe a couple rubberneckers with a plan to get an eyeful of a certain fluffy genius--but it'd be nice to have the option.
Except Kakashi's already here, which kind of takes the visitor option down to Tsume or nothing.
Ryouma wastes thirty incredibly enjoyable minutes staring at the ceiling and picturing Tsume's laugh, and Kakashi's probable attempt to alpha-bunny her face off, and Kuromaru's reaction, and the rumours that'd scorch straight through Konoha...
He laughs so hard he hurts himself.
But in-between the funny and the ouch (ripped stitches, dammit) and watching Kakashi figure out how to groom his ears (which pretty much beats every previous adorable moment into the dust), two days skip by, mired in routine, and Ryouma starts to wonder exactly how much distance there is between fixable and soon.
Kakashi-the-bunny is cute, but he's starting to miss the real-deal so bad it's like a hole in the head. An ache in his gut. A pain in his chest when he sees mismatched eyes and the mouth beneath them isn't biting and sharp around a heap of sarcasm and one lonely, backhanded compliment.
Ryouma's been filling in both sides of the conversation for days, but now he finally finds himself shutting up. Finds his hand threading gently through soft, almost-clean fur, and lifting the dead-nothing weight up to his chest. Finds himself nose to never-stops-twitching nose with the guy who went straight from hero to hated to something completely his own (never stopped for breath), and tries to find the man he knows is in there.
Kakashi's got (had) a remarkable talent for hiding himself, but Ryouma could always see clean through him.
"You can come back now," he whispers.
Kakashi just looks at him, fast little breaths warming the thin slice of air between them.
(Kakashi can't talk)
---
Ryouma likes Konoha. He has ever since he was nine years old and realized he'd found a place where the doorways weren't too cold, the alleyways weren't too dark, and there was food around if you were quick enough to grab it. Since he found a gang and realized there were some kinds of family that weren't just looking for a place to stick the knife.
Not that he ever thought about it like that (drama's not his gig, either), but the point stands. He likes Konoha. The people and the music and the food (cinnamon buns the size of your head). He likes having something to fight for that isn't just his own skin.
Likes having a home.
Even likes the guy in charge, which is all kinds of amazing given that he never likes anyone with a plan to order him around. But the Sandaime's a decent guy, even if his sense of humour needs a serious re-tune.
Not to mention his ability to give sleeping ninja a warning first.
Five days into his hospital sentence, Ryouma dozes off halfway through a nurse-loaned film (something with deer and rabbits and singing owls, and an echoing silence when the hunter killed the mother). Kakashi's sprawled over his chest, sides rising fast and steady, paws twitching gently. The nurses, being decent (pretty) women, flick the TV off when it starts hissing static and switch out the lights when the sun goes down.
Sleep and painkillers bring weird dreams, including one about setting Kakashi up with the film's foot-stomping rabbit. Ryouma's just gotten to the part where he's suggesting carrots could totally go in icecream when the world suddenly gets airless and heavy and painful--
He startles awake with a choked shout, finds himself half-crushed into the mattress, and does what any sensible drugged-to-the-eyebrows ninja would do: flails and tries to grab his IV for a club.
The weight on his chest yells back, cracked and hoarse, elbows him in the face, and vanishes with a sound that's a lot like 148lbs of naked flesh hitting the floor.
Ryouma admires the pretty black and white sparkles that come from having every scrap of air driven out of a ribcage with a hole in it, then hauls himself up by the bed-rails, fully prepared to brain whatever idiot that decided to crash land on hi--where's Kakashi?
(Later, when he tells the story, he leaves out the part where it takes him a full minute to put two and two together and come up thank god)
Moonbeams catch his eye first, slicing through half-closed blinds to paint silvery-blue trails across the linoleum, and pure gilded silver over iron-tense shoulders. Then he just sees naked, because it's kind of a key feature. Naked arms, crisscrossed with old scars; naked legs, one tucked painfully beneath the other; naked chest, heaving with quick, shallow breaths. Bare face, wide eyes (rain-grey and spinning crimson-black), and a mouth gone tight with shock.
Not a paw, scrap of fur, or fluffy tail anywhere in sight.
"Kakashi?" Ryouma croaks, and that unmasked face jerks around to stare up at him, but he doesn't get the chance to add a second word. Smoke fountains up in the doorway, breaking the air with a sharp crack and a scent like burning leaves, and the Sandaime is suddenly right there.
Kakashi startles worse than Ryouma's ever seen him, electrified to his feet like someone just tried to rip his skin off; he blurs from there to here, diving beneath the bed covers and crashing straight into Ryouma's side, hard enough to start up that little dance of black and white sparkles again. Ryouma swears--or maybe shouts; he's a little too busy trying not to pass out to really pay attention--and then there are strong, liver-spotted hands catching his right wrist (before he kills someone) and touching the pulse in his throat, and everyone needs to stop moving right now.
He comes back to the Sandaime's face giving him a concerned look, the Sandaime's hands keeping him from doing something fatal, and a whole lot of weight pressed against his left flank, cold from shoulder to ankle. Ryouma stares up into calm eyes and tries to get his mental feet back on solid ground.
"You can let go," he manages finally. Then: "What the hell?"
The Sandaime releases him and waves away the clustered knot of medical staff crowding in through the door. "I'm sorry, I didn't expect the jutsu to react just because we found the right combination of seals. But the chakra just yanked--"
Ryouma stops listening. Stops caring, because that weight against his side is real and right there and (Kakashi) shaking. He hooks the edge of the blanket up, catches a glimpse of hands over a face pressed into his shoulder, silver hair flying everywhere, and slams his palm into the middle of the Sandaime's chest before he can remember how monumentally stupid that is. "What did you do?"
"Brought him back." The Sandaime doesn't do anything about the fingers clenched in his robes, doesn't even seem to notice them. He just keeps giving Ryouma that calm, all-too-level look that makes him want to snarl, and nods down at Kakashi's shoulder, left bare by the blankets. "It'll take a minute. But at least he remembers you."
"He remembered me when he was a rabbit," Ryouma snaps, and wraps an arm around the first bit of Kakashi he can grab, tangling them both up in IV lines. His other hand clenches in the Sandaime's robes, almost ripping them straight off the man when Ryouma yanks him closer. "If you've hurt him--"
The Sandaime flicks him between the eyebrows. "Focus, please. What's been done isn't nearly so important as what we do now."
"I don't want a damn proverb--"
Skin blooms red where a second flick catches him. "That's not focusing."
Through supreme effort of gritted teeth, Ryouma manages not to strip the Sandaime's coat off and strangle him with it. "Then what do you suggest?"
"Talk to him." Hard fingers circle around Ryouma's wrist, breaking his grip with a neat twist and flare of chakra. "Remind him which species he belongs to."
Ryouma yanks his hand back, teeth baring before he can make his expression wipe smooth and clean (ninja). "And if that doesn't work?"
The Sandaime straightens up. "Then I suggest we think of something else. I'm not so free with my ninja, Tousaki-kun, that I intend to let one of my best and brightest just slip away."
Ryouma almost grabs for his IV stand again. "Then you should treat him better--" He snaps the words in half, breath hissing between his teeth, and glares at the man he swore loyalty to. Tightens his hold around the one who's more important. "I'll bring him back. You want to stay and play voyeur? Because I work better without an audience."
If the Sandaime has a reaction to words spat out like hot metal tacks, he hides it better than Ryouma can see. "Good luck, shinobi. Try not to let yourself get lost, either."
He vanishes with a blurring of air and complete absence of smoke; Ryouma makes a vaguely inarticulate noise of anger dragged through surprise. "Said I didn't want a damn proverb," he growls, half to himself, and fixes his attention on the room's only other occupant.
Kakashi's not growling. Kakashi's not really doing anything, other than keeping his hands over his face, his face against Ryouma's shoulder, and (shaking) breathing hard and shallow enough to give himself a stroke.
Ryouma wets his lips. Then he rolls over as best he can. He eases Kakashi off his side, puts his stitched (re-stitched) ribcage against the mattress, and gentles the hand not already wrapped around Kakashi's shoulders against the back of his neck, fingers sliding awkwardly through hair that's softer than he remembers.
Kakashi doesn't even flinch.
(Talk to him)
Ryouma opens his mouth, finds himself completely without words, and closes it again. What do you say to someone who's spent the last fortnight staring up at the world from ankle-height? Welcome back, hope the greenery-diet didn't suck too much?
Actually, that's not bad.
"Hey, bucko," he says quietly, chasing the rage out of his voice. He lowers his head until Kakashi's hair brushes his face. "Enjoying the view?"
Kakashi says nothing, but Ryouma didn't expect him to. Half the time Kakashi says more with a look anyway, even when all he's looking at is his own hands.
(Kakashi's still in there)
"Okay, lame ice-breaker. How about this; did I ever tell you about my first border mission out to Lightning? You wouldn't believe the landscape..."
It takes less effort than Ryouma thought it would to picks his voice up, smash vowels into consonant, strip down the tattered shreds of his own version of mental filter, and just talk. About everything, anything that comes to mind. How boring hospitals are; how pretty the female nurses look (and how terrifying the male ones are by comparison); how one day he's gonna be Hokage, just so he can wear a big hat and go around flicking injured shinobi in the face. He recites every story he's ever been told, makes up a few on the spot, and tangents occasionally into long, rambling lectures on how best to look after any kind of blade, creating answers when he can't quite remember the facts. He keeps it light when he can, funny when he remembers, and quiet when his voice starts to rasp a little.
He talks all about the first time he ever got laid, because sometimes dropping sex into the conversation will loosen people up more than anything else, but mostly he just talks.
And thinks good thoughts.
The morning sun isn't yet a glimmer on the horizon when he finally slides into silence, heavy-lidded and half-asleep. Kakashi's a warm, heavy weight against his side, breathing soft and even, hands still pressed loosely against his face. Asleep, Ryouma realizes, and wonders when that happened. He reaches out carefully, brushes back the matted tangle of silver hair from Kakashi's forehead (it's longer than he remembers), and settles down to stand watch, waiting for dawn.
"Knew you'd come back," he murmurs.
Kakashi says nothing. Ryouma doesn't mind.
---
The afternoon breaks bright and violent when Ryouma gets unceremoniously shoved out of bed. He lands on hospital linoleum, cracks his head against the wall, and knocks the IV stand over. It's not his favourite wake up ever. Half a dozen bruises and the bandages gash in his side agrees.
"Argh," he says, by way of protest, and scrambles halfway to his feet.
A ballistic pillow greets him in the face before he makes it. Fortunately, the floor is there to catch him again. "What the hell?"
"You bastard."
It's Kakashi, wild-eyed, grim-mouthed, tangled up in half the sheet and preparing to hurl Ryouma's discarded coffee mug. He looks furious--or maybe terrified. With Kakashi, it's hard to tell.
Ryouma jerks his hands up. "Ow. Whoa! What?"
The mug shatters above his head, which tells him two things: one, Kakashi's not aiming to hit him; and two, he's definitely in the mood to break things.
"You stupid, moronic, arrogant--"
Three things. Kakashi is talking.
"Charming bastard?" Ryouma suggests, cutting in. Kakashi's eyes narrow further--there's a glint of wheeling red against dead white skin--but he's run out of things to throw, unless he plans to launch the bedframe. Ryouma risks trying to stand.
"I should snap you in half," Kakashi snarls. "But then I'd have to deal with two of you." His hands flex, angular chin jerks up. He's jittery.
And Ryouma's just confused.
"Did I kick you in your sleep?" he demands. "Or is afternoon homicide just your way of saying thanks?"
"I had to watch." It's a snarl and a growl and something like a scream, ripped from the strained tendons of that pale throat. Kakashi's out of bed now, almost losing his sheet and a hundred miles past caring. His teeth are bared. "All the way home, with you bleeding and fighting and losing. I couldn't help and I didn't even understand half of it and you almost got yourself killed. You idiot."
It's one of the longest speeches Kakashi's ever made, though certainly not his best. Ryouma watches him stagger like he doesn't quite remember how to stand up on two legs, and resists the urge to whack someone's head against the bedside table. There've already been enough unnecessary concussion.
"Look..." he begins, and falters. They've done this dance before. This is Kakashi's thing. Fear-anger-shame. Step-two-three. Around and around again without any celebration that they made it home alive, never happy until the exact amount of guilt has been weighed and sharpened and used to stab someone. It's maddening.
(It's Kakashi)
And Ryouma's the one who hangs around him, so who's really the idiot here?
A nurse sticks her head enquiringly around the door, gets a double set of heated glares, and ducks out hastily. Ryouma's fingers tangle in the frayed drawstring of his pyjama pants. Finally, he sighs, grits his teeth, and lifts his chin. "I'm going to be happy for us," he decides. "You can stand there and pitch a fit all you like, but I'm the guy dressed in damn bandages and I don't feel bad about it. In fact, I'm taking the opportunity to enjoy the view. You're losing your sheet there, long-ears."
For half a heartbeat, he thinks Kakashi's about to kill him on the spot. Expressions flicker across the copy-ninja's entirely naked face like ripples on water. Shock-confusion-rage. (Step-two-three) Then the hard line of white lips relax, the crease between steel-grey eyebrows smooths away, and the sharingan's crimson glint fades.
A mask without cloth, but Kakashi's hands can't seem to still. "Screw you, Ryouma," he says, and wrenches the sheet up, turning away.
"Sure," Ryouma agrees with a smile. Because this is the second part of the dance, where he pushes and Kakashi runs and one of them breaks. It doesn't feel like his turn.
(Around and around again)
Narrow shoulders lift, rigid with tension. There's a threat in there, but that is part of Ryouma's gig, and he enjoys a life lived on the edge. Besides, Kakashi's got nowhere to go, unless he plans to fall half-naked down four flights of hospital stairs and really make someone's day. Ryouma steps close, right inside that invisible barrier of personal space, and flattens his hand between Kakashi's bare shoulderblades.
A beat later, he still has all four limbs. Good sign. Kakashi's not shaking, now; if he held himself any tighter, something would shatter. Ryouma sweeps his hand slowly down, following the hard ridge of spine between long muscles. His fingers meet cloth without any reaction, pausing at the top of Kakashi's hips; he sweeps his hand back up.
Petting without fur. A laugh catches in the back of his throat.
Kakashi doesn't move. If it weren't for the warmth of skin against Ryouma's hand, the double-bass-beat of a heart tripping too fast, it'd be like touching a statue. But he can feel the slow, dangerous ripple of chakra coiling through electric pathways. The edge in the air that says tread carefully.
He risks sliding his other arm around Kakashi's waist, pulling the man back against his chest. Bandaged, dressed in nothing but pale blue pyjama bottoms, still lashed to the fallen IV stand with plastic tubing, he makes odd looking support. But Kakashi's no better, rigid as marble and twice as pale. The wild mess of his hair silvers the edge of Ryouma's vision.
Carefully, he drops his chin and lets it rest on one angular shoulder. Exhales deliberately against the side of Kakashi's neck.
"Hell of a week," he murmurs. "But in case you're wondering, I'm still breathing. And you came back."
Kakashi's not running. He's barely breathing. Ryouma presses against his back, solid and warm and very much alive. Trying to show him.
Kakashi shudders.
(one of them breaks)
From the base of his spine all the way up to his locked jaw, muscles tighten in a rictus dance that Ryouma can feel biting through his bones. Air hisses between Kakashi's teeth. Ryouma braces himself for an elbow in the gut--or something worse--but Kakashi just inhales slowly, ribcage lifting against Ryouma's arm, and then twists, turning sharp and fast.
Ryouma's side yelps a hot red protest; he flinches. Hands catch him before he pulls away, grabbing his unwounded side and the opposite shoulder. Kakashi's hair is all over his face, but there's still a visible slice of steel-grey, pinning Ryouma with more glare than one eye should be able to hold against two. Ryouma looks back, as level and steady as he can be with a face that just wants to wince, waiting for Kakashi to make up his mind.
One heartbeat. Step-two-three.
Fingers tremble, clenching against his side and shoulder. Kakashi swallows hard, squeezes his eyes closed, and shoves his face against the side of Ryouma's throat. "You bastard."
"You said that already," Ryouma reminds him, low-voiced.
Kakashi's words are muffled. "Because I mean it." He isn't crying, but there's a catch to the words that suggests maybe, in another life, he might want to.
(I didn't even understand half of it)
Ryouma has one hand not actively engaged in hugging; somehow it finds its way to cupping the back of Kakashi's skull, where the fragile curve of bone fits his palm perfectly. His fingers card through tousled hair badly in need of a wash and cut.
Scary week, he doesn't manage to say.
Air slides over his skin; Kakashi's catching his scent, getting a primal reminder that everyone's still alive and breathing. At least, Ryouma thinks that's what he's doing. All it's doing for him is throwing up a stellar reminder that Kakashi's wearing nothing but a sheet and they're both within ten feet of a workable bed.
"You realize," he says thoughtfully, rubbing a slow circle into Kakashi's lower back, "that you've been naked all week and I haven't once taken advantage? I reckon that's worth a medal, or some kind of certificate, at least."
There's a moment of silence.
"I was a rabbit."
"Admitting it is the first step," Ryouma tells him cheerfully. "And you mentioned it first. That's two medals now."
Later, he reflects on the wisdom of trying to tease Kakashi out of his emotional kaleidascope when the man's teeth are level with his throat.
"Son of a--!"
But there's just the faintest curve of a smile in that bite, the first touch of relaxation in those iron-tense shoulders, and something like life in Kakashi's yelp when Ryouma wrestles him onto the bed, almost rips out every single one of his stitches, and ends up entangled in one of the most uncomfortable fighting-hugs of his life.
Kakashi always did like touch, even if you'd never get him to admit it.
(Kakashi can talk)
---
In the end, Kakashi was a rabbit for eleven days, and it takes a week for his hands to stop shaking. Ryouma spends his time caught between laughter and worry, stubbornly refusing to be brushed aside with I'm fine, watching the genius who's his friend (partner, lover, more) pretend everything's okay.
Basically, it's the same old routine.
At least Kakashi's not the nightmare kind--or if he is, he never shows it.
Shaking hands aren't the only thing, either. Kakashi was only a rabbit for eleven days, but he's been a copy-cat much longer and all those new quirks found their way inside that big clever brain and clicked.
His nose twitches. Ryouma almost killed himself laughing when he saw that. Kakashi always did a nostril-flare thing when he scented, but now there's a definite nasal wrinkle going on that scratches a line between iron-grey eyebrows and Ryouma may never be able to breathe again.
He keeps trying to clean his ears, too. Lifting an absent hand to the side of his head whenever he gets distracted or thoughtful, fingers carding briefly through too-long hair, and then stumbling when he realizes exactly what he's doing. Ryouma almost bust his stitches cracking up the first time he figured out what that gesture was.
There're other things, too, less funny things, that Ryouma notices. Kakashi startles more easily, now, freezing into a block of marble when something pings his senses the wrong way, then uncoiling all at once in a rush of released tension like a hare breaking into flight. He almost snapped a chuunin's neck, once, when the kid stepped suddenly out of a branching hallway. Would have, if Ryouma hadn't tackled the kid to the floor.
But it's just a week--and all jounin are touchy, right?--and when they start heading back out on missions, things seem to settle down again. Kakashi relaxes, sheathed in black and bone and his double masks, backed by weapons and Ryouma's unwavering footsteps (they run a lot of missions together, now), and Ryouma stops worrying. Starts laughing more, teasing more, living more...
Two weeks down the line, in the sliver-thin bite of downtime they get between assignments, Kakashi suddenly turns around with his mask down, his hitai-ate up, and something a lot like a wicked grin beneath those mismatched eyes. Ryouma gets the chance to say "Wha--?" before chakra sparks and the world lurches around him--
Rising up.
And turning black, because he's drowning in clothes. He fights his way out in a thrashing, furious, really confused tangle of claws and fur, and finds himself half a foot tall, staring up at a silver-haired giant, and seriously thinking about biting something.
Like lettuce.
High above, Kakashi's smile broadens. "Figured out how to modify it so you keep your mind."
Ryouma makes some inarticulate, slightly squeaky noise, and almost goes cross-eyed trying to stare at himself.
"Payback," says Kakashi, and bends down to scritch him cheerfully behind the ears. "I'll turn you back when you promise to never talk about it ever again."
Ryouma bites him.
Later, when he tells the story, he leaves out the week he spent as a rabbit.
Word Count: 14114
Summery: Kakashi runs into a unique jutsu. Ryouma almost kills himself laughing--and then really almost kills himself trying to get them both home. [Set in the world of Fallen Leaves.]
Warnings: Crack, angst, gore. Did I mention crack?
Notes: So right back around Christmas, I promised kilerkki a drabble for her present. Because she is awesome, she doesn't mind that it took me six months. And to make up for that, she's getting roughly 114 drabbles in one. This is officially the longest piece of fiction I've written solo (if having someone giving you feedback every step of the way counts as solo).
For you, Ki. I hope it's everything you wanted.
Part 1
---
A million miles and nothing to go, Kakashi falls asleep. Just like that. Chakra snuffing out like a candlelight as he flops down on Ryouma's shoulder and starts to slide off. Ryouma almost doesn't catch him in time, attention focused so closely on his own damn feet. He jerks to a halt, snatches Kakashi out of the air just before he hits the ground (oh-so-breakable ribs) and cradles the limp little body against his blood-streaked chestplate, fighting to breathe. (Don't sway.)
How the fuck do you check the pulse in a rabbit?
But Kakashi's chest lifts against his palm, more even and steady than its been since he fell asleep with flirelight gleaming on his fur, and Ryouma stares at him. Strokes a hand through matted fluff (nothing gleaming now) and tugs one of his ears, gentle at first then harder. Doesn't even get a twitch.
"Come on," he groans to the world at large, because bunnies and enemies and bruises from head to foot were bad enough but now he has to deal with comas?
Then logic smacks him straight between the eyes and he almost looks for the nearest tree to go beat his head against. Kakashi's not even a foot tall, less then ten pounds soaking wet, and he's been holding on with chakra since--since Ryouma can't even remember when. And it's not like his reserves are the best even when he's not got four paws and a tail.
(Chakra's the one thing Ryouma could always beat him at. Well, that and general awesomeness.)
(And a sparkling smile.)
He pulls up the ragged, soldier-pill-red threads of his own chakra and eases his way carefully into Kakashi's coils, floods dry pathways with fresh energy while he grits his teeth and fights not to yell Kakashi's ears off. Bastard's always gotta floor himself even when he's not fighting, splashing his energy about like water without a damn word (Kakashi can't talk), and Ryouma's tired of being the one to have a heart attack every time he watches his partner go down like a half-ton of bricks.
One brick.
Just when he's getting more dizzy than any conscious person has a right to (don't damn sway), Kakashi's ridiculously giant hind legs twitch, then flex out, little furry toes spread wide, and Ryouma's kind of glad his fur's on the long side of fluffy because he appreciates Kakashi naked (sweat pearling on pale skin), but a close up look at this version of Kakashi's whatever-euphemism is more than he feels like handling right now.
Except--not handling, because rabbit.
Kakashi's eye flickers open before Ryouma can decide if it's fever or blood loss or three days of running without sleep that's making his thoughts spiral in loops. He pulls his chakra back, lays it to rest in his coils, and stares down into that one jet-black eye that should be grey.
Kakashi stares right back, bedraggled and tiny and flat on his back, all his chakra wiped out from just hanging on, and Ryouma can't think of a thing to say.
"Little asshole," he croaks finally, and starts walking (running) again. Keeps the tiny body in his arms for as long as he can hold his hands up.
Which is pretty much forever, when they're braced under Kakashi's back.
---
Double vision doesn't make the twenty mile marker look any less gorgeous when Ryouma finally trips over it. He's so tired he almost lands on his knees just to (check it's really real) give the stylized leaf symbol a kiss.
"Almost there." His voice sounds like someone dragged it out of his throat and ripped it apart, but Kakashi hasn't stopped staring up at him and Ryouma's gotten used to filling the silence. Needs to, at this point, because he's never done well with solitude and Kakashi's only noise so far almost stopped his heart cold.
Well, except for a funny little grinding sound he made with his teeth once that was kind of like a purr. (Ryouma didn't tell him that; he's waiting to hear it again) But even that wasn't exactly conversation.
"Still with me, bucko?" He walks while he talks, staggers more than he slurs. "Blink once f'yes."
Kakashi blinks, but Ryouma thinks that might be coincidence. If that was the real-deal Kakashi in there, he'd be using a stick to scratch out pictures in the dirt, or stamping out the bunny version of morse code. Something smart. Something more than reflex chakra--
Ryouma shakes his head and keeps walking.
"'M gonna take a bath first thing," he says. "Big one. Maybe get a pretty nurse in there to scrub m'back."
If Kakashi has a reaction, it's hidden in the subtleties of bunny body language and Ryouma can't read it.
"You can have a bath, too. I'll get you a basin all of your own. An' we can eat and sleep and maybe see if we can't go chat up some pretty pet store owners before we get Sandaime-sama to turn you back. Might as well put those ears to use, right?"
Kakashi kicks over in his arms, going from still and staring to scrambling and moving so damn fast Ryouma almost drops him again. He grabs for a paw or a leg or a scuff, anything to keep Kakashi from hitting the ground and splashing, and manages lock his grip around one jerking hock.
"Whoa, whoa! Okay, so no pet store wom--umph!"
This time his back smashes into the tree, hip stinging dark and red from a blow he didn't even see, and Kakashi's spun away and gone before he has time to scream.
Ryouma screams, but it comes out cracked and raw, and shatters into dust when an arm slams across his throat. Blue eyes lean in and twinkle at him.
"Hello, Leaf-nin."
---
The thing Ryouma wants to know later is why them. He can think up a hundred reasons for the first team, and a hundred more for the second (starting with the blood on his hands), but the third guy makes less sense than a dissolvable raincoat.
Intel has some theories, but Intel's better at keeping its mouth closed than Kakashi on his worst day ever, and they're less susceptible to a wide grin and dancing eyes. (He tries anyway, pretends it doesn't matter when nothing works.)
The why shouldn't matter, really. He knows how and when and what shape the aftermath takes, cracks jokes about it until Kakashi almost pops a blood vessel with all the glaring he's doing.
But one blue-eyed bastard tracked them for six days, past half a dozen dead bodies, and how and when don't make much difference when why keeps scratching around inside Ryouma's head, keeping him up at night.
ANBU's a good gig, but he's starting to think the unanswered questions will kill him faster than the freakin' kunai.
---
"Go--to--hell." His voice is more grit than words, but it doesn't matter what he says so long as blue eyes are fixed on his mouth and not his hands. He spits blood for punctuation, follows it with a punch that's got more desperation behind it then real aim, and leaves behind half a falling tree trunk for the bastard to hit back.
First time Ryouma ever tried to substitute himself, he landed in the middle of a thorn-bush and spent the next hour pulling briers out of his skin. This time he hits the other half of that tree trunk, almost gets his head split open by an avalanche of branch and bark, and flings himself away before anything can catch up.
There's no sign of Kakashi.
(Kakashi can't talk)
Blue-Eyes nails him before he reaches a second tree, before he can even look, and Ryouma almost breaks his arm in half blocking a kick that wants to take his face off. He drops flat, catches himself on the hand he can still feel, and returns the favour with both heels, whipping around like oiled lightning to smash his feet up and under Blue-Eyes' chin. He's pretty sure he hears something crunch.
Pretty sure he feels something crunch when a knee slams him in the ribcage (it's not numb anymore) and bounces him off whatever bit of landscape leaps up to carve his back apart. Broken armour flaps and tangles and catches, yanking him down when he tries to get up, and Ryouma's starting to think passing out might be the better option anyway because something feels broken inside.
He sets his jaw and tears free. Scrambles, lurches, falls in a shower of rocks and leaves, coughs red all over the backs of his hands, and gets off his knees.
Blue-Eyes is waiting for him, watching like he thinks the whole thing is really kind of sad, mostly kind of funny. Steel drips from his fingers. Ryouma snarls at him, slaps his hands together, and grabs for every scrap of chakra he has left.
Which is right when Kakashi comes bombing in from left field, takes a flying leap that stings with blue-white energy, smashes paws-first right into Blue-Eyes' face, and convinces Ryouma he's lost his mind.
Blue-Eyes howls and grabs at himself, but he's doing it with two hands full of sharp edges, and Kakashi's kicking and scratching and screaming, and Ryouma doesn't have time to be insane. He lunges forward, dropping his chakra along with his hands, and slams his shoulder into Blue-Eye's armoured belly, driving the bastard straight into the dirt. Kakashi flies away, rolling head over tail into a scrubby tangle of tall grass, and Ryouma crunches fist against bone, puts everything he has into making sure Blue-Eyes never touches either one of them ever again.
Two oozing, bleeding scorch marks where ice-chip irises used to be makes the job a little easier.
He keeps hitting until he can't see scratches under blood (under bone chips), then picks Blue-Eyes' head up by the hair and brings it down on a rock. Doesn't hear the smash-crack-crunch over the thunder in his own ears, but the spray of red like strawberry pips says dead just as clear.
Blood drips in strings between Ryouma's teeth, sliding down his chin, and he thinks he almost prefers the rot. Then he realizes it's his own blood.
If it didn't hurt so damn much, he thinks he'd find the world funny again.
Kakashi comes limping back before he peels himself off the corpse, grass in the dark mess of his fur and black on his paws, skin hanging in strips under his claws; Ryouma picks him up, gentle as he remembers how, and re-visits the idea of passing out. Kind of starts to, when he slides sideways off Blue-Eyes' body and doesn't manage to catch himself with anything but his ribcage. Kakashi wriggles in his grip, kicking and fussing, then his nose touches the back of Ryouma's bruised knuckles, fast little breaths spilling across split-open skin, and Ryouma thinks maybe this is the part of the movie where he gets licked, all sweet and fuzzy, and the music rises and somehow he finds strength.
Kakashi bites him.
"Son of a bitch."
But he gets up again.
---
Blue-Eyes has scrolls in his pockets, tattoos on his chest, and an Iwagakure headband knotted around his wrist. Ryouma takes the first and the last, along with the dogtags from his throat, and curls a lip at the ink-work on general principles. Then he walks. Staggers. (Doesn't fall.) Kakashi's back in his arms, almost glued to the mess splattered over Ryouma's broken chestplate, and can't seem to decide if he's scared as hell or looking to rip something apart.
Speaking of which...
"Dude, a bunny chidori?" The words are ground up like glass, but seeing as Ryouma's been punched in the face, strangled, stabbed, kicked in the chest, flung all about the damn woods and feels sick (burned; there're no antibiotics left), he's fairly proud he manages anything at all.
Kakashi tilts his head to look up, ears flopping, and it's ridiculous he actually manages to look cute when he's been bounced around like a fuzzy pinball and hit every patch of mud along the way.
"How does that even work?" Ryouma's not expecting an answer, just wants to pretend that maybe he might get one. "It's not like you can make the seals."
Kakashi just looks at him, black in his fur and skin under his claws, and Ryouma thinks that maybe you can make a genius a rabbit but that doesn't mean you crush the genius.
(Kakashi's still in there)
And even if it wasn't a real chidori (no birdsong, no control, and no holes in Blue-Eyes' face) its not like Ryouma gives a damn. Four paws, one tail, less than ten pounds soaking wet, and Kakashi still has his back, even if he's gotta jump to reach it.
And with twenty miles left to go and the landscape melting around him, that's enough to keep walking for.
---
Five miles and forever from home, Ryouma's got nothing left. He makes it ten more steps anyway, riding on nothing but willpower and fuck this and fumes, but then the ground's coming up and his knees are buckling down and the only choice left is whether to catch himself with the one hand he can still feel or land flat and crush Kakashi broken.
Which is no choice at all.
His right hand hits the dirt, then his shoulder and his hip and somewhere between that and coughing his lungs up he ends up sprawled on his back, watching the sky wheel about overhead. Little points of light glitter, one great big one beaming like a white-blue coin (chidori), and how did it get to be night without him ever noticing?
Kakashi's braced on his stomach, held too tight in one black-caked hand; Ryouma lets him go so fast he almost burns himself and winces when that hand blisters from no feeling to way too much. Something in his forearm's rasping together and he's pretty sure it's bone, really sure he should have punched Blue-Eyes a few more times, but his knuckles already feel like meatslabs and would it really be worth it?
"Hell--yeah."
Weight changes, claws scrabble, then something like a giant freakin' rabbit foot stamps down on the bandaged hole in his ribcage. Ryouma flinches, hisses, and grabs for Kakashi again, but the little furry asshole dodges and then goes skittering straight up his wrecked chestplate, paws landing harder then something that size should really be able to manage. He winds up under Ryouma's chin, full weight resting on Ryouma's shredded throat just long enough to be really freakin' painful, before he slips off to one side and scampers about to stare Ryouma right in his left eye.
When Ryouma'd been a kid starving on the streets, picturing his last moment standing (better than thinking about food), there'd always been a lot more blazing glory and boobs than bunny nostrils.
More standing, too.
He kind of wishes he had something left to find this funny with.
Kakashi's sides are heaving again, dirty fur slicked down against his ribs, and if this is the part of the movie where he finally manages to talk or change back or become a magical healing bunny, Ryouma would really appreciate him getting on with it. But there's not even a whine in that worried little throat, and there's no morse code against his skin when Kakashi stretches up and braces two scorched paws against the blade of his cheekbone, and Ryouma finds a breath in the middle of all the fever (pain) and anger (fear) to wonder just how aware he really is. How scared he is.
He drags his hand up, a thousand-weight in lead and exhaustion (when did they sleep?), and cups it over Kakashi's hard-ridged little back (he can't remember eating). Fragile shoulderblades and arched ribs (like a temple roof, like a root cave and shelter for the night) lift beneath his palm, fast and shallow, and Ryouma sets his jaw and curses himself and rolls over and crawls.
Stands, staggers, falls back down. Gets up again. Keeps going.
Kakashi limps along by his side, sliding in mud, disappearing in leaves, but he stays and keeps up and when shadows draw in close, flickering with white and black and chakra, and put a hand on Ryouma's shoulder, he doesn't run.
He bites one of them on the ankle and almost gets himself kicked through a holly bush, instead. Ryouma tackles the man drawing his foot back (falls on him), grabs Kakashi up when he hits the dirt and spits something like Don't touch the bunny, asshole in garbled breath and blood before he passes right out.
Two miles from home and Kakashi rides in the stretcher the rest of the way back, curled up against Ryouma's throat.
---
Unconsciousness is a weird gig. Like reaching into a movie and stripping out the middle reels. Sometimes there's white, sometimes red (especially if someone cracks you in the head), but mostly there's a lurch from living-breathing colour to blackness and then you're waking up wondering why you're sprawled out on a rooftop with someone's initials scrawled across your chest.
Well, that tends to be the final chaser to a night of drinking, which isn't Ryouma's gig, (laugh and joke and tease and fix everything), but the principle's the same.
Fever makes a difference. Fever takes the middle reels and splices them everywhere. Ryouma spends two days dragged from black to colour and back again, watching his life play out upside-down and inside-out, sick and shaking and not sure whether it's safe enough to scream. (It's not.)
But he's a ninja and even if he wasn't born one the answer's still in his bones, carved in with steel and backbone and fuck this--
(Kakashi's not here)
--so he fights in full colour and sweats himself apart in the black and when two days splinter by and the fever (fire) finally wears itself out he wakes up with restraints on his wrists, stitches in his side, bandages everywhere he can see, and a nurse giving Kakashi a bath in a basin at the foot of his bed.
Ryouma licks split lips and says his first words in two days.
"That's--my job."
Kakashi struggles free, bounds over, and headbutts him under the chin. Ryouma figures that's bunny talk for welcome back.
---
Coming home with a fuzzy sidekicks brings some unexpected perks. They get their own room for starters (complete with a rabbit cage that Ryouma almost rips his stitches out cracking up over), and an endless supply of young pretty nurses who want to coo over a ninja bunny and his valiant saviour.
Kakashi doesn't exactly help by biting everyone who puts a finger near him, but just being around him gets Ryouma an almost disturbing number of I will totally take my panties off for you and your rabbit looks.
(He's almost tempted by one very pretty redhead, but then Kakashi bites him.)
The Uchiha elder who drops by with an aim to poke at sharingans is a lot less welcome, especially when he starts extracting gleaming silver needles from a leather pouch. Ryouma shoves Kakashi behind his pillow and bellows until his glass-edged voice cracks and shatters all over again; the bunny loving nurses spring to their rescue and get an order from the Sandaime that Kakashi's Strictly Off Limits.
Ryouma's only met the Sandaime once, when he first took his oath and mask, but he thinks he might love the guy, just a little.
Then the Sandaime actually drops by, handles Kakashi with careful, gentle fingers, and talks about an unfortunate pigeon incident in his youth (I still don't like seed), and Ryouma has to change that little to a lot. He tells the whole story as best he remembers it, from the first ninja right through to Blue-Eyes and everything after, and halfway through Kakashi flops into his lap and stretches out, legs kicked to one side. Absently, Ryouma scratches him between the ears until Kakashi dozes off, sides lifting quick and steady, and the air gets a kind of softness to it.
Eyes crinkling, the Sandaime takes the scrolls Ryouma dragged home, quotes some complicated theory about morphic fields and natural resonance that Ryouma's still too high on painkillers to completely follow, and sweeps out with the promise that everything's fixable.
(Everything's fixable)
Ryouma tells Kakashi he might have to learn how to read, just so he can compose a proper sonnet. But he does it quietly, because Kakashi's still asleep and now that he's half clean (only half; even with Ryouma bathing him, he still kicks up a hell of a fuss), he's pretty much the most adorable thing around, including the bunny lovers and pantie losers.
Ryouma crashes back into the black before he can ask a nurse to get him a camera.
---
Routine becomes a theme. In a way that Ryouma doesn't like to admit to, it's kind of comforting (wake up, sit up, drug up, get up, walk-stagger-limp until he wants to fall, chat up anyone who'll come near, apologize to anyone Kakashi happens to bite--wash, rinse, repeat), but mostly it's boring as all hell.
And Kakashi's still Strictly Off Limits, which makes Ryouma Off Limits By Proxy, which makes for an empty hospital room, especially when the nurses are busy.
Not that he's really expecting anyone to come visit--maybe a couple rubberneckers with a plan to get an eyeful of a certain fluffy genius--but it'd be nice to have the option.
Except Kakashi's already here, which kind of takes the visitor option down to Tsume or nothing.
Ryouma wastes thirty incredibly enjoyable minutes staring at the ceiling and picturing Tsume's laugh, and Kakashi's probable attempt to alpha-bunny her face off, and Kuromaru's reaction, and the rumours that'd scorch straight through Konoha...
He laughs so hard he hurts himself.
But in-between the funny and the ouch (ripped stitches, dammit) and watching Kakashi figure out how to groom his ears (which pretty much beats every previous adorable moment into the dust), two days skip by, mired in routine, and Ryouma starts to wonder exactly how much distance there is between fixable and soon.
Kakashi-the-bunny is cute, but he's starting to miss the real-deal so bad it's like a hole in the head. An ache in his gut. A pain in his chest when he sees mismatched eyes and the mouth beneath them isn't biting and sharp around a heap of sarcasm and one lonely, backhanded compliment.
Ryouma's been filling in both sides of the conversation for days, but now he finally finds himself shutting up. Finds his hand threading gently through soft, almost-clean fur, and lifting the dead-nothing weight up to his chest. Finds himself nose to never-stops-twitching nose with the guy who went straight from hero to hated to something completely his own (never stopped for breath), and tries to find the man he knows is in there.
Kakashi's got (had) a remarkable talent for hiding himself, but Ryouma could always see clean through him.
"You can come back now," he whispers.
Kakashi just looks at him, fast little breaths warming the thin slice of air between them.
(Kakashi can't talk)
---
Ryouma likes Konoha. He has ever since he was nine years old and realized he'd found a place where the doorways weren't too cold, the alleyways weren't too dark, and there was food around if you were quick enough to grab it. Since he found a gang and realized there were some kinds of family that weren't just looking for a place to stick the knife.
Not that he ever thought about it like that (drama's not his gig, either), but the point stands. He likes Konoha. The people and the music and the food (cinnamon buns the size of your head). He likes having something to fight for that isn't just his own skin.
Likes having a home.
Even likes the guy in charge, which is all kinds of amazing given that he never likes anyone with a plan to order him around. But the Sandaime's a decent guy, even if his sense of humour needs a serious re-tune.
Not to mention his ability to give sleeping ninja a warning first.
Five days into his hospital sentence, Ryouma dozes off halfway through a nurse-loaned film (something with deer and rabbits and singing owls, and an echoing silence when the hunter killed the mother). Kakashi's sprawled over his chest, sides rising fast and steady, paws twitching gently. The nurses, being decent (pretty) women, flick the TV off when it starts hissing static and switch out the lights when the sun goes down.
Sleep and painkillers bring weird dreams, including one about setting Kakashi up with the film's foot-stomping rabbit. Ryouma's just gotten to the part where he's suggesting carrots could totally go in icecream when the world suddenly gets airless and heavy and painful--
He startles awake with a choked shout, finds himself half-crushed into the mattress, and does what any sensible drugged-to-the-eyebrows ninja would do: flails and tries to grab his IV for a club.
The weight on his chest yells back, cracked and hoarse, elbows him in the face, and vanishes with a sound that's a lot like 148lbs of naked flesh hitting the floor.
Ryouma admires the pretty black and white sparkles that come from having every scrap of air driven out of a ribcage with a hole in it, then hauls himself up by the bed-rails, fully prepared to brain whatever idiot that decided to crash land on hi--where's Kakashi?
(Later, when he tells the story, he leaves out the part where it takes him a full minute to put two and two together and come up thank god)
Moonbeams catch his eye first, slicing through half-closed blinds to paint silvery-blue trails across the linoleum, and pure gilded silver over iron-tense shoulders. Then he just sees naked, because it's kind of a key feature. Naked arms, crisscrossed with old scars; naked legs, one tucked painfully beneath the other; naked chest, heaving with quick, shallow breaths. Bare face, wide eyes (rain-grey and spinning crimson-black), and a mouth gone tight with shock.
Not a paw, scrap of fur, or fluffy tail anywhere in sight.
"Kakashi?" Ryouma croaks, and that unmasked face jerks around to stare up at him, but he doesn't get the chance to add a second word. Smoke fountains up in the doorway, breaking the air with a sharp crack and a scent like burning leaves, and the Sandaime is suddenly right there.
Kakashi startles worse than Ryouma's ever seen him, electrified to his feet like someone just tried to rip his skin off; he blurs from there to here, diving beneath the bed covers and crashing straight into Ryouma's side, hard enough to start up that little dance of black and white sparkles again. Ryouma swears--or maybe shouts; he's a little too busy trying not to pass out to really pay attention--and then there are strong, liver-spotted hands catching his right wrist (before he kills someone) and touching the pulse in his throat, and everyone needs to stop moving right now.
He comes back to the Sandaime's face giving him a concerned look, the Sandaime's hands keeping him from doing something fatal, and a whole lot of weight pressed against his left flank, cold from shoulder to ankle. Ryouma stares up into calm eyes and tries to get his mental feet back on solid ground.
"You can let go," he manages finally. Then: "What the hell?"
The Sandaime releases him and waves away the clustered knot of medical staff crowding in through the door. "I'm sorry, I didn't expect the jutsu to react just because we found the right combination of seals. But the chakra just yanked--"
Ryouma stops listening. Stops caring, because that weight against his side is real and right there and (Kakashi) shaking. He hooks the edge of the blanket up, catches a glimpse of hands over a face pressed into his shoulder, silver hair flying everywhere, and slams his palm into the middle of the Sandaime's chest before he can remember how monumentally stupid that is. "What did you do?"
"Brought him back." The Sandaime doesn't do anything about the fingers clenched in his robes, doesn't even seem to notice them. He just keeps giving Ryouma that calm, all-too-level look that makes him want to snarl, and nods down at Kakashi's shoulder, left bare by the blankets. "It'll take a minute. But at least he remembers you."
"He remembered me when he was a rabbit," Ryouma snaps, and wraps an arm around the first bit of Kakashi he can grab, tangling them both up in IV lines. His other hand clenches in the Sandaime's robes, almost ripping them straight off the man when Ryouma yanks him closer. "If you've hurt him--"
The Sandaime flicks him between the eyebrows. "Focus, please. What's been done isn't nearly so important as what we do now."
"I don't want a damn proverb--"
Skin blooms red where a second flick catches him. "That's not focusing."
Through supreme effort of gritted teeth, Ryouma manages not to strip the Sandaime's coat off and strangle him with it. "Then what do you suggest?"
"Talk to him." Hard fingers circle around Ryouma's wrist, breaking his grip with a neat twist and flare of chakra. "Remind him which species he belongs to."
Ryouma yanks his hand back, teeth baring before he can make his expression wipe smooth and clean (ninja). "And if that doesn't work?"
The Sandaime straightens up. "Then I suggest we think of something else. I'm not so free with my ninja, Tousaki-kun, that I intend to let one of my best and brightest just slip away."
Ryouma almost grabs for his IV stand again. "Then you should treat him better--" He snaps the words in half, breath hissing between his teeth, and glares at the man he swore loyalty to. Tightens his hold around the one who's more important. "I'll bring him back. You want to stay and play voyeur? Because I work better without an audience."
If the Sandaime has a reaction to words spat out like hot metal tacks, he hides it better than Ryouma can see. "Good luck, shinobi. Try not to let yourself get lost, either."
He vanishes with a blurring of air and complete absence of smoke; Ryouma makes a vaguely inarticulate noise of anger dragged through surprise. "Said I didn't want a damn proverb," he growls, half to himself, and fixes his attention on the room's only other occupant.
Kakashi's not growling. Kakashi's not really doing anything, other than keeping his hands over his face, his face against Ryouma's shoulder, and (shaking) breathing hard and shallow enough to give himself a stroke.
Ryouma wets his lips. Then he rolls over as best he can. He eases Kakashi off his side, puts his stitched (re-stitched) ribcage against the mattress, and gentles the hand not already wrapped around Kakashi's shoulders against the back of his neck, fingers sliding awkwardly through hair that's softer than he remembers.
Kakashi doesn't even flinch.
(Talk to him)
Ryouma opens his mouth, finds himself completely without words, and closes it again. What do you say to someone who's spent the last fortnight staring up at the world from ankle-height? Welcome back, hope the greenery-diet didn't suck too much?
Actually, that's not bad.
"Hey, bucko," he says quietly, chasing the rage out of his voice. He lowers his head until Kakashi's hair brushes his face. "Enjoying the view?"
Kakashi says nothing, but Ryouma didn't expect him to. Half the time Kakashi says more with a look anyway, even when all he's looking at is his own hands.
(Kakashi's still in there)
"Okay, lame ice-breaker. How about this; did I ever tell you about my first border mission out to Lightning? You wouldn't believe the landscape..."
It takes less effort than Ryouma thought it would to picks his voice up, smash vowels into consonant, strip down the tattered shreds of his own version of mental filter, and just talk. About everything, anything that comes to mind. How boring hospitals are; how pretty the female nurses look (and how terrifying the male ones are by comparison); how one day he's gonna be Hokage, just so he can wear a big hat and go around flicking injured shinobi in the face. He recites every story he's ever been told, makes up a few on the spot, and tangents occasionally into long, rambling lectures on how best to look after any kind of blade, creating answers when he can't quite remember the facts. He keeps it light when he can, funny when he remembers, and quiet when his voice starts to rasp a little.
He talks all about the first time he ever got laid, because sometimes dropping sex into the conversation will loosen people up more than anything else, but mostly he just talks.
And thinks good thoughts.
The morning sun isn't yet a glimmer on the horizon when he finally slides into silence, heavy-lidded and half-asleep. Kakashi's a warm, heavy weight against his side, breathing soft and even, hands still pressed loosely against his face. Asleep, Ryouma realizes, and wonders when that happened. He reaches out carefully, brushes back the matted tangle of silver hair from Kakashi's forehead (it's longer than he remembers), and settles down to stand watch, waiting for dawn.
"Knew you'd come back," he murmurs.
Kakashi says nothing. Ryouma doesn't mind.
---
The afternoon breaks bright and violent when Ryouma gets unceremoniously shoved out of bed. He lands on hospital linoleum, cracks his head against the wall, and knocks the IV stand over. It's not his favourite wake up ever. Half a dozen bruises and the bandages gash in his side agrees.
"Argh," he says, by way of protest, and scrambles halfway to his feet.
A ballistic pillow greets him in the face before he makes it. Fortunately, the floor is there to catch him again. "What the hell?"
"You bastard."
It's Kakashi, wild-eyed, grim-mouthed, tangled up in half the sheet and preparing to hurl Ryouma's discarded coffee mug. He looks furious--or maybe terrified. With Kakashi, it's hard to tell.
Ryouma jerks his hands up. "Ow. Whoa! What?"
The mug shatters above his head, which tells him two things: one, Kakashi's not aiming to hit him; and two, he's definitely in the mood to break things.
"You stupid, moronic, arrogant--"
Three things. Kakashi is talking.
"Charming bastard?" Ryouma suggests, cutting in. Kakashi's eyes narrow further--there's a glint of wheeling red against dead white skin--but he's run out of things to throw, unless he plans to launch the bedframe. Ryouma risks trying to stand.
"I should snap you in half," Kakashi snarls. "But then I'd have to deal with two of you." His hands flex, angular chin jerks up. He's jittery.
And Ryouma's just confused.
"Did I kick you in your sleep?" he demands. "Or is afternoon homicide just your way of saying thanks?"
"I had to watch." It's a snarl and a growl and something like a scream, ripped from the strained tendons of that pale throat. Kakashi's out of bed now, almost losing his sheet and a hundred miles past caring. His teeth are bared. "All the way home, with you bleeding and fighting and losing. I couldn't help and I didn't even understand half of it and you almost got yourself killed. You idiot."
It's one of the longest speeches Kakashi's ever made, though certainly not his best. Ryouma watches him stagger like he doesn't quite remember how to stand up on two legs, and resists the urge to whack someone's head against the bedside table. There've already been enough unnecessary concussion.
"Look..." he begins, and falters. They've done this dance before. This is Kakashi's thing. Fear-anger-shame. Step-two-three. Around and around again without any celebration that they made it home alive, never happy until the exact amount of guilt has been weighed and sharpened and used to stab someone. It's maddening.
(It's Kakashi)
And Ryouma's the one who hangs around him, so who's really the idiot here?
A nurse sticks her head enquiringly around the door, gets a double set of heated glares, and ducks out hastily. Ryouma's fingers tangle in the frayed drawstring of his pyjama pants. Finally, he sighs, grits his teeth, and lifts his chin. "I'm going to be happy for us," he decides. "You can stand there and pitch a fit all you like, but I'm the guy dressed in damn bandages and I don't feel bad about it. In fact, I'm taking the opportunity to enjoy the view. You're losing your sheet there, long-ears."
For half a heartbeat, he thinks Kakashi's about to kill him on the spot. Expressions flicker across the copy-ninja's entirely naked face like ripples on water. Shock-confusion-rage. (Step-two-three) Then the hard line of white lips relax, the crease between steel-grey eyebrows smooths away, and the sharingan's crimson glint fades.
A mask without cloth, but Kakashi's hands can't seem to still. "Screw you, Ryouma," he says, and wrenches the sheet up, turning away.
"Sure," Ryouma agrees with a smile. Because this is the second part of the dance, where he pushes and Kakashi runs and one of them breaks. It doesn't feel like his turn.
(Around and around again)
Narrow shoulders lift, rigid with tension. There's a threat in there, but that is part of Ryouma's gig, and he enjoys a life lived on the edge. Besides, Kakashi's got nowhere to go, unless he plans to fall half-naked down four flights of hospital stairs and really make someone's day. Ryouma steps close, right inside that invisible barrier of personal space, and flattens his hand between Kakashi's bare shoulderblades.
A beat later, he still has all four limbs. Good sign. Kakashi's not shaking, now; if he held himself any tighter, something would shatter. Ryouma sweeps his hand slowly down, following the hard ridge of spine between long muscles. His fingers meet cloth without any reaction, pausing at the top of Kakashi's hips; he sweeps his hand back up.
Petting without fur. A laugh catches in the back of his throat.
Kakashi doesn't move. If it weren't for the warmth of skin against Ryouma's hand, the double-bass-beat of a heart tripping too fast, it'd be like touching a statue. But he can feel the slow, dangerous ripple of chakra coiling through electric pathways. The edge in the air that says tread carefully.
He risks sliding his other arm around Kakashi's waist, pulling the man back against his chest. Bandaged, dressed in nothing but pale blue pyjama bottoms, still lashed to the fallen IV stand with plastic tubing, he makes odd looking support. But Kakashi's no better, rigid as marble and twice as pale. The wild mess of his hair silvers the edge of Ryouma's vision.
Carefully, he drops his chin and lets it rest on one angular shoulder. Exhales deliberately against the side of Kakashi's neck.
"Hell of a week," he murmurs. "But in case you're wondering, I'm still breathing. And you came back."
Kakashi's not running. He's barely breathing. Ryouma presses against his back, solid and warm and very much alive. Trying to show him.
Kakashi shudders.
(one of them breaks)
From the base of his spine all the way up to his locked jaw, muscles tighten in a rictus dance that Ryouma can feel biting through his bones. Air hisses between Kakashi's teeth. Ryouma braces himself for an elbow in the gut--or something worse--but Kakashi just inhales slowly, ribcage lifting against Ryouma's arm, and then twists, turning sharp and fast.
Ryouma's side yelps a hot red protest; he flinches. Hands catch him before he pulls away, grabbing his unwounded side and the opposite shoulder. Kakashi's hair is all over his face, but there's still a visible slice of steel-grey, pinning Ryouma with more glare than one eye should be able to hold against two. Ryouma looks back, as level and steady as he can be with a face that just wants to wince, waiting for Kakashi to make up his mind.
One heartbeat. Step-two-three.
Fingers tremble, clenching against his side and shoulder. Kakashi swallows hard, squeezes his eyes closed, and shoves his face against the side of Ryouma's throat. "You bastard."
"You said that already," Ryouma reminds him, low-voiced.
Kakashi's words are muffled. "Because I mean it." He isn't crying, but there's a catch to the words that suggests maybe, in another life, he might want to.
(I didn't even understand half of it)
Ryouma has one hand not actively engaged in hugging; somehow it finds its way to cupping the back of Kakashi's skull, where the fragile curve of bone fits his palm perfectly. His fingers card through tousled hair badly in need of a wash and cut.
Scary week, he doesn't manage to say.
Air slides over his skin; Kakashi's catching his scent, getting a primal reminder that everyone's still alive and breathing. At least, Ryouma thinks that's what he's doing. All it's doing for him is throwing up a stellar reminder that Kakashi's wearing nothing but a sheet and they're both within ten feet of a workable bed.
"You realize," he says thoughtfully, rubbing a slow circle into Kakashi's lower back, "that you've been naked all week and I haven't once taken advantage? I reckon that's worth a medal, or some kind of certificate, at least."
There's a moment of silence.
"I was a rabbit."
"Admitting it is the first step," Ryouma tells him cheerfully. "And you mentioned it first. That's two medals now."
Later, he reflects on the wisdom of trying to tease Kakashi out of his emotional kaleidascope when the man's teeth are level with his throat.
"Son of a--!"
But there's just the faintest curve of a smile in that bite, the first touch of relaxation in those iron-tense shoulders, and something like life in Kakashi's yelp when Ryouma wrestles him onto the bed, almost rips out every single one of his stitches, and ends up entangled in one of the most uncomfortable fighting-hugs of his life.
Kakashi always did like touch, even if you'd never get him to admit it.
(Kakashi can talk)
---
In the end, Kakashi was a rabbit for eleven days, and it takes a week for his hands to stop shaking. Ryouma spends his time caught between laughter and worry, stubbornly refusing to be brushed aside with I'm fine, watching the genius who's his friend (partner, lover, more) pretend everything's okay.
Basically, it's the same old routine.
At least Kakashi's not the nightmare kind--or if he is, he never shows it.
Shaking hands aren't the only thing, either. Kakashi was only a rabbit for eleven days, but he's been a copy-cat much longer and all those new quirks found their way inside that big clever brain and clicked.
His nose twitches. Ryouma almost killed himself laughing when he saw that. Kakashi always did a nostril-flare thing when he scented, but now there's a definite nasal wrinkle going on that scratches a line between iron-grey eyebrows and Ryouma may never be able to breathe again.
He keeps trying to clean his ears, too. Lifting an absent hand to the side of his head whenever he gets distracted or thoughtful, fingers carding briefly through too-long hair, and then stumbling when he realizes exactly what he's doing. Ryouma almost bust his stitches cracking up the first time he figured out what that gesture was.
There're other things, too, less funny things, that Ryouma notices. Kakashi startles more easily, now, freezing into a block of marble when something pings his senses the wrong way, then uncoiling all at once in a rush of released tension like a hare breaking into flight. He almost snapped a chuunin's neck, once, when the kid stepped suddenly out of a branching hallway. Would have, if Ryouma hadn't tackled the kid to the floor.
But it's just a week--and all jounin are touchy, right?--and when they start heading back out on missions, things seem to settle down again. Kakashi relaxes, sheathed in black and bone and his double masks, backed by weapons and Ryouma's unwavering footsteps (they run a lot of missions together, now), and Ryouma stops worrying. Starts laughing more, teasing more, living more...
Two weeks down the line, in the sliver-thin bite of downtime they get between assignments, Kakashi suddenly turns around with his mask down, his hitai-ate up, and something a lot like a wicked grin beneath those mismatched eyes. Ryouma gets the chance to say "Wha--?" before chakra sparks and the world lurches around him--
Rising up.
And turning black, because he's drowning in clothes. He fights his way out in a thrashing, furious, really confused tangle of claws and fur, and finds himself half a foot tall, staring up at a silver-haired giant, and seriously thinking about biting something.
Like lettuce.
High above, Kakashi's smile broadens. "Figured out how to modify it so you keep your mind."
Ryouma makes some inarticulate, slightly squeaky noise, and almost goes cross-eyed trying to stare at himself.
"Payback," says Kakashi, and bends down to scritch him cheerfully behind the ears. "I'll turn you back when you promise to never talk about it ever again."
Ryouma bites him.
Later, when he tells the story, he leaves out the week he spent as a rabbit.