[AIM Log] Reasons to Stay [Jimaiya, Rin]
[Backdated to... waaaaay back when Rin was first brought back. *shifty eyes*]
If there was one thing Jimaiya was sure of, it was that regular rules did not apply to her. Especially hospital rules. Visiting hours? What visiting hours? Like a patient would care if you went in at a specific time or not. The way she saw it, the patient would be damn thankful for actually getting a visitor, and shouldn't care if he or she so happened to want to drop in at two o' clock in the morning. In other parts of the world, it was still lunchtime.
"Uh-- J-Jimaiya-sama, I'm sorry but vi--"
A sultry wink and a dismissive wave of her hand. The nurse fell back in shocked silence.
Ah, Jimaiya thought whimsically. She'd nearly forgotten what power felt like. Continuing through the corridors, Jimaiya took her time, knowing none would bother her, before she finally came upon the door she was looking for. She simply refused to believe the rumors, and decided she'd see it for her own eyes.
He was practically her son, after all.
Or something like that.
Opening it quietly, she strode inside like she owned the place, stopped just a few inches before the occupied bed, and stared.
...huh.
Well it looked like him. Or, how she supposed he'd look after so many years, except skinnier. Paler. Less mobile.
She reached out and gently poked the man's forehead, and nodded positively. Felt real too. So he was alive and back after all. Her heart swelled with warmth, and her face took on a look of utter fondness.
Then she promptly flicked his forehead.
Jimaiya's finger-flick woke Rin up out of the vestiges of his sedated sleep.... or at least, it started too. He blearily shifted under the hospital's sheets for a few seconds and then waved a weak hand (and a worryingly skinny arm) in Jimaiya's direction without opening his eyes.
"Mmmnuh... quit it, Sensei..." he mumbled vaguely, with no concept as to where he was, or who might be there, or even what year it was. The meds he was on were rather strong, and for the few waking periods he'd had since he came back he'd been not-so-lucid.
But only one person ever flicked him in the head like that, and so a part of him knew before it caught up with his conscious mind, he ought to wake up. And his eyes flicked open, letting dimmed lights strike his huge pupils, and after a moment's concentration he found himself looking at a completely familiar, and utterly unexpected face.
"Jimaiya-sensei?" he murmurred, blinking slowly up at her.
For the briefest of moments, the light in Jimaiya's eyes dimmed. Poor boy thought she was... someone that was definitely not coming back like he did.
When he blinked up at her, she offered him a small, dry smile. "Rin," she said by way of greeting. Poor boy looked like something even Death would avoid. Her eyes roamed over his face and took in his form, buried beneath the layers of hospital cotton.
When her eyes flicked back to meet his, her face was anything but impressed. "You look like shit."
The truth hurt, but Jimaiya preferred to call it tough love.
Still trying to assemble his wayward thoughts, Rin blearily (and more than a little bleakly) realized he'd somehow thought Sensei was there for a minute. She wasn't. But really, Jimaiya-sensei was like the next closest and...
...buh... he was confusing himself. And did Jimaiya just tell him he looked like shit? Well, that was probably an improvement from how he'd looked last week. It had to be, because he was home. Home. Home. Home.
Konoha. Home.
"Thanks, for that," he answered with a weak smile, really looking at her and the expression on her face. "You look the same," he said, trying to lift a hand to check she was real and completely failing. And then his thoughts - unfiltered - floated to the surface.
"M'sorry you had to... funeral... and things..." he blinked again, yawning as he tried to wake up.
Almost instinctively, Jimaiya caught the hand he'd tried to lift and held it, squeezing the all-too-slim appendage gently, for fear he might break. He looked so small, so fragile... Jimaiya found herself wondering where the youthful boy had gone, the one who'd scold her for writing her 'dirty novels', when he'd wind up editing them for her at the first childish pout sent his way.
"Don't you worry your pretty self about it," she said softly, smiling down at the man gently. In truth... she hadn't even gone to the funeral. It was too much for her back then, still too much for her now... So much had changed since she left... With her free hand, she gently pushed his bangs back, smoothing out the hair there. "You just focus on getting better, mm?" Her voice grew more tender. "I'll be needing my editor back in good shape soon, after all~"
He couldn't help it, Rin blushed sheepishly and shakily squeezed her hand back. He hoped his hands would stop doing that one day... he couldn't do surgery with them shaking like that.
But then, maybe they'd never let him near an operating table again after all of this. He just didn't know, and that was nearly as bad as feeling as sickly as he did.
How stupid was that? He'd just been dragged out of that hellhole of a prison (about three weeks before he was sure he'd have killed himself to make sure he did get out) and all he could think about was getting back to work.
Thank goodness for Jimaiya-sensei, he smiled a bit stronger as she familiarly brushed his hair out his eyes. A little of the soul he always used to have back on display.
"You're still writing those books, Jimaiya-sensei?" he quietly wailed, exasperation on his pale face. "What volume are you on now?"
"I've lost count," Jimaiya replied lightly, despite how much it hurt to see Rin like this. The hand on his forehead continued to smooth out the hair, and she tried to ignore how clammy his skin felt beneath her fingers.
They called him a miracle. That he was lucky to be alive. Looking at him now, Jimaiya had to wonder... Was he, really? How difficult it must be for him, how scary...
Baka, she called out to her departed student. This is your mess... what am I supposed to do now?
"...But don't worry, Rin," she said fondly, tenderly, "you know you'll always be my first love~"
Rin's eyebrows quirked slightly at that and he almost laughed. "You've got the best way of making everything weird, Jimaiya-sensei..." he sighed, squeezing her hand back a little as he spoke - or tried to, anyway.
"How's--" he coughed slightly, throat still a little raw from the tubes he'd had shoved down it during the last few days, "--how's everything else? I didn't get to talk really to Kakami w-when..."
A few more coughs twitched out of him, until he could swallow heavily and lay still - blinking like a bewildered owl. Jimaiya was still looking at him like she could barely believe he was there, but he realized just then that things felt alot safer and alot more... like home, now she was here.
"I missed you," he said softly, sounding almost defeated by the words. Likely because he almost had been.
The hold on his hand tightened instinctively, her smile faltering a bit. "I'm afraid I haven't spoken to Kakami in a long while... not since I came back," she said hesitently, swallowing the guilt she felt. She glanced to her side and reached for the glass of water beside his bed, holding it out for him. "Drink this," she ordered gently. "Otherwise you won't be any good to me not being able to speak..."
She helped him do it, and only then did she realize how weak he'd gotten, how fragile he truly was. Every slightest movement felt like he could inevitable crumble from it, and it tore at her, that someone who'd once been so strong in body and mind could be reduced to this...
That she hadn't been there when he needed her the most.
"I missed you too," she whispered back, and tore her eyes away, finding it hurt to even look at his eyes. She should've been there... But she'd been a coward, and ran.
Squeezing his hand again, Jimaiya mustered up a smile for the man. "You should rest," she said. "Tsurude'll probably be on my ass for keeping you up as much as I did."
Even messed up as he was then, Rin could still tell something was upsetting his sensei's sensei. It took him until she couldn't look him in the face for him to realize it was him. Well, that it was the state he was in right then. And maybe it was...
He hadn't even thought. Kakami, Jimaiya-sensei, the others... they really had thought he was dead. And to find out he wasn't and that he'd been in pain the whole time.
Rin didn't want them to hurt when they looked at him. He really didn't. No wonder Kakami couldn't...
"I'm not gonna tell him if you don't," he answered with a little smile. He hadn't ratted her out to Tsurude once since he was nine, wasn't going to start now. "But, Jimaiya-sensei, it's... look, it's not your fault I wasn't..."
The heavyness in his chest got weightier and he looked down. "I'm still alive, ne? And I'll get better... promise."
Almost immediately, Jimaiya's look hardened, her hold on his hand tightening. He was blaming himself, like he always did way back when-- Jimaiya didn't like it then, she most certainly didn't like it now.
"Yes," she said firmly, but tenderly, "you will. Even if I have to whip you into shape myself." She allowed herself to relax then, convinced herself that it was all right now, he was alive, it was all right...
"And if you thought your sensei was hard," she smirked, eyes sparkling, and let the 'threat' hang heavy in the air.
That was more like the Jimaiya-sensei he remembered. The one who used to encourage his sensei to use the most ingeniously evil training methods on her tiny students. Like that time she made them run laps on the pond in the park with twice their weight in stones on their backs. And pirhanas chasing them.
He paused at the memory, and then looked up at Jimaiya's bright black eyes.
"Then I don't have a choice," he murmurred, yawning despite himself, but a smile was there when it passed.
"Ne, Jimaiya-sensei, could you do me a favour?"
Her brows quirked at the man's last words, more out of intrigue than surprise. "...Sure," she said, stopping just short from saying her usual "Depends". The boy'd just come back from the dead, after all. She figured he deserved that much.
"Can you bring me my glasses? I... if my house is still there they're in the living room..."
He bit his lip slightly, a nervous habit when he tried to collect his thoughts. Very strangely, even though it had been five years, he could remember so clearly what had happened the last night he spent in his family home. He'd been reading a book, gotten ready for bed, and put his glasses down because he heard Kakami...
Yeah. He probably remembered on account of it being one of the most emotionally traumatic nights of his life. But now was very defintely not the time to dwell on that.
"I think... think I put them down by the fireplace..." Rin looked up and gave her a slightly cheeky look. "I'll need them for when I get told I'm allowed to do something strenuous like reading, again."
...
For a moment, Jimaiya could only stare.
Then, very slowly, laughter bubbled in her throat, before she could no longer hold it in and it erupted, little, girlish sounds that make her sound decades younger. When the laughter subsided, she was shaking her head. "Rin..," she said, after another moment. "You're a gem, a real gem."
She gave this shoulder a gentle pat. "I'll see what I can do about your glasses," she said, the faintest traces of laughter still in her voice. "But if you want to be able to do that, you should start listening to those prissy doctors then," she winked, knowing very well he was one of them. She leaned in to place the barest of kisses along his forehead, squeezing his hand one more time. "Get some sleep Rin. Gods know you'll be needing it."
Rin felt better than any of the drugs made him feel when she laughed. And when she brushed a kiss over his forehead he felt something else too.
He felt very young. And for the first time, very suddenly, he felt lucky.
"M'kay," he said, not knowing if she realized how grateful he was to still have somebody like her. Somebody who'd always looked out for him when she could, who cared about him like there was nobody else left in the world to.
Somebody who wasn't scared to say anything to him, and who let him know he mattered - even after so many years having the opposite ground into him; and when he had such deep doubts.
"Thank you..." he managed to sigh, and then his weariness really caught him up and he didn't have the energy to say or do anything much more and fell asleep.
Jimaiya watched him silently until she was sure he wouldn't be waking up any moment soon. She smoothed out his hair once more before releasing his hand and stepping away. She spared one last look before turning and leaving, the hallways echoing almost eerily as she walked.
Once outside, she stopped to look at the village around her. Not very much had changed.
Sighing slightly, Jimaiya decided she'd had enough of running for now, and set about to finding those glasses like she promised.
It wasn't much, but it was a start.
If there was one thing Jimaiya was sure of, it was that regular rules did not apply to her. Especially hospital rules. Visiting hours? What visiting hours? Like a patient would care if you went in at a specific time or not. The way she saw it, the patient would be damn thankful for actually getting a visitor, and shouldn't care if he or she so happened to want to drop in at two o' clock in the morning. In other parts of the world, it was still lunchtime.
"Uh-- J-Jimaiya-sama, I'm sorry but vi--"
A sultry wink and a dismissive wave of her hand. The nurse fell back in shocked silence.
Ah, Jimaiya thought whimsically. She'd nearly forgotten what power felt like. Continuing through the corridors, Jimaiya took her time, knowing none would bother her, before she finally came upon the door she was looking for. She simply refused to believe the rumors, and decided she'd see it for her own eyes.
He was practically her son, after all.
Or something like that.
Opening it quietly, she strode inside like she owned the place, stopped just a few inches before the occupied bed, and stared.
...huh.
Well it looked like him. Or, how she supposed he'd look after so many years, except skinnier. Paler. Less mobile.
She reached out and gently poked the man's forehead, and nodded positively. Felt real too. So he was alive and back after all. Her heart swelled with warmth, and her face took on a look of utter fondness.
Then she promptly flicked his forehead.
Jimaiya's finger-flick woke Rin up out of the vestiges of his sedated sleep.... or at least, it started too. He blearily shifted under the hospital's sheets for a few seconds and then waved a weak hand (and a worryingly skinny arm) in Jimaiya's direction without opening his eyes.
"Mmmnuh... quit it, Sensei..." he mumbled vaguely, with no concept as to where he was, or who might be there, or even what year it was. The meds he was on were rather strong, and for the few waking periods he'd had since he came back he'd been not-so-lucid.
But only one person ever flicked him in the head like that, and so a part of him knew before it caught up with his conscious mind, he ought to wake up. And his eyes flicked open, letting dimmed lights strike his huge pupils, and after a moment's concentration he found himself looking at a completely familiar, and utterly unexpected face.
"Jimaiya-sensei?" he murmurred, blinking slowly up at her.
For the briefest of moments, the light in Jimaiya's eyes dimmed. Poor boy thought she was... someone that was definitely not coming back like he did.
When he blinked up at her, she offered him a small, dry smile. "Rin," she said by way of greeting. Poor boy looked like something even Death would avoid. Her eyes roamed over his face and took in his form, buried beneath the layers of hospital cotton.
When her eyes flicked back to meet his, her face was anything but impressed. "You look like shit."
The truth hurt, but Jimaiya preferred to call it tough love.
Still trying to assemble his wayward thoughts, Rin blearily (and more than a little bleakly) realized he'd somehow thought Sensei was there for a minute. She wasn't. But really, Jimaiya-sensei was like the next closest and...
...buh... he was confusing himself. And did Jimaiya just tell him he looked like shit? Well, that was probably an improvement from how he'd looked last week. It had to be, because he was home. Home. Home. Home.
Konoha. Home.
"Thanks, for that," he answered with a weak smile, really looking at her and the expression on her face. "You look the same," he said, trying to lift a hand to check she was real and completely failing. And then his thoughts - unfiltered - floated to the surface.
"M'sorry you had to... funeral... and things..." he blinked again, yawning as he tried to wake up.
Almost instinctively, Jimaiya caught the hand he'd tried to lift and held it, squeezing the all-too-slim appendage gently, for fear he might break. He looked so small, so fragile... Jimaiya found herself wondering where the youthful boy had gone, the one who'd scold her for writing her 'dirty novels', when he'd wind up editing them for her at the first childish pout sent his way.
"Don't you worry your pretty self about it," she said softly, smiling down at the man gently. In truth... she hadn't even gone to the funeral. It was too much for her back then, still too much for her now... So much had changed since she left... With her free hand, she gently pushed his bangs back, smoothing out the hair there. "You just focus on getting better, mm?" Her voice grew more tender. "I'll be needing my editor back in good shape soon, after all~"
He couldn't help it, Rin blushed sheepishly and shakily squeezed her hand back. He hoped his hands would stop doing that one day... he couldn't do surgery with them shaking like that.
But then, maybe they'd never let him near an operating table again after all of this. He just didn't know, and that was nearly as bad as feeling as sickly as he did.
How stupid was that? He'd just been dragged out of that hellhole of a prison (about three weeks before he was sure he'd have killed himself to make sure he did get out) and all he could think about was getting back to work.
Thank goodness for Jimaiya-sensei, he smiled a bit stronger as she familiarly brushed his hair out his eyes. A little of the soul he always used to have back on display.
"You're still writing those books, Jimaiya-sensei?" he quietly wailed, exasperation on his pale face. "What volume are you on now?"
"I've lost count," Jimaiya replied lightly, despite how much it hurt to see Rin like this. The hand on his forehead continued to smooth out the hair, and she tried to ignore how clammy his skin felt beneath her fingers.
They called him a miracle. That he was lucky to be alive. Looking at him now, Jimaiya had to wonder... Was he, really? How difficult it must be for him, how scary...
Baka, she called out to her departed student. This is your mess... what am I supposed to do now?
"...But don't worry, Rin," she said fondly, tenderly, "you know you'll always be my first love~"
Rin's eyebrows quirked slightly at that and he almost laughed. "You've got the best way of making everything weird, Jimaiya-sensei..." he sighed, squeezing her hand back a little as he spoke - or tried to, anyway.
"How's--" he coughed slightly, throat still a little raw from the tubes he'd had shoved down it during the last few days, "--how's everything else? I didn't get to talk really to Kakami w-when..."
A few more coughs twitched out of him, until he could swallow heavily and lay still - blinking like a bewildered owl. Jimaiya was still looking at him like she could barely believe he was there, but he realized just then that things felt alot safer and alot more... like home, now she was here.
"I missed you," he said softly, sounding almost defeated by the words. Likely because he almost had been.
The hold on his hand tightened instinctively, her smile faltering a bit. "I'm afraid I haven't spoken to Kakami in a long while... not since I came back," she said hesitently, swallowing the guilt she felt. She glanced to her side and reached for the glass of water beside his bed, holding it out for him. "Drink this," she ordered gently. "Otherwise you won't be any good to me not being able to speak..."
She helped him do it, and only then did she realize how weak he'd gotten, how fragile he truly was. Every slightest movement felt like he could inevitable crumble from it, and it tore at her, that someone who'd once been so strong in body and mind could be reduced to this...
That she hadn't been there when he needed her the most.
"I missed you too," she whispered back, and tore her eyes away, finding it hurt to even look at his eyes. She should've been there... But she'd been a coward, and ran.
Squeezing his hand again, Jimaiya mustered up a smile for the man. "You should rest," she said. "Tsurude'll probably be on my ass for keeping you up as much as I did."
Even messed up as he was then, Rin could still tell something was upsetting his sensei's sensei. It took him until she couldn't look him in the face for him to realize it was him. Well, that it was the state he was in right then. And maybe it was...
He hadn't even thought. Kakami, Jimaiya-sensei, the others... they really had thought he was dead. And to find out he wasn't and that he'd been in pain the whole time.
Rin didn't want them to hurt when they looked at him. He really didn't. No wonder Kakami couldn't...
"I'm not gonna tell him if you don't," he answered with a little smile. He hadn't ratted her out to Tsurude once since he was nine, wasn't going to start now. "But, Jimaiya-sensei, it's... look, it's not your fault I wasn't..."
The heavyness in his chest got weightier and he looked down. "I'm still alive, ne? And I'll get better... promise."
Almost immediately, Jimaiya's look hardened, her hold on his hand tightening. He was blaming himself, like he always did way back when-- Jimaiya didn't like it then, she most certainly didn't like it now.
"Yes," she said firmly, but tenderly, "you will. Even if I have to whip you into shape myself." She allowed herself to relax then, convinced herself that it was all right now, he was alive, it was all right...
"And if you thought your sensei was hard," she smirked, eyes sparkling, and let the 'threat' hang heavy in the air.
That was more like the Jimaiya-sensei he remembered. The one who used to encourage his sensei to use the most ingeniously evil training methods on her tiny students. Like that time she made them run laps on the pond in the park with twice their weight in stones on their backs. And pirhanas chasing them.
He paused at the memory, and then looked up at Jimaiya's bright black eyes.
"Then I don't have a choice," he murmurred, yawning despite himself, but a smile was there when it passed.
"Ne, Jimaiya-sensei, could you do me a favour?"
Her brows quirked at the man's last words, more out of intrigue than surprise. "...Sure," she said, stopping just short from saying her usual "Depends". The boy'd just come back from the dead, after all. She figured he deserved that much.
"Can you bring me my glasses? I... if my house is still there they're in the living room..."
He bit his lip slightly, a nervous habit when he tried to collect his thoughts. Very strangely, even though it had been five years, he could remember so clearly what had happened the last night he spent in his family home. He'd been reading a book, gotten ready for bed, and put his glasses down because he heard Kakami...
Yeah. He probably remembered on account of it being one of the most emotionally traumatic nights of his life. But now was very defintely not the time to dwell on that.
"I think... think I put them down by the fireplace..." Rin looked up and gave her a slightly cheeky look. "I'll need them for when I get told I'm allowed to do something strenuous like reading, again."
...
For a moment, Jimaiya could only stare.
Then, very slowly, laughter bubbled in her throat, before she could no longer hold it in and it erupted, little, girlish sounds that make her sound decades younger. When the laughter subsided, she was shaking her head. "Rin..," she said, after another moment. "You're a gem, a real gem."
She gave this shoulder a gentle pat. "I'll see what I can do about your glasses," she said, the faintest traces of laughter still in her voice. "But if you want to be able to do that, you should start listening to those prissy doctors then," she winked, knowing very well he was one of them. She leaned in to place the barest of kisses along his forehead, squeezing his hand one more time. "Get some sleep Rin. Gods know you'll be needing it."
Rin felt better than any of the drugs made him feel when she laughed. And when she brushed a kiss over his forehead he felt something else too.
He felt very young. And for the first time, very suddenly, he felt lucky.
"M'kay," he said, not knowing if she realized how grateful he was to still have somebody like her. Somebody who'd always looked out for him when she could, who cared about him like there was nobody else left in the world to.
Somebody who wasn't scared to say anything to him, and who let him know he mattered - even after so many years having the opposite ground into him; and when he had such deep doubts.
"Thank you..." he managed to sigh, and then his weariness really caught him up and he didn't have the energy to say or do anything much more and fell asleep.
Jimaiya watched him silently until she was sure he wouldn't be waking up any moment soon. She smoothed out his hair once more before releasing his hand and stepping away. She spared one last look before turning and leaving, the hallways echoing almost eerily as she walked.
Once outside, she stopped to look at the village around her. Not very much had changed.
Sighing slightly, Jimaiya decided she'd had enough of running for now, and set about to finding those glasses like she promised.
It wasn't much, but it was a start.