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It was fine. Everything was fine.
That was the mantra that you kept repeating in your head as you lugged Kakashi’s body into the vacant inn room. Maybe if you said it enough, it would actually come true. Your squad leader would wake up, miraculously healed, and you two could escape the hostile area. Yeah that…wouldn’t work.
The innkeeper at the front desk barely seemed to buy your story about him being ‘passed out from a fun night of drinking.’ At least you were able to hide most of his injuries from her, even the kunai that was lodged into his forearm. Still, you wondered how odd you looked to her as you came in drenched from the rain and begging for a room. Thankfully you had remembered to take yours and Kakashi’s headband off so no enemy ninjas lurking around the town could recognize you.
But now you were here, with Kakashi splayed out on the floor and more wounds than you could count. Damn him for trying to protect you, and damn you for not being quick enough to see the ambush. You guys had managed to take down your enemies, but it left Kakashi in serious condition.
For a moment you didn’t know what else to do besides stare at him. His chest was rising and falling, so he was still alive, but how would you tackle this problem? You were by no means a medical ninja, and the one on your team got separated from you two awhile back, but you couldn’t just…let him bleed out. Not on your honor as a ninja, and not because you wished he would live long enough to start something between you too.
Your attraction for the copy ninja hadn’t wavered throughout the years since you two were children, but you had no idea what he thought of you. He was cordial of course, and praised you when you had a good mission, but he also scolded you like a child when you made a mistake. Apparently he had gone through some tough spots in life, so maybe it was normal for him to be so…closed off. If you were putting it nicely.
However, with your hands ghosting over his chest, you weren’t sure whether your crush was a motivator or deterrent. After all, you could see your hands shaking as they hovered over him. Ugh, now was not the time for your emotions to get in the way. You had a man to save, and an important one at that.
Starting with the basics, you pulled out a small first aid kit from your pouch. It wasn’t top grade, but at least it had the essentials. Next, you knew you had to assess his injuries so you could treat them properly. Besides the kunai stuck in his arm, he had various cuts and gashes on his torso and blood matted against his hairline. Maneuvering around the kunai, you started to undress him as carefully as you could so you could get at his more serious wounds. You even reminded yourself firmly that this was strictly professional. Really.
Once his discarded vest and shirt was beside you, you lifted up his pant legs to his knees to check for any wounds on his legs. Thankfully there was nothing there but small scratches, and upon feeling his thighs for any wet blood spots you found nothing. For your own sanity, he could keep his pants on.
It was unnerving with how quiet the room got, save for the sound of running water as you filled up a bowl. Kakashi wasn’t the most talkative, but you both enjoyed the idle chatter between you two. Now, with him shallowly breathing on the floor, you desperately wished he would suddenly spring up and crack a joke to ease the atmosphere.
Alas, even as you settled once more beside him with the water-filled bowl and towel in hand, he did not stir. A multitude of bruises were coloring his body like a child’s picture book, and you were careful not to touch them as you wiped the damp towel across his skin. Blood soaked up quickly as you neared his more serious injuries.
Two main lacerations were the cause of so much blood. The largest one was thin and stretched vertically from right below his pectoral to his lower abdomen, and the other was a wider curved gash below his collarbone. Thinking on your toes, you gambled that the thin slash could be handled with bandages while the curved gash would need stitches. The kunai would need to come out too, or you would have the risk of infection on your hands.
As you took note of his injuries, guilt started to pile on your shoulders. Memories of the ambush started to replay in your head, despite your attempts at pushing them away.
xx
This isn’t good. Your instincts screamed at you that something was wrong from the minute you entered the wooded area. Before you could blink, enemy ninja sprung from their hiding places and cornered your squad. Your group had already been split to complete the intricate mission effectively, so you cursed when two others in your squad freed themselves from the encircling enemies and took off to complete the mission. They had left you for dead, although that wasn’t unexpected.
Now it was just you and your captain: Kakashi. A couple enemy ninjas chased after your squadmates while the others turned their eyes to you. In an instant they were upon you. Your limbs screamed as you worked them hard to keep up with the multitude of slashes and swipes coming your way. However, one mistake flipped the situation on its head.
One of the enemies kicked you roughly in the back of the knee, which made you collapse. Another ninja took advantage of this and kicked you square in the chest, expelling all of the air from your lungs. As you gasped, the man in front of you roughly grabbed your hair with one hand and brandished a kunai with the other.
“Look at what we got here, an Uchiha! Your eyes are ripe for the picking too….” He laughed.
As the blade came down, another body blocked your vision as Kakashi dashed in front of you. He let out his own groan of pain as the kunai meant for your eye imbedded itself in his upper arm. A maneuver you had both practiced came to your mind, and you pushed down on his uninjured shoulder to give him the signal. Swiftly, he leaned over as you used his back to vault into the enemy. This took him by surprise, long enough for you to stab your own kunai into his throat.
With a glance back at Kakashi, you could see that he wasn’t doing so well in his hunched over position. Before the enemy could advance again, you let loose a few paper bombs as a distraction and swooped Kakashi away from the action. Thankfully, you remembered that you weren’t too far from a village. It would have to do.
xx
Dammit, this was no time to dwell. Quickly, you got back to the matter at hand.
Finally, your game plan was made, and you went to work. Diligent hands methodically repeated the action of soaking up more blood with the towel and then rinsing and wringing the towel out into a second bowl. As the minutes ticked by one bowl drained its contents while the other filled with the red fluid. You sighed in relief once the two wounds were washed off, and quickly you wiped anti-bacterial liquid across the thin laceration before securely sticking a bandage to it.
When you applied the application, Kakashi finally made a sound. It was low, and you almost missed it, but in the silent room his small whine of pain sounded so much louder than what it was. Your hands stilled as you waited for him to make a move, and to your displeasure he stopped moving once again.
You began your next task of switching up the other side, and for once you were grateful that he was out. With no anesthetics you heard that getting stitches was more painful than it looked, and with how you had to constantly reposition to get the right angle with the needle it was clear he would be in a lot of pain. However, he did squirm a little as the process went on and it reassured you that he was still alive.
Your fingers were coated with blood by the time you were done, but that marked two injuries being dealt with. Lastly, you had to deal with his kunai. You tied your headband tightly above the stab wound, but something didn’t seem right. Even with you prodding around the most serious wound he had, he did not move.
Now, he felt too still. The rise and fall of his breathing became almost too insignificant, and as you pressed your ear to his toned chest it sounded like his heart wasn’t beating. Was he even breathing?
Panic lit like fire through your veins as you checked his wrist and neck pulse, and both yielded the same results. What had even caused this though? Nothing recently- wait…fuck! In your rush to the nearest safe place, being the inn, you completely blanked on the fact that one of your attackers had stuck Kakashi with something. It was clear now that it must have been some type of drug, and it was going to kill him.
If your medical teammate, and friend, had been here you knew they would rip you a new one. It was almost too easy to imagine the tone of voice they would use, and how exactly they would scold you.
But now was not the time to dwell on that, you thought as you periodically pumped up and down to restart his heart. As you continued, you hoped that you wouldn’t end up breaking any of his ribs. The man already had enough issues as is, but thankfully you had not noticed any further damage. Then, you remembered, after thirty chest compressions came two breaths.
Your fingers traced over his mask, but they stilled before you could reveal the lower half of his face. This was a life and death situation, but Kakashi was very adamant that no one saw him without his mask. You could never even recall a moment where he hadn’t had it, even as a child. Your instincts screamed that it didn’t matter and he was dying, and they were right, but the thought of breaching his personal space so blatantly made your stomach turn.
God, why were you even debating this. If he was so angry at you for lowering his mask you would live with it, because at least he would be alive. With newfound determination, you pulled down his black mask and purposefully kept your eyes on the prize…which was keeping him alive, and nothing else.
This wasn’t how you daydreamed your first kiss going, but I guess it could hardly be considered that in the first place. He was unconscious, and you were giving him the air from your lungs. Definitely not the romantic occasion you had envisioned prior. After two breaths, he still didn’t stir; so you continued with the compressions. Fear started to creep into you as he remained unmoving. How long could someone live in this state? Was it timed or just as long as you kept helping them?
Before you knew it, your vision was becoming hazy with tears. You didn’t want to let him down like this. Again, you leaned down to give him some more air. Your lips touched, and you were tempted to relish in the feeling for just a bit longer than usual. However, before you could indulge those temptations or pull away, your efforts paid off.
Kakashi’s eyes widened and you fell back from him onto the floor. He gulped in air and his chest wavered with heavy breaths. For a second you were too stunned to even move, and just stared at him.
“Uh..uhm…” you stuttered as he studied himself. For a second his heart skipped a beat as he noticed that his lips felt more wet than usual.
Had you just kissed him...voluntarily? Wait, no. He didn’t remember coming to this room, which meant he was unconscious. Kakashi pondered what you had been doing, until he noticed some of his bandages and the bloody fingerprints over his heart. Your face was flushed and you looked anywhere besides his face, but out of the corner of your eye you could see him staring.
He attempted to sit up, but immediately fell back with a grunt of pain. Snapped out of your fog, you rushed back over and firmly held him down. His eyes trailed over to the kunai in his shoulder, and he started to understand the situation. It almost didn’t occur to him that he didn’t have his mask on either.
“P-please, don’t move. I still have to treat your shoulder,” you reminded him. He nodded, and pulled his mask back up with his good arm.
“Thank you,” he said softly as his eyes gazed up at the ceiling.
“…don’t thank me yet, we’re not out of the woods,” you said in a teasing way to calm the atmosphere. He even let out a tiny chuckle, which elated you.
The last thing you had to do was remove the kunai from his forearm and stitch up the wound. Unlike last time, he was awake now and this process would not be as easy as the other injury had been.
You noticed the bunching of his muscles and asked “Could you…relax, please?” He didn’t want to move his arm, and didn’t have much to grab onto in the first place, so he settled on shifting his hand over to rest on your knee. As much as he would never admit it, he knew that the only thing keeping him calm was the touch of your skin and the caring look in your eyes. It grounded him more than he ever suspected someone’s presence to.
After running through what you were going to do, you began the process. His grip tightened on your knee and he tried to withhold more grunts of pain as you removed the kunai from his flesh. Tossing the kunai aside, you started the same method of cleaning this wound as you did the others. Once all of the blood and bits of skin were wiped away, you began the painful process of stitching.
Kakashi’s arm jerked every so often, and the death grip on your leg remained persistent throughout the whole operation. Thankfully, the wound had not been big in size. Seconds seemed to last for minutes, but eventually you finished and sat back with a sigh of relief. It looked as if you had done the job half blind, but at least the bleeding was stopped.
Now getting a better look at you, Kakashi noticed that your clothes were spotted everywhere with blood, his blood, and your hands didn’t look much better. As you cleaned up the make-shift medical tools and first aid kit, the squad leader pondered your situation.
“Where are we?” he finally asked. You sat back down next to his prone body, and begrudgingly wondered why he hadn’t put a shirt back on yet.
“Five miles or so from the ambush spot. We’re not out of their territory yet, but it was the closest town with an inn and you were…ya know.” You assumed he smiled when the skin around his eye wrinkled upward.
“I see…well, thank you again for saving my life. Now that we’re out of the woods and all,” he teased. A blush crept its way onto your face.
“I-it’s really no problem. We’re teammates and all, it’s what we do.” You justified, and his only response was a suspicious hum. You looked away, and he noticed that your hands started to wring nervously as a guilt built up inside of you.
“You have those injuries because of me though, so I’m not sure if you should thank me…”
“Well, it’s not like I was going to let you die now, hm? We work too well together. We’re both alive now anyway, so I believe my gamble played out just fine.” Although he tried to sound detached, an underlying layer of concern in his words bubbled to the surface.
You looked at him with surprise, but were quicky cut off by a yawn escaping your mouth, and you realized that the time was likely approaching early mornings hours. With a quick glance around the room, and to your behest, you noticed that there was only one bed in the room. Of course.
“I know I’m not a medical ninja or anything, but you should get some rest before morning. We’ll have to be quick and get back to the village before the other ninja track us down.”
Kakashi nodded in agreement and painstakingly started his ascent upward. After awkwardly watching him struggle for a moment, you decided to lend him a hand and help him up. He also looked around the room, and you almost swore you saw a hint of red peeking over his mask as he came to the same conclusion about the bed. He turned to you, but before he could say anything you cut him off with a wave of your hand.
“You can have it; you need the rest more than I do after all.”
He glanced from the bed to you before shaking his head.
“Actually, we both need to rest. You must be tired from the mission and…well, all of that,” he paused to gesture to your clothes, “so why don’t we just share?” He couldn’t look you in the eyes as he proposed the plan, and thank god he didn’t lest he notice your own flushed face.
“S-share?” you tried to say with confidence, and failed. Kakashi nodded back. “Yeah. It’s big enough for the both of us.”
Under normal circumstances, you would have denied; even though a strong part of you really wanted to. He was your teammate, your superior, and this would only give you false hope. Luckily for you, these were not normal circumstances and no matter how hard you tried a logical explanation to deny him eluded you.
Therefore, that left you two with one choice. Share the bed. Trying to be as professional as possible, while also being extremely exhausted, you both practically shambled to the bed. You gently helped Kakashi lie down and made sure he wasn’t putting any pressure on his wounds. After, you shuffled into the bed and tried to position yourself in a way that wouldn’t disturb him.
Under the blankets felt like a warm, cozy oven in comparison to the rain and muck outside. Just as you were about to drift off, a strong arm snaked its way around your stomach. You froze in surprise, and felt your heart pound in your chest as Kakashi’s breath tickled the nape of your neck. He almost pulled away, fearing you did not want this interaction, but you managed to grab his hand and hold it in yours to keep his arm in place.
“I promise to repay you someday,” Kakashi said in a low, tired tone.
For a second you wondered if this was a dream and you had already fallen asleep, but the feel of his clothed face moving closer to press against your skin. In the heat of the moment, you barely noticed that his heart was racing just as fast as yours. With his promise in mind, and his rapidly slowing heartbeat acting like a dull lullaby, you drifted off into a peaceful sleep.