#summerofwhump6

They stood in the center of the room, hands behind their back, gaze down, as Caretaker checked the living room for any dust they missed.

"Did you clean the whole house?"

"Yes, Master."

"What about the bathrooms?"

They had to keep the door and the window closed as they worked with bleach and other strong chemicals in the bathrooms. The first time they had passed out and failed to finish their other chores, but soon they learned to work quickly before it got to that point.

"Yes, Master."

"The basement?"

The basement wasn't cleaned often, and all the dust made them sneeze a lot. Something bit their fingers as they moved the boxes. They didn't want to know what it was.

"Yes, Master."

"The garden?"

They weren't allowed gloves in the garden. Pricks and thorns pierced their skin. Master ordered them to always do this part when the sun was the highest in the sky. They couldn't take a plastic bag outside, they instead had to carry all the leaves and dirt on their arms, being careful not to let any fall, the sun burning their bare back.

"Yes, Master."

"Did you clean yourself?"

After all the cleaning, they were allowed to clean themself. Not in the bathrooms they had just cleaned, of course. They used the hose outside. The neighbors could see them, but they just ignored the whispers. They had seen a phone pointed at them once. Caretaker had said it was good, it taught them to be humble.

"Yes, Master."

Caretaker nodded. They never praised them, not wanting to spoil them.

"It's time for dinner. You're cooking for two people today. Whumpee is coming."

When they first started living with Caretaker, they had never cooked before. They still burned themself sometimes, but from the lack of punishments lately they supposed their meals were at least edible now.

"Yes, Master."

"You already know what you're supposed to do, right?"

They were to make themself invisible every time Whumpee visited. They were not to show their ugly face to them.

"Yes, Master."

With that, they went to the kitchen.

Suddenly the ship bursts into a flurry of sound and activity. Adelaide whirls around, watching as the captain barks out orders and rushes to take the wheel for himself. Sailors practically fly around the ship, untying ropes and letting out sails and scurrying up and down stairs.

She looks out to sea again, searching the water for any sign of what’s happening. There’s nothing but choppy, deep blue as far as the eye can see.

The captain shouts another order and Adelaide darts across the deck, unable to fully appreciate her newfound range of motion past the pounding of her heart in her chest. Practically slamming into the rail, she grips it with both hands until her knuckles turn white, staring back behind them.

There’s a ship there. A large ship, easily twice the size of The Golden Rose, with a hull and sails that haven’t seen nearly as much care and attention. A black flag flies from the mast, its crest hard to make out in the harsh wind.

And it’s gaining on them, fast.

“Captain! What is that ship?” She barely remembers to drop her voice into a deeper register. But no one is paying her any mind, anyway, and her question goes unanswered.

A horrible scraping sound fills the air, and Adelaide is nearly knocked off her feet by the jolt that shakes the deck. Did they just...run into us? The expressions on the faces of the sailors are growing more frantic, sending her heart racing even faster.

Then the ship is pulling up beside them, huge and looming above her head, still bumping up against the side as it goes, and she stumbles backwards away from the railing. Just in time, too, because people are beginning to swing down onto The Rose’s deck, and they have weapons.

Adelaide scrambles further away until her back hits the railing on the other side, eyes wide as she stares at first the rough-looking men landing one by one, then the flag whose crest she can finally see.

It’s a skull over crossed swords.

Pirates.

They spread out quickly, some disappearing below deck to do who knows what while others immediately set upon the sailors. The men are strong, but they’re not fighters, not like the pirates. Thankfully there’s no bloodshed, but it’s not long before each sailor is either knocked down or pinned.

And another pirate is headed straight for her.

Part of her wants to cower, but she steels herself, clenches her fists, and stares him down. No fear. She can’t show fear. Fear is to these men like blood to a shark.

A hand hooks into her cravat and yanks her forward, and she tries her best not to flinch. He’s dirty, beard unkempt, missing teeth as he sneers at her. Everything she would expect a pirate to be.

“You look young and fit enough.” He looks her up and down as if to confirm it, and her skin crawls. For a moment she forgets she’s not a girl, and suddenly it’s Charles hovering over her again, and her heart lodges somewhere in her throat.

“‘Ey Marshall! You wanna keep this one? He looks like a good enough worker.”

He. Worker. Her throat feels slightly less constricted at the realization, but she still doesn’t want to be kept. Her eyes dart up to the dark-haired pirate that hangs over the rail of the upper deck.

“Sure. Take him back.”

Suddenly she’s being dragged by the neck across the ship, toward the pirate ship. “No, no, I don’t -” She doesn’t even know what she’s trying to say, or why she thinks it might do any good, but there’s no chance to complete the thought before the man wraps a strong arm around her waist and they’re being ripped upward, feet leaving the deck without warning. A yelp escapes her involuntarily, and it’s far from masculine. The pirate only guffaws at her.

Once they’ve safely landed on the second ship and the rope they were hanging from is put away, she’s mostly ignored for the next several minutes. She even wonders if she could make an escape, but there are so many men everywhere. Crates are being tossed from hand to hand, barrels rolled up planks from one ship to the other. The Golden Rose is being swiftly stripped of all the goods that she was carrying.

Three more men are brought onboard, members of The Rose’s crew. It seems in addition to taking her cargo, they plan to leave the ship with hardly enough men to sail it. The only other passengers besides Adelaide are an older man and his wife, and thankfully, they seem to have been left alone.

As the last of the crates is loaded on and the pirates unmoor from the cargo ship, moving much too quickly away from safety and freedom, Adelaide and the three sailors are lined up side by side. A man with a black and grey beard who - based on the relative finery of his burgundy coat - must be the captain approaches, looking them over one by one.

“Welcome aboard The Dark Storm,” he sneers. “The name’s Payne, but you lot can call me Captain.”

One of the sailors, a young man who can’t be much older than Adelaide, raises his voice. “What makes you think that we’ll work for the likes of you?”

In a flash, the gold-tipped cane in Captain Payne’s hand flies up and slams into the side of the sailor’s head. Adelaide gasps, hand flying to her mouth. The sailor is sent sprawling onto the deck, a bright red stream of blood trickling down onto its surface.

“Anyone else have any...objections?” The Captain smiles, gold teeth flashing in the sun. “No? Good.” Turning, he beckons with the cane to the same dark-haired man that she had seen earlier. “Marshall, get this man a bucket so that he can clean up his mess before it stains the wood.”

Moving on to the other two men, he asks their names and gives them an approving grunt, before finally coming to her. “And what is this?”

It isn’t the same way that he asked for names before, but she answers, anyway, too frightened not to. “Gray, sir. John Gray.”

His upper lip curls. “And whose idea was it to bring Mr. Gray onto my ship?”

Marshall steps up beside him. “I approved him, Captain. He probably doesn’t know a weaver’s knot from a bowline, but he can swab decks. And maybe if he does that for long enough, he’ll actually build enough muscles to be able to pull a line.”

The Captain stares her down for what seems like an eternity more. She isn’t sure whether she wants his approval or not, but has a feeling that failing to gain it will mean something much worse than swabbing decks.

Finally he cocks his head slightly to one side, face relaxing. “Fine, then. You heard the man. Our defiant friend here seems to be done with his bucket, so get busy.”

It isn’t until he walks away that she realizes she was barely breathing. She sucks in a shaky breath now, trying hard not to make eye contact with anyone around her as she collects the bucket and brush and finds an unoccupied corner to start in.

There’s a lot to think about while she scrubs. Her life has been turned upside down twice within a week, first by her own doing, and now by pirates. This isn’t just a bad dream. This isn’t something that’s going to last for a few more days until she arrives at the new life she’s been looking forward to. Unless she can somehow escape whenever they make port, she’s stuck here. As a...well, basically a slave. Certainly not the way she was hoping to start things over.

She can’t let them find out her secret.

If they find out that she’s actually a woman, there’s no telling how they will react. Badly. That’s all she knows for sure.

So she keeps to herself. Doesn’t speak to anyone unless required, tries to stay unnoticed as much as possible. Scrubs the deck. Hauls crates around. Occasionally helps pull a line. Her hands are constantly shriveled, the ends of her sleeves always wet, and there are permanent bruises on her knees. Blisters quickly form on her palms, then burst, then form all over again until they’ve turned into her first ever callouses.

But she keeps scrubbing, and she watches.

For the first week or two, she was determined not to be one of them. She may be working on a pirate ship, but she’s not a pirate. Eventually, though, she started thinking harder about what it might take to survive this whole ordeal, not just until the next port, but possibly for a very long time.

What if the Captain decides she’s not useful enough? What if he decides to get rid of her while they’re out in the middle of the open sea?

So she watches. She shadows Marshall, the first mate, whenever she can, and tries to learn knots and terms and the way things work. She doesn’t push to be included in the process, not yet, not until she’s certain that she’ll make a good impression.

He feels very slightly better when he sits down in the truck across from Buck. Slightly. His head has stopped spinning. Other than that, he still feels like absolute shit. He’s hot, and horribly sweaty (he can feel his hair sticking unpleasantly to his forehead), and his whole body aches like...like something. His head hurts too much to think of an appropriate metaphor. 

“You okay?” Buck asks. It takes Eddie a moment to register the fact that anyone has spoken at all, and another moment to figure out a reply. By the time he says, “I’m fine,” he’s pretty sure there’s no way in hell that Buck believes him. 

“Are you sure?” Buck asks, immediately after Eddie says he’s fine. Eddie sighs. He really doesn’t have the strength to insist right now. 

“Yes,” he says, and hopes that it’s enough. 

“Really? Cause, I don’t mean to insult you or anything, but you look kind of terrible.”

I know, Eddie thinks. I feel it, too. He says, “thanks, Buck. You’re so nice,” instead, and Buck just shakes his head. 

A few minutes later, they arrive at the factory. Wanting to prove to Buck that he’s okay, Eddie shoots up from his seat as soon as the truck parks and determinedly makes his way outside, fighting through a rush of lightheadedness and forcing himself to keep moving normally. 

The team heads into the building, the 911 dispatcher relaying information about their victim’s location. 

“First floor, back right corner.”

Bobby leads the way, and Eddie sticks close behind him. The air-conditioning in the building has been turned off, and the atmosphere inside is choking and dry. He feels himself start to sweat even more, and wonders how that’s possible.

“Wow,” is the first thing anyone - Buck - says, when the victim comes into view. Both of his legs are pinned under a very large machine, which appears to have fallen on its side. He’s conscious, but clearly going into shock. Hen and Chim get to work on him right away, as the rest of the team analyzes the machine and waits for the paramedics to give the go-ahead to lift it away. 

“You’re good to go, Cap,” Chim says, after a moment. “He’s stable for now.”

“We’re gonna need all available hands on deck for this one,” Bobby says. Hen stands up from next to the patient to join in the effort, while Chim remains with him, monitoring his vitals. 

Bobby instructs everyone to different positions around the machine. Eddie is at a corner, and he braces a hand against it as they prepare to lift. He can’t remember a time when he felt this weak, but he knows he has to fight through this, has to give everything he’s got and more, to make sure that they get this man free. 

“On the count of three,” Bobby says, and Eddie puts his hands on either side of the corner, pressing his feet firmly into the ground. He can do this. He has to do this. He feels so, so bad. 

“Three, two, one!”

They all lift simultaneously. The machine creaks and squeaks and comes up off of the ground, and there’s a dragging sound, and Eddie’s legs are starting to shake, and his vision is going dark around the corners and his head is hurting more and more and -

“He’s out!” 

They settle the machine to the floor. The second Eddie’s hands leave the metal, everything goes dark.

--

Eddie wakes up to the overpowering smell of ammonia. He reaches out a clumsy hand to bat the source of the smell away and hears Buck’s voice.

“He’s awake!” This is not directed at Eddie, but the next thing he says is. “I can’t believe you.” 

Eddie opens his eyes and finds himself staring up at Buck’s face, half-illuminated by what he assumes is a flashlight. “What happened?” he asks, trying to sit up. 

Buck’s hand presses him back to the ground, which is where he was heading anyway - even moving slightly upwards had made his head start to feel funny, and he really doesn’t want to pass out. Wait - 

“You passed out,” Buck says, his voice not quite snapping at Eddie, but getting there. “We set down that machine, and you hit the floor. You wanna explain that?”

Not really, Eddie thinks. “Don’t feel good,” he says, and this time it’s Bobby who speaks to him, stepping into his field of view for the first time and bending to crouch next to him. 

“I bet you don’t. You’re dehydrated and running a fever.” Eddie senses that there’s something else Bobby is going to say, but he’s interrupted by Buck.

“Even though you told me you were fine,” Buck says. “You passed out, Eddie. You’re just lucky that the patient was stable enough for Hen and Chim to check you over and make sure you weren’t, you know, dying or anything.” He sounds angry, and Eddie doesn’t blame him. He can’t believe he passed out on the job. He’s stronger than that, better than that. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. 

“Save it,” Buck says. “You think you can get up without passing out again? We need to get you back to the station.”

Eddie shrugs against the ground. This must be a good enough answer, though, because the next thing he knows, Buck’s hands are grabbing onto his own, and then Buck’s standing and pulling Eddie to his feet. 

Everything starts to spin, but Eddie resolutely does not pass out. He does lean forward until Buck is practically supporting all of his weight. They walk back to the truck, awkwardly, Buck all but carrying Eddie, Bobby walking next to them. 

The ride to the station is quiet. Eddie leans his head against the window and wishes that the glass was cool. But it’s warm, just like everything else, and he doesn’t think he’s ever been so hot in his life. I want to go home, he thinks, and it’s not until Buck replies that he realizes he’s spoken out loud.

“You’ll go home,” he says. “We’re just going back to the station to get your stuff, and then I’m driving you there.”

Some kind of hopeful feeling rises in Eddie at the thought of Buck bringing him home, caring for him, even, but he squashes it down and protests because he has to. “You don’t have to -”

“I’m doing it. End of story,” Buck says. Eddie flinches a little at the hardness in his voice, but he knows he deserves it. 

They arrive back at the station, and Buck tells Eddie to wait in the truck while he gets their stuff. Eddie slumps down in his seat and closes his eyes and tries to tell himself that he’s going to be fine, that it’s just a fever, but he’s aching and sweaty and exhausted and frankly miserable, and having a hard time believing that anything is ever going to be fine again. 

“Hey,” Bobby’s voice distracts him from his rapidly darkening thoughts. Eddie opens his eyes and sits up a little on the seat. Bobby sits down across from him and touches a hand to his shoulder. 

“Are you okay?”

That is...not what Eddie had been expecting him to say. He’d expected a stern talking-to, at the very least. Maybe some yelling. Not concern. 

He finds he doesn’t have it in him to lie. “Not really.”

“How long have you been feeling sick?”

Eddie shrugs. “I only felt a little off before going to sleep. I thought it was just the heat. It wasn’t bad until I woke up.”

Bobby nods sympathetically, and Eddie wonders why he’s not mad. Before he can think the better of it, he’s asking. 

“I am upset with you,” Bobby says, but his voice is gentle. “Coming to work sick doesn’t just put you in danger. It puts the team and the people we save in danger too. You should have told me how you were feeling before we went out on that call.”

Eddie nods. “I know,” he says, “it was stupid.”

“I won't argue with that,” Bobby replies. “I want you to get home and get some rest and plenty of fluids, and don’t even think about coming back here until you’re feeling a hundred percent.”

“Okay.”

Bobby stands to leave the truck at the same moment that Buck returns, his and Eddie’s duffle bags thrown over his shoulder, keys to his Jeep in hand. “You ready to go?” he asks, voice still distant but slightly less cold. 

“Yeah,” Eddie says, carefully making his way out of the truck, bracing his hands against it to keep his balance. Buck steps closer and takes on some of Eddie’s weight without either of them saying a thing, and they walk out into the parking lot. 

For the first few minutes of the drive, neither of them says anything. Then, they stop at a red light, and Buck turns to look at Eddie. 

“You passed out,” he says, stressing the words. 

“I know,” Eddie replies. “Don’t have to remind me.”

“We were on a call, and you just passed out,” Buck continues. “Do you know what that was like? Hearing something fall to the ground and realizing it was you?”

Eddie doesn’t answer. He’s too tired to formulate any kind of response, and anyway, he’s pretty sure that these are rhetorical questions.

The light turns green, and Buck starts driving again. “It was terrifying, Eds,” and a bit of softness creeps back into his voice with the use of the nickname. “We didn’t know why you collapsed. Honestly, you’re lucky that the ambulance already had a passenger, or you’d probably be at the hospital right now.”

“It wasn’t...wasn’t that bad,” Eddie says, suddenly realizing how much worse things could be - he could be in the hospital, for what is nothing more than a fever. 

“Yeah, we figured that out pretty quick when Chim started checking you over. Your fever wasn’t dangerously high or anything. You’re just sick. Normal sick, nothing scary. Chim said all you needed was some rest and some water and someone watching over you to make sure you actually got those things.”

Eddie nods, although Buck is looking at the road and can’t see him. “Glad it’s you,” he says. 

“What?”

“Glad it’s you,” he repeats. “Watching over me. I didn’t think...I mean...you’re mad at me. But you’re doing it anyway.”

Buck pulls into the driveway. “Of course I am,” he says. “Watching over you. And, I mean, I’m mad at you, too. Do you have any idea how stupid it was to go on a call like this?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “I just…”

“I know.”

Buck parks the car and gets out, and he’s opening Eddie’s door for him before Eddie’s hands have even found his seatbelt. Buck reaches across him and undoes it, wincing when his hand touches Eddie’s skin. 

“You really are burning up,” he says. “Come on, let’s get you inside.”

A few minutes later, Eddie is in bed, dressed in lightweight pajamas and lying on top of the covers because it’s way too hot beneath them. There’s a large glass of water and a bottle of tylenol sitting on the bedside table, and Buck is in his bathroom getting a damp washcloth that Eddie had tried to insist wasn’t necessary. 

As soon as the cloth touches his forehead, though, he changes his mind. It feels wonderful against his overheated skin, and he sighs contentedly.

“Told you that would make you feel better,” Buck says, sinking down onto the edge of the bed. “You need anything else?”

You, Eddie thinks, but Buck is already here, taking care of him and worrying over him and making sure he’s comfortable even though he’s also still a little mad at him. It should be enough, Eddie thinks, but all he really wants is for Buck to lie down next to him. He can’t quite bring himself to ask, though. Even in his feverish state his inhibitions haven’t been lowered that much. 

So he doesn’t ask Buck to lie down next to him. The extra body heat would probably be unbearable anyway. But that doesn’t mean that Buck doesn’t stay. He does, and doesn’t give Eddie much of a choice in the matter. 

“I’m gonna go crash on the couch,” he says. “If you need anything, if you wake up and feel worse, anything, I’m right here, okay?”

“Okay,” Eddie says, and closes his eyes. “Thank you.”

He can hear the soft smile in Buck’s voice when he replies, “always, Eds.”

Elyan’s horse gave a startled whinny and Elyan was jolted in the saddle as her hoof landed on an unstable bit of mud. The ground shifted underneath them, the waterlogged mud sliding and slipping and suddenly Elyan found himself tumbling from the saddle as the horse staggered to avoid falling down the valley wall.

The horse managed to lurch up to the ridge again, but Elyan, his foot coming loose from the stirrup, fell, caught in the now churned up mud that was cascading down into the valley below. He barely had time to yell and cover his face before he was plummeting down in a whirl of mud and rocks.

He hit the valley bottom with a thud, the side of his head smacking painfully into the ground. A torrent of rocks and debris covered him as the landslide raged down the slope. He had to move or he would be completely buried. Scrabbling at the loose earth beneath him, he tried to pull himself away from the valley side. But the weight of mud on top of him was too much. His desperate attempts to get free only caused more wet soil to shift down towards him.

Darkness crashed over him, flattening him to the ground, the roaring of the falling land thundering in his ears. His face was pushed down into the mud, his head covered. Panic soared in his chest. Grunting with the effort, and trying very hard not to whimper, he pushed his hands outwards, trying to dislodge some of the mud over his head. He fought against the weight of it frantically. It was no use; either the mud was too deep over him for his hands to break through it, or more shifted into place whenever he pushed any aside.

Trying to dig himself out was sapping all of his strength. He collapsed under the weight. Trapped. Unable to move. Unable to get free.

He tried to slow his breathing even as his heart raced. There was only a very small pocket of air by his face. How long before he suffocated under here, buried beneath who knew how much of the valley side?

Had the other knights been caught in the landslide as well? Lancelot had been riding right alongside Elyan. Had he managed to get clear in time?

His mind was getting foggy, panic and lack of air making his head pound furiously. He tried again to move, to get up, to push the dirt from on top of him. But the fall had taken all of the strength from him. There was too much earth crushing him down.

A sob worked its way up his throat, threatening to break free. As a lone wanderer and now as a knight, Elyan had always known his life was dangerous. The risks hung heavy over all knights. But he had never considered the possibility that being buried alive, alone and afraid, would be the way that fate would take him.

A scrabbling at his ankle snapped his focus back. And then a hand was grasping his calf, just above his boot. The hand moved up his leg, pushing the mud aside as it followed the line of his body upwards. Elyan could have wept. They’d found him. He let out a relieved whimper, gasping and trying to catch his breath in the tiny gap he had.

There were now more hands, digging around him, one set at his side, over his back. The other near his shoulders. One brushed over the back of his neck and he shifted his head.

“He moved!” he heard the muffled triumphant cry as more mud was dug away from him. “Elyan!”

Now that they had lifted most of the weight of earth from him, Elyan could get his arms free again. He pushed up onto his hands and knees. Two large hands grabbed his shoulders, hauling him out from under the rest of the mud. He gasped in a huge breath, immediately regretting it when it made him cough and choke on dirt, but Percival’s steady hand patted his back, and Gwaine was kneeling in front of him, grinning in relief.

“Are you alright?” Percival asked quietly, his eyes scanning across Elyan.

“I think so… Thank you,” he panted, trying to wipe the mud from his face with his equally dirty hand. Gwaine leant forwards and offered the sleeve of his gambeson. Letting Gwaine smear most of the dirt off of him, Elyan looked up at the side of the valley that had collapsed in the landslide. A large chunk of the slope was gone, along with the path up on the ridge that they had been riding on earlier.

“Are you… all… alright?” he asked worriedly, looking at the two of them.

“We’re fine,” Percival reassured, patting Elyan’s shoulder.

“None of you got caught in the slide? Lancelot…?” He glanced up at the ridge again, hoping to spot Lancelot or Leon looking down at them.

“Not in the slide,” Gwaine said. “His horse spooked and threw him” – Percival squeezed Elyan’s shoulder when Elyan’s eyes widened in panic – “but he’s fine,” Gwaine added quickly. “Just a little bruised. Leon had to practically hold him down to stop him running down here to help you.”

Elyan felt a small smile tugging his lips.

“Come on, can you stand?” Percival stood, one arm around Elyan’s back to help him up as well.

Gwaine scrambled to his own feet, slipping once in the churned up mud and started climbing up the slope, turning and reaching a hand to help pull Elyan up after him.

“We must be due that rest Leon promised by now,” he joked.

“Yūgao, Asuma, continue with the mission. I’m doubling back.”

“Kakashi—”

“Yūgao’s in charge. Play nice.”

Iruka smirks. He likes serving under Kakashi; he’s tough and has high expectations for his subordinates, but has a playful side that comes out at the strangest times. It’s not the first time he’s worked with Kakashi. Hopefully, it won’t be the last.

“I’m going to keep talking, in case you can still hear me,” Kakashi says. “If it bothers you two, Yūgao, Asuma, feel free to find a different channel.”

“Acknowledged,” Yūgao responds, clipped. 

“I’m thinking there’s a few reasons why you’re not responding. Microphone is broken, unconscious, taken, or killed. I’m hoping for one of the first two, Umino. The third I can fix. The last…”

Iruka shivers. A stream of dust settles into his face and he sputters.

“Well. Anyway. I’m just about to your last known position. The explosion caused significant damage. I hope you weren’t near the blast. I’m not as good a medic as Yūgao.”

The building shifts above him, a large portion of what had once been ceiling cracks and begins to break away. It’s right above his face, and Iruka can feel his pulse jump. If it falls—

“Umino, if you can hear me, flare your chakra.”

Iruka can’t look away from the chunk of ceiling, registering Kakashi’s order with a strange hazy, fuzzy feeling. He brings his palms together in a seal and focusses, letting his chakra rise and release. 

The ceiling piece breaks.

“Perfect, I found you.”

Iruka slams his palms out onto the ground on either side of himself and builds a weak barrier between his arms to cover his head and torso.

“I’m glad to know you can hear me.”

The debris hits and cracks, sliding off to either side of the barrier and settling in the spaces beside him. The barrier fades and Iruka gasps, inhaling a mouthful of dust and coughing it up a second later. His eyes tear up with the effort of coughing with cracked, if not broken, ribs.

“I’m going to start moving the debris, to look for you. If I move anything and it shifts something that puts you in danger, flare your chakra immediately. Flicker once if you understand.”

Iruka turns his head to the side and spits a mouthful of dust out. He lets a tiny flicker out, closes his eyes, and breathes heavily. His whole body hurts, and flaring his chakra sporadically as a communication method is going to tire him out quickly; not that he can tell Kakashi that.

Kakashi does, indeed, keep his word. A steady stream of one-sided conversation flows into his ear, very occasionally stopped by him asking quick yes-or-no questions Iruka can answer with one or two flickers of unmoulded chakra. Twice Iruka has to send him a danger flare to keep the debris around him intact and from shifting too much. One of the pieces that had broken over his barrier is balanced precariously next to his ear.

“We’re close now, Umino. Give me one more flicker so I know you’re still here; it’s been ten minutes since the last one.”

Iruka can’t put his hands together to focus. He looks out at his palm, outstretched beside him, and blinks away a haze trying to settle in his head. He can’t—

“Umino, are you still there?”

He can’t—

He shuts his eyes. 

The last thing he hears is Kakashi yelling at him sternly to stay awake, to stay with him. In his haze of slipping consciousness, he thinks he hears Kakashi call him Iruka. 

~

When Iruka wakes, it’s to the comfort of a warm futon and the smell of a crackling fireplace. He’s in a one-room cabin, sparsely furnished; near the fire, Asuma, Yūgao, and Kakashi are gathered together around a game of cards. He smiles, closes his eyes, and slips back asleep.

Later, he wakes again in the cabin. This time, it’s just Kakashi settled nearby; he’s reading, or pretending to. Iruka watches him for a few minutes, but Kakashi never turns the page.

“Taichou?” His voice scratches.

“Yūgao says you’ll be okay. Your ribs were cracked, not broken; though, your leg is broken in three places. She was able to set and heal most of the damage.” Kakashi puts the book down on his lap and turns his eye to Iruka. “Your lungs are what she’s been worried about, and why we haven’t moved. You inhaled some nasty particulates, she says.”

Iruka tries to lift a hand to his chest, but he finds his arm is made of lead.

“You’re chakra-exhausted, as well.” Kakashi has the grace to look chastised. “That’s on me, it seems. Flickering in such a state can’t have helped.”

“It’s alright,” Iruka says, voice breathy. “At least you found me.”

“Are you hungry?”

Iruka shakes his head. “In a little while. Can I go back to sleep?”

“You shouldn’t. Yūgao and Asuma are just on a perimeter check, they’ll be back soon.”

“Talk to me,” he says. “Keep me awake.”

“What would you like to talk about?”