Huffing his assent, the furry body flopped over to lay out next to his sleepy master. The reddish dog nuzzled his way under one of the sprawling arms to hide a cold nose and settled.
Kakashi made no gesture to move, allowing the ninken to nestle against him in a form of comfort that he had often denied himself of. Sleep would not return to him, he knew, for sleep was a rarity in and of itself—and more often than not nightmares wrecked his subconscious whenever it could lay their claws against him.
Instead he wrapped himself within the warmth that was Uuhei, arms curling about the reddish-furred summon like he had done so often when he was a child, war-torn fingers idly running beneath Uuhei’s chin, adamantly ignoring the subtle way they shook in the smallest tremors that wrecked his form.
Fractured figments of a splintered dream—a memory—wavered and faded with the constant hum of Uuhei’s breaths, grounding him with every heartbeat that thudded within.
“——why don’t we get you that biscuit now?”