|
Challenge Line: "I must be broken since I feel this way." ___ Sometimes waking up feels like you’ve fallen into your own body. The sudden returning weight of flesh and sensation almost shocking after the image based world of sleep. Shikamaru is used to the feeling; used to laying a bed for hours when he’s allowed, trying to recapture his dreams. It’s one of his favorite things to do. He isn’t used to falling into body that hurts so damn much. One eye is cracked open cautiously, reveling a blurred white ceiling and far too much light. He winces it closed, teeth clenching at the pain that shots through his head. Fucking ouch. Someone else is near-by; he hears the creak of weight shifted in a metal chair, the sudden inhalation of breath. “That time, what would you have done if I had attacked you?” Shikamaru knows that voice. Deep and cold, and a little snobbish. He answers without thinking. “You wouldn’t have.” His voice is scratchy and torn and using it makes him cough. “Do you want some water?” Shikamaru, after much consideration, rolls his head to the side and squints open both eyes. He isn’t at all surprised to see Hyuga Neji sitting in chair at his bedside, but he is a little disconcerted by the fact that there are three of him. As if one weren’t enough trouble. He works his tongue inside a dry, gummy mouth. “Hmm.” All three Neji’s stand up together and Shikamaru shuts his eyes against the sight, concentrating on his breathing. Water splashes near his right ear and plastic clicks on metal. “You’ll have to tilt your head up. I can’t hold it and the cup.” This takes a while. Shikamaru imagines he can feel Neji’s impatience thickening the air around them like a mist as he struggles to convince his neck to support his head. It’s oddly cheering. Eventually though, the thin edge of a plastic cup is resting on his lower lip and he gratefully swallows the lukewarm liquid. Soon he finishes and Neji takes the cup away. Shikamaru can hear the steady drip-drip of an IV and the sound footsteps down a tile hallway. He must be in a hospital. Well, that’s good. Considering his last memory had been of passing out on the ground with the sticky warmth of his own blood through his fingers. Hospitals were very good things. He swallows a few times. “The mission. . .?” “Complete,” Neji says, the chair letting out an alarming squeal as he sat back in it. “Good,” Shikamaru says slowly, wincing at his tries to move his arms, “Causalities?” He doesn’t want to ask that one. He really doesn’t want to know. But he must. “Four dead Sound-nin.” There’s satisfaction in Neji’s voice. Shikamaru heaves a sigh, feeling something inside of him relax. “Good.” He pauses, thinking. “Injuries?” “Bruises, broken bones, severed nerves,” the last with a strange twist of bitterness, “The worst was Naruto and Sasuke, but everyone is healing.” Shikamaru looks over at him, (finding only one this time, thankfully) meeting that blank gaze with an odd jolt in his stomach. Neji looks. . .haggard. Bags under his eyes, a faint scar marring his cheek, but his chin is as arrogant as ever. “How did you know I wouldn’t have gone after you?” Shikamaru has no trouble shifting gears from one subject to the next. “Its not your thing. Going after those weaker. I knew that.” He frowns. How long had Neji been thinking about that time in the Forrest? “How do you feel? Physically, I mean.” Neji looks down in his lap. He holds his left hand in his right and rubs at his knuckles, as if trying to chafe the skin off. “Broken. I must be broken since I feel this way.” Before Shikamaru can even think of responding to the quiet voice, Neji leans over him and reaches up---with his right hand---to touch Shikamaru’s cheek. Shikamaru freezes and stares, confused even as his heart begins to beat wildly in his chest. Neji’s eyes are like flakes of opal; alien and hard to read, but the fingers on his face tremble, telling him something he’s not sure he wants to know. “But,” Neji says softly, “I think I’m healing now.” END
|
|