Something Stupid | By : fantards Category: Naruto > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 783 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0 |
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story. |
Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to the genius man called Masashi Kishimoto. I only own a couple of shotglasses, a dragon-collection and a teddybear named Shikamaru.
Notes: (Beatrisu and Penbrydd) Co-authored with the amazing man of my dreams, Penbrydd. Originally, it was my idea, but he caved to my demands for him to write it with me, and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. More nonsense will be coming up from the two of us later, meanwhile ya’ll should go read his wonderful stories.
Warning: Yaoi in the sense of Kotetsu and Izumo going at it like dogs in heat (but then again, not really), violence and a lot of cussin’. No likey, no readey.
---
Izumo crouched on the ground, hidden by some dense shrubs and bushes near the hideout of the target of their current mission. He could see his partner, a mere shadow on some of the higher branches of a tree close by, scouting the area ahead.
He had wanted to laugh when they’d gotten this particular mission. It seemed much too simple, laughably so, and the man who had requested it was just too amusing for his own good.
However, as their progress had gone, Izumo had begun to think twice about the labelling of the mission as simple, clean and easy. There had been far too few traps, and the few they had found had been simple, only meant to alert, which could imply that their target was stronger, or at least more self-secure, than they had initially expected. He had come to understand that being cautious and patient would be the only good solution to this, and he also knew that his best friend, Kotetsu, was sorely lacking in both departments.
Kotetsu was a bit too loud and incautious for proper stealth work, so he had a tendency to leave the sneaky parts to Izumo while he handled diversions and open combat. In this case, there were what looked like run-of-the-mill rent-a-guards standing between the two of them and the building they needed to get into. Civilians were not going to be a problem for either of them, but in the interest of time and his own amusement, Kotetsu decided to handle them while Izumo went on alone to claim the set of swords they were here to rescue. He tapped Izumo on the arm, pointing toward the guards and holding up four fingers -- there were only four that he had spotted patrolling the exterior. He tapped his chest, crossed his wrists, and waved both hands toward himself. I'll fight them, and the ones inside will rush out. He pointed to Izumo and then to the building. When they come out, you go in.
Izumo rolled his eyes and sighed silently. Kotetsu always came up with the easiest plans possible, yet he didn’t mind. If this would do the trick, he was willing to go along with it. He gave a slight nod, but couldn’t hold himself back.
He tapped Kotetsu’s hand lightly, running the point of a finger down his own arm, ending with a dismissive motion. Don’t get yourself killed, Kotetsu. Or heavily injured. He pointed at the guards, then indicated his own hitai-ate and clothes, tapping Kotetsu’s chest with the point of his index finger. I know they’re only civilians, but you need to be careful.
When he got an affirmative nod and the trademark shit-eating grin from Kotetsu, he knew this wasn’t going to go well, as planned, or anything along those lines. Yet, he slipped into position, stealthily edging closer to the house as Kotetsu prepared himself for battle.
Examining the guards, Kotetsu decided that flashy was the way to go. He'd attract as much attention as possible, so that no one would notice Izumo. Removing his hitai-ate, he tucked it into his pocket. Flashy and ninja didn't need to be in the same sentence. That sort of gave the game away. He snapped out a scroll, calling forth his favourite enormous battle axe, and strolled into the clearing with no attempt at concealment.
The first guard to notice him just stared for a moment. The guard then pulled out a whistle, and summoned his compatriots. As the four guards rushed him, Kotetsu just smiled, tapping his foot to the rhythm of that fantastically poppy Shakka Zombie song that was on the radio when they were leaving the village. Civvies. Pfft. This was going to be a cakewalk.
He didn't figure on killing them -- not at first, anyway. He liked to keep the death rate fairly low, and it should be easy enough just to knock them out. Kotetsu swung his axe at the first guard to reach him, turning it at the last moment with the intention of knocking the guy upside the head. And then the guard vanished. Oh, shit. Shinobi. He turned the edge of the axe back out and continued to turn with it, hoping to make contact if the guard had landed behind him. Unfortunately, this was not his lucky day. As two more guards rushed out of the building, Kotetsu decided that it was, in fact, an intrinsically shitty day to be him. He let go of the axe, allowing it to fly towards two of the guards and pulled another scroll out of his pocket. This was not the time for an axe -- the loss of speed would get him killed. He needed fast, long, and sharp, and the dual-bladed glaive was obviously the way to go.
Lunging forward, Kotetsu swept the glaive in a surprising backward arc that brought the obvious blade out of the enemy's path. The second blade took the surprised shinobi between the legs, and split him to the chest. That was one down. Now all he had to do was survive.
Inside the building, Izumo wondered idly whether Kotetsu was done finishing those civilians or if he was having troubles. He could hear the ruckus outside, and understood that his friend had chosen the flashy way of fighting as opposed to being tricky and sneaky. He heaved a mental sigh and rolled his eyes, wondering when his best friend would develop some common sense. Sure, he was intelligent... He just didn’t know how to use the wits handed to him. Unfortunately.
Sneaking into the room with the heirloom swords was actually quite simple once he had it figured out. There were no traps, a fact that was somewhat nagging at the edges of his brain, something which could only mean that these guards were stronger than they had originally assumed.
However, Izumo had faith in his best friend. He was strong and could handle himself well. If he was quick when it came to snatching these wretched swords, they could probably escape with minor scratches. He kept telling himself that as he made his way into the chamber where these objects were said to be located.
---
Spinning with the glaive tucked under his arm, Kotetsu managed to clear a space around himself. There were still five of them and only one of him. He seriously considered that he might have fucked up, finally -- that this might be the one he wasn't coming back from. He couldn't spin forever – he needed a plan.
As he tried to figure out how to extract himself from this wholly ridiculous situation, the rain of kunai began. He simply refused to die, and hoped it would be enough. The glaive danced in his hands, clearing most of the blades before they struck, but those few that got through made a mess of his arm and back. Kotetsu stopped spinning suddenly, and lunged, but he only clipped one of the guards. Another tried to leap onto his back, sword drawn, but was deflected by the second blade.
Kotetsu hoped with all his heart that all of the guards were outside. For all that Izumo was competent and stealthy, an unexpected foreign shinobi would seriously skew their plans. And somewhere in the back of his head, Kotetsu still thought of his best friend as delicate – well, delicate for a ninja, anyway.
---
Stealing the swords was an easy task. There were two civilian brutes there, but they were disposed off quickly, with kunai to the throats. As he rolled the two swords into the protective cloths and secured them neatly, he couldn’t suppress the nagging fear lingering deep inside. He was worried for his wild friend, even though Kotetsu wasn’t exactly delicate, per se, he was still a little too quick to draw conclusions. This trait made it easy for him to underestimate people, which in turn got him landed in bed with large wounds. Izumo was fond of his best friend, make no mistake of that, he was just not so fond of dragging his sorry, wounded and rather heavy ass back home to Konoha all by his lonesome.
He hefted the pack onto his back and drew a couple of kunai out of his pouch, quickly attaching exploding tags to them – just for security. If Kotetsu had gotten himself into trouble, he was the one who had to save his sorry backside, and he intended to be prepared.
He snuck out a back-door and hurried up onto the roof, and, following the noises of combat, he made his way to the front of the house by rooftop. The sight that met him made him let out a strangled, irritated groan.
Down below was Kotetsu, occupied in battle with what appeared to have been six shinobi, the numbers of whom had been reduced to four. Izumo shook his head silently in wonderment and let four kunai soar through the air to dig into the backs of the ones remaining. He’d been lucky that he was intuitive, he thought as he jumped to the ground, smirking to himself as the four shinobi sunk to the ground, the exploding tags having removed quite some portion of their backs.
He quickly cleared the ground between himself and his best friend, giving him a firm smack upside the head and an angry growl. He glared at Kotetsu, his eyes turning an almost eerie black with anger.
“What the hell kinda trouble are you getting yourself into, you fucking idiot?!”
“You're alright.” Kotetsu's relief was evident as he leaned heavily on the glaive. “Then I did what I meant to do. As long as you're alright, and you've got the stuff, everything's fine.”
There was a truly alarming amount of blood on and near him, and Kotetsu was having trouble figuring out how much of it was his own. He pulled out a few of the more painful kunai and dropped them – at least he told himself he'd dropped them. Really, they'd just sort of slipped out of his fingers.
“Let's go while the going is good, hm?” Kotetsu offered his friend a wan smile, and limped off toward the edge of the property, using the glaive for support. A trail of blood followed him, and he had to confess that maybe just a bit more of it was his than he might have liked to admit. He smiled back at Izumo. “Come on, let's just get out of here, before we find out there were more of them.”
Kotetsu wobbled dangerously and finally submitted to the damage. His eyes rolled back in his head as he slumped to the ground, leaving the glaive driven into the grass, like a beacon marking his unconscious body.
“Shit. Shit, shit, shit.” Izumo looked patently irritated. “You fucking retard. Don't you dare die on me.”
Izumo sighed heavily and hefted his best friend onto his shoulder. He thanked whichever gods existed that he was taller than Kotetsu, so he wouldn’t have to drag him along the ground.
As he tugged the heavy chuunin along, he wondered idly what the hell he had been stuffing his face with – he was abnormally heavy, or so he thought. It might have also been the fact that his body was completely limp, he was unconscious, after all, and thus seemed heavier than usual.
“You’re such an idiot, Kotetsu,” he remarked, more to himself than anything. Kotetsu wouldn’t be able to answer him anyway.
“You know, I always thought you had some brains in there. I mean, you seem intelligent enough, most of the time. And you know what? I was wrong, so I’m sorry. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive you for this, you damned retard.” Izumo was a little angry, and a lot terrified as he carried his best friend toward Konoha. He would have to stop for rest sometime during the night, and most likely stay awake to make sure that this fucking idiot stayed alive.
He kept walking for hours, until it was too dark to continue. His burden was heavy, with the swords and the limp man hanging on his back, and as he picked out a nice spot to rest, he tried to deny the ache in his heart and the burning behind his eyes. He was furious!
“If you survive this, I’m going to kick your ass so hard you won’t be able to stand for a fucking week, much less sit, you damn bastard!” He let Kotetsu hit the ground a little more harshly than he had initially intended, and immediately felt a pang of guilt. He fought it down as he set up camp.
Turning to look at his best friend once more, he grumbled quietly, “If you die... I’m going to come after you, and when I find you, I’ll kick you right back alive.”
He dragged his friend into the tent and checked over his injuries, prodding and poking at him. They were pretty bad, and some might be lethal if he didn’t tend to them at once. He cursed himself and Kotetsu under his breath as he rubbed ointments into the wounds to prevent infections and wrapped him in bandages.
The prodding must have been a little rougher than he thought, because Kotetsu let out a soft groan, and his face scrunched up in pain.
“You... don’t have to be so rough, Izumo.”
“You can shut up, you bastard. I’ll be as rough as I fucking want to. I have to drag your sorry, fat ass back to Konoha, anyway, so don’t you dare complain!” Izumo surprised himself with how angry he sounded, how terribly hurt he sounded, and was barely able to fight back tears as his voice cracked.
“My ass is not fat!” Kotetsu struggled to get up, splitting open a scab on his side. Suddenly, his back stiffened and his eyes rolled back as the pain ripped through him. He fell back to the floor of the tent with a muffled curse. Luckily, he hadn't managed to sit, yet, so it wasn't very far.
“I'm glad you're okay. That's the important thing.” He flinched as he tried to raise his arm, but managed to touch Izumo's shoulder, before losing control again, and dropping his hand back to the floor.
He'd promised himself, many a long year past, that he'd keep Izumo as safe as he could – good stealth agents were hard to come by, and he really didn't want to wind up working with someone else. Well, that and he didn't want to lose his best friend (somehow that was harder to admit). And, so, he spent most returns getting carried home after playing decoy. He was getting pretty good at it, even if Izumo was getting tired of carrying him home. This one had just been a truly appalling mistake.
Rolling to the side, Kotetsu coughed up wet clots of blood. He hurt everywhere, but he refused to worry that he might die, since that simply wasn't going to happen. Right? Right? Right. There was no time for him to die. He had work to do when he got back.
“Not going to die. Too damned busy to die. Just going to lie here and hurt a bit, okay?” He threw up, rather violently, and to little effect. Ration bars don't give a man much lunch to lose. “Just need to sleep a while.”
Izumo was unable to stop the tears. “You fucking asshole! How can you always do this to me? Why? It’s not like I deserve to always worry about you, Kotetsu! You’re my best friend, no? My. Best. Friend!” He more or less shouted between sobs, and his voice was hoarse with hurt and pain. His eyes were burning, and he rubbed at them, while the ache in his heart seemed to be unbearable.
He was aware, in a detached part of his mind, that he shouldn’t be panicking. Kotetsu had always sacrificed his own safety for him, and always ended up getting hurt. However, Izumo was more than capable of taking care of himself, something he felt like Kotetsu couldn’t understand.
Izumo continued prodding Kotetsu’s wounds, and eyed him warily, before he spoke.
“Stay awake, Ko. If you fall asleep now, you might never wake up again, and I don’t want that. Besides, you don’t have to keep doing this for me. I’m more than capable of taking care of my own ass, thank you very much, and if you can remember it, I handed your ass to you the last time we sparred. I’m pretty sure I can hold my own in a fight, any time. And then you have this neat little thing called stealth. Do you know what that is?” Izumo’s voice took on a strangely calm, yet clearly annoyed quality, the one signifying one of his lectures coming up.
Pain occupied almost the entirety of Kotetsu's awareness. “Stealth won't get the hidden ones out. Just trying to keep them off you. Not going to die. You take good care of me. My best friend, too.” He smiled weakly.
His sentences had become short and simple – almost bulleted points that he meant to hit. He wanted more than anything to explain himself to Izumo, to make his friend understand, but the complicated syntax required for such an endeavour was momentarily beyond him. “Don't want you to get hurt. Need you to take care of me, so I can take care of you.”
The sentence sucked, frankly. It didn't convey even half of what he meant, but it would have to do.
“Not dying. Just broken.” He tried to vomit again, but nothing would come up. “Hurts. Quit poking. Water?”
Kotetsu tried desperately to fend off the pain-induced hallucinations. Mad things that couldn't and shouldn't have been there. His lips moved in some strange prayer to the tiger goddess who took Izumo's place in his vision, but she slipped away, and Izumo's frightened and angry countenance filled his line of sight. “Pomegranates. For you. When we get home. For the tiger.”
He coughed again, a sick burbling sound. “Water. Soldier pills. Have to get home.”
Izumo sighed, for the umpteenth time that day. “You don’t make any sense, Hagane-san.” He dug through his pack for a while and found a bottle of water and a soldier-pill, helping the injured chuunin to successfully get both components down his throat and not all over his chest. He slid his fingers gently across his brow, which was damp with sweat and chilly to the touch. With a frown, he formed a couple of simple medic hand-seals that all ninjas knew, sealing some of the wounds shut.
The gesture, along with the stress of that day, had him exhausted. He laid down next to Kotetsu and pulled him close, careful not to jar any wounds or possibly cracked ribs.
“Rest, hon. I’ll take care of you, make sure that you’re alright and warm and good.” He was babbling nonsense to make himself feel more secure, but he could sense that his best friend’s pain had subsided somewhat, and that reassured him. Placing a gentle kiss on his cheek, something he hadn’t done since they were children and he’d told Kotetsu that he loved him, he nuzzled into his neck and fell halfway asleep.
Kotetsu mumbled quietly, not quite coherent, but with a vehemence that implied a hidden meaning that bore no alliance to the words. “Left side... peanuts... prestidigitation... regard them kindly...” What he'd meant to say was entirely different, and had he been wholly conscious, he'd have been very glad it didn't escape his mouth: Izumo, I don't mean to worry you. It's just that I love you, and I can't bear the idea of you being hurt, when I could just as easily have taken it for you.
He'd never confessed his love, sure that Izumo would hit him so hard his teeth would rattle. Izumo cared, sure, but it wasn't that sort of thing. They were just friends. No matter how lovesick Kotetsu got, he knew he couldn't change that. It was best just to take what he could get and hold onto it.
He thought he felt Izumo snuggling up to him, but he wrote it off as a fever-dream. There was no way that could be real. He coughed again and finally succumbed to the siren song of sleep.
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