For narakusmiasma
Hourglass
"Why are you back so soon?" His voice was parched and brittle, and he was not lying down as ordered. "W-why? Temari—" There was a subtle terror in his eyes; his lower lip shook and his teeth rattled.Mouth parting into a soft "oh," Temari shook her head quickly. "They won't let me go." She watched as his shoulders slumped, almost felt it herself when his breathe rattled from his chest. Fumbling with her now useless traveling pack, she slipped down beside him on the bed, trembling fingers slipping over his sweaty brow. "Did you take your medication?" The bag clunked against the hard hospital floor.
He ignored her, easing himself down and shooting her feeble grin. "Thank God." It crumbled around the edges. "Thank God. I thought…" Leaning his head into her lap, he reached up to clutch her wayward fingers.
"I know what you thought." She followed suit, bending down to bury her face in the thin green clothes on his back. For awhile they breathed desperately, like the next second would wrench their solitude from them. "But they just wouldn't let me go."
"…I love him," he stuttered awkwardly, and she felt him tense and squirm beneath her. "I thought I could be the one to save him." His hand tensed around her wrist, fingernails digging, unintentionally hard, into her wrist.
"I love him too," she said simply, even though it didn't have to be said, even though every bone in her entire body knew it, and knew it well. Kankurou knew it too.
She felt Kankurou begin to shake, and with shock she heard a wheezy, fake chuckle rise from the ashes. It was overtaken with a sob, but the sob was dry, and tearless. His other hand tensed around her leg.
"I'm so glad I won't be losing you, too." The chuckle rose again, a bit brighter, more cheery. "I'm so happy, Temari."
She tensed, thinking of the mission she had just been assigned. As he trembled in her embrace, she decided that for a few minutes, all he needed was her presence. For just a few minutes, he didn't need to know.