Push
Part One
Stuffing his hands into the baggy pockets of his pants, Shiranui Genma tilted his head back and focused on a spot about three inches above his jounin-sensei's right shoulder, barely resisting the urge to roll his eyes in boredom as the man droned on. There was probably a lesson to be learned somewhere, deep in the lecture that he was being given, but for the life of him, Genma couldn't figure out what it was. More, he didn't want to waste his time trying to figure it out. All he wanted to do was go stretch out in a field somewhere and nap until his body felt relatively human again.
"--and are you listening? Genma-kun."
Nodding, Genma focused hazel eyes on the dark blue ones of his sensei's, and he very solemnly watched a vein throb in the young man's forehead. Sometimes he thought this whole jounin-sensei thing was too much stress for a person so obviously used to calm, but it wasn't his place to say anything. The man should have known what he was getting into when he decided to take on a team. They weren't all going to be rule-abiding angels like Ebisu.
Slanting his dark-haired teammate a glance, he was rewarded with a smirk and a very 'I-told-you-so' look. Genma idly thought that it was a good thing for Ebisu that he was too lazy and, admittedly, hurting at the moment to go over there and do something about the smirk on his face.
"It's not appropriate to pick fights."
Oh boy, here he goes again, Genma thought with an internal groan. No matter how many times he tried to explain himself, it never even made a dent in his sensei's thick skull, so he'd stopped a long time ago.
It wasn't like Genma picked fights so that he could be pummeled. He always had a good reason to do what he did.
Some people just didn't get it.
"I know." Genma didn't flinch under the rather smoldering look he was given. Almost as an afterthought, he added, "Sensei."
Tossing his hands into the air, his jounin-sensei exclaimed, "I don't know what I'm going to do with you, Genma. Fifteen years old and you're still too immature to become a chuunin."
"I guess I'm a failure at life," Genma stated calmly, digging around in his pocket for a toothpick. When he found one, he put it between his bruised lips and chewed on it, content. The world was at peace again when he had his toothpick.
"Don't take that tone with me, you smartass."
Sighing heavily, Genma bobbed his head once, even though his sensei couldn't see. "Sorry. Can I go now? I'm really sore."
"Fine, go away. Ebisu-kun, treat him, please."
Ebisu smirked and patted his medical bag, shooting Genma a look that promised a lot of pain. Great. Somehow, he thought this was probably divine punishment for being who he was. Why else would the Hokage have stuck him with such a little twib as Ebisu?
"Come along, Genma-kun," Ebisu sounded way too cheerful as slapped Genma on the back and began walking.
His muscles spasmed briefly, and Genma vividly recalled the three shuriken that had been embedded there earlier.
"Nasty little bastard," he muttered, turning and following Ebisu. He reached up with one hand to massage his shoulder, grimacing when his hand came away with blood.
Ebisu clucked his tongue and paused in front of a large, flat rock, reaching up to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his middle finger. Genma had the sudden urge to pinch that nose until Ebisu cried. "You should be nice to me, Genma-kun, so that this will be relatively painless."
"Whatever," Genma muttered disinterestedly, lowering himself carefully to a sitting position. He knew that no matter how much he groveled, Ebisu would still treat him roughly and with the stuff that stung, so he wouldn't even bother. It took too much energy to pretend to be nice when he wasn't feeling like it, anyway.
Ebisu carefully set his medical kit aside and began unpacking things, various instruments of torture that Genma thought ought not be in the hands of a sadist like his teammate. In the end, he knew he was going to feel better for what Ebisu did, but he knew that the road to recovery was going to be painful. Especially since his jounin-sensei insisted on punishing him by not letting him get healed at the hospital.
Personally, he thought the two of them were in league with one another, and that just wasn't fair at all. He'd have to get Rena on his side one of these days. Right now, however, he was worried about the immediate danger of Ebisu and his nasty medicines.
"Take off your shirt, Genma-kun." He could see the glint of... something, out of the corner of his eye.
This was definitely going to be painful.
He couldn't help the hiss that escaped from between clenched teeth as he peeled his shirt off and tossed it onto the grass. If God was smiling on him, even just a little, then Ebisu would be quick and merciful.
Oh, yeah fuckin' right.
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How anyone could be as ridiculous, hot-headed, and stupid as Genma was, was really just beyond Ebisu. Of the three in their cell, Genma was the weakest of them, and had the least skill for fighting. Logic stated that, with this being the case, he should be the last one to go pick a fight with a couple of chuunins because they had insulted his friend.
Obviously, Genma wasn't a particularly logical person. What he was, and Ebisu had no problem telling him this to his face, was an idiot. Erena had handled those boys as she had seen fit, peacefully, and had been through with the entire matter. But of course, this wasn't enough for Genma, chivalry personified. He'd had to swagger out there and prove his manliness by throwing punches and nearly losing his entire upper level of teeth in the ensuing brawl.
Just thinking about it made Ebisu scowl and want to literally slap some sense into his comrade. Even he wasn't that cruel, however, as Genma was looking more like a punching bag and less like a human than normal. Though Ebisu would sooner lie on hot coals than admit it, he felt genuine pity for Genma, and more than anything, he wished the other boy would have asked him to come along.
Even though Ebisu never would have let him live it down, if Genma had told him where he'd wanted to go, they could have fought together. Those chuunins would look a lot worse than they presently did, and Genma wouldn't have such huge welts across his back.
Frowning as his glasses slipped down his nose, Ebisu examined the bruises. Fairly large, likely made from stomping on his back. The bruises were turning an ugly shade, and it would be a while before they healed. There would be stiffness and soreness there as well. Really, Genma should have known what he was getting in to when he took on those two chuunin. His body was going to ache for days.
A small part of him wanted to make him feel that pain, so that he would regret what he'd done. However, Ebisu's better sense knew that Genma was exactly the sort of person that wouldn't work on. Genma never did a thing he would come to regret, and if he got hurt along the way, he just took it. Took it, dealt with it, and then moved on.
It was infuriating. Frustrating. Admirable.
Clucking his tongue, a habit he knew annoyed Genma to no end, Ebisu chastised, "These bruises are terrible, Genma-kun. You're lucky they didn't break your ribs instead of just bruising you."
"Eh, so what."
'Eh, so what'. Ebisu barely resisted the urge to slap him.
Instead, he pushed his glasses up irritably and focused on the gashes across his shoulder blades. Shuriken. They weren't deep enough to be kunai, nor wide enough. That, and Ebisu rather had the feeling the chuunin had just been toying with Genma, a means of passing time until they had another mission. It probably hadn't helped that Genma was of a disposition that would annoy a saint if he set his mind to it.
Reaching for a salve, Ebisu pursed his lips and examined it. He'd just replenished his stock yesterday, and he was already going to be using some on Genma, as soon as he got those wounds cleaned up. It would sting, too, which was always a bonus when he felt like annoying Genma. Today, however, he just wanted to see Genma treated and then go find those chuunin himself.
Though he was probably strong enough to take one of them on head-long, he wasn't going to fight them physically. Ebisu had the feeling that, in a battle of wits, the thugs that had been picking on Erena wouldn't be anything akin to up to par with him.
Popping the cork off a bottle of water, Ebisu wetted down a cloth and began cleaning the gashes, gaining no personal satisfaction when Genma hissed again and his shoulders tensed. Sometimes the smallest wounds hurt the most.
"You haven't even put that goop on yet, have you?" Genma asked, tone carrying the faint hint of a whine bordering on annoyance.
"No, I haven't, so stop being peckish," Ebisu snapped, snapping on a pair of medical gloves as he reached for the vial that contained said 'goop'. He dribbled some onto his fingers and rubbed them together.
"... Ebisu, nobody says 'peckish' anymore."
Rather than reply, Ebisu smoothed his fingers along the wounds, causing Genma to curse quite loudly. He couldn't help the small smirk that surfaced. Tit for tat, there.
"Damn it, Ebisu, warn a guy when you're going to do that," Genma panted, and Ebisu felt slightly bad when he heard the strain in the other boy's voice.
That didn't stop him from adding more salve to his hands and working it into the wounds, however. It was the only want to keep them from getting infected.
"It's your own fault," Ebisu pointed out, in a maddeningly superior tone. "If you hadn't tried to take on two people whose skill level makes you look like an academy student, you wouldn't be in this state."
Genma ignored him. He slapped salve down a little harder than he probably should have.
"God damn it, Ebisu, knock it off!"
Sitting back, Ebisu peeled off the gloves and tossed them aside, examining Genma's back once more. Aside from the slash marks, there hadn't been anything else he could deal with. Genma's face, however, was another matter entirely.
Standing, Ebisu lifted his medical pack and walked around to Genma's front, lips thinning when he took in his appearance. They had really done a number on him. One half of his mouth had been badly bruised, and it looked like he'd bitten his lip at some point, which would explain the blood that had dried on his chin. One of his eyes, too, was bleeding, and it took all the self-constraint Ebisu had not to shudder. He could only imagine what it felt like to have your eye bleeding under the surface, so that half of it was red, and the other white.
He pushed his glasses back into place once more as Genma surveyed him with half-lidded, bored looking eyes. Leave it to him to always look so detached, even when he was sitting there a veritable wreck of a man. Ebisu wanted to shake him.
Instead, he let out a long-suffering sigh and began doctoring Genma's face.
They sat in silence while Ebisu worked, though it wasn't a tense or strained one. Despite their constant bickering, they could get along quite well if the situation warranted it, and at the moment, Ebisu was too intent on fixing up the damage those blasted chuunins had done to fight with Genma. Besides, Genma's temper was close to the surface today, and he didn't feel like being in the receiving end of that.
Genma rarely worked himself up to be angry, but when he was, Ebisu could honestly say that he was glad to be on Genma's side rather than facing him. For a person who was too lazy to focus long enough to become the shinobi Ebisu knew he could be, Genma was frightening when he finally unleashed his temper.
Not that Ebisu would ever tell him that. Certainly not.
That would give Genma entirely too much satisfaction.
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I... have no idea where this idea came from. I really don't. I just started thinking about Genma, and wanted to write a little ficlet for him. It turned into something else entirely. I don't even know how I managed to rationalize bringing Ebisu into this. Hee hee.
This fic looks like it's going to be a multipart, GenmaEbisu, set back when they were in a cell together. Because they're close to the same age and all and that's how I justify this. XD; Plus it's just a lot of fun.