The Heat
Tayuya hates the heat. She hates sweating and burning and itching so badly you want to claw your eyes out and rip your skin off. It makes her want to scream, feeling damp and sticky and dirty.
But Tayuya hates this heat the most, because they're hiding in a cave, hungry and exhausted, absolutely burned out. A fucking cave! She loathes it! And she hates this heat the most, because Jiroubou is bleeding and Kimimaro is coughing and Sakon is unconscious and her hair –
God, her hair! It's suffocating her, blinding her, bleeding into her eyes, burning her neck and shoulders and fuck it all! Kimimaro's wheezing is driving her insane!
The rock she's slumped against is hard and rough on her skin, but she doesn't feel it, because Kidoumaru's eyes glazing over hurts more and Tayuya wants to scream at them for abandoning her, curse them out and make them come back, the god-damn cowards!
But she doesn't scream – can't – because some deep, inane instinct tells her the enemy is still out there and she can't let her guard down and give into panic.
But her hair! It's hot and wet and when Tayuya grabs it, it's Jiroubou's blood and she almost does scream then, because it's on her hands and face and in her eyes and mouth and with her last reserve of control, she pulls a kunai from her pouch and cuts it. Cuts it all off. Cuts off all of Jiroubou's blood, because she should have been watching him, should have alerted him, and Kimimaro's coughing and she's alone…
And she's sitting there now, doubled over on her knees with a fistful of her own hair and a conscience-full of Jiroubou's blood, all uncontrollable shakes and muffled sobs that sound like laughter and she can't stop! Can't stop the tears or the hiccups and it sounds so wrong, inhuman, and she can't stop and her stomach hurts now…
When Tayuya's frantic tears dry and her throat is too scratchy for her to sob (laugh?), she takes a few shaky breaths and assesses the situation.
Kimimaro is still wheezing and coughing periodically and god! she hopes that's not blood dribbling down his chin. Sakon, Ukon, and Kidoumaru are still unconscious and near the limit of their chakra reserves. Jiroubou passed out hours ago, but Tayuya knows (preys!) that he's still alive, so she sets to fixing him up to the best of her ability, ignoring her own body's screaming protests for rest.
Tayuya can't rest, she knows it. She knows that she can't relax into unconsciousness, because she's alone and she can't let the boys fall prey to their injuries, or to the enemies, or to the heat. Can't let the boys – her boys…
Fuck! What's wrong with Kimimaro? She can't find any deep wounds to bandage, can't detect any poison to treat. There's only fever (that damn heat again!) and the coughing. In the end, Tayuya takes off her own battle-worn tunic and slips it on the older boy in the hopes that it will warm him up. It's a tight fit, but she can't think of anything else and she welcomes the chill running down her spine, raising the fine hairs on her arms and neck and cooling the beads of sweat gathered at her back and in the valley between her budding breasts, under the contracting bandages she wears.
Slumped against the rock now, shirtless and exhausted, Tayuya knows that there are a million other things she should be doing (traps, escape plans, concealment…), but she can't find the strength to think, let alone to lift herself up and god! she wishes someone, anyone else were awake! Kidoumaru would think, Sakon and Ukon would set the traps, Kimimaro would take the lead, Jiroubou…
When Tayuya wakes up, it's to the sight of a red-faced Kimimaro tearing himself out of her too-tight shirt with his bones. She doesn't know whether she should laugh or curse at him for leaving her shirtless, the ungrateful bastard! In the end, she settles for a strange combination of both, heavy on the snorts, and ends up walking all the way back to Sound short on hair and a shirt, not once during her ensuing cold regretting the heat.
Author's note: A short, little piece in Tayuya's point of view. I don't know. Maybe I should have posted it separately, but I wanted to put it with the story. I'm thinking of doing these individual little bits in the other characters' points of view, so I'll leave it here and see where it leads me.