Standard Disclaimers: I don't own anything
A/N: I know this is short - but had it written and probably won't have more written for a while to come. Work is bah! So, figured I'd get it out there since there was a natural break to it anyway.
Tsunade did not sleep deeply. The pervasive ache left behind by the poison and the weakness of near chakra depletion was too insistent to allow anything like that. However, for a while, the sense of warmth and security that she felt enveloping her was strong enough to allow her to slip beneath the waters of consciousness without too much floundering.
Eventually, the throbbing of her joints and sharp pains in her hands summoned her back though, and she opened her eyes in confusion.
Even though the fog in her mind had left her uncertain about where she was, she wasn't afraid. It was only habit that kept her silent as she looked around the unfamiliar room. She recognized it as a hotel room, but it wasn't until she spotted the scarecrow sitting slumped in the corner that she finally remembered where she was and why she had nothing to worry about.
Kakashi. With his gray hair darkened by mud and blood, the Copy Ninja had never looked more like his name sake. The smile that crossed Tsunade's face was fond and uncommonly unguarded. The man's clothing was ragged, and his mask was apparently so tattered and stained that he'd pulled it down all together.
Wait….
He was disheveled. He hadn't woken up at her stirring. And he was sleeping when he was the only fight-worthy shinobi in the room.
It took a few seconds for her to realize the implications of those things, but when she did the reaction was immediate. Tsunade clawed her remaining chakra to her and sweat broke out on her forehead as she cast a diagnostic jutsu on Kakashi.
He was near exhausted. Low on chakra, definitely. There were three, no, four cuts that hadn't even been touched but had just bled themselves out. Plus, his ribs had taken a beating and there was no shortage of bruising along his left side. He'd strained his hamstring, too...
Tsunade exhaled, closing her eyes briefly in relief. None of those things were fatal or likely to become so. A soft grumble near the foot of her bed made her blink. Pakkun, curled up by her left foot, was looking at her and shaking his head. He said nothing, perhaps not wanting to wake his master, but his expression was quite clear. If she'd been paying more attention to the room she would have realized that Pakkun had been left on watch. No matter whatever else she thought about the burrowing little pervert, she knew that he had enough common sense to not let Kakashi sleep if he was in danger.
She narrowed her eyes at the dog and his implied criticism of her overreaction.
His ears went back and he promptly laid his head down.
Tsunade was grudgingly mollified.
After a moment of still fuzzy thought, she began sending chunks of her regenerating chakra to the worst of Kakashi's kunai gashes. It hurt. It took her about ten times longer than it normally would have. But she did it anyway until the wound was firmly closed and well on it's way to healing.
After the room had stopped spinning, she blinked and thought to survey her handiwork.
Kakashi hadn't moved. He sat in the chair, legs askew and arms folded over his chest with no signs of being awake or waking up any time soon. His breathing was even and measured and his coloring looked a little better now. Well, he was still pale, but that was to be expected. He was always a little pale. What mattered was that his lips were tinged with healthy pink and that while the circles under his eyes were dark, they were only smudges in the grand scheme of things.
"Too handsome for his own good," she thought absently. Not that this was a shock to her, of course. The mask concealed the details of his face but it did nothing to hide the structure of it. She'd known ever since the first time he'd walked into her office that he was exceptionally good looking, with or without the mask. Still, there was something to be said for the full effect of his features as a whole. In deference to his feelings, she'd never stared at him when she'd had chance to observe him without his mask. Now, however, she felt her gaze lingering over the narrow line of his jaw, the angle of his nose, and the curve of his lips.
Kakashi. In her hazy state, the thoughts that his name conjured were fragments, emotion driven and unchecked. Respect for a ninja who was strong in every sense of the word, admiration for a man whose bravery in facing loss was no less than his bravery in facing danger, and underlying it all a sort of raw possessiveness that normally never saw the light of day.
Because he was /hers/.
Kakashi Hatake was a ninja of /her/ village. The irritating, perverted elite was hers to command. The brat who could fill the hokage's shoes if he truly wanted to and who met her on terms that were more equal than anyone else in the village was /hers/ to protect. He was intelligent and infuriating and steady and warm and he tasted like...
Tsunade closed her eyes, throat tightening. She turned her face to the ceiling and raised her arm silently. Fingers splayed wide despite the flares of pain, and she opened her eyes.
She opened her eyes to the blue veins, at the sagging flesh, at the flared knuckles of an old woman.
She was fifty-three.
She looked older.
Tsunade grit her teeth, expression losing its vagueness to become stone.
It took time.
It took time and it hurt.
But Tsunade was patient and once her chakra had restored itself to the bare minimum she needed, she cast her youth transformation jutsu.
Only then did she allow her arm to drop.
Only then did she allow herself to fall back into troubled sleep.