Hmmm… the plot thickens!

Short update, but one nonetheless.

Sousuke slept intermittently for exactly six hours, two of them in a truck, the other four in a hospital just beyond the Chinese border. It was an undocumented freebie with no strings attached that Gauron had been saving for a rainy day since the nineties, and this seemed as good a time to call it in as any.

The half-healed scars that marred Souske's chest were small, innocuous things. Only a few of them showed above his hospital garb, some on his neck - uglier ones buried beneath a fuzz of regrown hair, dotting his scalp.

It was enough to bring out his rather more antisocial tendencies, where he might just go on a weekend lark and literally peel someone's skin from their body at his leisure.

Why the fuck had they felt the urge to run those tests on him, for Christ's sake? They were expensive, they took a long time to get results - Kashim, of all people, was definitely not a Whispered -

He had so, so many people he was going to visit after they were out of the woods. If he had been the souvenier-taking type...

Sousuke tossed in the bed, a strangled noise of distress catching in his throat. it was everything he could do not to reach out, hold - touch, at the very least -

"Shut up," Sousuke groaned into the pillow, wrapping it around his head tightly. "Shut up, you don't have to say everything that crosses your mind, would you let me sleep," and when not even a sassy reply jumped to the forefront of Gauron's mind, Sousuke grumbled, "Thank you."

He crossed his arms in his chair and didn't sleep; he watched the nurses come and go every hour or so, check the charts, scribble on them every so often, fiddle with the saline bag. He masked his sharp attention with a newspaper, and yet everyone who came in the room stepped wide around him and did their business as quickly as possible. Either word travelled fast in this joint, or he still had it.

The barbie doll poked his head in after awhile; although he thought he was being sneaky, it was fairly obvious that he was checking in with Mithril with the unlikely news that their wayward soldier was alive.

"We have people on the way now," Weber said coldly. "There's a team stationed deep inland that will get Sousuke and I to the De Daanan tonight."

He rolled his eyes. "Of course there is. I can't emphasize how little I care, can I?"

"They'll be here in four hours," was the short reply.

Sousuke snuffled in his sleep; he'd been tossing a bit as the first round of sedatives began to wear off, and if Mithril was so nearby, they'd probably want to take over as early as possible in his treatment. He'd have to have private word with Wesley, his personal contact within the facility.

"You're worried about him," Kurz realized reluctantly, pausing in the doorway.

It was only one of many things that made him want to kill the sniper, but it was a big one: for precisely the entirety of this little jaunt into hostile territory, he'd fielded the subtle and not-so-subtle prods about Kashim, and not customary suggestions about letting him live, oh no. Not the normal stuff. No, this kid seemed bent on Kashim's emotionalwell-being - so much so that he was beginning to question Kasim's usually unquestionable discretion.

And, well. He didn't know precisely what the sniper could testify to in a court of law, but he hadn't really been that big of -

Fitfully, and from beneath two pillows and part of a blanket, Kashim found it in him to argue.

"You," he declared, muffled by stolen linens, "were horrid and undeserving of my ignorant and naive affections, neglectful under the most generous of circumstances, and you let me think that you were dead until it was convenient for you, which happened to coincide with your execution of mass kidnapping, international terrorism, and violation of the -"

"Kashim," he put in calmly, "you're starting to freak people out."

A hazy, one-eyed glare found him from beneath part of a pillow. "I cannot find it within myself to care."

"You know I stole that extra pillow from someone who was actually dying," he retorted. "You could just say thank you." He did not let the unease that was creeping over him show; he had a fair poker face, and it saved his life every so often.

He studied his companion silently for a long moment, contemplating his next words. And just to be a shit, he thought about him naked in the meantime.

Sousuke lurched forward in the bed, his eyes wild and face flushed. "Don't you dare -"

Gauron was on him in a flash, gesturing at Kurz as he did so. "Weber!" he snapped. "A hand, would you?"

The other man was at his side immediately, pushing Kashim down onto the bed again more gently than he himself knew how to be. "Bro," he said softly, his words light but loaded. "Sousuke. It's cool, you're okay. You know that, right?"

Sousuke made a small noise of dissent, the heel of a hand digging into his temple desperately. "I just want - quiet, it's so loud, I - I can't -"

The knot in his stomach tightened. He thought about -

No. That was insane. There was no way...

He looked at Kashim for a long moment, his thoughts deliberately muted as he contemplated what came next.

Would you like me to shut up? , he thought clearly.

"God," Sousuke groaned, almost involuntarily. "If you would, please."

He turned to the sniper quickly. "Remembet the doctor who let us in?" he asked swiftly. "Wesley?"

"Yeah," said Kurz warily.

"Get him now," he snapped.

Weber hesitated. "I -"

"Now, goddammit!"

And he looked at Kashim long and hard, the humor gone from him in a swift burst. He looked at the prone, broken body before him, and he thought about the man who had stood against him so many times before, without a bow in his posture. He looked at the multitude of scars that had long since healed. He thought about how so many of those scars might as well have had his name on them, burned into skin like a brand. He thought of how many layers of skin, and humanity, he had peeled from the other man personally. How he had delighted in each victory, how he loved knowing that next time was not so far off, that it would be weeks and not years before he saw him again -

And now Kashim could not be stilled; he writhed against his captors, his breath catching in his throat as he tried to cover his ears. "Stop, stop it, I don't want - I don't care, I -"

He shot a mildly homicidal look at Weber. "Go," he ordered tightly, "before you need a doctor."

Weber didn't need a second invitation.