Kakashi is staring into the fire in front of him. It crackles and pops, feeds on the thin twigs Gai has hastily collected and piled up inside the uneven circle of stones he made. The fire spits out sparks, which burn up in the dark, gone before Kakashi has time to really see them.
He clenches his teeth, bites back even the tiniest sound of pain as Gai gently rolls up his scorched sleeve. The movement burns like fire licking his skin again. He doesn't have to look to know that fabric has melted into his flesh, that blue fibers have threaded into his arm.
"Sorry," says Gai. He's sitting on the ground next to Kakashi, facing him, but Kakashi does not look at him. The gentle breeze transforms yellow flames into fingers that reach out to Kakashi. If he closes his eyes, he still hears the screams.
The very moment he takes a deep breath, inhaling the smells of the forest, the smoke and the stench of his own wound, Gai's fingers find purchase on that horrible layer of ruined skin and sleeve and pull. The pain is quick, but all the more intense for it; for a second a black shutter falls and leaves Kakashi blind and deaf to everything that isn't agony. When he returns to the world, the metallic taste of blood is on his tongue.
"I'm sorry." Gai throws the scraps into the fire. Kakashi watches impassively as the flames devour the tiny pieces of himself stuck to formerly blue cloth. He closes his eyes while Gai begins to apply ointment. It feels like ice is melting on his hot skin.
"Kakashi ..." Gai's voice is unusually quietly but as insistent as ever. "What you did tonight… that was really heroic."
Heroic ... Ridiculous. Doesn't Gai know that heroic isn't a word you can apply to failure?
Kakashi continues to stare into the fire; he won't even dignify this half-hearted attempt to cheer him up with an answer. He's not in the mood. Miles and miles of forest lie between them and Konoha. Some part of Kakashi has already taken off, is slowly making that journey through the darkness by himself.
"Kakashi…"
There's rage under his skin all of a sudden, a boiling rage so intense, he thinks for a moment that it might make the rest of his body erupt into burns and blisters as well. He can't take Gai's empty words of folktale wisdom right now – if he has to hear just one All that matters is that you tried!, he knows he'll snap. Annoyed, he turns to Gai. He will tell Gai to leave him alone, he'll lash out at Gai, and Gai will puff himself up like an insulted peacock and maybe sulk for a while, but at least he'll shut up.
But when their eyes meet above Kakashi's open wound, he says nothing. The forest is dark and cool, the only movement comes from the fire's twitching flames.
It's the expression in Gai's eyes that makes Kakashi stop. Gai looks at him as if surprised, surprised by his own words, but at the same time his eyes hold a startling amount of conviction. Kakashi watches as Gai's bushy eyebrows shift into a frown as he struggles for words. There's something like fear in his eyes, somewhere behind their gleam of admiration and Gai's unbreakable determination.
The look makes warmth rise inside Kakashi's chest, from the bottom of his belly, right into his throat. It overshadows the burning pain of his injury; it silences his anger and the echo of those screams. At the same time it terrifies him; it makes his heart pound against his ribs. There's a raw truth in it, a truth that maybe Gai himself has only just glimpsed for the first time, and Kakashi is sure that neither of them is quite ready for it.
So all he can do is avert his eye, look at the flames again and feel their heat on his face. He focuses on that as Gai bandages his arm, so he doesn't have to pay too much attention to the gentle touch of Gai's hands and the way they seem to be stripping him of his defenses.
end.