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part 5

006. Clean Up Duty

Genma wakes up in a room too white, too pristine to be his. It's a slow, unfamiliar process — surfacing from nightmares half-remembered, faces that belong to the dead, the forgotten — and he knows from experience that he's drugged up to his gills. Painkillers strong enough to keep a horse down, probably. He can't feel his shoulder, doesn't even bother trying to rotate the joint even if he's pretty sure that it's a clean shot. Through and through. An infinitely better option than to have a bullet lodged somewhere inside. Considering he's just survived the business end of a sniper rifle, he counts himself very lucky.

He wishes he has something to chew on though.

"Genma?"

His neck protests when he turns to the source of the voice, a slow grin making its way across his face. He attempts to raise a hand in greeting, figures that he still can't feel his shoulder and settles for a wriggle of fingers towards the young man in wrinkled suit sitting across the room. "What's up, boss?"

Shikamaru's reciprocal smile is half obscured by smoke. "You tell me."

"Hospitals allow chain-smoking now?"

The smile turns wry, grey-tinted. "That'd be the least of their worry once Inoichi gets here."

Genma winces. He doesn't need the reminder that he's failed. Just imagining the Yamanaka patriarch's impending wrath is enough to make him wish they'd given him more painkillers. "How's she holding up?"

Shikamaru is quiet for a few seconds, silence punctuated by rasps of his exhales. Genma counts each drag and he gets to thirteen when Shikamaru mutters, "She's sleeping." Which isn't exactly an answer. Another drag, another exhale. "Tell me what happened."

His voice is mild but Genma hears the impatient edge underlying Shikamaru's calm façade. Thinly-veiled frustration and anger. A rare occurrence with the usually-placid Nara. He recounts everything since their interrupted phone call and Shikamaru listens, interjects with sparse questions to nudge details out of his narration. Genma thinks it's poor consolation to know that he's going to strong-arm his way into whatever it is Shikamaru has planned, bullet hole or not.

"What I don't understand is why he'd resort to a shoot-out," he says, sinking back into the comfort of his bed. He keeps his eyes on the ceiling, brows creased. "Doesn't make any sense. He could've hurt Ino."

Shikamaru straightens and crosses the room in three strides. The pat on Genma's bandaged shoulder is firm, the smile on his face too grim for someone so young. "Don't think about it anymore. You kept her safe. That's enough. Just worry about getting better right now."

Genma scoffs. "You're not shutting me out of this."

"I assumed it'd be difficult to contribute from a hospital bed."

"You'd be surprised." The words taste like empty bravado in his mouth. "I always clean up my own mess, Nara."

TBC

oh well.