Aaah, I love this pairing dearly. Their charectorization could be taken in so many different directions...
Nod Yes
by
Redex
The waterfall was the perfect spot.
There was a cave directly behind it, an aclove that was large enough for Zabusa to stand in. Haku was proud of himself for finding it, pleased and even more pleased when Zabuza grinned and ruffled his hair.
"Good job, kid."
It was all he could ask for.
They set up camp inside the damp cave, keeping their things against the backmost wall and training outside on the beach.
Zabuza had laughed when he found out about Haku's bloodline limit from a villiage elder during their travels, but now he set about training that bloodline with a fierce determination.
"If you aren't the strongest, bloodline or no, you'll die."
This was true.
Once, Zabuza had set off to take care of a job, telling Haku to stay by their things. Haku had followed him, intranced by the idea of seeing his sensei at work, and mistakenly wandered into the battlefield. A ninja had almost slit his throat when a Zabuza water-clone stepped up behind him and slit the ninja's throat instead.
That was when Zabuza had told him the first time.
"If you are not the strongest, then you are weak, and if you are weak, you make me weak, understand?"
He had nodded, as he did every other time Zabuza told him something. Always, yes.
When Zabuza told him to go take a bath in the freezing cold water, he nodded. This was according to something Zabuza had told him before: you must either be clean, or be extremely dirty. That meant that they would be tracking soon.
Goosebumps arose on the parts of his skin that were exposed to the cool, misting air, soon all of him. He felt an odd jerk in his stomach when Zabuza didn't even look up from the scroll he was studying, fiddling with the bandages around his mouth absent-mindedly.
Of course he wasn't worthy of paying attention to all the time, certainly Zabuza-sensei had better things to think about.
It didn't make the twisting go away, when he stepped into the freezing cold water and rubbed his skin with the rough soap.
"Look at me, look at me!" his mind yelled as he pretended nothing was wrong.
When he was dressed and sitting in the cave again, he sorted his weapons, but it didn't clear his mind the way it usually did.
"Zabuza-san," he said quietly, when he couldn't stand it any longer. The bandaged man grunted and looked up from his scroll.
"What's up, kid?" he said, tone a touch irritable when Haku only fidgeted with the hem of his shirt.
"I think I'm sick."
Zabuza's brow furrowed. "Explain."
"I keep getting this... feeling in my stomach. It only happens sometimes, but it's not like I want to throw up..."
Zabuza shrugged. "There's not anything I can do about it now. It doesn't sound like anything I know about, you'll just have to put up with it untill we get to the next villiage."
And Haku nodded, like he always did, even though he wished Zabuza had done something more.
The twisty feeling in his stomach happened again.
And he wanted more than just "yes".
I like an oblivious Zabuza for some reason. Comments?