FicWad

Sharing a cigarette with Asuma on rainy days was an old tradition. He picked it up as a teenager, as a distraction and as something that stilled the shaking hands. You, on the other hand, had to think of your health if you were going to work in ANBU - not that anything worse you did to your own body seemed to make much a difference in the greater scheme of things. Starving, constant showers, none at all, blood-letting, and opium. All the old cures never seemed to still your mind for long enough.

But, on rainy days when the skies are grey and you are reminded of that December of war (rain and rain and mud and brown and grey and rain) you can feel calm with just a cigarette and some silent company.

He told you, once, that dreams were the only things that kept you alive. That, and water. A man died much faster than without water.

Now, you are sitting and listening and watching the waves of rain hit the ground. You detect the patterns, the movement in wind, the slowing and spreading with your ears. The air is cool and the damp gets into everything. Your hair is matted with it, and it makes you look even more paler than you are, you know.

The cigarettes won't help the raw, red circles around your eyes, but he holds them out to you as if it were a peace offering.

In a moment, your brain: knows how old he is, compares to your (former) students, accounts for the mental genius he apparently possesses, and remembers what you and Asuma and your generation had been doing at his age. All, without looking at him once. But in taking the offer, you have to look up, and seeing him expertly shake another out of the carton while not removing his eyes from the downpour makes all critical knowledge melt away.

If he asks to share your bed, you will not say no, but you will not say yes either.

You wish you had had his wisdom at his age.