Cross-posting this from Ao3. There's a minor OC barely involved in this story (the team's sensei). No adult themes involved, but there is one description of gore injuries, so I'm keeping it safe with the T rating. I've also flagged this as pre-slash (as in, pre-m/m/m relationship) in case this is not someone's cup of tea, but to be perfectly honest this is not so much of a "they could be in a romantic relationship" thing as the two of them being so unused to showing vulnerabilities in front of each other that they are both questioning their standing in each other's eyes at the moment. I think that's pretty much all the warnings I wanted to give, so please enjoy the ride.

Summary:

In the middle of a mission far away from the Leaf, Scarlet comes down with a violent fever. Left without much choice, and with multiple enemies tailing them relentlessly and occasionally cornering them into a fight, Midnight decides the best course of action is to hide and wait the fever out. It's just too bad that he and Scarlet are not exactly used to showing vulnerabilities in front of each other.

*****

Scarlet’s body jer/ks violently with a shiver, and the rest of the tremble rips through him in echoing waves. There are a few seconds of silent reprieve before he spasms again, the force of it pulling his chest and hips up, then immediately cutting his strings and shoving him back down with a series of smaller tremors. This round of them lasts longer, as they tend to, Midnight observers, when the initial spasm is that strong. Next to him, Scarlet jer/ks again and then flops down. It repeats in an endless cycle. Again. And again. There’s no finish line in sight.

Once the fever starts, there’s close to nothing even the best medic nin could do to stop it. It’s ill-advised to stop the process artificially; the strain on the body of the patient afterwards is a horrible trade-off, so the best course of action is to take antipyretics and let biology run its course.

Midnight knows one of the best healers in the country, possibly the world, and even they don’t tamper with fevers using chakra, unless it’s a literal life or death situation. Noir-sensei, who hates being useless, still lets the fevers wreck them, instead of killing and replacing all the cells in their body - a thing Midnight has had the horrifying opportunity to see happen once on a mission, when they got hit with some nervous system hijac/king toxin. Even though he’s not easily disturbed, he sometimes still dreams about the sight of blackening skin layers, then muscle and bone peeling off, only to be soon re-swallowed by a mass of pulsing, morphing flesh. As it turns out, users can a/lso use Blood Corrosion on themselves. Some Kekkei Genkai are really unsettling.

The truth is, he’s incapable of doing anything. All that’s left is to wait and see how Scarlet will fare after taking the meds. He’s heard that staying by can help psychologically, and that quiet soothing words or familiar music can offer a similar reprieve, but physically? He’s powerless. There’s a wet towel he can turn and wash, keep steady on Scarlet’s forehead, but at this point, it’s probably doing more to calm him than lowering the fever. He can see Scarlet flinching as the cold fabric makes contact with his skin.

The quiet surrounding them makes Scarlet’s small noises of discomfort all the more pronounced, creating a feedback loop of sorts that Midnight thinks puts both of them on more edge than necessary. He thinks he should try talking, drown out those sounds somehow. There’s no chance of him procuring some kind of music right now, so he should be talking. It’s really frustrating that he’s no good at it.

“You are safe,” he says after a long while, deciding it’s best to stic/k to facts instead of trying to… conjure up feelings and sentiments that could very well be untrue, or worse, unwelcome.

Scarlet doesn’t react to that, his body still being torn apart by shivers. Midnight tries his best to work his throat through the… disappointment? Shame? Feelings of inadequacy?

He tries again:

“You are safe, Scarlet,” his voice is quieter than u/sual, softened to the point he has trouble recognising it himself, “…You are doing well. Relax.”

Scarlet tosses in his delirium. Angles himself towards Midnight’s voice. The towel on his forehead slides off with the movement, and Midnight wordlessly retrieves it to wash and rinse it, and places it back where it belongs. Scarlet makes another pained noise at the contact, and Midnight presses his lips into a tense line, waiting.

They don’t have a thermometer with them, so he can only somewhat guess how Scarlet’s battle is going. He’s been alarmingly hot to the touch for the last hour, and Midnight is distinctly worried he might be cooking from the inside without him knowing, despite the two pills he’s forced down the other’s throat. It also doesn’t help that Midnight suspects his normal core temperature isn’t the usual 36.6 degrees, being the fire release user and all.

The lack of proper information is what sets him on edge. They’ve been careless, not sealing away any extra medical kits, instead only carrying one in each of their bags, which they’ve lost to the enemies somewhere during the chase through the woods. To be honest, they’ve been lucky with finding the meds at all - Scarlet’s pockets have once more proven to be literal lifesavers.

“You are safe,” Midnight repeats, voice unsure, and something makes him keep going, “I’ll deal with anything that comes our way, so just relax. And get better soon.”

Strangely enough, despite also sustaining some heavier injuries, he feels like right now he could take out that team of six unaffiliated shinobi that has been clashing with and chasing them for the last few days of their mission. There’s his usual bloodlust, yes. But there is also something else. Foreign, brittle, sca/ttering from being captured in words when he tries to look at it closely. His gaze falls on dark strands of hair, damp with sweat and stic/king to Scarlet’s face and neck, and suddenly the instinct to brush them aside takes over. His hand moves before his brain can stop it, and with mild horror and fascination, he watches his fingers smooth back the hair, briefly card through the formed clumps in a few directions.

There’s a huff, Scarlet’s brows draw together as if confused, and suddenly his eyes flutter open, pupils b/lown wide, irises glowing red. They look like a sun eclipse, stupi/dly crosses Midnight’s mind in the milliseconds when they just stare at each other. Scarlet is understandably disoriented, looking around but not seeing for a while, before something clicks and hurls him mercilessly back to reality. Midnight sees the exact moment everything falls back into place on his face, how his eyes zero in on his, how his face locks into… an expression of seriousness. Most probably. It’s surprisingly difficult to tell his less cheerful expressions apart, since it’s rare for him to show any in the first place.

Before he can launch into processing and strategising and overheat his brain back into unconsciousness, Midnight cuts in:

“Your fever still hasn’t broken. Don’t.”

“Don’t what,” he rasps out, voice dry, paper-thin. Midnight remembers he should get some water into him, now that he’s conscious.

“Overthink it. We are well hidden, I’ve set up a barrier around the perimeter. None of my chakra detectors have been tipped off yet.”

“Your injuries-“

“Partially healed, I’ve leeched off the two of their chakras,” Midnight replies impatiently, “Water or ice chips, Captain?”

“Water,” Scarlet says automatically, and doesn’t even shove Midnight away when he offers a hand to help him sit up. The towel falls into his lap, and he’s about to give it back to Midnight when he changes his mind and takes it to run through the rest of his exposed skin. Smart, Midnight has half a thought to spare before he turns to the stone bowl he has made with earth release, and starts purifying the remaining water, freezing a thin layer on the inside and the rim of the vessel to keep it as sterile as possible. It’s in moments like these that he has never felt so grateful to Noir-sensei for putting them through a wringer, so they would all master various survival skills, water purification included.

When he’s finished with his work, Scarlet also seems to be finished with wiping himself down, and they silently exchange the towel for the bowl. Scarlet doesn’t even pretend to be graceful about it, just gulps down the whole thing in one go and carelessly throws the bowl aside. Midnight could be annoyed, but making those doesn’t present a challenge anymore, so he lets it be. Focuses back on the other teen to ask:

“Better?”

“Marginally,” Scarlet shrugs, runs a hand through his damp hair, sighs. “I’ll live, don’t worry.”

Midnight levels him with a flat look. Twists around a bit until he locates another bowl with fruit he’s been absentmindedly eating from, and hands it to the other teen.

“Huh, plums. And apples,” Scarlet says through the first bite, oddly trusting in Midnight’s skills in screening for pathogens. Midnight makes a vague, dismissive gesture with his shoulders. He has no influence on what plants grow in the surrounding area, and as tempting as a hot meal is, he isn’t going to leave the other teen alone just to scout for better food. Normally, he could send out a clone, but with the current situation and chakra shortage, he isn’t willing to.

“I could get meat, but we should break your fever first,” he offers, feeling weirdly off balance. “It’s been warm, so I didn’t start a fire, but if you think it would help…”

He trails off. The decision should be Scarlet’s. He’s aware of how quickly his preferences could change when he fell ill. Plus, he isn’t happy to admit it, but any fire or smoke would raise the chance of them being discovered. However, a warm meal wasn’t without appeal.

“Leave it be,” Scarlet shakes his head, another plum in his mouth, “Let’s not take unnecessary risks.

“Ugh, this headache is killing me.”

He makes quick work of finishing the plum and flops down onto the bed made of leaves with a grimace. The fruit bowl gets pushed to the side.

“You want anything else?” Midnight asks, already stretching over to retrieve the other bowl - the one lined with ice - and starts conjuring water out of condensation in the air to fill it. The two of them work surprisingly well together, despite their differences.

Scarlet shakes his head lightly.

“Just keep the towel work up,” he mumbles and turns to the side, back facing Midnight. “I’ll try to sleep. Whatever got me should be burned out of my system soon. I know how these things go for me.”

It’s just the slightest bit endearing, how even with his mind slipping back into the haze of the fever, he still tries to give Midnight some semblance of comfort. The younger teen finishes filling the bowl with water and goes back to washing and rinsing the washcloth. He can’t sleep; there are only two of them here, and only he can keep watch in their current state. He distantly registers that Scarlet is trying to be apologetic about all this. Not like he wasn’t used to much harsher mission conditions or could confidently stay up to three days without a break, but the sentiment is… something. He files it away for later.

He places the towel back on Scarlet’s forehead and silently nods at the vague noise he makes in response. The headache must be quite bad, because he cannot keep the scowl off his face. But at the very least, he isn’t shivering anymore, just burning up.

Midnight settles a bit closer, rearranges his legs to help his blood flow. It doesn’t take more than a minute, but when he turns back, Scarlet’s body is already covering itself in an orange sheen of chakra, apparently trying to artificially speed up the burning off process. He freezes, disbelieving.

“Scarlet, don’t. You know better than this.”

His hand lands on the other’s shoulder, squeezing lightly. He wasn’t willing to admit it, but this worried him much more than anything else they’ve encountered up to this point.

“Scarlet,” he says more urgently, frantically. Runs his fingers through his hair again, trying to coax out some response. The orange chakra burns his palm. He tries to say the right thing. “I’ll keep us safe; you know my comfortable limit is three days. Don’t do this to yourself. Scarlet.”

For an excruciatingly long moment, nothing changes; the chakra layer thrumming bitingly beneath his finger pads, pushing him away. Instincts keep him in place, though; make him hold on through the unpleasant sensation. Then, the orange sheen recedes like a tide and disperses into thin air. Scarlet shudders. Once. And stops.

Shielded by Midnight’s shadow from the afternoon light, his expression gradually smooths out, and Midnight slowly, carefully removes his hands from his hair and reaches over to replace the towel again. For the first time in many hours, the silence that wraps around them in the cave is nothing but calm.

Outside, the thick summer air cracks with the distant sound of thunder.