Hammocks, he has decided, are designed by demons.
They are also, unfortunately, one of the best ways to sleep in the swampland that makes up most of southwestern Fire country-- the ground is damp at best no matter what kind of high ground you can find and the caves are prone to random flooding even when it isn’t raining, but the trees are still massive and the branches provide ample enough cover. They’ve set their hammocks up a few hundred yards from the road, four stacked in a neat row-- Shisui’s on the top, Itachi’s, then Kakashi’s, and finally Tenzo’s, still a half dozen yards above the damp earth.
Kakashi has first watch, and he spends the entirety of it staring at a tarantula as it crawls around in the foliage a few feet from his perch. She’s missing one of her legs on the right side, but it doesn’t seem to slow her down any-- she’s building a nest, it looks like. He wonders if she’s about to lay some eggs. Wonders if there’s a season for that. Wonders how many eggs there would be if she were. The other half of his attention is focused on listening and sniffing for anything amiss, but the only things he picks up are from the caravan that stopped on the side of the road a hundred yards up the road. They start a campfire and make some sort of salt-pork stew with some herbs they'd gathered, laughing and chattering and completely unaware that there are four Konoha ANBU lurking within earshot.
Three hours in, he climbs up out of his perch without messing up the massive spider's hard work and carefully nudges Shisui awake, before settling back into his own hammock. Laying on his back and his side leave his right arm feeling stiff and his back strangely tingly, and he shifts every few minutes in a futile attempt to get comfortable in the hot, sticky night. Eventually he hears an unhappy grunt from below him, and he shifts to lay mostly on his stomach and peers down at Tenzo, who glares back, half asleep. The new position forces his back to crack somewhere between his shoulder blades, and finally he feels like he could settle with a semblance of peace.
You ok, he signs to the younger boy.
You, is all he gets in reply, which-- fair enough.
He signs meaningfully and considers rolling back into his stupid hammock and trying to find another comfortable position, but laying half on his stomach like this is the best one he’d found so far and Tenzo’s scowl in the dim starlight is just so adorable. So Kakashi stretches again and lets his right arm hang down, lazily stretching his back further and watching the irritation slip from his friend’s face. Tenzo reaches up, hesitantly at first, and gives his clammy hand a squeeze between his own warm fingers.
It’s fucking strange. Kakashi says nothing, just blinks slowly at him with his single dark eye and watches as he drifts off back to sleep, and his hand loosens and falls back to his chest. He doesn’t dare move this time for fear of waking him again, and eventually he follows him into sleep too.