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Perhaps they should have taken the mission for Gato after all. Well-paid work, easy work, an assassination mission against an old man who lacked the resources to hire any worthy opponents... But that had been the problem. Gato had offered far too much pay for such an easy mission. They hadn't survived as missing-nin for years by succumbing to amateurs' greed. The man intended treachery, and the rest would have been an unwelcome gamble. If he only meant to sic his own thugs on them, his laughable stupidity would be corrected shortly and forcefully. But if they returned for their payment to find that the respectable businessman had generously informed Kiri's hunter-nins that Master Zabuza would be arriving shortly...
Such was the life of a missing-nin. There might be honor among outlaws, but civilians were a different matter. And yet foreign villages were twice as treacherous and even more stingy with their pay. The world was a cruel place -- What else was there to say?
And thus they found themselves recuperating after the mission they had taken, an escort mission for some lord's daughter which had gone predictably wrong in predictably spectacular fashion. Haku almost wished Master Zabuza was the sort of missing-nin who collected the forehead protectors of those he'd killed -- he would have acquired quite the bounty from the ambushes they had fended off along the way, three different villages' headbands and one from a fourth's missing-nin.
A silly thought, but it kept his mind off the pain. That and the boredom of waiting for his leg to heal enough that he could hobble around on it again without incurring further injury. Haku liked animals, but he suspected that, from last week onward, he would never again be quite so fond of dogs.
He stretched out next to Master Zabuza, staring up at the ceiling of the lord's guest-room. He knew well that the nobleman might choose to double-cross them at any moment, but he thought not; the lord had three more younger daughters, and their performance on this mission had been good enough that the lord probably hoped for repeat business. They might well opt for it, if they were still alive in a few years. So they were likely safe here...
In the meantime, it was nice to enjoy the finer things in life. Haku knew Master Zabuza would reprimand him for it, reminding him that a shinobi had no room for indulgences, but even Master Zabuza couldn't deny that his softness lent him a certain grace on infiltration missions that the brutal swordsman could never quite manage. He ran his hand over the silken sheets, smiling, and then propped himself up on one elbow as he turned back to his master.
Master Zabuza was resting for the moment, hairless brow furrowed in the grip of some troubled memory. Or perhaps it was the lingering effects of the genjutsu he'd broken through -- whatever the illusionary art of the Village Hidden In The Clouds had been, it had rattled him intensely. Even after he had chopped its user into seven pieces, he'd been wild-eyed and rambling, talking to Haku as though he were dead and saying all sorts of strange things... which Haku found flattering, honestly, but he wasn't such a sentimental fool as to hope Master Zabuza really meant them. He wouldn't have said such things if he'd been in his right mind, and he'd stopped when his senses fully returned. For the best, much as it pained whatever part of Haku his shinobi training hadn't managed to kill. If Master Zabuza had kept it up, he wouldn't have quite known what to do with himself...
Haku watched his master sleep, his broad chest rising and falling beneath the bloodstained bandages. His needle-work had reduced inflammation and re-regulated deranged internal systems enough that Master Zabuza should be able to recover without long-term effects, but that white-eyed wretch from the Hidden Leaf had been very skilled... If Haku's senbon mastery hadn't restored sensation as quickly as the enemy could shut it off, and one of his ice needles hadn't hit in what must have been a blind spot, that... might have gone far worse. Despite Master Zabuza's gruff acknowledgement after the battle, Haku couldn't help feeling that he'd failed in allowing the man to close with Master Zabuza in the first place. Yes, he had been occupied with his own duel with the insect-user, pushed to his limit by freezing the clouds of beetles out of the air faster than they could drain his chakra, but even so...
He resisted the urge to reach out and attempt to smooth the lines of strain from his master's contorted face. He knew well that a veteran assassin would not appreciate an unexpected touch while he lay vulnerable and sleeping; the wonder was that his master could tolerate his presence well enough to sleep this deeply with another body beside him. But then, he didn't really count as another person -- he was Master Zabuza's tool, as harmless to him as his own blade. It was nonetheless a marvel that Master Zabuza's unconscious instincts could recognize that.
Lying there against the silken pillow, his master, the butcher, child-killer, and Demon of the Bloody Mist, looked almost like an ordinary man. His muscles slack, the bandages around his face come undone, his face twisted not by killing intent but a mundane nightmare... He could be any injured traveler, as guiltless and vulnerable as countless men whose throats Haku had slit.
Haku allowed himself a heavy sigh, knowing the protective instinct that welled up in him would be regarded as presumptuous condescension by Master Zabuza, and rolled onto his back again. Sleep would take him again soon enough, and then perhaps it would be Master Zabuza's turn to watch him while he slept. Would his harsh master do anything so sentimental, however? Probably not; he would be too preoccupied planning his next moves to pay much heed to his slumbering tool. Haku's injuries would not damage his efficiency in the long run -- that would be enough for Master Zabuza.
The thought might have distressed a poorer shinobi, but it only gave Haku a faint sense of comfort, that he was reliable enough a tool to be undeserving of further worries. No matter what bizarre nonsense Master Zabuza had uttered while still recovering from that genjutsu...
He closed his eyes, trying to engrave the image of Master Zabuza's uncovered, vulnerable face into his memory. For some soft-hearted reason, he wanted to remember his master in a moment when he could have been an ordinary man, his life as mundane as any common laborer's, untouched by the cruelty and harshness of the shinobi world.
Hm. That would have been nice...
Musing on that idle thought, Haku slid into a gentle and smiling slumber.