Between the antibiotics that made him dizzy, the cough medicine that made him sleepy, and the cold-bronchitis-you-are-on-your-way-to-pneumonia-you-idiot thing that his week of sleeping in the rain had given him, Genma was definitely zonked out in the afternoons. He wasn't going to be cleared for missions for a few days anyway, with his back all bruised and stiff, although really he thought he ought to see Haruichi about at least giving him a little boost. He was pretty sure the medic had refused to heal the soft tissue injuries specifically to force him to stay out of the gym and dojo while he had the cold from hell.

Still, given how much he'd been feeling like utter crap since his mission to Shimabashi, an afternoon nap had become almost a routine. He took it as a good sign that the naps were getting more restful and a little shorter. Today he'd given up on being vertical at around four. At six-thirty he'd woken up enough to make himself a cup of tea and pick up a book. Unfortunately he hadn't woken enough to actually read the book, which had fallen under his cheek to form a rather hard-edged pillow. His tea had cooled to undrinkable.

He startled awake from a half-remembered dream about trying to get a dying cat to tell him where it had hidden Raidou's keys, blinked in a gloomy apartment for several minutes, then reached out a hand and snapped on the light at his bedside. The clock said seven-fifteen. He yawned deeply, stretched cautiously, and pushed himself upright. Might as well see about dinner or something. Maybe Raidou would be back from his mission.

Coffee helped. In fact, it made him feel almost human again. Three cups later, Raidou had finished his required quota of staring at the wall as if it would explain things to him (Seriously, what the hell, Intel?) and was about ready to trek all the way down the hall to Genma's place. Well, actually, next door to Genma's place, but considering how he currently felt...

Enough, he told his internal whiner, and dropped his coffee mug into the sink. Twenty seconds later, he was outside Genma's door, raising a fist to bang on the wood--

Which was the exact moment Genma opened it and Raidou almost cracked his friend in the face.

"Wha--whoa. Uh, sorry." He pulled his hand back. "Hi."

Genma's jump back was less than completely graceful. He winced and coughed and blinked stupidly for a moment. "Rai? I was just coming to get you..." Raidou didn't look so great. He looked a little flushed, with shadows under his eyes and a tension in his jaw that said he was hurting.

"You get trashed on your mission? You had anyone look at it yet?" Genma pulled the door open and stepped back. "Come on in and let me see." He coughed again, a deep, dry sound.

"S'getting better, don't you think?"

"Compared to the walking dead sound you were making last time I saw you..." Raidou said. Or tried to say--he found himself cut off by a surprise yawn. He dragged a hand over his face, wiping it away, and stepped into Genma's apartment. It smelled more like cough syrup than any of the nicer fragrances he usually had dusting the air, but it wasn't the shadowed sick room it had been before he'd left for his mission. "Yeah, definitely an improvement."

Genma himself even looked better. Still a little wan and red-eyed, and definitely more on the slim side than Raidou liked him to be, but at least he didn't resemble an extra from a horror movie anymore.

"And I'm not trashed," he added, making a bee-line for the first comfortable looking surface that presented itself: Genma's bed. Then he hesitated. Considering what had happened the last time he'd gotten too cozy with his friend...

Chair. Right. He needed a chair. He turned on one heel and backtracked to Genma's tiny kitchen--and ignored the odd look thrown his way. A blessedly welcome stool provided somewhere to sit. He settled and fought down a wince as his back protested. "Just had a... weird mission. You're not going to believe what Intel did to me."

Genma gave his friend a skeptical look. Hurt, definitely, somewhere on the trunk, because he was holding his whole core rigid. Not particularly unlike Genma himself had been for the last several days. "You hurt your back. Don't be an idiot, go lie on the bed and let me see how bad it is. I'm mother medic, remember? The bedsheets aren't gonna contagion you or anything. I even changed them this morning. Did laundry and everything."

Which had been a big accomplishment, really. Sad though that was, to feel accomplished for having clean underwear in his dresser and fresh sheets on the bed.

"Go lie down, and tell me what Intel did. Give you bad coordinates? Set you up to take out someone our own guys were already protecting? What?"

Raidou snorted. "Nothing that bad--well, maybe." He pulled his foot up, resting it on the low bar of the stool, and ignored Genma's directive to get on the bed. Well, didn't quite ignore--it was hard to ignore something that came with a speech attached--but he didn't act on it. "They gave me a kid."

And that was bombshell enough to distract Genma from his unnecessary back-fixing quest--hopefully. Raidou gave it a second just to really peak his gossip-loving friend's interest, and then continued. "Seriously, they want me to play big brother slash mentor for a rookie with a bloodline issue. I'm stuck on--on--" he waved a hand. "Baby-sitting duty."

Waving was a bad idea; it was just amazing what your back connected to. He dropped his elbow onto the counter and curled his fingers over the edge. "And for a punchline, I found the poor bastard chained to a wall." His mouth twisted. "He's only a chuunin. ANBU's going to eat him alive."

"A kid? Like how young? That's totally fucked up, Rai." Genma was, as Raidou had hoped, completely distracted. In four years in ANBU, he'd never heard of such a thing, except within a clan. "They pair Aburame ANBU with rookies from their own family, but that's just common sense. You don't have some bloodline you've never told me about, do you?"

Genma edged behind Raidou and looked him over. Stiff, tense, and was that the hump of a bandage under his shirt? He reached down and hovered his hands over his friend's back, feeling for changes in his chakra field. There was definitely an injury there.

"You should go talk to someone. Maybe Arakaki. Tell them it's a bad idea to waste you on babysitting. Or I could tell 'em."

"Is that before or after we both end up hung by our heels off the outside wall?" Raidou twisted carefully to give his friend a dry look. "Arakaki'd take that about as well as he'd take a shovel to the face. Except with the shovel you'd get a quick death."

A thought struck him suddenly; perhaps this was his punishment for putting fist to face with Minamoto Touji back in December. Not to mention refusing a direct order to bounce Haruichi around the room for being annoying and toothy to the boss in the aftermath of that whole fiasco. He wouldn't put it past Arakaki to hold onto his revenge long enough until he found something really good to lumber Raidou with.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "The kid's eighteen. Intel had him doing some sort of seduction mission as a trial by fire. Mostly he got burned."

Genma was doing something to make his chakra prickle. Raidou gave him another look, feeling just a touch grouchier than he normally would at his friend's mother-henning. "Can you quit that? I got scratched. I'm not dead."

"You got stabbed. And stitched. And lucky it didn't take out your renal artery," Genma countered. "You need new armor or something? Your back plate too short?" He took his hands away though, satisfied that Raidou was, as he said, not seriously hurt. Oh, he'd be feeling it. But then Genma was still feeling that wall that had fallen on him a week ago, and he was fine.

Pretty much. He coughed again, and tensed up when he did. Maybe a hot drink would help.

He shifted back into his kitchen, moving just as stiffly as his friend. "You want tea? And don't come bitching to me about how bad your back hurts after you sit on that horrible stool for an hour. My back hurts when I sit on it too long, even when I haven't been recently filleted with a kunai."

Tea pot and two cups came out onto the counter, and a gold and green canister of the fairly decent stuff. So who..." Opening the tea container set Genma coughing again, when a puff of green powder hit his airways. "Who'd you piss off, anyway? And what happened on this seduction thing?"

Sometimes Raidou wished Genma would pick one question and stick to it, but that was a little like wishing the sky was neon. He scrubbed a hand through his hair, feeling a good two days' worth of oily build up--not to mention a fair amount of dried sweat--and promised himself a shower or a serious sink-dive as soon as possible. "I think I pissed off the big man himself," he admitted. "Remember that mission with the noble's wife back in December? How your mission partner had a little accident pre-mission?" Genma knew the full story; Raidou didn't bother to rehash the details. "I reckon Arakaki might be paying me back for that. And, ah, for mouthing off when he wanted me to play hoop-toss with Haruichi's head."

No good deed went unpunished. Mother of Genma's Buddha, what a damn mess.

He resisted the urge to put his own head down on the counter and feel properly sorry for himself. Or to stretch out on the bed that was looking increasingly comfortable, and where Genma would no doubt sit down next to him and get too close and look too--whoa fella. Raidou slammed a mental foot down on that train of thought. One slip up had been more than enough. Last time it had only been luck and a barrel's worth of alcohol that'd dragged his stupid bacon from the fire and stopped Genma remembering anything. This time he didn't plan on even tempting fate. There would be no more--anything.

"The seduction thing..." he said, dragging his mind back to Genma's questions. "I'm not even sure. The kid's got some kind of weird half-bloodline going on, like half a genjustu. It kind of plays on emotions. Makes you want to hug him when he's feeling down--or kick him if you're not so warm and fuzzy on the inside. Intel wanted him to use it on the target, but the kid doesn't have the first clue how to make it work." He paused, thinking back to Kaito's brief, recalling how much had been classified. The kid's jounin teacher had known a fair amount, not to mention his teammates. And his clan. Really there wasn't much you could classify; too many people already knew. "Kai shuts it down like a regular genjutsu, but it hurts the poor brat. I mean really hurts him. He looked like I'd kicked him cross-eyed."

He held up his left arm, showing Genma the bandage wrapped almost from wrist to elbow. "But pain breaks it, too. I figure I just need to carry around one of your senbon or something, at least until he gets a handle on it."

"Shit, Raidou, what kind of damage did you have to do to yourself to break it?" Genma gave the bandage a more critical look than he had at first. Even from the kitchen he could see it wasn't exactly a professional job. "I can give you some senbon with a powder coat that causes intense burning. Then at least you can get away with just a single hole, instead of flaying the skin off your forearm, or whatever you're hiding under there."

He brought tea on a tray and set it on the low table next to the bed. A box of sweet bean cakes came next, and two little plates. "Look how civilized I am. Come sit over here and stop making me ache just watching you."

It was strange how Raidou was avoiding the bed, usually his favorite perch. It doubled as a couch when visitors came, which was pretty much the setup in every one of the cramped ANBU apartments. Genma eyed it, straightened the quilts, plumped up the pillows and gave Raidou an inquiring look.

For a wavering moment, Raidou was seriously tempted; his current perch wasn't exactly a paragon of comfort, and Genma's fussing with covers and pillows had made an inviting nest right next to his friend--whoa fella. He shook his head with a quick jerk. "I'm fine here, kid. Better for my back if I stay upright. Hurts more, I won't argue, but decent posture will help it heal better--"

Genma was giving him a seriously dubious look. Raidou switched topics before he got called on the lie. "Senbon would be great. Well, not great because ow." His mouth twisted up, slashing a wry smile. "But better than resorting to a medic's needle."

"You used a medic's needle." Genma's echo was deadpan. "I'm not even going to ask what you were thinking. Obviously you have some special talent that lets you do serious enough damage to yourself with a single needle that you need your whole arm bandaged. I should just sit here in awe of your prowess." He was silent for half a second. "Fuck, I sound like Haruichi."

He poured tea, two steaming cups, and put bean cakes on the plates. "Fine, suit yourself. It's your back. You just trying to keep your pain level high enough this kids freaky genjutsu trick can't affect you even when he's not around? Musta been one hell of a jutsu." After another glance at Raidou, he kicked a zanbuton over from a stack next to the bed. "Here. Floor sitting's better for your back than that stool. I won't even make you sit seiza." To keep things even, he sat on the floor himself, even though his bruised back complained.

Raidou sighed and lifted a hand to drag through his hair again. He paused halfway, though, when his back decided it was done with him moving around and informed him of that in letters of fire. The floor suddenly seemed much more inviting.

"Were you always this bossy?" he muttered at Genma rhetorically, and slid carefully off his stool. "Because you'd think I'd remember..."

He settled himself down on the offered zanbuton carefully out of arms-reach, crossing his legs beneath him. If he stretched just right, he could reach one of the cups of tea without yanking a stitch the wrong way. Tea wasn't coffee, but it was still something. He balanced the cup on his knee and struggled to find the words.

He didn't want to pick a fight with Genma; he hated feeling awkward around his friend. He wanted--advice, mostly. Wanted to talk about the sudden weight that had settled on his shoulders. Wanted to figure out how the hell he supposed to make enough money to support three brothers and keep their foster mother happy if he was too busy to run missions. And how he was supposed to teach a kid with a freak genjutsu mutation when he knew only the basics himself. Scratch that, how he supposed to teach.

He looked at Genma, still pale and wheezy from his recent run-in with the nastier side of a killer cold, and clamped his jaw shut. It wasn't Genma's problem. And Raidou was supposed to be the back up guy--not the guy who dropped issues on his friends' heads. He'd just have to work something out.

"Any news on when they're sending you back out?" he asked instead, and took a gulp of his tea.

"I'm only bossy when you're being stupid," Genma returned blandly, and took one of the cakes. Raidou was still acting like he'd just found out he was supposed to get a prostate exam at his next physical. Or maybe he'd been given one rather ungently in the course of having his back stitched. Whatever it was, something was clearly bothering him.

"And I'm not going out again probably until Haruichi clears me. So that'd be.... tomorrow? If he's pissed at me. More likely a few days yet."

He pushed the plate of cakes closer to Raidou, then picked up his tea and watched his friend. There was none of the usual ease to his posture. No hint of a smile, even at his lame joke.

"Are you okay? I'm pretty sure it's not my playing Mother Medic that's bugging you, because I do that whenever you get hurt. You're used to it."

"You wore me down after the first sixteen times," Raidou agreed, and picked up one of the proffered cakes to fiddle with. "Now I'm just resigned."

Genma was watching him carefully, amber-brown eyes worryingly intent. Raidou tried to make himself loosen up, relaxing the stiff set of his shoulders as much as he dared without hurting his back. The cake crumbled a little between his fingers. He tore off a piece and chewed on it, focusing on the sticky-sweet catch of red bean for a moment.

Then he gave himself a shake.

"Sorry, fearless," he said. "It's just been a rough day. I think the kid kind of took it out of me. Plus, y'know, unexpected parenthood is kind of a lot to get used to. Most guys get babies to deal with, not brassed off teenagers who can tie your heartstrings in a knot." He put the cake down and rubbed his hands over his face. "Look--I'm apparently in a teenage girl mood tonight. Why don't you head back later when I'm capable of communicating without an undercurrent of personal anguish, hm?"

"I've got a better idea," Genma said, and picked up his tea again. "I'll put on some pop music--do you like Ai-Ai-Aiyumi?--and get out the nail polish, and play teenage girl with you. Cause we're in my place, so heading back isn't really an option. We're already here." He smiled and cocked his head to one side.

Raidou was tearing the bean cake into crumbs. Tense and so distracted he didn't even remember whose apartment they were in? He definitely needed to talk, not clam up. Otherwise there'd probably be nightmares.

Genma really hated those nightmares.

"Anyway, you've done the parent thing with your brothers, so it's obviously something more than just having to tote around a sullen teen. Tell me about the kid. Or whatever's on your mind. I promise not to spread rumors to the mean girls."

"Funny," said Raidou, and tossed a bit of cake at him. Genma caught it before it bounced off his nose and ate it, tongue darting out to catch a moist crumb off his fingertips. Raidou stared down at his hands.

"Didn't really do the parent thing with my brothers," he said. "I helped out--mostly by getting out of the house when I made chuunin. One less mouth to feed, y'know? Stopped by when I could, sent money home. That kind of thing. But I wasn't really hands on until my mom died." His voice became flat and careful. "Even then it was mostly their dad stepping in. I just picked up a bit of the slack. When he got killed, I put them straight in the system. Signed up for ANBU as soon as they'd take me, right after the fox. Still send the money home."

He looked up again. Genma was watching him quietly, crooked fingers curled around his steaming mug of tea. He didn't look surprised by anything, just thoughtful. A flicker of wariness lurked behind his eyes--probably thinking about his own parents. The two sisters taken by the fox.

Raidou almost clammed up there and then. Neither of them needed to think about this. It was barely even relevant. Just a train of thought hiding behind the background fear that someone had put a teenager's sanity in his hands, and he was pretty sure he wasn't the best guy for the job. He couldn't necessarily think of anyone better, but there had to be someone.

"Do I look like a teacher to you?" he demanded suddenly. "Seriously. I don't even have a bloodline limit! I've got a whole lot of experience at not dying, and a fair amount of practice at making sure other people stay alive, but I'm not a scholar. I don't know the first thing about keeping this kid's emotions nailed inside his chest!"

He dragged a hand over his face.

"I don't think pop music's going to do it. Try opera instead."

"How about jazz?" Genma suggested, and quietly got up to put the music on. He grabbed a couple of tangerines and a bowl while he was at it, and brought them back to the table. Refilled his and Raidou's tea cups. Glanced over at his memorial tablets and the shrine with its own plate of tangerines for the kami.

The never talked much about their shared status as technical orphans. Were you really an orphan if you were able to fend for yourself, all grown up and tattooed with the ANBU spiral?

"I don't think they're expecting you to be a teacher," he said, lowering himself carefully to the floor once more. The annoying crackle in his lungs came back, and he had to turn away, coughing deeply for a few minutes. When he looked up at Raidou again, red-faced and bright eyed, he wasn't sure he could read his friend's expression.

"Seriously. They can't expect you to be a trained scholar or anything. Probably they assigned you because you're solid, and the kid sounds like he's desperately in need of leadership by example. I don't know anyone who's better at keeping a lid on his emotions than you are."

Raidou took a tangerine and tossed it gently from hand to hand, forcibly reminded, as he always was, of the first night they'd ever eaten this particular fruit together. Back before they'd ever been friends, when he'd broken into an anonymous apartment in the middle of the night because he'd heard screams on the other side and he'd thought he could do something about it.

And he had, come to think of it. Still did occasionally, when the nightmares got bad.

Solid, Genma called him. It was a good word. Made him think of strength. Dependability. Proof that he was good at what he did. The guy that stood behind his teammates and guarded while they struck. Or the shield that stood in front, taking the blows before they fell.

But--leadership? That wasn't his gig.

He listened to the soft curl of jazz music drifting through the air like mellow smoke, and put the deaths of three nameless chuunin out of his mind. He wasn't taking Kaito out on missions--not yet, anyway. They were just training together. Probably until Intel pulled their heads out of their collectives asses and worked out what they could do with the kid--or couldn't, and stripped him right out of ANBU.

Genma thought he could do this.

"Yeah," said Raidou quietly, and skinned the peel off his tangerine. His shoulders eased down a little. "Thanks."

"No problem," Genma said. He was glad to see some of the tension drop away from his friend's neck and shoulders. "I got your back. I mean, we can always double team this kid or whatever, right? If you get a mission assigned with him or anything, tell me so I can pull strings or break noses or whatever and get on it, too. And if he's driving you nuts and we're both home, come grab me. We can always get him drunk or something. He's a rookie, right? Our prerogative as his seniors to haze him a little."

A visit to Intel seemed like it was the next order of business. Find out more about what exactly the hell they were thinking, hanging a lead weight like this around Raidou's neck. If he was tied up mentoring some kid, that meant more solo missions or missions with other ninja for Genma. And frankly, that was stupid. With a little work he could probably pull together enough mission stats to prove it was a dumb idea to break him and Raidou up.

He dug a thumbnail into thin orange peel and pulled, spraying himself in the face with a spurt of tangerine juice in the process. "Oi! They're trapped! Watch yourself," he advised Raidou, laughing and wiping at his eyes. Laughing made him cough again, and he grabbed for a tissue.

Raidou snorted, watching his friend scramble about. Usually it was him playing the fool to cheer someone else up, but apparently he'd earned the privilege of being on the receiving end for once. In an odd way, it was sort of nice. There was no tension, just two guys sticking together because someone had decided to crack one of them with the metaphorical version of a shovel.

"I'm not letting you corrupt the poor kid just because you're feeling mother-hennish about me," he said, smiling crookedly. "Unlucky bastard's got enough to deal with just living near you. 'sides, they're all set to keep him going with the seduction thing anyway, I think. He'll be plenty corrupt enough."

Genma winged the box of tissues at his head. Raidou caught it and laughed, juggling it badly for a second with his half-eaten tangerine before he threw it back. Just two guys being friends, backing each other up. He relaxed and finished his orange.

And if his eyes drifted very occasionally to the fine strands of light brown hair shadowing Genma's neck, or watched the lazy quirk of sandstone-coloured lips as Genma chattered and laughed and came up with outrageous plans that would likely scare the rookie out of a season's growth, that was just one ninja reading another. Studying body-language in an absent way in case he missed something he should be paying attention to.

When Genma put on a movie and carefully suggested they get off the floor, Raidou forgot he was supposed to argue. He didn't remember until he was on the bed, his back leaned carefully against the wall, and Genma had thrown around several pillows until he could sprawl comfortably and drape his feet casually over Raidou's legs.

He thought about saying something. Even tensed for a moment until Genma lifted an eyebrow at him. But in the end he wrapped his fingers around his cup of tea, watched black-and-white Samurai hack each apart on the tiny screen to a soundtrack of noble music, and decided there was nothing to worry about. Nothing had really changed.

It was good to be home.