After being poked, prodded, and jabbered at for the last few hours, Hayate was glad to have a few moments of silence. The rhythmic beat of the heart-monitor didn't bother him as much as it should have. Curled in his chair, dosed up on the good stuff, he was beginning to drowse, feeling Genma's chakra soft and steady in his senses: like the cool touch of a water-slick leaf.

Genma's shifting he didn't pay much attention to. But when Genma spoke, Hayate nearly came out of his skin.

One knee dropped and he braced his bare toes atop his discarded shoes, blinking at Genma in complete surprise. He realized he had the handle of a kunai in his palm, and slipped the tiny blade back up his sleeve--it had been utter reflex to reach for it. Genma was watching him with sleepy cat-amber eyes. Though his face was still pale and marked with the shadows of bruises, it definitely didn't have blood dried on it, wasn't lifelessly still--he looked very alive, if a bit ragged.

"You're awake?" Hayate asked, and his voice was steady, surprising himself a bit; he'd forgotten the nurses had happily cast the cough-syrup jutsu on him when they'd dosed him up on pain medication. "For real this time, or are y'gonna fall back asleep?"

He bit his chapped lip and frowned a little. He was all fuzzy and impulsive and he really hated being drugged: he had a bad tendency to say whatever popped into his head.

"You shouldn't listen to me," he told Genma calmly. "I'm all strung out on morphine and phenergan. And we should be quiet, so the nurses don't come in and find another reason to stick me."

I am being quiet, Genma thought. You're the one talking. He tried to get that into words, and managed a short set of syllables approximating, "Mmmmnt." For a moment his eyes fell closed again, but he managed to overcome the drag of sleep sucking at him like a swamp bottom, and blinked awake once more.

"What're you doing here?"

There, that was a much more cohesive sentence. It even made sense, and possibly conveyed the idea that Hayate ought to be in bed. Genma licked dry, chapped lips with a parched tongue, worked his mouth a moment, and looked around for water. There! A pitcher on a bedside table! Excellent.

Now it was just a matter of reaching it.

In a minute. When it didn't seem like quite so much effort.

He looked back at Hayate, waiting for his answer.

"You look like crap."

Now that had to convey the message, right?

"Good afternoon to you, too," Hayate declared, scowling. Well, this was what he got for sticking around to make sure a man he'd partnered with once and barely knew pulled out of it okay. Feeling slightly miffed, he debated ignoring the pointed glance at the water....

Well, so it wasn't that big of a slight. And he knew how awful it was to have a nasty throat and try to talk. Relenting, he uncurled slowly--though he was drugged up so good he couldn't feel his arm, he wasn't chancing bumping it--and shuffled his feet into his battered kick-off shoes.

"I guess you want some water? I came by to make sure you still weren't dead." He pattered silently across the tiled floor and over to the bed. "They kept telling me you weren't but you kinda looked it. ...argh. I hate being drugged. I'll shut up now."

There was a glass with a straw, happy-joys, but it had no water in it. Hayate very, very carefully poured some water into the glass, and for a moment all his concentration was on the task. He didn't realize the tip of his tongue was sticking out the corner of his mouth until he finished and caught the faint amusement on Genma's face. In the buzz of irritation and embarrassment he forgot his vow to stay silent and fetched up the glass.

"Being one-handed is harder than it looks," he declared, mildly indignant. "I'm already at a disadvantage anyway, being left-handed to begin with. 'Least it was my off arm that got broken, or I'd be really clumsy." He paused, realizing he was rambling and still had the glass of water in hand. "Argh, I said I was going to shut up, didn't I? Sorry."

A little uncertainly, he offered the glass to Genma. He was making a fool of himself in front of the older agent; he probably should go away and let the man recover in peace. Not tormented by the stupid rookie, he thought bitterly.

He'd had more than enough time to recount the mission to the Intel agent, turn over the stupid bloodied papers, and think about all that had happened. Looking back, he'd come to one conclusion: what was done was done, but he'd acted incredibly foolish. All that panic and fumbling and for what? Nothing, that was what--Genma was fine, the papers gotten, and he was an idiot.

As usual.

"Thanks." Genma shifted around in bed, reaching for the glass and pushing himself up a little. He was taken by surprise when the motion sent shock waves of sharp pain ricocheting through his abdomen. "Oh.... owwwww." It took a moment of communing with the water, holding rigidly still as the pain ebbed away, before he could properly focus on Hayate, who looked miserable.

"You should sit down. But don't shut up." Genma set the glass on the bed table and eased himself back against the pillows. "How's your arm? Did Intel come by yet?"

Intel had to have come by. They always came by. And there were the papers... Genma had a sudden sinking feeling. "What happened to the stuff we were supposed to deliver?"

An even more pressing question burbled up.

"What time is it?"

Genma's wince worried him, but after a few minutes the other man seemed okay again, even if the corners of his mouth still looked pinched. Hayate relaxed and stopped watching, reassured. He pulled his mind back to Genma's words.

Sit down, huh? Hayate glanced across the room at the heavy, awkward chair, and contemplated his lone working arm. Then he glanced at the bed. That might be a little presumptuous of him, he decided, and he almost went and got the chair. Except the mention of the papers-to-be-delivered annoyed him again, so he went with his first impulse and sat on the bed--gingerly, and down near Genma's feet. "Intel has been by, they grilled me already but they won't want you to miss out on the fun. They have the cursed papers, and good luck to them if they can read them. I kinda had to peel 'em off your armor after you bled all over 'em."

He toed off his shoes and pulled first one, then the other leg up onto the bed, crossing them and tucking his bare toes under his thighs. He moved slowly, to keep from jostling Genma or slipping and tumping himself off the edge of the bed. He didn't trust his balance so much, not while he was still drugged. As he shifted, he kept talking.

"It's about four in the afternoon, an' they dragged us in sometime earlier this morning. I didn't get a look at the clock, the doctors were too busy poking me." A little scowl told what he thought of that. "And then they bundled me up and sent me home, but you were still doing a very good corpse-imitation, so I came back to make sure they weren't lying to me when they said you were still alive."

He eyed Genma, and thought about shutting up, but the idea was brief and quickly derailed by the next one that wandered through. "Not that the hospital staff lie to me often. I come 'round often enough they kinda like me...least they do down in the ER. I try not to get stuck up here. Nurses are cuter in the ER anyway, even if they all still treat me like I'm six."

His drug-hazy brain caught up to what he'd said and he blushed scarlet. "An' I'll shut up now." He reached up and bit at the ragged edge of a fingernail. It had been catching on the cuff of his shirt as he'd toyed with the kunai up his sleeve.

"Did you get Ki-whatever-her-name-is? Kimiko? Kiyoko? I can never remember her name, but she's really nice. Big tits. In the ER I mean. Except she doesn't treat me like I'm six. The ones up here do, though. Except Raidou. They treat him like he's five." A little careful shifting around got Genma curled up on one hip without putting too much strain on his bandaged side. His shins under the blankets pushed against Hayate's knee. He sighed deeply when he finally got into a position he was happy with, opening eyes he'd found he'd shut in a scowl as he moved.

"You know I always wondered why people do that. With their eyebrows, I mean. Like somehow crunching your eyebrows makes it hurt less." He frowned at Hayate, and tried the scowl a few times. "I don't think it does, but I do it anyway. You do, too."

Hmm, yes, all that moving around had made the whole room swim. Hayate was swaying there at the end of the bed.

"I think I might be seriously drugged here," Genma told him. "You think Intel was pissed about those papers? I didn't know I was bleeding on 'em."

Hayate blinked. Apparently, Genma was even more drugged up than Hayate himself was. It was almost scary, considering how composed the older man had been while he'd been bleeding to death, but it was also kinda funny. Hayate wondered if this was why the nurses got such a kick out of drugging him up, and bit his lip to keep from grinning.

"Er, if you mean the nurse with the outrageous chest, that'd be Kiki. And she's married....has a kid my age." He sorted through the random information he'd gotten, trying to pick out the pertinent questions. "Um, I dunno what they thought 'bout the papers. They seemed pretty happy we were both in one piece."

And the one guy said that if Genma died, he was permanently assigning me "Raidou" as a mission partner in revenge. He eyed Genma, and wondered precisely who Raidou was....and though he tried to hold onto it, the question tumbled out like everything else.

"Who's Raidou, 'nayways? You said something 'bout him before, I think."

He tilted his head to the side, glancing briefly out the window. He wished it was sunshiny, but it wasn't: outside it was dim and misty grey, promising rain. The only lights were the stale, artificial fluorescents that bleached everything to a sickly hue, even Genma's honey-amber eyes, thin pale rings around dark pupils.

"Raidou?" Genma blinked, momentarily stunned by the idea that Hayate didn't know Raidou. "He's my best friend. Lives next door to me. Big, muscular guy with short, reddish-brown hair. He's got some scars on his face." He gestured at the left side of his own face, clawing his fingers across it. "If you wait around long enough, he'll probably show up, soon as he finds out I'm back from my mission and not home. He's my usual mission partner." He looked up at the door, as if merely invoking Raidou's name might make him appear. He hoped if Raidou showed up soon, he'd bring beer, and maybe a plan to spring him out of there.

Of course Raidou would probably have something really choice to say about Genma having gotten himself in this fix in the first place. And possibly some kind of stupidity about how he should have been on the mission himself. Also there was Kaito to worry about, who was the reason Raidou hadn't been on this particular mission. Anyway Hayate had done a fine job as backup. It had been an ambush, and really Genma hadn't had any idea he'd taken a tagged hit until he'd fallen out of that tree puking, and...

He stared dazedly past Hayate, lost in his own series of rationalizations to a person who wasn't even there, and for all he knew wasn't going to demand an explanation. Liver-coloured blood oozed along plastic tubing and through a needle taped into his forearm. The motion of one heavy droplet falling into the reservoir chamber at the top of the tube caught Genma's peripheral vision and broke his trance.

"Sorry, what was I saying?" He flashed Hayate a wan grin. "Wow, I'm seriously drugged up. I wonder what they gave me."

Genma's glance at the door caused Hayate to look as well--but there was no-one there. He turned back in time to watch Genma zone out. It was interesting, in a slightly creepy way, and he almost couldn't help the tiny chuckle that burbled out.

And we are sooooo fearsome ANBU. Right. I either need sleep or caffeine in short order. Instead of moving, though, Hayate stayed where he was. He blinked down at the drape of the blankets over Genma's legs, absently studied the way the sheets wadded up where Genma's shins were pressed against his knee. Genma had much thicker blankets than were usual hospital issue, he noticed.

Genma's blank stare reminded Hayate of the way his aunt's cat would stare into space, watching what only the cat could see. He wondered what it was that only Genma could see. He traced the rambling conversation back to its fading point, to see if he could get an idea of what it was that'd distracted Genma. 'M getting better at thinking, morphine must be wearing off, he thought, pleased that his mind was clearer. Now where...right. Conversation. Mmm, Raidou, I think, whoever he may be. Huh.

With a little blink and a twitch, Genma came back from wherever he'd wandered off to. Hayate returned the thin smile with one of his own.

"Looks like a lotta stuff," he told Genma, leaning back a little to peer at the hanging IV bags. "And who knows what else on schedule rather than maintenance drip."

Leaning back felt nice. He planted his good hand behind him and stretched, arching his back. He couldn't hear himself above the sudden tension-hum of muscles, but judging from Genma's half-smothered chuckles, he must have made some amusing stretch-noise.

"Glad to amuse you," he told Genma, only slightly disgruntled. Stretching had felt really, really nice; he was more tense than he'd thought. "And since you're not dead, and my drugs are wearing off, I'd better leave before the nurses catch me and stick me again. They already blew one vein today, see?"

He shifted around until he could get his left sleeve in his right hand and pull it up. He displayed the spreading bruise on his forearm for Genma to see, and fiddled with the little kunai that had been hidden up that sleeve.

"You're gonna go get some sleep or something, right? You need rest." Genma stared at the lump under Hayate's shirt, remembering his hasty healing efforts in the aftermath of their fight. "They should have set that properly. Healed it some. And your other shoulder. And your leg." He could feel bandages around his own thigh, clean ones, no doubt, taking the place of the blood-soaked remnants of his field wrapping.

"You're funny when you stretch. Like a little kid."

Something was nagging at him. Something he needed to tell Hayate. He struggled to remember what it was, but kept running into a blank wall where memory should have been.

Then it hit him.

"You're an idiot and as soon as I feel better I'm kicking your ass."

Hayate looked suitably shocked into alertness.

"I told you to run," Genma growled.

For a moment, Hayate was completely lost, bewildered by the accusation that had come out of nowhere, startled by the abrupt change in Genma's features: from hazy and open to something closed and dangerous, like a mission-face.

He flinched back, the kunai in his hand flicked into guarding position without thought. Genma suddenly felt like threat, and instinct acted faster than Hayate's drug-fogged brain could.

When his brain did catch up, with the right memories to put Genma's snarl into context, he stayed in his little arched position, tensed and ready to bail off the bed at any given moment. "It was the search party," he answered, voice dropped soft. "We were fine."

He was so low on chakra that manipulating it made him ache, but he did it anyway, pulling it all in low and small. Not a threat, not worth the fight. It matched his voice, matched his posture has he drew down a fraction lower, ducking his head and curving his good shoulder in by tiny degrees. It was all semi-conscious, calculated mannerisms to diffuse a fight. He'd practised them so long they were beginning to become habit.

There was a flash of kunai and for a moment Genma tensed as much as Hayate did. He called up chakra he didn't have to spare, to prepare for a fight he didn't want to have. He had a point to make, yes, about the utter stupidity of Hayate's disobedience of a direct order in the field, but that didn't mean he was looking for an actual throwdown.

Then Hayate crumpled, and his eyes lost their wildness. He curled up looking small and miserable, and like he might flee. Damn, what was it with teenagers lately? First Kaito and now this one.

"Aw hell, Hayate, don't act like I'm actually gonna kick your ass right this minute." Genma raised his tethered hand and waggled the trailing IV line. "Do I seriously look like a threat? Seriously?" It was kind of almost irritating, Or possibly funny. Genma thought of Kaito's manipulative jutsu; Hayate was doing a fairly good job of manipulating him with body language alone. Must be the drugs making him suggestible, he told himself.

"But it was a major fuck up, you not running when I said," he went on. "We knew I couldn't run, but if they'd been enemy and they'd captured me, you could still have gotten away and gotten help. I know your clone told you it was safe, but you have to obey an order in the field if it's not a totally stupid order."

He wasn't sure he was actually making sense, but Hayate seemed to uncurl a little.

"See, what I really didn't want was to watch you get killed."

A glance up at Genma said the man probably recognized Hayate's actions for what they were--but Genma's tone softened and his posture changed, becoming less aggressive. Hayate let his chakra unfurl again, and straightened his spine, though he kept his head angled down and his good shoulder raised just that fraction: projected humility, despite his stinging pride.

Berating himself for his own stupidity was one thing. Having someone else do it for him was a bit harder to swallow.

There were a myriad of justifications he could fling back at Genma to rationalize his behavior. He'd already gone over them in his head, waiting for the man to show more signs of life than just breathing. It wasn't worth it--what was done was done, and he was in the wrong. As usual. So he fought down his pride and answered in a soft tone, mild as he could manage, "I understand. I'm sorry." He flicked a glance at Genma, up through lashes and fringe of bangs. "Hiko-sensei at the Academy always did tell us we were young and stupid. But I lived, so maybe I'll know better next time."

He had known better, he did, but sometimes he just.... What's done is done. No more. His father had taught him that, in teaching him the ways of the sword. Mistakes were to be learned from, but only reviewed once or twice; any more than that was demeaning to the student, and disheartening beside. Hayate bit his lip and wished he had his father's strength of mind and heart....maybe then he wouldn't get into so much trouble.

He shoved the lonely ache the thought conjured aside, and looked up at Genma with a perfect, polite smile. "IV or no, you could probably still trounce me, Genma-san. I'm sure you know tricks I've never heard of."

There was absolutely nothing there. Nothing but contrition. No fight, no protest. Pretty much the opposite of what Genma would have expected from Kaito, for example. There was just polite, quiet Hayate and his soft smile that didn't seem to reach his eyes.

After a mission like that, Genma really wasn't going to let that formal stupidity stand. "Did you just san me?" he asked. "I was pretty sure I was clear about that. Do it again and I'm calling you Haya-chan from now on."

He was sort of glad Hayate hadn't responded to his confession about not wanting to see him killed. It was something that had slipped out, really. To much truth, not enough bravado. But pain drugs were even better than alcohol for making you say things you were thinking but didn't really need the world to know.

Genma shifted a little on the bed, trying to get comfortable in a body covered in bruises. It was, he decided after a few attempts, a futile effort. If he was going to be drugged up enough he said stupid shit, he thought, then it ought to be enough he'd stop feeling like he'd been a target dummy at the Academy.

He looked up to find Hayate's eyes on him again, shadowed but intense. "Don't worry, Haya-chan. I feel too much like crap to use my superior skills on you right now."

The -chan broke through the mask Hayate had managed to put up and he scowled in dismay. Way too many people called him that already--he was sixteen for crying out loud! And in ANBU! That had to count for something.

"Don't call me--" Though it was a tremendous effort, he caught himself mid-snap. He grit his teeth against the annoyance and wished Genma would stop smirking like some cursed cat who'd eaten the pet goldfish.

He took a breath and sighed it all out, working everything back under control. He did recall that, Genma's pale face under the moonlight, the snarled demand and the chill of fear. He tried to shake off the memory, anger withering away under the weight of it. "Right. No more -san. I'll try to remember." The smile didn't want to work, so he abandoned the effort.

The soft pace of nurse-shoes on tile passed the door. Hayate recalled that he should be leaving before they dosed him up again. He'd been stupid enough already today--and Genma was still grinning at him. Hayate scrunched his nose at the older man: he would not stick out his tongue, that was beyond childish. Even if he really wanted to do it.

"I ought to go now. I mean, you're okay...." He unfolded his long legs and eased over to the edge of the bed, peering after his shoes. He shuffled his feet into the battered kick-offs and stood. Whoa, too fast. He leaned back against the bed, free hand groping blindly until he caught a handful of sheet, and waited for the blackness to clear from his vision. As if it would help the lingering spots fade, he shook his head, then offered a little smile to Genma's concern. "I'm fine," he murmured.

He pushed away from the bed, but hesitated before he reached the door. He glanced back at Genma, alone in the bleakly-lit room, honey-amber eyes watchful. The artificial lights had bleached his hair to the same dull shade of sandalwood incense-cones.

"...I...I burned some incense for you, when I stopped by the shrine," he found himself saying, voice soft in the hospital silence. "I...hope you don't mind." He'd also left an ema asking for Genma's recovery, but he didn't say that. Instead, he turned and almost hurried out the door, afraid that last confession had revealed just how worried he'd been. It wasn't...

It was childish to worry after he'd been reassured by the doctors and nurses that Genma was okay. And he had only just met the man....but he'd liked him, really had, and the idea of him dying, possibly through something Hayate'd done or hadn't done, had made his hands go cold and his stomach twist. He'd lost enough. He didn't want to lose anyone else, no matter how briefly he'd known them.

Hayate was gone before Genma had a chance to protest. If he was going home, though, that was good. That little dizzy spell of his was worrying. Chakra exhaustion, it's just chakra exhaustion, Genma told himself. Hayate'd seen the medics. He'd been properly treated. And Genma wasn't the medic anymore, or the mission leader, or the senior agent. He was just another patient, exhausted and injured, poisoned and battered, and only a few hours beyond what had looked like the end...

Don't even think it.

But Hayate had thought it, too. Burning incense for him, offering prayers...

Don't think about it.

Genma lay motionless, bone-weary. He watched another fat drop of blood hang suspended for a moment, then fall with a silent splash in the IV's drip chamber.

"Not dying, idiot," he said softly to the empty room. A wry smile played across his tired face.

Another drip fell. Rain spattered against the window. Footsteps in the hall again, the hush-hush of crepe soles on a tiled floor.

He shut his eyes.

By the time the nurse came to check, he was sleeping.